by T. K. Leigh
“You don’t look so good.”
I shot my head up, my eyes fierce, irritated that someone had witnessed my moment of weakness.
“What are you still doing here? I thought you left.” I crossed my arms in front of my chest.
Shoving his hands in his pockets, he shrugged in a dismissive way. “I didn’t think driving was the smartest idea, so I called for someone to come and pick me up. I’m just waiting for him.”
“Not responsible enough to hold your liquor?” I replied sarcastically.
“I am. Just had a lot on my mind. What’s your excuse?” He took several carefully measured steps toward me, a lamppost dimly illuminating my slender silhouette.
“Nothing. I’m not the one who drank a fifth of a bottle of bourbon. I’m perfectly fine to drive my responsible ass home.”
He ran his tongue across his lips, appearing to consider my words for several awkward moments. “Have you always been so cold?” he finally asked, shocking me with his bluntness.
“I’m not cold,” I shot back. “Hell, you don’t even know me.”
He raised his eyebrows and smirked in a knowing and somewhat contemptuous manner. “I know more than you think I do.”
Shaking my head and trying to ignore the heat coursing through my veins from his hooded and impassioned eyes, I said, “Well, then, by all means. Please be so kind as to educate me about what you think you know.”
“You like control,” he began, his voice smooth and seemingly unaffected. “In fact, I’m starting to get the sense that you crave it above anything else. You’re a micro-manager. Every last second of your day is probably planned out months ahead of time. That’s why you were constantly checking your phone at the bar. You weren’t checking your email or other social media sites. No. You were checking your calendar.”
I opened my mouth to respond, words failing me as I wondered how he could have noticed what I was looking at from across the bar.
“This timetable of yours,” he continued, “includes everything. That’s why you hate that your body is reacting to mine right now,” he said evenly, closing the distance between us.
“I’m not reacting to you,” I whimpered, taking a few steps back, running into the brick wall of the restaurant.
A sly, mischievous grin crossed his exquisitely handsome face as he leaned in to brush a tendril of hair behind my ear. The contact sent a shiver up my spine and I closed my eyes momentarily in an attempt to regain my poise.
“You can try to convince yourself of that all you want, Mackenzie, but you can’t hide the lust covering your body.”
His finger caressed my cheek in the most delicious way and I fought to subdue the small moan that wanted to escape.
“Your chest has begun to rise and fall in a faster and more arrhythmic pattern since we began this lovely conversation. Your cheeks are flush−”
“I’ve been drinking,” I interrupted, my voice firm as I met his eyes once more.
“Not enough to cause that amount of red on your face. You ordered a red wine. If you really were flushed from the alcohol, your lips and tongue would certainly show the telltale signs of having imbibed that amount of wine. Luckily for me, your lips still have that slight pink hue that I’m sure makes them taste absolutely divine.”
“It’s nothing,” I countered, absorbing his expression. He was intense, too intense, and it caught me completely offguard. “Maybe I’m just horny.”
He chuckled slightly, maintaining his seemingly unresponsive composure. “I’m sure you are. I would be, too, if I approached relationships the way I think you do. A real relationship isn’t in your plan for the immediate future. But a girl has needs, doesn’t she? And part of me thinks that’s why you live in this vacationer’s paradise. The turnover rate of men is perfect for you. Within a week, or perhaps a month, they’re heading back to where they came from and you can continue with your perfectly ordered life. I’ll tell you one thing you weren’t expecting, though. You weren’t expecting to meet me, Mackenzie,” he murmured, his lips nearly brushing with mine as he kept me blissfully trapped against the wall. “And you certainly weren’t expecting to think about me even after I had left.”
He leaned in toward my ear and the sensation of his warm breath on my neck sent a chill through me. I let out another small moan in response, ready to rip out my vocal chords for constantly betraying me.
“Am I right?”
Biting my lip in a feeble attempt to stifle any more moans, I remained still, mustering every last bit of energy I had to slow my racing heart. His mouth hovered over mine, his alcohol-drenched breath caressing my lips, and I almost leaned in so I could feel those full lips on mine.
