Betrayed (5 page)

Chapter Eight

A
bead of
sweat dripped down Byron’s neck as he took a break and leaned against the wall of the building he’d been pounding with a hammer. No, he didn’t have time to be out on the job site. And no, he wasn’t running away from the office, where he’d brought in a woman who was making his life a living hell.

Okay, maybe he was running from that woman. He was a fool – a certifiable fool. He could admit this in his own head. He’d had her working for him for a week. At any time, he could hire one of her employees and see her maybe once or twice a year if she happened to be at his brother’s house when he was. End of problem. But the thought of doing just that turned his gut inside out.

Absurd, simply absurd.

“We’re heading to lunch, boss. Do you want to join us?”

Byron turned to see his foreman waiting by the work truck and the rest of the men piling into varying vehicles as they got ready to go in search of food. “No. I’m going to finish up what I’ve been working on and head back to the offices. I’ve already wasted too much of my day,” Byron told him.

“It’s never a waste to work up a sweat,” Wyatt said before jumping in the truck and taking off.

Byron moved to his own truck and pulled out a bottle of water from the cooler, then sat down under a tree not too far from the building. The place was going up fast and it was a beauty. A new mall was being built on the outskirts of Seattle, far enough away to not feel like the city, but close enough to get to, and the owners wanted it to have a historic feel to it with several architectural features that he didn’t often get to do anymore. All three of them had been working on and off on this site, since it was such a pleasure to work on.

Closing his eyes, he leaned back feeling a small measure of peace. He did love his business, loved working with his brothers, and loved being independent from someone being able to boss him around. If he could only quit obsessing about a certain woman, his life would be damn near perfect.

Opening his eyes after a few minutes, Byron noticed horses out in the field. What the hell? Where had they come from? They were looking at the opening to the building, and Byron turned, then froze at what he saw.

“McKenzie?” he called, but she only smiled and gave the smallest shake of her head before holding up a finger against her lips.

Byron stood, to move over toward her, but again she shook her head, and then those delicate fingers of hers lifted, resting on the top button of her blouse, and Byron’s body instantly froze.

Looking him in the eyes, she moved her other hand up, and then her head tilted back and her fingers traveled down the front of her blouse as she moaned aloud. Byron was instantly rock solid. He took a step toward her, but her head came back up and she shook it a third time.

Fine. If she wanted to play, he would let her play. He stepped back and leaned against the tree, his body pulsing, his eyes glued to McKenzie as those fingers rose again and she slowly began undoing her blouse, one small button at a time. Finally, he would see what her clothes kept hidden from him. As her full breasts were revealed to him, it was everything he had imagined and more, with her dark pink nipples jutting out.

She didn’t wear a bra to work? Now that was going to make him even harder when he was at the Knight Construction offices. His eyes shifted to her waist as she reached behind her and undid the zipper at her back and then the skirt was dropping to the ground.

No panties, either? Whoa!
Byron feasted his eyes on her uncovered womanhood as she kicked the skirt away, then spread her legs and leaned against the doorway of the building, her chest pushed out, her ass dipping low as she opened and closed her legs.

Enough was enough.

Slowly, he moved forward. Her head turned as she looked at him, a come-hither expression playing in her eyes. “Is this what you’ve been wanting, Byron?” she asked as she stood back up and faced him, one hand high on the door, as she leaned there and waited for him to reach her.

“Oh, this and so much more,” he whispered huskily. “You’re making me burn alive.”

“It is a very warm day,” she said, lifting her free hand to her neck and letting it travel down between her breasts and then along the plane of her stomach. She stopped at the top of her incredibly sexy mound.

“It’s certainly getting hotter,” he gasped as her finger dipped lower and circled the very part of her body he wanted his mouth to devour.

“I’m getting lonely here, Byron,” she purred as she reached out toward him.

She didn’t need to say anything more. Byron closed the small gap between them and pulled her roughly against him with his arms. His head descended and he finally tasted her sweet lips. He plundered her mouth, his hands reaching down and gripping her backside, pulling her against the roughness of his jeans and the straining hardness of his arousal.

She reached around him and grasped his hair with both of her hands as she groaned into his mouth, begging him for more. He would give her anything she wanted — anything at all.

Her kiss was filled with promises of what was to come, and he accepted what she was offering, making his own silent promises of what he would do to her, with her, for her. This woman was making him come unglued, and he never wanted to put the pieces back together again.

She pushed her hips against him, her leg lifting behind him, her foot caressing his calves as she tried to get closer. “Clothes. They need to come off,” she panted before connecting her mouth back to his in a passionate display of possession.

