It’s in that moment that Kyle’s gaze catches mine, and in its depths I see genuine concern, but there is also a promise of protection, and this kind of cool calmness somehow reaches across the table and soothes my frazzled nerves. Suddenly, I am not alone, and while thinking I am not might be dangerous, I can’t seem to care. He is here. He makes at least this one afternoon bearable.
It’s three o’clock when Barbara finally leads me down a hallway to the design studio, but just as we’re about to enter, she’s called to the lobby, and I pause at the door to wait on her, which leaves me alone with Kyle. “What’s was going on with you in the conference room?” he asks softly, more of that genuine concern in his voice I’d seen in his eyes earlier.
“Nothing that isn’t always going on,” I assure him, hating this biting emotion in my chest. “I should go on inside.” Afraid if I say more, I might lose my necessary composure, and knowing he isn’t likely to grab me and delay my departure, I turn away, but he firmly orders, “Stop.”
Inhaling, I face him. “Kyle, please I-”
“That nothing was something. I need to know what it is to protect you.”
“It’s nothing you can protect me from.”
“I can and will protect you, but I need details.”
“It’s not about danger,” I say. “Not really. Michael called. He hit some nerves and I can’t seem to shake them.”
“What nerves, sweetheart?” he murmurs softly. “Did he threaten you?”
“It’s nothing new,” I repeat. “He’s coming back in a week.”
“When was he supposed to come back?”
“Two weeks. But you never know with him. Please let this go right now so I can try to let it go.”
He gives me one of those intense, green eyes stares, and then nods. “Okay. But-”
“I know. You’re here and I actually really appreciate that.” I don’t wait for his reaction, instead entering the design room, which is lined with sewing machines, and filled with tables and a good dozen mannequins in random locations. In the center of it all, at the only round table, surrounded by six helpers, is a stunning redhead I know to be fashion designer LeeAnn Orlando. So intent is she and those around her on whatever she is saying, that no one seems to notice my entry. A good minute passes and I’m still standing here. Feeling awkward, I decide to walk around the mannequins, a little thrill with each of my designs, I pass and approve. That is, until I stop in front of what is supposed to be my all-time favorite gown, one that my mother started to design first, only to find it has gone horribly wrong. First of all, it’s a pale pink, not the emerald of my mother’s eyes, and the waist and bodice are just plain all wrong. I tell myself it doesn’t matter. This is all fake. It’s not me. It’s not a real clothing line, but I find myself turning around, and irritated to find that that I’m still being ignored.
“Excuse me,” I call out, at the same moment Kyle enters the room, assuming guard just inside the door, while LeeAnn continues to keep on with the snub. “Excuse me,” I call out a little louder, and this time she glances up, irritation etched on her pretty face, arrogance in her demeanor that says that I am beneath her.
“Yes?” she asks.
“Can I please discuss this design with you?” I ask, indicating the dress.
Reluctance radiates from what has to be every particle of her being, but she crosses the room to stand in front of the mannequin with me. “What can I do for you?”
“I should introduce myself,” I say. “I’m-”
“Of course I know who you are.”
There is a slap to those words. “Obviously you’re no fan.”
“I’m a fan of fashion, not people.”
“Well then this dress is not the fashion statement intended. The waist, bodice and color are off.”
“The color is set to the season of release, which is summer. The bodice and waist had to be adjusted to be workable.”
“I’ve made this dress myself. The bodice and waist were just fine, and I want the green I requested.”
She rolls her eyes. “Look, Myla. I know you think you’re in charge, but there is a reason Michael hired me.”
Michael. She called him Michael. I am stunned when I should not be, and in fact, I’d celebrate any affair between them if I wasn’t clear on her role now. She is how this label would exist without me. She makes me disposable, but I do not dare blink. “And Michael put me in charge,” I say, my well-honed survival skills kicking in. “Which is why I won’t waste his time involving him in this. Now, if we can’t come to terms on this dress, but most importantly, my role here versus yours, then I will make it clear to him that I’m interviewing new designers. Think about it overnight and we’ll chat tomorrow morning.” I don’t give her time to reply, crossing the room, leaving the gauntlet on the ground, the shattering of my admiration for one of my idols, with it.
Kyle is, of course, watching my approach without reaction, when I know he’s heard the exchange. His expression is unreadable, his stare hooded, the door opening beside him as Barbara appears. “The models are beginning to arrive,” she says eagerly. “Come. We’re in the room off the reception area.” She waves me forward and disappears again.
I glance at Kyle. “Models,” I say. “You should enjoy this part of the day.”
“The only woman I’m watching is you,” he assures me, a hint of something warm slipping into his tone.
I swallow hard, not sure why, but in that moment, I feel vulnerable with this man, exposed in ways I have never been with Michael Alvarez, and my defenses rise. “I guess that’s what you get paid the big bucks for,” I spout, and it’s not only out-of-character snideness, but I regret it the moment I say it.
He doesn’t like it either, the glint in his eyes a telltale sign that says he wants to reply, but it is gone an instant later, and so am I. Exiting into the hallway, heading toward the lobby. I’m almost there, when I stop and face him. “I’m sorry.”
