by Melody Anne
Jewell wasn’t paying attention to him, so he took the opportunity to look at her, really look at her. She didn’t seem like the money-grubbing whore he’d thought she was. Whenever Blake’s name came up, no matter how subtly, she practically glowed. He didn’t like having his beliefs tested. But he knew this: even if Jewell was indeed the hooker with a heart of gold that Blake believed her, a young woman who went into the escort business to help her young brother, that didn’t make McKenzie any less contemptible. She was the real whore of the two. She ran the upscale escort service — so upscale that Blake had paid a quarter of a million bucks to bed Jewell the second time around, and McKenzie pulled in half. That woman was the embodiment of money-grubbing.
But if Jewell was an exception among women — if she really did love his brother, and they were good for each other — was his vendetta against McKenzie valid anymore? What was her former profession to him? What was she to him? Just another bad woman in a long line of them.
He wasn’t sure what his motives were any longer. All he knew was that he wasn’t ready to let McKenzie walk away from him yet.
The only certain thing about his life was that he didn’t do relationships. Yes, he liked sex, and yes he liked companionship, but he didn’t do the whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing. He didn’t hold hands and stroke the woman’s ego. Look at what that had gained his father — death. A weak man in the clutches of a female who was no better than a prostitute.
But these thoughts weren’t quite helping. Even though he’d only been with McKenzie a short time, she was getting under his skin. Why? She wasn’t playing games with him, or he didn’t think she was playing games, but still, something was going on. That was it. There was a mystery here, and that was what was driving him. He would get to the bottom of it because he couldn’t stand to be left in the dark. And that’s exactly where Byron felt he was at the moment.
“How is everything?” Marsha asked, all her attention on Byron.
“The pasta bordello…” He paused and looked pointedly at Jewell to which she sent him a withering glare and he simply winked. Then he gave his full attention back to Marsha. “Sorry, my mistake. The pasta Bordelaise is some of the best I’ve had.”
“That’s wonderful to hear. I’ll let the chef know,” she said with a giggle before finally retreating.
They finished their meal and when the check came, Byron snatched it up and paid it all, including a generous tip. When the two women protested, he just smiled as he stood and held out a hand to McKenzie. Would she refuse his help up?
She accepted his hand with obvious reluctance, and he tugged, pulling her off balance just enough that she stumbled into him. His damn hormones got into the act again, and he looked down into her eyes, needing more than anything else right then to kiss her. Byron didn’t normally do public displays of affection, but everyone seemed to fade away when he was touching McKenzie. Dammit!
“Do I need to call the fire department before this place goes up in flames?” Jewell asked.
“What?” McKenzie asked, flinching.
Jewell giggled. “The way the two of you were looking at each other, I think you were both going to spontaneously combust at any minute.”
Byron was grateful for the interruption. He normally didn’t let anyone know what he was feeling, even when in lust. Besides, when he next kissed McKenzie, he intended to finish what he started, and he certainly couldn’t do that here, in a crowded bistro.
“I have to get going, McKenzie, but I’ll see you next week. We will talk before then,” Jewell told her with a meaningful look. She said goodbye to Byron and went ahead of the two them out of the place.
It wasn’t long before Byron had McKenzie to himself again as they walked down the street back to the offices where their cars were parked. “I enjoyed Jewell’s company this evening,” he said, surprised that it was true.
“She’s very difficult to be around without enjoying her company,” McKenzie replied.
“The two of you started out as employee and boss. How did you become best friends?” he asked, and she stiffened with that reminder of how she and Jewell had met.
She was quiet a moment before answering. “I honestly don’t know. It didn’t take me very long to figure out that Relinquish Control wasn’t the right place for her, but by then she’d already spent a week with your brother and then had come back even emptier than the first time I’d met her. Over the next few months, we talked, a lot, and friendship just grew.”
“I think I could actually like Jewell if I spent much time with her.”
“Yes, you could like a lot of people if you gave them a chance.” Her voice was suddenly so sad, and he needed to know why.
“What is happening in your life, McKenzie? Why all the mystery, and all the secrets?”
“I have nothing to hide,” she said, shutting him down immediately.
“Not true, McKenzie. I watch you,” he said, and her eyes widened. “And I listen. You’re in trouble, and you think you can handle it, but I’ve seen you be strong and I’ve seen you frightened. Sometimes it really helps to get it out.” Why in the hell was he suddenly acting like Dr. Phil?
She stopped and faced him. “I’m very capable of taking care of myself, and I’m not so foolish as to think that you and I are friends, or ever could be friends. I know what this is, Byron. I’m a puzzle, and you can’t stand not being able to solve me. The bottom line is that I’m not worth solving. You would find all of this very anticlimactic in the end,” she said with a fake laugh. Damn. She shouldn’t have suggested the word “climax.”
She resumed walking, and it took Byron a moment to move his feet and catch back up to her. “I understand that you’re capable of taking care of yourself, but I am involved now, and if you think I’m one of these new age weak men — a quiche eater — you are sadly mistaken. Haven’t I said this before? When I want something, I always get it.” He took her arm and kept her from entering the building when they reached it.
