Pushing off the desk, I exit and make my way toward the living area, finding Myla’s door open. Sounds coming from what I know to be a mini kitchen area off the dining room, lead me in that direction, and I find Myla in the small, rectangular space, staring at a Keurig cup dripping, her long dark hair a sleek shiny wave down her back.
Seeming to sense my presence, she whirls around, the pale pink dress she’s wearing hugging every slender curve, which I’d rather be hugging myself, the hem falling just past her knees. “Hi,” she says, pointing at the machine, and looking incredibly nervous. “They have a Keurig, but the coffee is just Plain Jane. You might like that, but I like my chocolate coffee. I need to see if I can get it ordered.” She grabs some sort of box I think has condiments, and manages to drop it.
I am there immediately, picking it up to hand it to her, the sweet scent of her floral perfume mixing with fresh brewed coffee with surprisingly sexy results. She reaches for it, and I close my hand over hers. “Easy, sweetheart. We’re okay. Everything is going to be okay.”
“Last night-”
“Was me speaking the truth and after I kissed you-”
“You didn’t -“
“Yes,” I say, “I did, and not only do I own that action, it was too damn short, and too damn good for us to deny it happened. Or that it won’t happen again.”
“It can’t happen again.”
“It will, but not now. Not when you doubt me.”
“It’s not about doubt. It’s about Michael.”
That name is the one and only reply she could give me that makes me release her and step backwards. “Right. Michael.”
Her lashes lower and she turns to face the counter, pressing her hands to the marble. “I’m his. That’s just how it is.”
“And yet, you want me.”
“I’m his.”
I shackle her arm and turn her to face me. “You don’t belong to him. No one owns you.”
“Let go, Kyle. You’re my bodyguard, but that doesn’t require touching.”
I narrow my eyes on her and find what I’m looking for. Fear. Anger. Confusion. “This won’t work.”
“What won’t work?”
“You can’t push me away. There is no door that will shut me out.”
“I already did. Door shut.” She turns and sets the condiments on the counter, grabbing her cup and trying to get the cream out of the container, and I don’t miss how her hand shakes a moment before she drops her sugar packets on the floor.
She squats at the same time I do, and we end up eye-to-eye, the charge between us electric; a punch of pure lust and attraction that sucks up all the air around us, then seems to sway us toward each other. “You’re making me crazy,” she hisses. “This isn’t helping me. It’s made me a wreck.”
I reach for her elbow and help her to her feet. “Making me the enemy isn’t the answer,” I say, forcing myself to let her go. “And you have no reason to feel awkward with me. None.”
“Last night-”
“I was honest. I’ve done undercover work for a lot of years, sweetheart. What we hide from instead of control, is what becomes the poison that can destroy us.” I scoop up her sugars and tear them open. “How do you like your coffee?”
“You don’t have to make my coffee.”
“Myla,” I say softly. “How do you like your coffee?”
“From Starbucks, but I’ll settle for two creams and two Splendas.”
I empty the contents of all of the packets and fill her cup, using a stir stick to blend it before tasting it. “Just the way I like it,” I say, handing it to her, a challenge in my action. Will she drink from the cup I drank from? “Try it.”
She takes the cup from me and considers me a moment, then takes a drink.
“Well?” I ask.
She sets the cup down and rests her hands back on the counter, head low. “What are we doing, Kyle?”
I mimic her position, my shoulder touching hers. “Let’s talk about that.”
She faces me and explodes the minute I do the same. “Talking won’t solve this. I can’t share coffee with you and you can’t touch me or call me sweetheart. No more. No more.”
“That won’t be enough.”
“It will. It has to be enough.” She hesitates, and frowns. “Wait. What does that mean? That won’t be enough?”
“The danger isn’t in what we say or do. The fire between us wasn’t created by me or you. It simply is. It’s a living, breathing, life of its own that radiates energy, and it’s that energy we have to control.”
I expect denial, but she gives me acceptance. “How?” she asks, folding her arms in front of her.
“I’m going to take on a persona of being cold and withdrawn when I’m with you. There won’t be conversation between us. There won’t be laughter or friendship. No matter what happens, I can’t react like the man I am, but only the man they expect me to be with you.”
“So I’ll hate you like I do Juan.”
“Don’t act like you hate me. Don’t act like I’m anything but that bodyguard who is there, and won’t go away.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be seducing me or something?”
“They want me to prove or disprove your loyalty to Alvarez. I’m going to tell them you’re reserved and keeping to yourself, and eager for his phone calls.”
“You make it sound easy.”
“It will be for you, because I’ll set the tone, and sweetheart, that doesn’t mean I watch Juan or anyone else treat you like shit. I won’t. You’re mine to protect, and I will protect you.” I glance at the zipper on the front of her dress and then back at her. “Are you wearing the gun?”
“Yes. That’s why I picked this dress.”
“Good choice. If you need to use it, you use it and let me deal with ensuring there are no consequences.”
“I have no idea how you would do that.”
“I’ve been undercover inside operations just as nasty as this one. I know how to manipulate events and come out on top. You’re in good hands and not just mine. I have a team that works for me. They’ve already cleared the facility where you’re working and they’ll have our backs, but that’s absolutely between you and I.”