“What?” he asks.
“About what I just said,” I explain, and realizing I’ve already brought too much attention to us, I enter the lobby. “Where am I going?” I ask Heather.
She smiles and motions me toward a door, but her face freezes as her attention shifts to Kyle. Poor thing. Michael is right on one thing. His normal crew would not work out here. Kyle might be intimidating big, quiet, and good looking, but those guys look like they will corner you alone at any moment. And they will, I think, my gut twisting with a memory I cannot allow to surface right now.
Stopping at the door, I turn to Kyle, lowering my voice for his ears only. “Heather can’t take you standing by her desk the entire time I’m in here. You have to come inside.”
His lips quirk ever so slightly and he gives me a nod before we enter the room, me first, and we find a row of five chairs in front of some sort of a red carpet I assume is meant to be the runway. Barbara motions me forward to join her, then points for both me and Kyle to sit. “This is your runway show,” she says, handing me her clipboard. “Names. Agencies. Stats. Are you ready?”
“Yes,” I say, feeling excited all over again, and hating how easily that keeps happening, but the thrill is gone the instant the first girl enters the room and starts strutting her stuff. She’s gorgeous. She’s perfect. She’s everything Heather is at that receptionist desk, which is perfect for the slave trade operation Juan and Ricardo recruit for every chance they get. I need to get her out of here. I mark her card with a negative. Three more girls walk for us, and I do the same. I’m starting to feel sick. I can’t hire models. I have to find a way out of this.
Barbara waits until I’ve declined girl number five before standing in front of my chair, hands on hips. “What isn’t clicking?”
“I don’t know,” I say, and afraid just coming here is putting the girls on the wrong radar, I change direction. “Maybe I should look through the agency books before we have more come out?”
“We have ten more lined up,” she says, “and we need to shoot the
campaign in the next three weeks to make the launch publication dates for the top five fashion magazines.”
Top five fashion magazines. My designs. My dream. But these girls are potentially in hell. I’m back to this being a nightmare. “I’m sure I’ll find someone,” I lie. I’m not going to find anyone. I’m not going to let this happen.
“We need three girls for the plan you approved earlier.”
“Yes, I meant three.”
“Maybe if I leave you alone.” She glances at Kyle. “What are your thoughts?”
“I’m just waiting for one of them to pull a gun so I can shoot them,” he says, in a completely dry tone.
I gape at him and Barbara chuckles, waving a finger at him. “You have a sense of humor you hide beneath that robot shell after all.” She glances at me. “I’m going to send another in.”
I nod and she walks away, and the minute the door shuts, Kyle leans forward, elbows on his knees. “What’s going on, sweetheart?”
“Same as always,” I whisper, but I don’t look at him, because that bubble has started again, and it’s a big one, a really, really big one. “I think I’m going to talk to them about a more iconic kind of campaign. A decadent cherry, though I have no idea how cherries mean clothing. I will figure it out.”
“Myla-”
The door opens again and another woman is walking the floor, but I’m not really seeing her, and Kyle isn’t watching her either. He’s watching me. He’s seeing too much. He knows I don’t want to be here, and there is no way I can deny that any longer. I don’t want to be here. I barely make it through the rest of the girls. Finally it’s over, and Barbara is ridiculously sweet about me declining them all.
“We can look at model books tomorrow,” she says, “and have another round sent over. It’s only Monday. We have all week to get this nailed down. We just need to do it by Friday.”
“That sounds good,” I say, when it doesn’t at all.
The next few minutes become a blur. I grab my purse and briefcase and Kyle is forever by my side. We exit the building and he holds the door for me. Once we’re inside the Mustang, sealed into the safe zone of being alone, he doesn’t turn on the car. “What happened in there?”
“A lot,” I say, turning to look at him. “I’m not going to pretend it didn’t, because you know it did.”
“Tell me.”
“Not now and maybe not ever. I’m not making a decision about trusting you right now in this moment. I need to get on a treadmill. I need to clear my head. I need to leave here now.”
“Then we go,” he says, cranking the engine, and putting us in reverse. And oh, how I wish I could go in reverse and turn back time. If only I hadn’t taken that waitress job. If only I hadn’t gone to San Francisco for a job in fashion. But I can’t go back and I have to face facts. Michael threatened Kara. He sees her as a lingering threat he wants addressed. He absolutely will kill her if I don’t find a way to contain her. He will kill her if I run. He will use those models for his sex trafficking if I’m here or if I’m gone. He has to be stopped. And I’ve fought too hard and long to fail now. I need a revised plan.
And at the core of that plan I have to consider the man sitting next to me being either my only ally or my worst enemy.
Chapter Twelve
Myla
Once we’re on the highway, I sink back into the leather of the Mustang’s seat, and my mind is searching for answers, instead finding the past. I’m back where this all started. In the restaurant, and seated at a table across from Michael Alvarez. At first, having dinner with him hadn’t been all that bad. He’d been suave, charming even. He’d asked about my dreams, and for reasons I don’t know, I told him about my design work. We’d laughed about food, television, and politics, and he’d seemed so very human. He’d told me about his restaurants, the conversation so comfortable that I’d started to think he wasn’t the kingpin I thought he was.