With an urgency born of pure desire, Byron’s knee went between her thighs, and he pushed her legs apart. Then he dropped to his knees, his head resting for a moment on the silk of her stomach as he inhaled her sweet scent. “So perfect, so beautiful,” he said with reverence.

Grasping one leg of hers, he raised it onto his shoulder, spreading her wide open for his view. Without any further hesitation, he leaned forward, finally getting his first taste of her heat, and he nearly released inside his pants.

His tongue swiped up and down the soft folds of her womanhood, and he sucked the pulsing flower of her core, her cries of pleasure telling him how fast or slow to go. He worshipped her body, learned every inch of her most tantalizing area, before he could take no more.

Releasing her, he stood, and in less than a minute, his clothes were tossed aside. “I need to take you now, McKenzie,” he told her.

“Finally,” she gasped, her eyes looking down, pleasure filling them at the sight of his throbbing erection. “It’s all mine,” she said then looked back up and licked her lips.

Their bodies met together without him feeling any movement, and then he was lifting her, and soon her tight heat was surrounding him, her perfect core holding him inside her.

“Oh, Byron, more,” she cried out as she laid her head on his shoulder, her teeth sinking into his skin. He didn’t care. The pain grounded him just enough not to explode inside her.

Still, he moved faster, gripping her derrière in his hands as he cried out her name, seeking release for both of them. Leaning down, he licked the salty skin of her neck and sucked on the point where her pulse was thundering.

“Please, Byron…please…,” she moaned. “I need…”

The feel of her breasts sliding against his chest, her legs gripped tightly around his hips, her mouth caressing his shoulder. It was all too much. “Let go, McKenzie, let go,” he cried out, his own pleasure building.

“Yes, now!” she cried as her body held him tight…

“Wake up!”

Byron shot upright, confused, hard, and not knowing what in the hell was going on. He looked around, his eyes trying to adjust to the bright light. Where was McKenzie?

“What in the hell were you dreaming about?” one person asked.

“I don’t know,” said another, “but I’ll have what he was having.” Laughter accompanied that comment.

With a groan of frustration, Byron realized he’d fallen asleep beneath the tree. To make matter worse, he must have been saying something unfortunate, because his crew was back and they were enjoying his pain.

“You might want to go and find the girl and get some satisfaction,” his foreman said with a big guffaw.

“Go back to work, Wyatt. I’m heading to the offices,” he grumbled.

As he walked stiffly back to his truck, trying desperately not to show the men how painful this walk of shame was, he thought finding the girl was a damn good idea. It was time that they closed on
this
deal.

Chapter Nine

M
cKenzie was late
getting back to work. She wasn’t in the best of moods to begin with since her miserable “boyfriend” of long ago thought it would be fun to torment her. No, she wasn’t afraid of him, but he probably figured if he pestered her enough, she would give him what he wanted to make him go away. He was almost right about that.

She couldn’t see how even as a young and vulnerable nineteen-year-old she could have been attracted to that man. What in the world was wrong with her? As soon as she had that thought, sadness enveloped her. Of course, there was something wrong. How could she ever forget?

No. This wasn’t the time or the place to think of the past. But the past was continually in her face. Though deep regret filled her with that thought too, she had to remind herself that at least she was living her life. Even if she had encountered some bumpy roads along the way, she’d been able to handle those roads without utter disaster.

It wasn’t that way for everyone.

Again, she had to shake off the depressing thoughts, and then walk quickly back to the offices. When Byron had come in yesterday, he had been in a foul mood, snapping at her and everyone else. Today, luckily, he’d been in business meetings with his brothers all morning, so she hadn’t had to deal with his foul mood so far. She was going to be more than happy when she was free of him. She had enough to worry about without dealing with a man prone to such incredible mood swings.

Slipping back inside the Knight Construction office building at about quarter past one, she made her way to her desk, where she clicked on her computer and tried to return to work mode. When she heard a shuffling noise and looked up, she found Byron’s standard scowl, and it was harder to deal with than normal.

“I thought you were going to take this job seriously,” he said.

“Of course I am,” she replied.

“Then why do you find it acceptable to take over an hour for lunch?”

What the heck? Was he timing her? A freaking billionaire? She hadn’t been on the clock in a lot of years and no one had ever questioned her work ethic. She’d always worked over the clock. But she wasn’t going to argue with him.

“Is there something you want, Byron?” she asked with a sigh.

