Betrayed

by Melody Anne

  “It would have been much sooner, but I lost track of you after you ran away. I’ve searched a long time. You can imagine my surprise when I found out you were running a top-notch whorehouse,” he said, a gleam lighting up his eyes, but just barely. “I was disappointed that the doors were closed by the time I was able to get here. I would have loved to have tasted your offerings.”

  She was sure he would have. But he couldn’t have afforded them, even in his “prime.” And never in a million years would she have inflicted that kind of man on her girls. “I’m surprised you didn’t know I ran it. After all, you were the one to show me the ways of the real world, weren’t you?” Her temper was escalating the more he looked at her, spoke to her.

  “Now, now, McKenzie, I’m not feeling very welcomed right now. Why don’t you invite me in for a nice drink so we can reminisce about old times?”

  How had she ever found him attractive? How had she ever fallen for his lies?

  “I told you the last night we were together — if together is the right word — that I never wanted to see you again,” she reminded him. Yes, she was slightly afraid of him, and she had reason to be, but she wasn’t about to stand there and pretend she felt anything for him but disgust. Dealing with him had always been a lose-lose proposition, and that hadn’t changed.

  “Ah, those are just words spoken in a lovers’ spat, baby doll,” he said, his lips twisting up in his sick attempt at a smile. The man never smiled, not really, not with any warmth. He had once been a predator of the most despicable kind, and she’d been unlucky enough to find out too late. But now she wasn’t sure he was capable of taking care of himself, let alone of going after more innocent young women.

  “Please tell me why you’re here.” McKenzie’s exhaustion had returned, and it was overwhelming her. Not good. The last thing she wanted to happen was to pass out. She’d done that once in his presence, ten years ago, and the results had been unthinkably horrific.

  “You stole from me, McKenzie. I want what’s owed to me.”

  McKenzie’s mouth dropped open at his words. She couldn’t have possibly heard what she thought she’d just heard. Not a chance. She was silent for several moments as he squirmed on her bottom step and she gaped at him.

  “Would you care to repeat that?” she said, her voice colder than ice.

  He shifted again and broke eye contact, as if unable to face her wrath. He was pathetic, but she wasn’t foolish enough to underestimate a desperate man. While speaking with him, she had pulled out her pepper spray, gripping the small bottle in her hand, ready to use it if necessary.

  “You ran away with the money from that night…” He trailed off at the outrageous gasp coming from her, but he had to add, “My share as well as yours.”

  “I took nothing from you, Nathan,” she said tightly. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t dare bring up that night.” Cold fury — or was it hot? — was pouring through her.

  Desperation must have begun to make him brave, because he straightened up at her words, and his eyes darted around, maybe searching for witnesses. She didn’t know. But if he took one step toward her, she did know that he would regret it.

  “That’s where you’re wrong, sex kitten. I spent time and money on you, trained you, prepared you, and then got you a good first job. And the thanks I got from you was that you ran away in the middle of the night with my money. That, in my book, is theft.”

  “I didn’t know I was being trained,” she reminded him. “I never asked for that.”

  “Ah, but you see, don’t you, that you used what I taught you to create a very successful business.”

  “I no longer run Relinquish Control,” she said.

  “It doesn’t matter. From what I found out, you ran it for several years, and your…clients paid a lot of money for the whores you trained. I would think you’d want to give me a little bit of your take as a thank-you.”

  “Are you kidding me?” she gasped. He might as well sprout two heads right now, because she considered nothing as unbelievable as what he’d just said.

  He shrank back the tiniest bit at her show of outrage, but then he stood back up and glared at her. She had to be careful. A desperate man equaled a crazy one. Her fingers gripped the pepper spray a little tighter, her finger on the trigger.

  “There’s no way you’ll ever get a single dime from me. Do you understand?” Rage was the only thing keeping her on her two feet right then.

  “You do owe me, McKenzie, and you will pay it — one way or another.”

  His eyes drifted up and down her body, making her stomach turn. Never, ever would this man touch her again, not while she was still breathing.

  Nathan now made a big mistake — he took a step toward her. McKenzie didn’t budge an inch. She stretched out her arm and blasted him with the pepper spray. The man who had been responsible for the most nightmarish night of her life let forth an ear-piercing scream, and he stumbled back down her front steps and collapsed on the ground, grinding his hands into his eyes.

  “You bitch!” he screamed over and over again as he writhed in agony. McKenzie wasn’t going to take another second of this. Reaching for her phone, she dialed the police and sat at the top of the steps, her eyes not moving from his twisting body.

  After about fifteen minutes, he lay there in the fetal position, crying. She still didn’t trust the idea of taking her eyes off him. When the police showed up ten minutes later, she took her first deep breath.

  The next forty-five minutes were some of the longest minutes of her life. She watched Nathan being cuffed and placed in the back of the squad car, and then she answered the officers’ questions before they finally drove away.

  She didn’t know whether she’d seen the last of that…slimeball, but she would be a fool to underestimate him. He looked to be out of choices, and that made him dangerous. She wouldn’t stroll down any dark alleys anytime soon.

