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. They’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? 

“Are you FBI, Kyle?”

“Ex, sweetheart. I’ve told you that. You know that.”

But the truth is, if he’s a master of being undercover, like my father, and even my sister, I might not. 

 “Ask me what you want to ask me, Myla,” he says, clearly aware that I’m chasing real answers.

“Do you know my sister?” 

“You already asked me that.”

“And you never answered.” The elevator dings. 

“If you want to ask again, do it tonight, when we’re alone,” he says, shutting down the topic. The answer feels a little cryptic, but at this point the doors have opened and he’s holding them for me. “I had Les park my car near the door so we’re in the garage, and while there are no cameras on our level, if you see anyone, assume they might be the enemy.” 

“I already do,” I admit, before I exit the elevator, and enter into the dimly lit space to do the other thing I always do, and immediately scan for danger, and activity I don’t find. 

Kyle is instantly beside me. “This way,” he says, clicking his keychain, the rear lights of the vehicle flashing. 

“What kind of car is that?” I ask, noting the sporty, slightly lifted back end, and thick tires.

“I’ll pretend you didn’t ask that,” he says. “Because not knowing what this car is, is an absolute sin against man and metal.”

Expectantly, considering all I’ve been through, I’m laughing, the tension easing from my spine, his way of making pizza and cars life-altering events is actually quite adorably sexy. “It’s a Mustang,” I say as we stop at the passenger door. “See? I know what it is.” 

 “Not just a Mustang,” he amends. “A 2008 Shelby GT500KR Mustang. I should have it parked and protected but that just seemed a waste.”

“How much does a car like this cost?”

“You can’t put a price tag on a car like this,” he says. “I won it in a bidding war.”

“So a lot.”

“It was worth it.” He reaches for the door. “Stay out here a minute.” He opens the door, sets my briefcase in the backseat, and then slides into the passenger side of the vehicle before shutting me out and him inside. 

The odd action dissolves the final remnants of my laughter, replacing it with a mix of confusion and worry. Is he looking for bombs? Does he think someone wants me dead? That’s ridiculous, I chide. If there was a bomb threat, he’d have made me stand back, and if he thought someone was going to grab me, he’d never leave me out here alone. But this thought process is enough to remind me of the many threats around me, not just from inside my new world, but from those who hate Michael, and want to hurt anyone close to him. I’m starting to come up with even more ways to run with my horrid thoughts when the door pops open, with Kyle on the phone. “Right,” he says. “Keep an eye on him.” 

I’m thinking he might actually have left me out here to make a private call when he stands, showing me another of those little recording chips for my viewing. “How did they get into your car?”

He chucks the chip across the garage. “Les is fired.”

“As in the doorman?”

“He’s the only one who had my spare keys,” he confirms, stepping away from the car to allow me to enter this time.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’d like to throttle the bastard, but I won’t. At least, not yet. We’ll let him think he’s still considered a friend, and watch what he does next.” 

Let him think he’s a friend? Considering I’ve just hoped and prayed for him to be a friend, those words hit me like a freight train. Is that what he’s doing with me? I don’t think he is. I really don’t, but what if my hormones are confusing my instincts? I do not like where this is leading me, and afraid he will read my reaction, I quickly slide in to the car. 

But Kyle doesn’t allow me shelter. Nor does he immediately shut my door, compelling me to look at him, to confirm what he senses in me, which I know is distrust, but I do not do as he bids. I stare ahead, his unnamed questions and mine once again heavy and hard between us. Finally though, an eternity later, he shuts me inside, and rounds the rear of the Mustang, climbing inside with me, but he doesn’t start the engine. 

More seconds tick by like hours, until he faces me while I hold steady and face forward. “Look at me,” he orders. 

“No, I-”

“Look at me, Myla,” he repeats, his voice a command, compelling me. 

Damn it. I do it. I turn and then we are close, a small space between us, as I blurt out, “Is that what you are doing to me? Pretending to be my friend to see what I do next?”

“No,” he says firmly. “It is not and I know on some level you know that, but you refuse to trust your instincts.”

“Would you trust you in my position?”

“So you admit that you want to trust me?”

“Of course I want to trust you, but I can’t. I won’t.” 

“You can,” he promises, and oh how well he does promises. They touch his eyes. They touch his voice. They touch me. “But I’ve told you that I approve of your caution, and understand it, but sitting here right now, it occurs to me that we haven’t discussed the obvious, so let me make this easier on you. Alvarez has some doubt about you or I wouldn’t be here.”

“He doubts everyone,” I argue, before I let him go on.

“Does he pay someone a million dollars to look after them like he did me?”

“No,” I say. “He does not.”

“Okay then. Because of him hiring me, I’m now in a position to either protect you or destroy you.”

“No,” I say, rejecting that idea. “No. You can only destroy me if I let you.”

“Sweetheart, that’s not true. If I wanted to destroy you, I could have already asked for a bonus for making your true self show so quickly and then be done with this. Juan could do the same. Anyone could. You’re exposed whether you like it or not, and I’m your buffer.”

“If Juan, or whoever, could do as you say, why haven’t they?”

“In my book, that means someone either thinks Alvarez is worse to deal with without you by his side, or they’re afraid he’ll shoot the messenger if they turn on you. But that doesn’t mean they won’t turn on you.” He settles further into his seat. “Whatever the case, we need to go before they come looking for us.”

He sticks the key in the ignition and before he can turn it, I say, ‘”Why haven’t you turned on me for a fast payday?”

“That was where I was leading you, sweetheart. I haven’t and I won’t, because like I’ve said over and over, and will continue to say: I was never here for the money. That’s not what I’m about or who I am.” He cranks the engine to a deep roar.

I lean against the seat, staring forward, and all I have is what I already knew. Kyle isn’t what he seems, but then neither am I, and I’m not sure what that makes my next move, or his.