“This one isn’t being recorded.” He doesn’t give me time to reply or assess his answer, softening his voice to softly order, “Talk to me, sweetheart,” that endearment becoming exceedingly appealing and far too sexy. “What’s going on in your head right now? Because something is. I see it in your face.”
I was right. He is seeing things he shouldn’t be able to see, because like him, I’ve learned not to let things show. I’ve learned to be what I need to be and nothing else. “I thought you weren’t going to call me sweetheart?” I ask, deflecting but also concerned.
“When we’re alone, everything changes.”
My belly flutters with the inference that “alone” comes with sexy, forbidden promises. “What if you slip up and do it when we’re around people?”
“I don’t slip up.”
I believe him, but considering how he impacts me, how easily I feel his every word and action, I’m concerned about me, not him. “What if I do?”
“You won’t. You haven’t so far, or you would not be standing here right now, and we both know it. Why would you start now?”
“I’m off,” I say, not denying what he obviously knows. “I’m all over the place today, and that isn’t the demeanor of a person surviving.”
“The survivor hasn’t gone anywhere. She’s right there. Let her out to play. You can handle Alvarez. You can handle these crappy designers today.”
“They aren’t crappy. They’re my idols. People I’ve admired for years.”
“First,” he says. “They’re just people, who thought the same thing you just expressed about other people, at one point in their careers. And now, they’re not only your co-workers, they’re your employees and you’re their boss.”
“I’m not,” I say, letting a hint of bitterness into my voice that I do not intend. This was my dream, but now…I hesitate, but say it. “Michael is their boss.”
“You are their boss,” he says pointedly, “and that gives you control we both need you to have. So own it, sweetheart. Own everything you touch today, the way you own Alvarez.”
“The control “we” need to have?” I ask, and I hate how appealing it is to have a “we” in my life that doesn’t include Michael Alvarez.
“We both benefit from your perceived loyalty to Alvarez. We’re making sure that’s exactly what everyone else sees.”
I don’t miss yet another inference, this one dangerous, and I cautiously ask, “Because you don’t think I’m loyal to him?
“I see more,” he confirms. “You know I do.”
He does, and with the floors ticking by, I don’t have time to try to change that, nor do I think I could anyway. I really don’t want to change that with Kyle. What I want is for him to be real and honest, a friend. More so though, I want us both to be alive tomorrow. “You need to know that I can own the job,” I say, “but I don’t own Michael Alvarez. I don’t have that kind of control over him. No one does. You know that, right?”
“What I know is that he doesn’t own you and I’m going to make sure you know that, too.”
“You have watched the Godfather, right?” I ask trying to make him see reason.
“Didn’t he die?”
I blanch. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that everyone has an expiration date, and it’s not our time.”
Is he telling me he’s here to kill the man in my bed? Is he – Oh, God. Is he a Fed? Does he know my sister? Is he helping put her in the line of fire or will he in the future? I try to think back to how he’d replied to my question about knowing her. I could recite the information in her file…He’d avoided a direct answer. If he’s a Fed, what do I do next? And if I ask him directly, will he tell me?
“Are you FBI, Kyle?”
“Ex, sweetheart. I’ve told you that. You know that.”
But the truth is, if he’s a master of being undercover, like my father, and even my sister, I might not.
“Ask me what you want to ask me, Myla,” he says, clearly aware that I’m chasing real answers.
“Do you know my sister?”
“You already asked me that.”
“And you never answered.” The elevator dings.
“If you want to ask again, do it tonight, when we’re alone,” he says, shutting down the topic. The answer feels a little cryptic, but at this point the doors have opened and he’s holding them for me. “I had Les park my car near the door so we’re in the garage, and while there are no cameras on our level, if you see anyone, assume they might be the enemy.”
“I already do,” I admit, before I exit the elevator, and enter into the dimly lit space to do the other thing I always do, and immediately scan for danger, and activity I don’t find.
Kyle is instantly beside me. “This way,” he says, clicking his keychain, the rear lights of the vehicle flashing.
“What kind of car is that?” I ask, noting the sporty, slightly lifted back end, and thick tires.
“I’ll pretend you didn’t ask that,” he says. “Because not knowing what this car is, is an absolute sin against man and metal.”