“Mackenzie, am I?”
Straightening my spine in steely determination to maintain control over my body’s impetuous response, my doe-eyed expression turned severe.
“No. Not even close.”
“Suit yourself,” he said, winking as a large black Escalade pulled into the parking lot. A man clad in a suit jumped from the driver’s seat and quickly opened the rear passenger door, obviously waiting for the handsome stranger to hop in.
“Good evening, Mackenzie. You may not think about me, but I’ll sure as hell be thinking of you…and those beautiful pink lips.” He spun abruptly on his heels and retreated into the darkened SUV, leaving me completely unhinged and wondering who the hell he was.
I leaned against the wall, needing its support. It felt as if my legs had turned to jelly, my brain synapses refusing to fire all because of his devastatingly good looks and apparent dominance. Placing my hand on my chest, feeling my heart beat faster than I could ever remember, I had no clue what to think of the intrusive but sensual exchange with the mystery man.
“No, Mack,” I said, giving myself a pep talk. “It’s not time yet. He’ll be bad for business. He’ll−”
“Mack?” a voice broke through.
I snapped my head up to see Jenna standing in the doorway.
“Are you okay? What have you been doing out here?”
“Just getting some fresh air.” I pushed myself away from the wall and headed toward her.
“So is that what they’re calling it these days?” she remarked, giggling. “I saw that hottie talking to you. What did he say?” Her eyes grew wide with curiosity.
“Nothing important. Nothing even remotely important,” I said blankly as I followed her back into the bar.
As we sat and drank copious amounts of wine that evening, I began to hate the mystery man. No matter how hard I tried, I could not stop thinking about his electric green eyes, his full lips, and the primal way he regarded me.
He was right.
It was completely unexpected.
Bastard.
Tyler
“DAY TWO,” I SAID to myself as I woke up on a brilliant Saturday morning in mid-March, the sun a cruel bastard as I fought against its invasion. My head was pounding from the amount of liquor I had consumed the previous evening. All the work I had done over the past six months could have been tossed into the garbage in a second. One wrong word, one mistimed movement was all it would have taken… But that didn’t happen. It had gone just as I had hoped. Actually, it went better than I could have possibly imagined. The connection and conversation actually felt surprisingly natural. I thought it would have felt too forced, too fake, too…scripted. But it wasn’t.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a real conversation with a woman I found attractive. After leaving my former life and family behind, joining the navy six years ago just after my twenty-second birthday, I never really paid much attention to women, other than sweet-talking them for a quick fling. But that wasn’t going to work here. This needed to feel more real, more permanent…at least to her.
Drowsily getting out of my massive bed and padding across the lush flooring of my master bedroom, I opened the door to the en-suite bathroom, turning on the faucet of the dual vanity, and splashed some water on my face. I peered into the mirror as droplets fell down
my brow and cheeks. My green eyes were bloodshot from the abundance of alcohol in my veins, coupled with the lack of sleep. I barely recognized the man staring back at me. I looked the same as I had over the years, my features having grown more mature and distinguished as I neared the age of thirty, but there was an emptiness within that was written in my reflection. No matter what I tried in order to chase away the loneliness, nothing worked.
“Lightning rarely strikes the same place twice,” I said solemnly, almost as if reminding myself that this was as good as it would ever get for me.
I took a moment to compose myself before straightening my spine and becoming the Tyler Burnham persona I had developed over the past half-year. Rule number one when trying to convince someone that you’re someone else is to become that person. Think like him. Act like him. Even drink like him. Of course, I had lucked out on this assignment. My cover ID wasn’t a cover ID at all, although I did have to adjust my usual personality to attract the target. I was told to be myself, the elusive Tyler Burnham who was finally coming out of his older brother’s shadow.