When dinner was over, he’d invited me to his hotel room for drinks. I’d quickly declined and he hadn’t pushed, but there was something in his eyes I should have known was trouble. Still, he didn’t push himself on me or even ask to see me again. I’d left Kara a message, but afraid of scaring her, I hadn’t told her why. Just that I needed her to call me. That decision had been the stupidest of my life. Had I told her why, maybe she would have sent help while I was still in the city. But I didn’t and hours later, my life forever changed.
I exit the restaurant, into a chilly San Francisco evening, huddling down into my jacket, when a fancy black sports car pulls up next to me. The door pops open and much to my shock, Michael Alvarez is inside. “Get in,” he orders.
“I’m meeting a friend,” I say, but suddenly the man I now know as Ricardo is by my side.
“He said, get in,” he repeats, and when I look up I find two more men leaning on a car to my left, and watching me. My heart is racing. I have to get in. I don’t want to get in.
“Bella,” he says, calling me “beautiful” in Spanish, but my gut tells me to pretend I don’t understand. I decide in that moment to be whatever he wants me to be, to survive until I can call Kara.
I slide into the car, and give him a shy smile I pray looks real. “I guess my friend can wait. What does bella mean?”
His lips curve, his eyes possessive as he brushes hair from my cheek, and chills of absolute terror slide down my spine.
I blink back to the present and Kyle is pulling the Mustang into the parking garage of the Ritz, but my mind drags me to one last horrible moment, forcing my lashes to lower. I am in his hotel room. The room is elegant, large, and thankfully the living area is separate from the bedroom that I don’t want to see, but fear I will. I take a step toward a chair to join him, but he holds up a hand. “I want to see all that ivory skin naked. Get naked for me, Myla.”
I blanch. “Now? Here?
His lips curve slightly, his eyes darkening. “Now. Here.”
I have a moment of pure panic, and I want to turn and run, but logic reminds me that he is a drug lord, a man who murders without question. I cannot decline. And there is a gut feeling inside me that says if I act as if I want to, he will kill me.
I play coy, like he’s the only person I would do this for. Another instinct, I just grab on to. “I don’t normally…I feel very nervous.”
“Don’t be nervous. I will be gentle.”
My gaze snaps open and Kyle has pulled us into a parking spot. And still, the image of me standing naked in front of Alvarez, my hands tied, just before he did things to me, a vision I wish I could forget slams into my mind. Then there is another, of Juan, in the back of a car, that should be worse, but it’s not. Michael Alvarez is always worse. Struggling to catch my breath, I reach for the door and open it, grabbing my purse and briefcase, and exiting the car, my heart racing. Still, I scan for watchful eyes I don’t find, and start walking, making a beeline for the elevator in sight.
Kyle catches me halfway there, his hand coming down on my arm, turning me to face him. “Easy, sweetheart. You’re telling the world you’re upset, when you need to just tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell. I just need to run. I need to get out of my own head. And I know that kind of sucks for you because you have to follow me around, but-”
“It doesn’t. We’ll run, but what just upset you?”
“Nothing running won’t solve. I promise. It always fixes things for me. It takes the edge off. It lets me think. It’s my drug.”
He gives me a steady look and then nods. “I get it. I understand what it’s like to be deep undercover and beat up by it. And we both know you’re being beat up.”
“I’m stressed. That is not undercover.”
“You might as well be, and we both know it.” But he doesn’t push for more, releasing me. “Let’s go run.”
Gladly accepting the reprieve, I start walking, impatiently punching the elevator button once at the doors, and relieved when they open instantly. He catches the door, allowing me to enter,
and then he’s inside with me, smelling all spicy and manly, and consuming the space around me. Michael Alvarez does that too, but it’s different. It’s like an attack you can’t escape, while Kyle’s presence is a promise that being with him is too good to even want to try to escape. And his silence on the ride is a promise that he really does understand what I’m feeling and that now is not the time for questions and answers.
Once on our floor, more of the same silence from the elevator settles between us, and somehow our steps are in unison, like he’s somehow feeding off my emotions. Like he’s telling me I’m not alone, or maybe I just want that to be his message. But alone has served me well. Trusting no one has protected me and my sister. It’s kept me alive. I am at a crossroads though, and he is standing in the center and there is nothing about him right now that says he plans to do anything but stay there.
The moment we’re in the hotel room—no, my prison—I enter the hallway, and call over my shoulder, “I’m going to change,” without looking back. I need to deal with all the adrenaline and emotions colliding inside me. If I can just take the edge off, I’ll have real thoughts. Real solutions. A new plan.
Shutting the door, I toss my purse and briefcase on the ground beside it, and walk to the closet, gathering my workout clothes and unzipping the front of my dress. That’s when I catch the image in the mirror with the gun between my breasts. My gaze lingers on the thick steel, and for the first time in my life, I imagine really killing someone. I want to kill him. And he would have only himself to blame if I did, because he caged me. Pushed me. Didn’t think about me being my father’s daughter, which, considering all I’ve been through, means being a survivor. I am not giving up.