Slaying the Dragon (Deception Duet #2)

by T. K. Leigh

  He sighed, apparently unsure of how to handle my outburst. “After everything went down, I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to give you space, then Alex came to me with a new assignment. The thought of abandoning you, of not being there to look out for you and ensure your safety… I couldn’t stomach it. The only reason I ended up taking the assignment was because Alexander promised you would be better protected than the president. It’s been the only thing that’s given me some sort of peace of mind over the past few months.”

  I remained speechless, absorbing his words.

  “Like I told you earlier, Mackenzie. I never let you go.”

  Staring between Tyler and Martin, I straightened my spine. “Who are the others?”

  “Three of your new employees at the restaurant,” Tyler admitted, running his hand through his hair.

  My eyes widened. “How? I do all the hiring!”

  “We made sure their qualifications were such that you couldn’t say no,” Martin offered.

  “Who?”

  Tyler hesitated briefly. “Chris, one of your line cooks; Gretchen, a server; and your bar manager, Kevin.”

  I gasped. “Kevin?”

  He nodded.

  “Okay. Who else?” I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it all earlier. I thought Kevin was sucking up to me and that’s why he always seemed concerned with how I was doing.

  “Did you notice the new guy working the front desk at your gym?”

  I nodded.

  “And I’m sure you noticed a new personal trainer there who tried to hound you?”

  I nodded once more.

  “That’s it, plus Martin.”

  I stood, dumbfounded, unsure of what to think of Tyler’s confession. I knew Wyatt…Martin was keeping an eye on me, but everyone else? I didn’t know why it made me feel as if I was being lied to all over again, but it did. And I hated that feeling. I hated wondering what else Tyler was keeping from me.

  “I see,” I finally said, turning and continuing across the lobby toward the elevator.

  “Wait! Mackenzie!” Tyler shouted, running after me. “You’re not mad, are you? I just–“

  I spun around, my eyes fierce, anger pooling in my veins.

  His expression turned pleading as he attempted to reach for my hand. I ripped it from his grasp, refusing to fall under the spell his touch had on me.

  “I couldn’t let you go, Mackenzie,” he said softly. “I needed to make sure someone was looking out for you wherever you were.”

  I glared at him as the elevator dinged, announcing its arrival. His confession hanging in the air, I entered the car.

  Just as the doors were about to close, leaving Tyler behind, I huffed. “Well, are you coming or not? I didn’t realize you needed a written invitation.” I allowed a small smile to cross my face.

  “Yes, ma’am!” Tyler beamed back, jumping into the elevator right before the doors closed and it began to ascend to the twelfth floor.

  “You’re not mad, are you?” he asked softly, breaking the silence.

  I sighed, leaning against the wall. “No, Tyler. I’m not mad. Perhaps a little irritated or annoyed, but not mad. You just need to start being open with me. I don’t want you to wait to tell me things until you have to and are on the spot. I don’t want things to be like that between us. After everything, I need you to be honest with me. No lies. No keeping information from me. I want to learn to trust you again, Tyler, but I can only do that if I know I’m getting full disclosure from you. Okay?”

  “Okay,” he said, grinning a mischievous grin at me.

  I scrunched my eyebrows. “What?”

  “Nothing,” he replied, shoving his hands in his pockets, his grin growing wider as he rocked on his feet. His dimples popped and I almost heard a whimper escape my mouth at how adorably sexy he looked at that moment.

  “Tell me!” I pinched his side. He grabbed my hand and before I knew it, he had me pinned against the wall and was hovering over me. My breath caught, my patience with taking things slow wearing thin.

  “Us,” he murmured, nuzzling my skin with his nose.

  “What?” I breathed.

  “You said ‘us’. I can’t tell you how that makes me feel.”

  The elevator dinged and I pushed against him, exiting into the corridor. Glancing over my shoulder, I smirked. “Out of that whole conversation, that’s the only thing you’re taking away from it?”