It was relatively unknown that I had taken on a leadership role in the private security firm our family owned, so the backstory that I was the owner and backer of one of the hottest new clubs on South Padre Island gave me the opportunity and means to observe my soon-to-be asset for months. And the ability to use our family’s name to impress said asset when the time came. After all, for the past few years, I had been named as one of the country’s most eligible bachelors. Americans love a rich, good-looking guy. And they love a hero. I guessed my veteran status, coupled with my last name and wealth made more women’s mouths foam than I anticipated. But I wasn’t interested in any of them. The only woman I was interested in was a woman I would never see again.
Retreating from the bathroom and down a long hallway adorned with works of art my interior decorator had selected, I made my way to the lower level of my unreasonably large house, complete with an in-ground pool and a mooring for my speed yacht.
I set about making coffee in my one-cup brewer, praying the caffeine would help dull the throbbing in my head. Grabbing a water bottle out of the refrigerator, I chugged the liquid, the dryness of my mouth temporarily relieved. A familiar clicking on the hardwood floors sounded and I turned to see Griffin, my French bulldog, running toward me. Or his version of running, which could probably have been more accurately described as wobbling.
“Hey, boy,” I said, crouching down to scratch his head. “You were having a big sleep. I didn’t want to wake you. Were you chasing squirrels in your dreams?” The dog responded animatedly to my question, licking my scruffy chin. “Want to go out?”
Griffin barked loudly and I walked him to the French doors leading out to the backyard, allowing him to run free in the fenced-in area.
A sputtering sound brought my attention away from the dog and I re-entered the open kitchen, grabbing my warm mug from beneath the one-cup brewer. I booted up the MacBook sitting on the kitchen island and retreated down the hall, removing one of the portraits from the wall. Punching a six-digit code into the hidden safe, it beeped open and I retrieved the contents.
I returned to the kitchen island, sitting down on a barstool, and inserted the memory stick into a USB port on my laptop. Sighing, I opened one of the many folders containing all the research I had conducted over the past several months.
Finding out all the personal information about the girl had been much easier than I expected. Since the past fall, I had remained in the shadows, following her every move on the island. She was an obsessive worker, having spent nearly eighty hours a week preparing for the opening of a new swanky restaurant on the island. She rarely broke from her routine. She arrived at her fitness center at nine in the morning every day. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays were cardio and leg days. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays were cardio, back, and arms. On Sunday, she took a ninety-minute yoga class.
She didn’t date. She appeared to have no interest in getting romantically involved with anyone, and this had been my greatest struggle over the past several months. I could have easily given up and allowed Alexander, my older brother and the head of the security firm, to give the assignment to someone else, someone with more experience. Instead, I viewed her reluctance to date as a challenge. The more research I did on her, the more I found out her reasons for not dating. It became my job to slowly ingrain myself into her thoughts, her dreams, her fantasies. Then I would be able to possess her, body and soul, making her forget her reasons for not wanting to date, making her trust me with her deepest and darkest secrets. It was the only way to succeed in the mission.
But now that I had met her, had looked into her brilliant eyes, had felt her body writhe in response to my words, it wasn’t just an abstract job anymore. It was real. She was real. A real person with real feelings. I began to question whether I could follow through with my task of earning and then betraying her trust. Whether I’d be able to walk away from the woman whose smile, eyes, and laugh had crept their way into my dreams at night.
Toggling through photo after photo I had taken of her since starting my assignment, I stopped when I found the one I was looking for. Her dark hair was blowing in the ocean breeze as she looked to the sky in the predawn hours. Her hands were clasped as if deep in prayer, a single tear falling down her soft and ethereal face.
Conflicted, I ran my fingers across the image on the screen, wondering what that skin would feel like, why she was running before daybreak, why she was transfixed by the sky, why she was crying. I knew I would be faced with the answers to those questions, and more, and I hated myself for it.
Checking my watch, I saw that it was just a few minutes before nine in the morning. I removed the memory stick and returned it to its hiding place. I grinned when I saw Griffin’s dopey face pressed against the French doors, begging to be let back in. Allowing him to enter, I went about preparing his breakfast before grabbing my keys and gym bag.
Another day.
Another deception.
