by Lily Zante
Tempting.
He is tempting.
Every little thing about him is suddenly tempting.
I’ve been love starved. Attention starved. Sex starved. That’s why I’m behaving like this.
And now I wonder how his mouth tastes. My beating, crazy, lonely heart demands to know.
I’m convinced he’s back to playing games with me.
She’s not his girlfriend.
It’s supposed to be good news.
Why is that, Kyra?
“Those boxes look pretty well lined up to me. The entire storeroom is symmetrically in sync. You should be proud of your OCD.” His voice is low, and I can feel him standing behind me, not because he’s touching any part of me, but because I can sense it. I’m like a barometer, sensitive to the change in temperature which just shot up. Inhaling what I hope is a good dose of calm, I try to keep calm. “I take pride in my work.”
“What made you think she was my girlfriend?”
He’s not going to let this go. “You seemed really upset,” I answer.
“She’s a good friend.”
“She must be someone special.” I stare him right in the eyes, as if I am X-raying him to find the truth.
“She is.”
“How is she?”
“She’s getting better, but she might suffer from partial amnesia. That will be hard.” He bites his lip, stares away, looking pensive and sad. “She’ll recover, but it’s going to take some time.”
“She’ll recover. That’s the main thing. That’s what you have to focus on.”
His face crumples. “She doesn’t remember the accident. She doesn’t even remember that evening or what she did.”
My mouth falls open. “That’s tragic. That’s awful. I mean, maybe it’s a blessing that she can’t remember the event, but to forget a chunk of her life like that. It’s awful.”
“Sometimes it’s better to erase the things that hurt too much to remember.” I’m not even sure that he’s talking about his friend now. He seems to have zoned out.
And all of a sudden, I don’t even know if I believe him. Even if she’s not his girlfriend, he’s so cut up that it doesn’t make sense. Is he lying to me? My last boyfriend broke my heart so badly that I’ve not been able to put it back together. There are cracks in it that will never mend. I don’t want to fall for another liar.
BRANDON
* * *
Sometimes people want to forget. Sometimes it’s better to forget because remembering is too painful. It’s something that most people won’t understand. Kyra gets too close to the truth without even realizing. I’m scared that she sees inside me and knows every single demon that haunts me.
Seeing Emma’s empty desk, and finding myself becoming increasingly irritated by the new PA makes me want to be at Redhill instead of at Hawks Enterprises. At first I found it safe and comforting, being around Kyra but lately, coming here isn’t working out so well for me.
It’s bad enough that I have to put up with the homeless food nights and seeing Yvette and her children. She brings them with her and it seems to have become a regular thing. I hate that it forces me to face the things I would rather forget.
I have to come clean. Or quietly slip away.
I spend the next hour talking to Fredrich and Simona, and answering their questions about Emma, without giving too much away. Kyra isn’t stupid. She knows I’m being vague.
They start talking about the city hall event on Friday.
“Will you come, Brad?” Simona asks me.
“Uh … I don’t think so.”
“Come on, dude. It’ll be an awesome night.” Fredrich seems to be eager for me to come along.
“I’m not up to it, sorry.”
“Don’t force him,” Kyra chimes in, throwing me a sympathetic glance.
At the end of the day when the others have left, she comes over to my desk. “That was nice of you, sending food boxes back with Yvette on the night of Elias’s fight. She told me you did that.”
I slot my pen into the desk organizer, unable to meet her gaze even though I know she is staring at me. “We had lots of food left over.”
“But still, it was nice of you. Her kids are still really traumatized from—”
I hold my hand up, wanting her to stop. I don’t want to know. I already can’t sleep well and I don’t need to know what hell Yvette and her kids have suffered. “It’s fine. Really.”
“Okay,” she mumbles softly. I’m aware that I’ve been giving her wrong signals all day. Knowing the type of person she is, she’ll blame herself for something that is clearly not her fault.
It’s mine.
My life was fine and orderly before I came here. Now, memories of my past stare me in my face. I can no longer push them away. This thing with Redhill isn’t going according to plan, and I’m falling behind with dealing with matters at Hawks Enterprises. I stress about Emma, and then I stress some more about Kyra.
I could leave. Just disappear for a month, take a vacation. Go out into the wild, and hopefully, by the time I come back, all will be forgotten.
But I can’t leave with Emma still in the hospital, especially when the reason she’s hurt is because of me. I’m the one who told her to pick up the papers from my office and to drop them at my house.
The accident happened near my office.
This is my fault.
“Are you sure we can’t convince you to come to City Hall?”
“I can’t. I’m busy. Sorry.”
“You could have met Elias Cardoza.”
If I hear this one more time, I’ll explode. “My bad.” I force a smile, something I seem to be doing most of the time.
She gives me a weighing, assessing look. Her standard X-ray look, and I involuntarily fold my arms, as if this will be protection enough to prevent her from delving deeper inside me.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
KYRA
* * *
What’s up with that man? It’s almost as if he has a split personality. One minute he’s fine, and the next he’s closed off. I can’t work him out.
I keep my head down, and I ask Fredrich to get Brad to work with him. Maybe it’s a good thing that he declined the invite to Elias’s event. It would be awkward trying to make conversation with him there.