  Once inside her house, she engaged the locks, and then she moved determinedly through the place, checking every window. When she had assured herself that everything was locked up tight, or seemed to be, she went to her bedroom and collapsed across the bed.

  The tears finally fell, and she curled up into a ball on top of her blankets and cried out her frustration. She should have known it would never be over with a man like that. How had she ever been such a fool as to trust him?

  Now there were two men in her life who wanted the impossible from her.

  Chapter Eight

  A bead of sweat dripped down Byron’s neck as he took a break and leaned against the wall of the building he’d been pounding with a hammer. No, he didn’t have time to be out on the job site. And no, he wasn’t running away from the office, where he’d brought in a woman who was making his life a living hell.

  Okay, maybe he was running from that woman. He was a fool – a certifiable fool. He could admit this in his own head. He’d had her working for him for a week. At any time, he could hire one of her employees and see her maybe once or twice a year if she happened to be at his brother’s house when he was. End of problem. But the thought of doing just that turned his gut inside out.

  Absurd, simply absurd.

  “We’re heading to lunch, boss. Do you want to join us?”

  Byron turned to see his foreman waiting by the work truck and the rest of the men piling into varying vehicles as they got ready to go in search of food. “No. I’m going to finish up what I’ve been working on and head back to the offices. I’ve already wasted too much of my day,” Byron told him.

  “It’s never a waste to work up a sweat,” Wyatt said before jumping in the truck and taking off.

  Byron moved to his own truck and pulled out a bottle of water from the cooler, then sat down under a tree not too far from the building. The place was going up fast and it was a beauty. A new mall was being built on the outskirts of Seattle, far enough away to not feel like the city, but close enough to get to, and the owners wanted it to have a historic feel to it with several arc
hitectural features that he didn’t often get to do anymore. All three of them had been working on and off on this site, since it was such a pleasure to work on.

  Closing his eyes, he leaned back feeling a small measure of peace. He did love his business, loved working with his brothers, and loved being independent from someone being able to boss him around. If he could only quit obsessing about a certain woman, his life would be damn near perfect.

  Opening his eyes after a few minutes, Byron noticed horses out in the field. What the hell? Where had they come from? They were looking at the opening to the building, and Byron turned, then froze at what he saw.

  “McKenzie?” he called, but she only smiled and gave the smallest shake of her head before holding up a finger against her lips.

  Byron stood, to move over toward her, but again she shook her head, and then those delicate fingers of hers lifted, resting on the top button of her blouse, and Byron’s body instantly froze.

  Looking him in the eyes, she moved her other hand up, and then her head tilted back and her fingers traveled down the front of her blouse as she moaned aloud. Byron was instantly rock solid. He took a step toward her, but her head came back up and she shook it a third time.

  Fine. If she wanted to play, he would let her play. He stepped back and leaned against the tree, his body pulsing, his eyes glued to McKenzie as those fingers rose again and she slowly began undoing her blouse, one small button at a time. Finally, he would see what her clothes kept hidden from him. As her full breasts were revealed to him, it was everything he had imagined and more, with her dark pink nipples jutting out.

  She didn’t wear a bra to work? Now that was going to make him even harder when he was at the Knight Construction offices. His eyes shifted to her waist as she reached behind her and undid the zipper at her back and then the skirt was dropping to the ground.

  No panties, either? Whoa! Byron feasted his eyes on her uncovered womanhood as she kicked the skirt away, then spread her legs and leaned against the doorway of the building, her chest pushed out, her ass dipping low as she opened and closed her legs.

  Enough was enough.

  Slowly, he moved forward. Her head turned as she looked at him, a come-hither expression playing in her eyes. “Is this what you’ve been wanting, Byron?” she asked as she stood back up and faced him, one hand high on the door, as she leaned there and waited for him to reach her.

  “Oh, this and so much more,” he whispered huskily. “You’re making me burn alive.”

  “It is a very warm day,” she said, lifting her free hand to her neck and letting it travel down between her breasts and then along the plane of her stomach. She stopped at the top of her incredibly sexy mound.

  “It’s certainly getting hotter,” he gasped as her finger dipped lower and circled the very part of her body he wanted his mouth to devour.

  “I’m getting lonely here, Byron,” she purred as she reached out toward him.

  She didn’t need to say anything more. Byron closed the small gap between them and pulled her roughly against him with his arms. His head descended and he finally tasted her sweet lips. He plundered her mouth, his hands reaching down and gripping her backside, pulling her against the roughness of his jeans and the straining hardness of his arousal.

  She reached around him and grasped his hair with both of her hands as she groaned into his mouth, begging him for more. He would give her anything she wanted — anything at all.

  Her kiss was filled with promises of what was to come, and he accepted what she was offering, making his own silent promises of what he would do to her, with her, for her. This woman was making him come unglued, and he never wanted to put the pieces back together again.

  She pushed her hips against him, her leg lifting behind him, her foot caressing his calves as she tried to get closer. “Clothes. They need to come off,” she panted before connecting her mouth back to his in a passionate display of possession.