Mackenzie
“ARE YOU READY FOR tonight, baby girl?” Brayden’s voice came from my laptop Saturday afternoon as I sat in front of my vanity, painstakingly curling my hair, ensuring that not one strand was out of place.
“Yes and no,” I replied, looking at the reflection of my computer screen in the mirror, my friend’s comforting face soothing my nerves. “I should be ready. Hell, I’ve been planning for this day since I took my first business class freshman year…”
“Or since you left the womb,” Brayden mumbled.
“I don’t know about that.”
“I do. I’m fairly certain you were born with a yearly journal in your grubby little paws, scheduling each of your feedings well in advance.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at Brayden’s somewhat astute assessment, regardless of the improbability of such an occurrence. “I’ve never heard you complain about my organizational skills before. Hell, if it weren’t for me, I doubt you would have ever picked up a book to prepare for the bar exam, darling.” I grabbed the final section of hair and wrapped it around the curling iron.
“You’re probably right. I had higher priorities at the time.”
“Named Keith? Or was that during the Mason phase? Or perhaps Anthony?” I gasped, giving him a sly grin. “No. I’m pretty sure it was during ‘you know who’. Am I right?”
“I swear on my nana’s grave, if I commandeer that smart phone of yours and see you’ve kept tabs in your calendar on whom I’ve dated and when, I will personally check you in to the loony bin.”
I smirked playfully, tapping my blood red fingernails on the ornate wood of my vanity, waiting very patiently for the response I knew would come.
“Fine!” Brayden exclaimed theatrically. “You were right. It was totally Will. He was my ‘ill’.”
“What do you mean, your ‘ill’?” Spinning around in my stool, I faced my laptop, scrunching my eyebrows.
“You know, baby girl. We all
have them. That one guy who will always be your biggest regret. The one who you fell head-over-heels in love with. Although, in retrospect, it was probably just lust. The one who knew all the right things to say to you to make you feel like you were the most special person on the planet. Then you found out that none of it was real, that you were just being used. That’s what an ‘ill’ is.”
I straightened my spine, brushing off the memories of Charlie that broke through the floodgates. I loved him, or so I thought, and he left me broken-hearted, confused, and alone. Worse, he made me feel completely helpless and, after that night, I vowed to do everything I could to never put myself in that situation again, to never allow anyone to betray my trust.
“Well, that’s never happened to me.”
He eyed me, knowing all too well how Charlie had betrayed me in the worst way imaginable, but didn’t bring him up.
“Well, maybe that’s because you’ve turned down every decent man who has asked you out in the past decade!”
I sighed. “I’ve gone out with a few people. I dated Mitchell for a month or so,” I corrected.
“And what was the problem with Mitchell? I thought he was perfect for you.”
“It’s just… I’m still looking for my turtledove. Someone who completely sweeps me off my feet. Someone who makes me shiver just from his proximity. Someone who makes me want to melt into a puddle. Someone who makes me completely speech…” I trailed off, staring out the window as my words consumed me.
“What? What is it?” Brayden lowered his voice. “Did you meet someone? Because if you met someone who fits that description, what are you doing talking to me? You should be out chasing that down. He’s your turtledove, princess.”
Green eyes flashed through my mind. Those bewitching green eyes that belonged to the handsome stranger I met last night.
All day long, I had tried to shake our chance meeting as I went through the motions of my routine. Everywhere I looked, I was somehow reminded of him. On the way to the gym, I passed a construction site, wondering if he did, in fact, work construction. At the coffee shop, as I waited for my nonfat latte, I heard Coldplay’s Green Eyes. On my way home from the restaurant earlier, I was behind a large, black SUV, wondering if it was the same SUV that picked him up. Even when I wasn’t faced with strange reminders of him, I still couldn’t stop thinking about him. His confident and somewhat commanding attitude charmed me from the time he spoke his first word. I had often been told my hard and sometimes callous demeanor intimidated many men, but this one didn’t seem to be daunted by my feistiness and dominance. In fact, the more I examined and toiled over what had occurred, the more I began to think he saw me precisely for what I was. A challenge.