  “No,” he said. “I get what you’re saying. I will be nothing but an open book with you from this moment forward, regardless of the consequences. But that word…” A wide smile crossed his face. I tried to hide my own smile at the excitement that seemed to ooze from every inch of him. “It gives me hope that I didn’t fuck up the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  “You’ve got a long way to go, Mr. Burnham.”

  “I know. But if my memory serves me correctly, something tells me the wait will be worth it.” He raised his eyebrows, his eyes raking over my body in a devious way.

  His persistence shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me. It was one of the things that attracted me to him in the beginning. He saw me as a challenge back then. I could only assume he saw me the same way now. Despite wanting to take things slow, it was oddly comforting to have him here with me, to feel his warmth approach behind me as I unlocked my door. I felt more safe and at ease than I had in months.

  I stepped through the foyer and into the living area, clicking on the lights. When I sensed Tyler was no longer behind me, I spun around to see him hesitating just past the doorway, eyeing my security alarm panel.

  Crossing his arms in front of his chest, his expression turned concerned. “Please tell me the only reason you didn’t arm your system was because you simply forgot.”

  I continued into the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of water from the refrigerator, and shrugged. “Everything’s been fine, Tyler. No break-ins.” Taking a sip of my water, I faced him. He took strong, determined steps into my open living area, his presence filling the room in an almost intimidating manner, his gaze unrelenting.

  “Anyway…” I sat down on my couch. “It seems you’ve had someone keeping an eye on me, so I don’t really see why it matters.”

  “It’s not just yourself you have to worry about now, Mackenzie.” His face softened as his eyes traveled to my stomach. He sat down beside me. “Don’t get me wrong.” He took my water from me and placed it on the coffee table. Clutching both my hands in his, he continued, “I can’t bear the thought of anything happening to you, but there’s a lot more at stake now so, please, do me a favor and arm your system. It’ll make me feel better. Can you do that?” He furrowed his eyebrows, a pleading look on his face. From the beginning, he had always been fiercely protective of me. It was one of the things that drove me crazy and made me all the more attracted to him at the same time. Still, he had a point. It wasn’t just me anymore. What if someone broke in after the baby was born? I didn’t even want to think about that possibility.

  A look of resignation crossing my face, I nodded. “Okay. I promise I’ll use the system again.”

  “Thank you.” He kissed my temple softly, then got up. “Well, everything here appears safe and secure. Good night, Mackenzie.” Smiling, he retreated from me, pulling the door open.

  “Wait!” I followed him. “When can I see you again?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “When tomorrow?”

  He reached for my hand and brushed his lips against it, reigniting the longing I felt from his absence. “You’ll find out.” He winked. Just as he was about to close the door and leave me alone with nothing but my thoughts, he popped back into my condo. “I almost forgot.” He pulled a black journal out of his cargo shorts and handed it to me. “I want you to have this.”

  Taking it in my hands, I ran my fingers over the leather, lingering over the gold embossed letters T.J.B. “What’s this?”

  “Earlier today, you said you thought I forgot about you and that’s why I never wr
ote or called. I knew this wasn’t something that could be settled with a phone call or letter. I’m pretty sure you would have hung up on me, or tore up whatever I wrote you. But that didn’t stop me from wanting to tell you what I was feeling. That’s what’s in this journal… Four months of heartache.”

  I looked up at him, seeing the broken version of Tyler I had seen on occasion, particularly early on in our relationship when he spoke of Melanie. And I knew… I knew the distance between us tore him up more than any other heartache he had suffered in his past.