Simona, Fredrich and I are going together, but because Elias supports our organization, we were given a few extra invitations. We held a raffle to make it fair so that everyone from the company had a chance to go. Entry is by ticket only, and I’m supposed to meet Simona and Fredrich there
On the evening of the event, everyone leaves early.
I’ve been racking my brains on what to wear. A dress? Nice jeans? Dressy slacks? It’s going to be a fancy affair, but I’m not sure how fancy.
I finally settle on a pair of dark jeans which don’t look like jeans, but they are, and I dress them up with a spaghetti strap top. It shows off more of my tattoos, but I’ll have my nice blazer on most of the evening.
I get ready quickly, but Simona calls as I’m about to leave my place. She’s forgotten our invitations in her desk drawer. Thank goodness we gave the raffle winners theirs. I pass by work on the way to city hall, and I quickly rush out of my car and head into the factory. I’m surprised to see that the light in our office is on. Dayna, the factory manager, is still here. She whistles when she sees me. “My, girrrrrl. You’re lookin’ mighty fine.”
“Thank you!” I blow her a kiss as I rush up the stairs in my high heels.
BRANDON
* * *
The Redhill office is empty and there’s only me up here and a couple of the workers on the factory floor. I have nowhere else to go, so I stay on at work a little longer and wonder what’s going on at city hall. With Jessica and Kyra at the same place, it seems like I’ve made the right decision to stay out of it.
Jessica will have plenty to brag about, but I’m not eager to see her anytime soon. Fredrich and Simona will have plenty to say about it
. I wonder what Kyra will think, and whether she will drone on about Elias the way Jessica has.
I drum my fingers on the table, wondering what to do with myself. I’m not going to pass by the hospital today. Emma’s sisters are over, and they’re going to find it odd that I keep visiting. They’ll get the wrong idea.
I fucked up. If I hadn’t asked her to pick up the paperwork for me, she wouldn’t have been in that accident.
I hold my head in my hands, elbows propped on the desk, wanting to clamber out of my pity party. No amount of me feeling bad will transform Emma back to exactly who she was.
That’s something I will have to live with.
Like my guilt over Kane.
I stand up and walk around, hoping to shift these gloomy thoughts. I should go home, get something to eat, or head back to my own office to deal with the mounting deluge of emails. I’ve had a dozen messages from the new PA. She is completely useless. Maybe I should check in at my office and see what a mess she’s made of today.
But something else draws my attention. With the office is empty, here’s my chance to see if I can find anything of interest on Kyra.
Like the dirt I was so sure I’d find.
The dirt I could expose her with.
Back in the days when I was so sure that no one could be as well-meaning as Kyra.
How wrong I was.
But still, I walk over to Kyra’s desk and sit in her chair, gingerly staring up at the ceiling to make sure nothing is about to fall on my head and kill me.
A moment of madness hits me and I snoop through her drawers, rummaging around, looking for something, anything. A clue to her. I want to know more about her. I take a peek but I find nothing significant. Some hand cream, lip balm. A copy of Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. A hairbrush and a whole heap of unopened pastel-colored Post-it notes and other stationery.
I tap my fingers on Kyra’s desk. It’s not super neat, but it’s not a chaotic mess either. I see some letters lying around under a paperweight. One of them has Greenways Committee letterhead.
I shuffle through the pile. I’m about to tug the Greenways Committee letter out from under the paperweight when the door opens.
“Damn!” Kyra stands there, her knee bent as she glances over her shoulder examining the sole of what looks like a high-heeled boot. She looks amazing. “Damn heels,” I think she mumbles.
I let go of the letter I was about to pull out and fall back into her chair. The sound of it creaking makes her look up at me.
“Brad …” It’s a breathless whisper, shot through with surprise. “You’re here late.” Furrows form on her brow. I can’t talk, because I’m fixated on her bare arms. The small sun tattoo—the one I’ve seen many times before—almost winks at me.
“I’m ... I was ...”
“You said you were busy tonight?”
“I was about to leave. Check in on Emma …”
“That’s why you’re not coming with us tonight?” she asks. It’s a lame excuse and I don’t know how to reply because one white lie leads to another and before I know it I’ll be caught up in a fishing net of deceit, feeling like a hapless little fish. I stand up, because I’ve been caught red-handed—not that she seemed to notice—and because she looks so breath-taking.
Stunning, is the word that shoots to my mind. Something else, white hot desire, shoots directly to my cock.
I’ve never seen her dressed up. She’s not red carpet dressed up, but she looks different. Dark jeans hug her hips. High heels, pencil thin, make her legs look longer. A blouse with thin straps caresses her skin. She’s the epitome of rock star glam. Rock chick glam. My interest in her just hiked up fifty notches.
The transformation is a complete makeover but not a drastic fix-the-teeth-get-Botox type of makeover. I could have sworn she only went home less than an hour ago so she hasn’t had long to get ready but she already takes my breath away.
She sashays into the room, keys in one hand, handbag in the other, and goes straight over to Simona’s desk where she fumbles around in her drawers.
Fuck.
