“So, Jewell,” he asked point-blank, “are you going to tell me what’s going on with McKenzie? What is she so desperate to hide from me?”
McKenzie gasped in outrage. “There’s nothing going on,” she told him before Jewell could say a word. She then looked sternly at Jewell before turning back to Byron. “And if there were something going on, Jewell would remain loyal to me and not spill my secrets.”
From the mischievous look on Jewell’s face, McKenzie had a sinking feeling that her friend wasn’t above selling her out. She’d been with Jewell when one of Nathan’s calls had come in, and though she’d tried to cover it up as much as possible, she was shaken up, and Jewell voiced her concern. At least he hadn’t shown up at her door.
“I know you women like to stick together and all, but if McKenzie is in trouble, don’t you think it would be in her best interests to have as many people helping her as possible?” Byron asked, reaching across the table and patting Jewell’s hand.
McKenzie wanted to punch him. “I will repeat that nothing is going on,” she practically growled.
“I think your friend likes to keep secrets,” Byron remarked to Jewell. Then he turned and looked at McKenzie, first making her want to squirm in her seat, then ticking her off. He was making her feel like a scolded child.
“She isn’t sharing with me either right now, Byron. If she were, and if I felt that she needed help, I would have to agree with you,” Jewell told him, surprising McKenzie.
“Okay, I can accept that,” Byron said, before he got a mysterious look in his eyes and turned back to Jewell, a megawatt smile suddenly on his lips. “Is she dating anyone?”
Both women went silent for a moment when that question came out. McKenzie was the first to recover. “Don’t you dare answer that, Jewell,” she ordered, but it was Byron she glared at. “I am working for you right now, Byron, for some strange reason, and I care about doing a good job. But my personal life is none of your damn business.”
He shifted again, his leg completely glued to hers, and though she wanted anger to remain her main emotion, it wasn’t. He leaned down close, way too close, his expression unchanging, and he spoke only when he knew she was completely tuned in to him.
“I want to get to know you more, learn every…little…thing about you. This thing between us is personal. If you can’t take the heat, I suggest you walk away right now,” he warned her.
It took a moment for McKenzie to say a word, and then her shoulders came back and she glared back at him. “And if I do?”
He was silent for so long that she didn’t know if he was going to answer, but then his lips, which had tightened with his last words, turned up again, this time in a far more conquering smile, which scared her. Be my guest, McKenzie. I’m not forcing you to work for me.”
She hesitated a moment and then glared at him again. “Yes, you are. You completely bullied me into the job.”
“I’m a businessman, McKenzie, and I know how to get what I want.”
“And if I walk away now?”
“You have free will,” he told her. “Do you want to walk away?”
McKenzie forgot that Jewell was sitting there across from them as she looked into Byron’s eyes. Did she want to leave? That was the million-dollar question. She should want to leave, want to get as far away from him as she possibly could. But is that what she really wanted?
She couldn’t say the words that might set her free. And she didn’t understand why not.
“I didn’t think so. You’re just as curious as I am about what in the hell is going on between us,” he said before turning his attention back to Jewell. “So, tell me, when was McKenzie’s last relationship?”
He went on as if they hadn’t just had a spat, a tense moment, or whatever in the hell they’d had. McKenzie was so much in shock at his interrogation of her friend, she didn’t protest this time.
That mischievous light returned to Jewell’s eyes. “I honestly don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t ever seen McKenzie with a man.”
Byron’s hand came up and rested on McKenzie’s leg, and though she wanted to remove it, she also loved the way it felt there.
McKenzie had good reason to hate all men — she actually prided herself on feeling that way. And even though she knew Byron’s intentions were far less than honorable, she couldn’t shake the pull she felt toward him.
She was in more trouble than she could handle. And it seemed that it only got worse each new day. Her thoughts were interrupted when the waitress came and took their food order, then disappeared again after flirting, of course, as much as possible.
Luckily, Marsha soon returned to bring refills on their drinks, and the tension was broken. The conversation turned to more neutral topics.
Byron was giving McKenzie a reprieve.
But McKenzie knew the reprieve wouldn’t last.
Chapter Thirteen
Byron could see the tension rolling off McKenzie in waves. This was exactly where he wanted her, wasn’t it? So why did he find himself backing away? He should be going in for the kill, but instead he found himself sitting back, eating away at his pasta Bordelaise and sipping on a good red while McKenzie talked to Jewell and slowly calmed down.
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.