“Of course. Who are they?”
“People I trust. People who you can trust. People I don’t want on Alvarez’s radar. That’s all you need to know.”
“And you trust me to not tell him?”
“Quid pro quo on trust, too, Myla. I simply went first. You now have one of my secrets.”
“I’m not sure you really went first. I mean, right now, if you wanted to, you could tell Juan anything about me, and he’d believe you. I’m trusting you not to do that.”
“You hope I won’t do that. That isn’t trust.” My cellphone rings, and I reach for it, glancing at the screen. “That’s Juan,” I say. “Grab your things and let’s get out of here.” I answer the call. “Good morning, sunshine,” I say. “Good to know you get up before noon.”
“Shouldn’t you be leaving by now?” he asks, while Myla stands in front of me, waiting for the bombshell she always seems to believe is coming.
“I wasn’t aware I needed to control her schedule,” I reply. “Is there an agenda here? Because if there is, it would be nice if I got a fucking copy of it.”
“She has a meeting in thirty minutes.”
“Isn’t she the boss?” I ask, while Myla walks out of the room, as if she can’t take the exchange anymore.
“When the fuck are you leaving?” he asks.
“Is she a prisoner I’m supposed to be guarding, or am I protecting her while she leads her normal life? Because if she’s a prisoner, the concept of testing her loyalty is void and what the hell am I doing here?”
“When the fuck are you leaving?”
“When she picks a pair of shoes that she doesn’t want to change.” He hangs up.
I shake my head and shove my phone in my pocket, and make my way to the hallway where Myla meets me with
her purse and briefcase on her shoulder. “If I shoot him, you can clean it up?”
“Easily, though I’d be disappointed I didn’t get to do it. Let me get that.” I reach for her briefcase, taking it from her and glancing at the label. “A Louis Vuitton,” I say. “An expensive piece of Marc Jacob inspiration.”
“Yes,” she says, responding to the question I’ve left in the air. “Michael bought it for me. And yes. It’s a five-thousand dollar bag, but I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t even tell him I liked the brand. It was his pitch for me to be his Marc Jacobs.”
“I didn’t ask any of that.”
“I saw it in your face.”
“No one sees anything in my face I don’t want them to see,” I tell her.
“Then you wanted me to see it and you wanted my answer.”
“I let it show,” I confirm. “Just in case you wanted to tell me. Clearly you did.”
“Now you know.” She glances at her watch, also a Louis Vuitton. “I need to get to my meetings. I need to get this over with.”
I arch a brow. “That doesn’t sound like someone excited about living a dream.”
“Please stop analyzing everything I say and do. I’m nervous.” She steps around me and heads toward the door, and I’m at the door when she is, pressing my hand to the surface at the same moment hers goes to the knob.
“Myla,” I breath out, that sweet scent of hers teasing my nostrils.
“What?” she whispers, without turning.
“Turn around.”
“No. I-”
“Turn around.”
Her shoulders flex as she inhales, and then rotates, leaning on the door, our bodies close, and it’s all I can do to keep my hand on the wood by her head, instead of on her. “Remember our plan.”
“You act like a cold-hearted bastard and I act like…I don’t notice.”
“Like I’m just another one of the assholes around you.”
“But you aren’t just another one of the assholes, now are you, Kyle?”
“No. I am not.”
“When are you going to tell me who you really are?”
“When you tell me who you really are.”
“I’ll have to figure that out first,” she says. “Can we go now?”
I am not pleased by this answer that says she’s lost herself while she tried to survive, which is what my father did. It infers that Alvarez has messed with her head more than I wanted to believe. I don’t believe she has an allegiance to him, but I need to be certain. I push off the wall, and she turns, opening the door and exiting our suite. Running from the wrong person, and proving that Alvarez has a hand on her even when he’s not here. I need to step things up before he shows up and make sure the only hands Myla wants on her are mine.
Chapter Nine
Myla
I make a beeline down the hallway toward the elevator, trying to gather my thoughts, but Kyle’s perfectly fitted gray suit, and cool, way-too-interested green eyes are making that impossible. It’s making logic a hard to gather resource, even though logic and a steady handle on everything around me has been my salvation. There is so much adrenaline surging through me, fueling my body where sleep has not, that I can feel my hands and knees trembling. I never tremble. Thus why I spent hours pacing my room last night, trying to understand how Kyle so easily stripped away all my many, carefully erected layers, and then had me crying. Crying of all things! Worse, I have some innate need to trust him and touch him and let him touch me. I mean…the man is pure sex, so what woman wouldn’t want him to touch her? That part I get. It’s the gut instinct to trust, that I’ve tried to lend a reason to and I just can’t. There is no question in my mind that there is more than meets the eye to Kyle. That he might expose this is true of me as well, though, is the immediate problem I’d thought to address by shutting him out.