“Yes, for you to do your job and do it right.”

That was just plain rude!

“I
am
doing my job. Is there anything else you want?” She was losing what little cool she had left, and she still had most of the afternoon to get through. Most of the afternoon
and
two and a half more weeks.

He paused for a moment before speaking again. “Get the Boise papers gathered. I want to go over that situation in an hour.” With that he turned and walked away.

McKenzie had to take a deep breath and then another before she pulled up the files. She would go over them one final time, of course, so she would have every detail on the tip of her tongue. Yes, right there on her tongue… The last thing she wanted was to have him think she couldn’t do her job. All she needed right now was to get fired and to have her company’s reputation ruined before it ever had a chance to really take off.

Then again, maybe that was exactly what she needed. She could start fresh in a new place. But how was that going to help her? She’d discovered years ago that she couldn’t run from her problems — no matter how much she wanted to. She could escape for a while, but inevitably, even if it took years, her problems would once again find her.

Before she could dive into work, her phone rang, and instead of ignoring it, she glanced down then cringed when she saw the number. This wasn’t the time to deal with more problems, but she knew there was a good chance he’d come barging through the doors if she ignored him. They had only kept him in jail for three days after he’d trespassed, telling her sorry, but he hadn’t committed a crime. He’d called her every day since. He wasn’t too good at taking a hint, so after much hesitation she picked up the phone.

“I’m not going away, McKenzie. As a matter of fact, I’m hanging out at the park right across the street from where you work. You know you can never be too careful when you’re out walking. Things can happen to a person.”

“You don’t scare me, Nathan. You’re pathetic and weak, and no matter how much you bug me, I’m not caving into you, so please just go back to the hole you crawled out of and leave me the hell alone.”

“I
should
scare you,” he said, but he couldn’t quite pull it off.

“I don’t have money to give you, but even if I did, I would rather burn it in a dumpster on the side of the street than give you anything I earn. Are you hearing me?”

“You may have got the drop on me once, but it won’t happen again.”

“Maybe if there weren’t such a little-boy whine in your voice, your threats would come off as a lot more effective,” she said. The thing was, that even though he was a pathetic excuse of a human being, she couldn’t forget he was also desperate.

“I have nowhere else to go,” he said.

“It’s not my problem—”

He hung up on her, and McKenzie let out a sigh while rubbing her forehead. How many more problems could she take before she exploded? She was soon to find out, because it looked like they were going to just continue to pile up on her.

McKenzie sat there and concentrated on her breathing for several moments before she realized she wasn’t alone. She didn’t want to look up, didn’t want to know how much of the conversation Byron had heard. She was going to lose this job for sure, and then she would have even less than she had now.

How much had he heard? His expression gave nothing away. She was silent as she waited to hear what insult he was going to skewer her with next. Hell, he might as well bring it on. Her day couldn’t get any worse.

“My office…now,” he told her, and he turned and walked out.

He didn’t need to say anything further. She knew only too well what men expected when they used that tone.

She rose from her chair slowly and took a step in the direction of his office before her shoulders went back and a bit of the fire that had seen her through many hard times flared up inside her. She was sick of getting bossed around, sick of men trying to control her. Wasn’t that the reason she’d opened the doors to Relinquish Control in the first place? To bring control back into her life.

Instead of following Byron blindly into his office, she grabbed her purse and made her way to the women’s restroom around the corner from her office. And she took her time. She washed her face, the cool water feeling incredible against her heated skin, and reapplied her modest amount of makeup. Then she propped herself up against the sink and stared at her image.

“You are McKenzie Beaumont. You have survived so much, and you will continue to survive. No one can make you feel inferior. No one but you can decide your course of action. No one can trample on the life you have made for yourself. Bullies are bullies because they can’t earn respect any other way. Deep down, they’re cowards.”

This was a speech she had delivered to herself many times in the course of her life, and she had a feeling she’d say it many times more. Yes, she wasn’t immune to fear, and yes, she’d have weak moments — everyone did — but no, she wouldn’t let those moments define who she was. And she wouldn’t allow anyone to keep her down for long.

With her head held high, she left the restroom and headed back toward Byron’s office. Her armor was back in place and she was going to keep this job. She was going to make a success of her new business and beat back Nathan Guilder, damn him to hell. He was nothing more than a weak man trying to make up for his tiny dick.

McKenzie nearly smiled at her thoughts. That was until she stepped into Byron’s office and saw the way he was looking at her. This wasn’t going to be her easiest battle.

Not her easiest battle by a long shot.