She has another tattoo in between her shoulder blades. It looks like a compass, and it has me thinking. Why that, and why there? Where she can’t see it but I can? A hot-blooded man like me who now has no choice but to gawk at it because I sure as hell can’t seem to turn away.
My eyes are riveted, and it’s like I’m seeing a new side to Kyra for the first time. She is sexy as hell. There was something about her before, which I begrudgingly noticed, but this... this is her sexiness on steroids.
I have to work hard not to let my eyes rake down the length of her as she walks towards me.
“The invitations,” she says, holding them up. “Simona forgot them, and now I’m running extra late and—”
“You look like a model.”
She laughs, confusion making her brows slant before she looks away. We don’t exchange words like this.
“You do,” I insist.
As if a blindfold has been untied from around my eyes, I see Kyra in a whole new way. In a possessive way. In an I’ve-got-to-have-her way.
She ignores my compliment and comes over to my side. When she bends over and pulls open her drawer, my attention falls to her back and her compass tattoo again. I’ve never been with a woman who has ink on her body. I’ve never been with a woman like Kyra, and now I want her even more than before.
She has a beauty on the outside that matches what’s inside, and she has the biggest heart of anyone I know.
Jessica couldn’t hold a candle to her.
My cock twitches. As Kyra rummages around, the throbbing between my legs intensifies. This is awkward.
“What are you looking for?” Not that I should be asking her. She should be asking me what the hell I’m doing sitting in her chair.
She pulls out what look like a couple of lipsticks. “I’m so late,” she wails, oblivious to the effect she’s having on me. My heart lurches as she opens and swivels the lipsticks one by one, presumably to check the color, but with her back to me, I can see clearly the tattoo on her back, between her shoulder blades. I reach out and touch it, not caring that I’ve invaded her space. She flinches, as if the shock is electric, then bends over and rummages through her drawer again.
“Your tattoo. It’s a … compass.” I try to compose myself. “Why’s that, Lewis? Are you lost?” I venture a casual laugh that I don’t feel. The moment is hot, sparky and weighted with the boulder of desire which is suddenly too big for me to ignore.
She turns to look at me, her smoldering eyes burning into me, causing a chain reaction that threatens to explode. I’m going to turn into a jabbering wreck, unable to string together a coherent sentence if she stays here any longer.
As if she can sniff out my weakness, she tilts her head, observing my reaction. “Not anymore.”
I hold my breath, wanting her to elaborate, wanting to ask her but my tongue seems to have stopped working and my mouth has dried up. It’s only my eyes that function, raking down the length of her. My gaze naturally drifts to her sun tattoo, then to her spaghetti straps, then my brain starts to wonder if her bra is strapless or something else. All this in the space of a few seconds. I wish I was going with her.
“Not anymore?” I manage to ask. She’s wearing a touch of makeup. Her lashes are thick and long, her lips moist and pouty. Her skin is velvety. I wish I hadn’t turned down the invitation tonight. I suddenly don’t like the idea of Kyra being at city hall, around Elias Cardoza. I don’t see how anyone can resist her looking the way she does, and the chances of Cardoza talking to Kyra this evening are a dead cert.
She turns to leave and it sends my hormones into a tailspin, seeing her back, the silken skin, and those pipe-thin straps.
“I never had you pegged for being into tattoos.” This is my pathetic attempt to catch her attention, to need an answer that makes her face me once more.
She stops, turns and tilts her head, as if she’s considering whether to tell
me or not. My breath hitches in my throat. It feels like a secret, and now I want to be her best friend so that I can hear it.
“I wasn’t. My ex was. He had them all over. I was curious, so I got this first.” She touches the sun on her shoulder. Involuntarily, I lick my lower lip. “Then he convinced me to get a rosebud tattoo.” She rolls her eyes as if she regrets it. The whole time she’s talking, I picture tasting those lips.
I fold my arms, as if this will help stem the flow of blood from rushing south. “Convinced you? I didn’t think anyone could convince you. You’re a woman who knows her own mind.”
“Love,” she says, with a shrug, as if it was a huge mistake which now means nothing. Her face turns serious. “We were together for four years, and he cheated on me for three of them. I dumped him the day I found out. Three years of my life with a cheat. It knocked me for six. Left me lost and broken, but Redhill gave me direction. This ...” She hooks a thumb over her shoulder, “is to remind me that I’m on a journey, an adventure, even, and that I’m not stuck.”
I want to say something to comfort her, but I’m scared of saying the wrong thing because I’m glad that shithead is out of her life. Crazy fucker, cheating on her. He doesn’t deserve her. “You’re better off without him.”
She nods, then stares down at the invitations. I hope she doesn’t have her eye on Cardoza.
“He was great at the beginning, when I was starting Redhill, and he helped me a lot. I mistakenly thought we shared the same ideals. What I didn’t know was that he shared our bed with someone else.”
“His loss.” I leave the words floating around in the heavy haze of desire which permeates the air. It surprises me that she is opening up so much. Longing and lust topsy-turvy in my stomach, and I want to suck her lower lip, to elicit a moan from that pretty little mouth of hers. “Where’s the rosebud?” I ask, in a voice so hoarse that I barely recognize it.