One Night Stand With My Husband’s Brother

“Fine. But did something happen?” Mackenzie asked.

Chase did not give a direct answer. Instead, he deflected the question and asked back, “Is anyone threatening you? If something like that ever happens, you will tell me immediately, right?”

Mackenzie was caught off guard by that random question. Only, it did not seem to be so random to Chase, judging by the look she could see in his eyes. There was obviously a reason he was saying that to her. A reason she did not know about, yet.

“You’re acting strange, Chase. You know that whatever happens, I am not going back on my word.” She moved back to her desk, careful not to get too close to him. That was dangerous. And picked up her bag. “I should get going to the factory now. They’ll be waiting for me.”

*************

A few hours later, when Mackenzie was rounding up a fairly successful first day of work, she realized that she had not even called her kid’s nanny to check up on them. She moved to a quiet part of the factory and fished out her phone. On the screen, it showed it was a few minutes past four.

The kids should be home by now, and she still had Chase to face before getting home.

Just thinking about it was making her nervous. All day, she had been so engrossed in her work, that it was only towards the end of the day that she began to notice the stares she was getting from every direction.

Of course, the factory workers were busy people, with something to do, but more than once, she had caught a few people taking backwards glances at her.

At first, she assumed they were not used to seeing her and it would pass eventually, but she started growing uncomfortable, feeling like there was something they knew that she didn’t. It was in the look in their eyes. Nothing negative, but nothing particularly positive either.

She had brushed it off and just believed everything would pass by tomorrow. She moved to her call logs and was shocked to see the amount of missed calls in there. And the most ones came from Charlotte, then Felicity.

Her eyebrows furrowed in sudden worry, as her mind automatically went to her kids. What if something had happened to them and they were trying to reach her?

She instantly dialed the nanny’s number, and she immediately picked, “Good evening -”

“Calista and Cameron? Where are they right now?” Mackenzie asked without missing a beat.

“Um, they are right here, at home and playing outside with the neighbor’s kids. I am watching over them. They got back not too long ago, and they already had some food.” The Nanny responded. Then she added, “Is something wrong, Miss Torsney?”

Mackenzie let out a soft sigh, placing a hand on her chest.

“Yeah .. everything is fine. I just wanted to check in on them. I’ll be coming home soon.”Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

“Alright, ma’am.”

Mackenzie ended the call, relieved that her kids were not involved in any emergency. But then why were Charlotte and Felicity calling her so much? She raised her phone and was about to call Charlotte back when saw that she had an unread text from her.

She tapped on it, and read the lines on the screen.

You have to see this. Now! Click on that link.

There was a link under the text, and Mackenzie saw that Charlotte had sent this text hours ago. Slowly, she tapped on the link and the screen interface changed and displayed some article. For brief second, she thought this was just Charlotte sending one of her usual celebrity gossip out of excitement.

But that was what her anxious mind desperately wanted to believe.

It could not be that, because her text had sounded urgent. And Charlotte’s texts never get urgent, unless something really serious had happened.

She scrolled up the screen, and paused to read the headline.

“YOUNG BILLIONAIRE HEARTTHROB, CHASE AXFORD, ENGAGES IN BAR FIGHT OVER A WAITRESS. No surprise his marriage is fighting for it’s life.”

Her heart slowed down in sequence, as her eyes dropped to the picture below. It was her and Chase, in that restaurant. At that moment when he was losing his shit to anger over those men for harassing her.

Someone had perfectly captured that moment. Now it was on the internet, with her face on full display. For the whole world to see. For the whole of Greensville to see. The. Whole. Of. Greensville. The gravity of the situation crashed into her so hard that her face immediately drained of blood.

Her hands began to tremble, and her phone clattered to the floor. Now she understood why she had been getting those odd stares from people. Everyone had seen the article. The picture. Everyone knew who she was now.

Jeffrey knew she was in Greensville.

A surge of panic struck her chest and she found herself struggling to breathe. Struggling for air. Fear, stark fear was all she could feel right now. Jeffrey and Eleanor would come for her, now that she thought everything was slowly working out… it had all crumbled into dust again.

Again.

When will it ever end?

They would take her babies away. That realization sent tears to her eyes, as she tried to drag in a deep breath. But her lungs were frozen with terror. She wheezed, clutching at her chest in panic.

Meanwhile, a few feet away, Chase had been called in by the security, informing him that Mackenzie was done with his tasks for today. He had ordered the security to tell him, in case Mackenzie decided to try to go home herself without telling him.

He had to take her home, and he meant it. Now that Jeffrey had known she was in the city, he would probably try to approach her again. For what? To gloat in front of her or rub his ill treatment of her further in her face, deepening her wounds. Hurting her all over again.

Or trying to turn her back into the old shell of herself that she was when she was with him.

Whatever his stepbrother planned, Chase knew it could not be good, so he had to personally be around her as often as he could.

As Chase rounded the corner where he was told Mackenzie would be, he heard the sound of wheezing, mixed with crying and coughing. Alarms went off in his mind, and he hurried towards the sound until he saw Mackenzie sitting on the floor, curled into a ball as she struggled to breath.

He recognized it immediately.

A panic attack. She was having a panic attack.

He cursed under his breath and hurried to her with the speed of light. He lifted her from the floor and made her sit on a chair, brushing her hair away from her teary cheeks. From the terror he saw in her eyes, he immediately knew she had seen the article.

Fuck. He had known she would not take the news well. This was what he had been trying to protect her from.

“Mackenzie, hey. Focus on my voice.” He said urgently, placing his hand on the side of her face. “Breathe in.”

More tears spilled from her eyes, as she shook her head. She could not breathe it. Panic had stripped her off the ability to take in air into her lungs. Chase insisted. “Open your mouth, and breathe in through there. Not your nose. Come on, Mackenzie.”

She shakily obeyed, and just like that, a rush of cool air rushed into her burning lungs. She gasped, and Chase urged her on, softly, “That’s it. Don’t stop.”

She followed his voice, slowly getting her breath back as she found her way out of that maze of terror and haze of fear she had fallen into. As she looked at Chase gratefully, more tears poured down her face, so she moved to the only place that seemed to give her comfort.

His arms.

Chase held her close to his chest, stroking her beautiful hair softly. But he was stunned, because this had to be the first time she had ever willingly come to him. Something strong, possessive and obsessive was triggered in him by the sight of her so devastated by having her cover blown, that he held her tighter.

His jaw clenched, as he itched to lay his hands on the fucking reporter that took that picture.

He itched to rip Jeffrey apart limb by limb, because he was the major cause of her distress. If the whole world knew her whereabouts, except Jeffrey, Chase was sure Mackenzie would be unfazed.

“It’s okay, Mackenzie. I won’t let him come near you. I’ll be here with you, every fucking time you need me. Even if you might not want me with you-”

She looked up at him, a fierce light in her eyes. Did she just hear him say she did not want him? She was sorely tempted to tell him exactly how just the sight of him drove her crazy, how bad she dreamed about him naked and doing the most scandalous things to her…

Instead, she just muttered, “I need a drink.”