“Sometimes in life, I’m afraid to say, you just have to accept that the world isn’t always in the palm of your hand,” she told him. “You don’t get to know my secrets, and you don’t get to control me. I’m not yours to manipulate.”
Byron was done with words. Frustration brewed inside him, and he knew of only one way to release the tension. Before she had time to blink, he pulled her into his arms with the intention of plundering her mouth. That would keep her from arguing.
One hand slid behind her neck and the other around her back as he tugged her close to him, demanding immediate surrender.
She didn’t disappoint him.
As he slipped his fingers beneath her jacket and began moving them up her side, he had one thing in mind, and only one thing, and that was to feel her breasts and find out whether they were as soft and pliable as he’d dreamed about.
A car driving past backfired before he could find out, and she sprang from his arms, her breathing heavy, her eyes bright with desire. Dammit! He’d forgotten where they were once again.
“Let’s finish this in private,” he said.
She took another step back before speaking. “That’s not going to happen,” she whispered, and Byron could barely hear her above the city noises.
“We both need this, McKenzie. Quit fighting it.” He wasn’t normally a man to beg, but right now he was almost willing to drop to his knees if that’s what it took to get her to come home with him.
“It doesn’t matter, Byron. I’m used to denying myself what I need,” she said, a sad smile on her lips.
“You can only deny yourself for so long before you simply fade away,” he told her.
“I think I’ll take the risk,” she said. He moved toward her, but she backed up, turned away toward the parking garage next to the building, and made her escape.
Yes, he could have chased her down and probably kissed her into submission long enough to get them both satisfaction, possibly even on the hood of her car, but for some reason he didn’t go after
her. She’d said no. As much as he didn’t want to, he needed to respect that.
He went into his building with heavy feet. If he wasn’t going to get laid, he would work until his eyes hurt, and if that didn’t do the trick, he’d leave and beat himself up in his home gym.
Yes, he wanted to bed McKenzie, but what surprised him was that he didn’t want to destroy the woman anymore. Why not? It couldn’t possibly be because he was growing attached to her. Byron refused to attach himself to anyone.
Especially a woman who had a secret or possibly many secrets. A woman who’d run a bordello. That was nothing but trouble.
Chapter Fourteen
Byron took a deep breath as he pulled up to the office building where Bill Berkshire had a modest setup. The man had formally retired years ago, but he’d needed something to do in order to keep from going insane after the death of his wife.
The old codger was a royal pain in all the Knight brothers’ asses because he wouldn’t let them take care of him. He insisted on living in a run-down house, for example, and they had to fight him every step of the way to keep it maintained.
Bill had been a friend of Byron’s grandfather, who’d also been a wonderful man, and when Byron’s parents died, Bill and Vivian had been the ones to step up and take care of them. Byron knew for a fact that the old man had at least a few million dollars sitting in his bank account from that time so long ago — money he’d been assigned for acting as the boys’ guardian — but the man had refused to touch the money, saying it was tainted. He hadn’t wanted anything that had come from the boys’ parents, not after what those two had put the rest of them through.
As much as Byron loved Bill, he wasn’t looking forward to this particular visit. Bill hadn’t told Byron why he was summoning him, but Byron wasn’t a fool. His damn brother must have called Bill and told him that Byron was harassing a young woman. That’s the only interpretation Byron could put on the stern tone Bill had used when he’d demanded he come and talk with him immediately.
Of course, Byron could have said he was a busy man and couldn’t come by right then, but he’d never do that — not in a million years. Bill was one of the few souls on this earth for whom Byron — hell, all the brothers — would drop everything, no questions asked.
Even if that meant suffering through a long lecture.
Once inside the ten-story building, Byron began moving toward the elevator. He’d been to Bill’s office many times before. But several businesses leased space in the building, and before he got too far, a woman stopped him.
“May I help you?” she asked, and Byron wondered if she was supposed to be security. He kept his amusement to himself. A woman security guard wasn’t someone he would fear. Maybe some would say he was a sexist pig. He couldn’t care less.
“I’m just here to see a friend,” he said as he attempted to walk around her.
“You must not have been here in the last sixty days…,” she began, but when his intense gaze zeroed in on her, she choked on her words.
“What does when I have or when I haven’t been here have to do with anything?” he asked, trying to hide his irritation. By the rounding of her eyes, it didn’t appear that he was doing a very good job of that.
“Um…it’s just that…we…um…have new security protocols now. Everyone has to check in at the…um…what’s that called?” Her cheeks flushed.
“Front desk?” he asked with as little sarcasm as he could manage.
“Yes, I’m sorry. I’m not usually so…I don’t know…at a loss for words,” she gulped, her shoulders going back as she tried to regain her composure.
“Fine. I’ll check in,” he said. He wasn’t happy to be doing so, but, then again, it was the same at his own building.
“It’s just that we had a robbery a little while back and the people in the offices wanted better security,” she rushed to explain as she walked next to him to the front desk. And there was his reasoning of why a woman couldn’t be a security guard. She could barely speak, let alone take him down if he decided to get violent.