  He grabbed my free hand in his and held it over his heart. “It’s yours, Mackenzie. It always has been. And these pages will prove it.”

  ~~~~~~~~~~

  Dear Mackenzie,

  I guess it’s better than writing “Dear diary”, as if I were some pre-pubescent girl pouring her heart and soul out to a pretty pink journal. But there are some similarities here, I guess. I am pouring my heart out. It’s been two weeks since I last saw you. Fourteen nights I’ve been forced to fall asleep without listening to your breathing. 336 hours since I last felt your skin on mine. 20,160 minutes since I saw your beautiful, perfect smile.

  I don’t expect you to ever forgive me for what I did, but I do hope you might understand one day why I did what I did. There’s really no excuse for it, other than pride, a desire to be accepted, to prove I wasn’t a failure. And you had to pay the ultimate price…as did our love.

  It was love, of that I am certain. It was for me anyway. Yes, it was messy, chaotic, and wild, but aren’t the best love affairs just that? I loved you without abandon, with every last cell in my body, with every last beat of my heart. And I still love you.

  When I first laid eyes on you, I felt as if I already knew you, and it wasn’t just because I had studied up on who you were. Watching you walk along the shoreline in the moonlight and look at the stars as if they held all the answers to the questions you were too scared to ask, well… Something sparked inside me. Something I thought I gave up on years ago. Hope. You’re my hope, my dream, my light in a world of darkness.

  But life isn’t supposed to be easy… Love isn’t supposed to be easy, but it was for us. I loved you fast and hard. You possessed my heart before you even muttered a single word to me. And the hardest thing I ever had to do was watch you walk away from me because I still love you. I wake up each morning with an ache in my chest, a hole in my heart… A piece that I gave to you and don’t want back.

  I miss you, Mackenzie. Every hour of every day. I miss you in the morning when I have my coffee. I miss you in the afternoon as I attempt to teach these refugee children how to play one sport or another. I miss you the most at night when the world is quiet, barely a sound to be heard for miles and miles. I stare at the sky, the stars more brilliant than anything I can remember. Silence surrounds me, reminding me you’re not here to fall asleep next to me, and my heart aches a little bit more.

  I should have treasured each and every moment I had with you. From the beginning, I knew our time was fleeting and I took it for granted. I was so consumed with trying to protect my heart from what I knew would inevitably happen, I squandered what precious time we had together, and I’ll never do that again.

  I know hearing the words “I’m sorry” won’t fix this, but I intend to prove to you that I truly am sorry for what I did. I just pray I eventually have the opportunity to do so.

  Until then, I love you, my lightning strike.

  Tyler’s words consumed me as I lay in bed long into the early morning hours, surrounding myself with his thoughts, his emotions, his love… It was like a blanket wrapped around me, keeping me safe and secure. With each simple gesture…from being patient as I worked through whether I could learn to trust him again, to his beautiful words, to the bewilderment in his eyes when he felt our baby…I was remembering all the reasons I had allowed him into my heart all those months ago.

  The realization washed over me like a wave. It wasn’t the Tyler I originally thought he was whom I had let into my heart, my soul, my life… It was this Tyler. The Tyler who swore he was a broken man. The Tyler who thought he lost me. The Tyler who did lose me because I was too blind with anger to see the truth. His love was as real and pure as anything I had ever experienced, as was mine.

  Picking up my cell phone, I hastily typed a text to Tyler, punching in the new number he had given me earlier in the day.

  I love you.

  I waited with bated breath for a response. One arrived almost instantly, causing a brilliant grin to spread across my face.

  I know. I loved you even before I truly knew what love was. Love is you. Your smile. Your heart. Your patience. Sleep well. Te queiro, mi cariño.

  Mackenzie

  WITH A RESTORED SENSE of belonging, I drove through the streets of South Padre Friday evening to meet Jenna and Brayden for girls’ night. The island again held the promise and magic it did months ago, and I knew it was because Tyler was back. As I went about my routine throughout the day, I did so with him on my mind. I had hoped he would stop by the restaurant, but he didn’t. Instead, we sent text after text to each other. With each message that popped up on my phone, my grin grew wider and wider. The butterflies were back after their long absence. His words were sweet, passionate, and even a little hot, reminding me of why I had lowered my walls and allowed him in after years of remaining distant with people.