  With an urgency born of pure desire, Byron’s knee went between her thighs, and he pushed her legs apart. Then he dropped to his knees, his head resting for a moment on the silk of her stomach as he inhaled her sweet scent. “So perfect, so beautiful,” he said with reverence.

  Grasping one leg of hers, he raised it onto his shoulder, spreading her wide open for his view. Without any further hesitation, he leaned forward, finally getting his first taste of her heat, and he nearly released inside his pants.

  His tongue swiped up and down the soft folds of her womanhood, and he sucked the pulsing flower of her core, her cries of pleasure telling him how fast or slow to go. He worshipped her body, learned every inch of her most tantalizing area, before he could take no more.

  Releasing her, he stood, and in less than a minute, his clothes were tossed aside. “I need to take you now, McKenzie,” he told her.

  “Finally,” she gasped, her eyes looking down, pleasure filling them at the sight of his throbbing erection. “It’s all mine,” she said then looked back up and licked her lips.

  Their bodies met together without him feeling any movement, and then he was lifting her, and soon her tight heat was surrounding him, her perfect core holding him inside her.

  “Oh, Byron, more,” she cried out as she laid her head on his shoulder, her teeth sinking into his skin. He didn’t care. The pain grounded him just enough not to explode inside her.

  Still, he moved faster, gripping her derrière in his hands as he cried out her name, seeking release for both of them. Leaning down, he licked the salty skin of her neck and sucked on the point where her pulse was thundering.

  “Please, Byron…please…,” she moaned. “I need…”

  The feel of her breasts sliding against his chest, her legs gripped tightly around his hips, her mouth caressing his shoulder. It was all too much. “Let go, McKenzie, let go,” he cried out, his own pleasure building.

  “Yes, now!” she cried as her body held him tight…

  “Wake up!”

  Byron shot upright, confused, hard, and not knowing what in the hell was going on. He looked around, his eyes trying to adjust to the bright light. Where was McKenzie?

  “What in the hell were you dreaming about?” one person asked.

  “I don’t know,” said another, “but I’ll have what he was having.” Laughter accompanied that comment.

  With a groan of frustration, Byron realized he’d fallen asleep beneath the tree. To make matter worse, he must have been saying something unfortunate, because his crew was back and they were enjoying his pain.

  “You might want to go and find the girl and get some satisfaction,” his foreman said with a big guffaw.

  “Go back to work, Wyatt. I’m heading to the offices,” he grumbled.

  As he walked stiffly back to his truck, trying desperately not to show the men how painful this walk of shame was, he thought finding the girl was a damn good idea. It was time that they closed on this deal.

  Chapter Nine

  McKenzie was late getting back to work. She wasn’t in the best of moods to begin with since her miserable “boyfriend” of long ago thought it would be fun to torment her. No, she wasn’t afraid of him, but he probably figured if he pestered her enough, she would give him what he wanted to make him go away. He was almost right about that.

  She couldn’t see how even as a young and vulnerable nineteen-year-old she could have been attracted to that man. What in the world was wrong with her? As soon as she had that thought, sadness enveloped her. Of course, there was something wrong. How could she ever forget?

  No. This wasn’t the time or the place to think of the past. But the past was continually in her face. Though deep regret filled her with that thought too, she had to remind herself that at least she was living her life. Even if she had encountered some bumpy roads along the way, she’d been able to handle those roads without utter disaster.

  It wasn’t that way for everyone.

  Again, she had to shake off the depressing thoughts, and then walk quickly back to t
he offices. When Byron had come in yesterday, he had been in a foul mood, snapping at her and everyone else. Today, luckily, he’d been in business meetings with his brothers all morning, so she hadn’t had to deal with his foul mood so far. She was going to be more than happy when she was free of him. She had enough to worry about without dealing with a man prone to such incredible mood swings.

  Slipping back inside the Knight Construction office building at about quarter past one, she made her way to her desk, where she clicked on her computer and tried to return to work mode. When she heard a shuffling noise and looked up, she found Byron’s standard scowl, and it was harder to deal with than normal.

  “I thought you were going to take this job seriously,” he said.

  “Of course I am,” she replied.

  “Then why do you find it acceptable to take over an hour for lunch?”

  What the heck? Was he timing her? A freaking billionaire? She hadn’t been on the clock in a lot of years and no one had ever questioned her work ethic. She’d always worked over the clock. But she wasn’t going to argue with him.

  “Is there something you want, Byron?” she asked with a sigh.

  “Yes, for you to do your job and do it right.”

  That was just plain rude!

  “I am doing my job. Is there anything else you want?” She was losing what little cool she had left, and she still had most of the afternoon to get through. Most of the afternoon and two and a half more weeks.

  He paused for a moment before speaking again. “Get the Boise papers gathered. I want to go over that situation in an hour.” With that he turned and walked away.

  McKenzie had to take a deep breath and then another before she pulled up the files. She would go over them one final time, of course, so she would have every detail on the tip of her tongue. Yes, right there on her tongue… The last thing she wanted was to have him think she couldn’t do her job. All she needed right now was to get fired and to have her company’s reputation ruined before it ever had a chance to really take off.