“I understand.” He was fed up with all these explanations.
“Thank you,” she breathed as they reached the desk together.
“Byron Knight here to see Bill Berkshire,” he said with crisp efficiency.
“One moment, sir,” said the man behind the desk, and he lifted his phone.
“You’re Byron Knight — the Byron Knight of Knight Construction?” the woman gasped, giving him no choice but to turn his attention back to her.
“Yes. Do I know you?” he asked, giving her a second glance. He didn’t recognize her, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. He would bet there were a dozen women he could pass on the street who he’d taken to his bed who he wouldn’t recognize a month later. They meant that little to him.
“No…not really, but my brother has worked for you for three years and talks nonstop about you and your brothers and about what a great job it is. I applied at your building a couple of times, but I haven’t been called back,” she said, looking up at him hopefully.
“I don’t do the hiring,” Byron told her; that was his typical statement when people approached him about work.
“Oh, I wasn’t implying anything,” she hastened to say, but he could see disappointment filling her eyes as she smiled up at him weakly.
To his amazement, Byron felt a twinge of guilt, as if he should at least offer the woman an interview. What in the world was wrong with him?
“You’re all cleared to head up to the eighth floor, Mr. Knight,” the desk attendant told him. “Here’s your visitor’s badge.”
“Thank you.” He turned and moved away from the desk and the woman.
“It was very nice to meet you, Mr. Knight,” the woman said, her eyes flaring the tiniest bit as she reached out a hand and touched his arm lightly. This was a change in the way she was playing things. She was now letting him know she was available if he wanted to ask her out on a date.
He said nothing else as he moved to the elevator. It was best to let her know he was neither interested nor available. Maybe a few weeks ago, and a few months ago for sure, he would have flirted a bit, seen if she piqued his interest at all. But since he’d kissed McKenzie Beaumont not only once but on four separate occasions now, other women held no appeal at all for him.
He wanted only one woman in his bed. And within the next few days, that’s exactly where he was going to have her. He hoped like hell his hormones would then simmer down to more manageable levels and he would stop acting like a damn teenager. Why did the term blue balls keep occurring to him?
It was a short elevator ride to the eighth floor, and then Byron went around the corner to Bill’s office. He would honestly love to know what Bill did all day — maybe the old man just played solitaire on his computer. Whatever made him happy was all that mattered, and if sitting in a downtown office was what he wanted to do, then Byron would continue letting Bill think the rent hadn’t gone up in four years and that he was paying fair market value on the space. He would never know that the brothers had made a deal with the manager of the building and that they were the ones ensuring that the old fellow stayed where he wanted to be.
When Bill looked up, Byron could have no doubt he was on the man’s naughty list — the old man was positively glowering at him. Okay, he probably deserved it for the many things he did do wrong on a daily basis. So he would take the verbal abuse and hopefully act humble enough to leave on Bill’s good side.
He decided to wait and see what Bill would say before he spoke. He didn’t have to wait long.
“What in the hell are you doing playing games with a fine woman like McKenzie Beaumont?” Bill asked gruffly, glaring at Byron from behind his desk.
“It’s good to see you as well, Bill,” Byron said as he moved forward and took a seat in the chair facing Bill.
“Don’t you patronize me, boy. I helped to raise you, in case you don’t remember,” Bill grumbled, and the words Byron had
heard for his entire adult life made him smile.
He’d never said he loved anyone out loud — that brand of silence ran in the Knight family — but without a doubt, he had love for this man — this gruff, grumpy man who was probably the only reason Byron had any humanity left in him at all.
“I’d never think of doing such a thing, Bill,” he said. He was trying not to smile too wide, or Bill would think he was laughing at him, and that was not the case at all.
Bill looked at him suspiciously for several moments before he spoke again. “I asked you a question, Byron. Don’t think you can smile up at me and make me forget why I called you here.”
“What have you heard?” Byron certainly wasn’t going to spill his guts if the man didn’t know anything more than a rumor or two.
“Your brother told me how you went after this nice young woman who is the reason he met Jewell, and that he’s worried you’re going to hurt her. I’ve met McKenzie, and I agree with Blake. She’s a beautiful young woman and she doesn’t deserve to be harassed by the likes of you,” Bill said, his glare not flickering.
“I’m not harassing her,” Byron said. There was no one else he would actually defend himself to. Usually, if someone spoke to him this way — and it didn’t happen often — he would simply get up and walk away. He would never treat Bill with disrespect like that, though. He’d take whatever the man had to dish out.
Besides, he was in a little shock at wondering how in the world McKenzie had managed to bedazzle someone as savvy as Bill. The woman had run a flipping bordello for damns sake. She certainly wasn’t a saint, and he wouldn’t describe her as a nice young lady. She must be even craftier than he had given her credit for.
“You certainly won’t be anymore,” Bill said, enunciating each word.
Byron was silent for several heartbeats, and then he sighed. He didn’t want to give anything of himself away — he never did — but he suddenly felt as if he had zero choice. If he didn’t give Bill something to chew on, this could get really ugly.