  Pulling up to the tapas bar, I threw the valet the keys to my brand new Audi and entered the restaurant. As I walked through the glass doors, I grew breathless, the scene that greeted me reminding me of that fateful Friday night when I first met Tyler. He sat in the corner, on the same barstool, a dark liquid in a tumbler in front of him, five cherry stems on his napkin. He wore the same green shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing his muscled forearms.

  As I stood admiring him, I noticed his physique had become more pronounced. His shoulders appeared broader, his leg muscles incredibly defined. His skin was a tad darker than I recalled, and the ends of his dark hair were lighter. I could only assume all that time in the African desert had an effect on his appearance…in a good way. He was more rugged, the slight stubble on his jaw causing a burning need inside me to feel it on my skin.

  I approached the bar and sat next to him. He looked at me, an excited smile on his face before his expression flattened. “Mackenzie, you can’t sit there.”

  Straightening my spine, I asked, “Why?”

  “I want to go back to the start, where it all began. You say you want to trust me, and I really, really want you to trust me, but we need to start over. I need to show you how that first night would have gone if I wasn’t on a job. So, please, sit in your normal seat and pretend you don’t know me, okay?”

  Slowly lowering my legs back to the ground, I slid off the barstool. “Well, you better hurry up. Brayden and Jenna will be here any minute.”

  “Since when are they on time?” he commented sarcastically, and I shrugged my shoulders in agreement. I loved my friends dearly, but punctuality was not their strong suit. “I have some time to work with.” A mischievous grin spread across his face.

  A flurry of jitters rushing through me, I retreated from him and took a seat at my usual barstool.

  The bartender approached, beaming, asking me what I wanted to drink. I glanced at Tyler, seeing he had ordered the same exact thing he did all those months ago, right down to the number of cherry stems. But I couldn’t exactly order a bottle of wine, as I had that night.

  “A bottle of sparkling water, please,” I said with a smirk on my face.

  She retreated from me momentarily to get my drink. Within seconds, she reappeared with a tall green bottle and a wine glass. Opening the bottle, she poured a bit into the glass and garnished it with a lime.

  When she left me alone once more, I took a sip, my body alive with anticipation.

  “You gonna drink that whole bottle by yourself?”

  Glancing to the far corner of the bar, I couldn’t help but la
ugh. “So what if I am?” I shot back, trying to revert to the cold-hearted, detached woman I was that night. However, that wasn’t who I was anymore. I was no longer the girl who would live her life in accordance with her schedule. I was a woman who finally learned to live again, who took risks, who loved, who jumped…who was all in.

  “Didn’t mean anything by it,” he said, toying with the cherry in his drink. “My apologies.”

  My eyes remained glued to him, waiting for his next move. Looking up from his drink, a brilliant smile crossed his face. “My name’s Tyler,” he said, scooting down several seats and holding his hand out to me.

  I surveyed it skeptically, a nervous tingling spreading through me. I didn’t know if I was supposed to shake it or not.

  “It’s just a hand. See, what happens is–”

  “Serafina,” I interrupted, allowing him to take my hand in his. “My name is Serafina.” My chin began to quiver as the name left my lips. It wasn’t until this moment that I realized not only did Tyler cover up his true identity from me, but I did, as well. He wanted me to fall in love with the real Tyler. I wanted him to fall in love with Serafina, even if I wasn’t sure who that was anymore. Still, I wanted to find out, and maybe Tyler would help me discover exactly who that was.

  “Serafina,” he crooned, his voice barely audible. Closing his eyes, his fingers lingered over my hand and traced a delicate pattern on my skin. “That’s a beautiful name.”

  “Thank you,” I murmured, lost in the moment. All too soon, he withdrew his hand from mine, leaving me with an empty feeling.

  “So…,” he began, nervously playing with the ice in his drink. “What do you do?”

  “Ummm…,” I started, feeling my face flush red with nerves. For some reason, regardless that Tyler already knew all my secrets, I wanted to make a good “first impression”. Something about being there with him, getting to know him all over again, made it feel like the first time. “I own a restaurant.”