But as he joins me, falling into step, the way I feel him in every part of me, the way I know exactly how perfectly that gray suit fits his big, muscular body, pretty much says that plan was destined to fail before it began. I should have taken the lusty thing we have going on into consideration with that plan. Right now, every moment I’m with him, actually, I feel a push and pull between us, the pull fighting to win, and in the morning light, I think this is partially about his connection to my past, to Kara. Add to that the fashion line that forces a collision of the old and new me, and it makes sense that the combination proved volatile last night. But today is a new day. That is over, and I cannot blink or it will be noticed by someone other than Kyle, and that could destroy me, and the plans that have kept me pushing forward.
We round the corner, and without looking at Kyle, I punch the elevator button, relieved when the doors open instantly. He places himself in front of the entrance, his broad shoulders and big, delicious body successfully blocking my entry. “Wait for the next car,” he orders, punching the button again.
My brow furrows, and when I’d ask why exactly we’re waiting, another car opens and he nods. “This one’s fine.” He immediately steps toward it, holding the steel doors for me to enter.
Confused, and a bit concerned, by the musical chairs elevator routine, I step into the newly arrived car and head to the left wall, leaning on the hard surface, my hands on the railing behind me. Even as I wonder what just happened, a bit of clarity comes to me in other places. My past coming into the light is what is shaking me up. And why is that when it should be a reminder of why I have to be strong?
Kyle joins me, and as the doors begin to close, I swear the man sucks all the air I was just breathing out of the tiny space. He punches the button for the garage level, and I’m a crazy person because I notice how strong his hands are, how expensive his black Gucci watch is, to which my fashion-adoring mother would have given a thumbs up. He moves then, and when I think he will step away, he places himself in front of me, and all six feet four inches of hot, hard man are a mere lift of a hand from touching me again. One step from making me forget everything I was thinking or might have been about to think, and there lies another part of his power over me and the source of his danger. Just as he consumes the tiny car, and the space we’re sharing, leaving room for little else, he does this every moment I’m with him, no matter where we are. He could make me forget, of this I have no doubt. He could make me let down my guard. He could give me an escape I crave, but at what price?
He’s also making me crazy by just standing there watching me and I can’t take the silence, or the certainty he might see more in it than words. “What was that with the elevator?”
“This one isn’t being recorded.” He doesn’t give me time to reply or assess his answer, softening his voice to softly order, “Talk to me, sweetheart,” that endearment becoming exceedingly appealing and far too sexy. “What’s going on in your head right now? Because something is. I see it in your face.”
I was right. He is seeing things he shouldn’t be able to see, because like him, I’ve learned not to let things show. I’ve learned to be what I need to be and nothing else. “I thought you weren’t going to call me sweetheart?” I ask, deflecting but also concerned.
“When we’re alone, everything changes.”
My belly flutters with the inference that “alone” comes with sexy, forbidden promises. “What if you slip up and do it when we’re around people?”
“I don’t slip up.”
I believe him, but considering how he impacts me, how easily I feel his every word and action, I’m concerned about me, not him. “What if I do?”
“You won’t. You haven’t so far, or you would not be standing here right now, and we both know it. Why would you start now?”
“I’m off,” I say, not denying what he obviously knows. “I’m all over the place today, and that isn’t the demeanor of a person surviving.”
“The survivor hasn’t gone anywhere. She’s right there. Let her out to play. You can handle Alvarez. You can handle these crappy designers today.”
“They aren’t crappy. The
y’re my idols. People I’ve admired for years.”
“First,” he says. “They’re just people, who thought the same thing you just expressed about other people, at one point in their careers. And now, they’re not only your co-workers, they’re your employees and you’re their boss.”
“I’m not,” I say, letting a hint of bitterness into my voice that I do not intend. This was my dream, but now…I hesitate, but say it. “Michael is their boss.”
“You are their boss,” he says pointedly, “and that gives you control we both need you to have. So own it, sweetheart. Own everything you touch today, the way you own Alvarez.”
“The control “we” need to have?” I ask, and I hate how appealing it is to have a “we” in my life that doesn’t include Michael Alvarez.
“We both benefit from your perceived loyalty to Alvarez. We’re making sure that’s exactly what everyone else sees.”
I don’t miss yet another inference, this one dangerous, and I cautiously ask, “Because you don’t think I’m loyal to him?
“I see more,” he confirms. “You know I do.”
He does, and with the floors ticking by, I don’t have time to try to change that, nor do I think I could anyway. I really don’t want to change that with Kyle. What I want is for him to be real and honest, a friend. More so though, I want us both to be alive tomorrow. “You need to know that I can own the job,” I say, “but I don’t own Michael Alvarez. I don’t have that kind of control over him. No one does. You know that, right?”
“What I know is that he doesn’t own you and I’m going to make sure you know that, too.”
“You have watched the Godfather, right?” I ask trying to make him see reason.
“Didn’t he die?”
I blanch. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that everyone has an expiration date, and it’s not our time.”
Is he telling me he’s here to kill the man in my bed? Is he – Oh, God. Is he a Fed? Does he know my sister? Is he helping put her in the line of fire or will he in the future? I try to think back to how he’d replied to my question about knowing her. I could recite the information in her file…He’d avoided a direct answer. If he’s a Fed, what do I do next? And if I ask him directly, will he tell me?