The Other Side of Greed by Lily Zante
Chapter Thirty-Three
BRANDON
“We can’t do this,” Kyra says a few days later, on the weekend. I volunteered to help her get the supplies. I’ve replaced Fredrich in that sense, and whether he or Simona suspect anything between us, I can’t tell.
We’ve finished returning everything to the storeroom and I’m sitting in her car with mine parked next to hers. I don’t want to leave her. I want to spend the day with her. I want all night.
If anything, Fredrich seems to be relieved that I’ve stepped in to do some extra work.
And W-O-R-K it is.
A lot of it is physical, lifting and carrying. We give away huge amounts of food on these nights and the supplies need to be constantly replenished. That Kyra has been doing this by herself, and during her free time, leaves me in even more awe than ever before.
“Is this how every evening’s going to end?” she asks, when we have put all the food away and cleaned up the storeroom to her OCD standards. I have her pressed up against the wall. “This isn’t me, sneaking around like a teen.”
It’s not me either.
This isn’t the first time she’s mentioned it. I press my forehead against hers. She’s right. I don’t do stuff like this.
Between the cold ice maiden that is Jessica, and Kyra, the unexpected temptress, it’s a wonder I can keep it together.
No sex in months has left me a starving, desperate wreck.
“We should get out of here,” I murmur against her lips. She’s sitting straddling me. This is taboo, and that’s why I’m addicted to her. That’s what I tell myself when I can’t reason or explain my actions.
I like being with her. I cherish our moments alone. I want more of her, and I am torn, because the man I was when she first met me is not the man I am now.
We have been meeting in secret, mostly in the storeroom, for the past few weeks. Like delinquents, making out, and stealing kisses when we can.
This can’t go on for much longer. I am the CEO of many companies, I own homes all over the world and have business interests in more industries than I can count. Snatching moments like this in a storeroom, or in the car, are beneath me.
But being with Kyra has the effect of changing my DNA. If I’m not careful, I’m in danger of losing who I am. And why I came here.
You don’t care,a tiny voice inside me whispers.
We can’t spend our lives making out in places and snatching any sliver of opportunity we get. I have wined and dined women on my private jet, in homes all over the world.
If I showed her who I am, she wouldn’t want to be with me. But she deserves better than to be creeping around, hiding from colleagues and snatching stolen moments of time. I want to be with her without worrying about getting caught.
I can’t invite her to my place without it ruining my cover. I am biding my time, waiting for the right time, because when it comes, when I tell her, she will hate me. Each moment I’m with her, I forget, and when we’re apart, I worry and know I should stop.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” she says, her hand in mine, our fingers entwining. I bring her hand to my lips and kiss her fingers. “About relocating somewhere else.”
The muscle in my jaw flexes. “Move? To where?” I rest our entwined hands on my lap. A niggling, uneasy feeling is worming its way through my intestines. After what her ex did to her, I’m no better.
Maybe this is the moment when I come clean.
“Someplace else. Somewhere that has everything we need.”
I drop another kiss on her hand and it elicits a tiny laugh from her. It’s sweet and flowery, pure and clean, a far cry from Jessica’s cackle.
“Yeah?” At times like this I forgot the reason why I am here. Why I came here. This is going to get complicated. I will end up hurting her, and that’s not something I want to do willingly anymore.
“I worry about the building. I can’t afford to get the roof fixed, but I also can’t afford for anyone to get hurt or killed.”
“But you love this area, and your building isn’t falling apart.”
“Maybe relocating would be better. Maybe that chunk of plaster falling was a sign.”
An uncomfortable laugh leaves my lips. “A sign? What is this? Looking to the universe for answers?”
“Meeting you, that’s a sign.” Her eyes shimmer with happiness. “I hated you on first sight.”
“Don’t I know it.”
Her car isn’t the roomiest of places, but she fits snugly against me. My hands instinctively lift to her waist, then under her t-shirt and against her bare skin. This is a new move for us and it excites me. Any moment now, she’s going to feel my erection against her.
We smile at one another, and suddenly I don’t want her sitting on my lap, I want to be naked in bed, inside her. The thought makes me harden. As if she can read my mind, she leans forward and kisses me, her tongue sliding between the seam of my lips, teasing and seducing and torturing me. My hand slips up and cups her breast. I slide it under her bra, feel her nipple pebble against my thumb, standing up like a rosebud.
Her kiss deepens, her moan signaling her appreciation.
When she pulls away, her eyes are dark and shiny, her lips moist. I tweak her nipples, my hands greedy and possessive under her strained clothing.
She looks around, then moves her hand on top of mine, halting it. “People can see.”
“You’re helping me to see the business in another way, Brad. Moving to bigger premises means I won’t have to build another factory.”
I should be ecstatic because this is what I wanted. My mission will be accomplished. She’s considering my advice and all I have to do is make sure she follows through. If Kyra moves, then so will most of the others. The rest, the ones who stubbornly refuse to move, I’ll get rid of by condemning the land. It was only Kyra Lewis I needed to convince, and now, it seems, I have.
And yet, it doesn’t feel like a victory. I don’t feel like a winner.
I let out a shaky exhale. My hard-on is making it hard for me to think, and with this woman looking at me as if I’m the best thing to happen to her and her business, I suddenly feel unsure. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“You’re the one who suggested it.”
“I know, but, you need to really think it through, Kyra.”
“I have been. It makes sense. Everything started to make sense once I saw things from another angle, and it’s all thanks to you.” She kisses me on the nose, dismissing my serious words easily.
I blink at her, not knowing what to say. “You even came at the right time, when Fredrich injured his arm. It was perfect timing. I needed you and you showed up.” She laughs in pure ignorance. Heat burns across my lying face.
“You weren’t so happy to have me around,” I remind her. “Simona made me feel welcome.”
“Simona thought you were eye candy.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Eye candy?”
“For me,” she clarified.
“I feel objectified.”
“She thought it would be good for …” She clears her throat, looks away. “After my ex and all that drama … I kept you at a distance.”
I understand it now. I cup the side of her face and attempt to make her laugh. “Afraid you might have fallen for my charms, otherwise?”
“Taking care of my invisible bruises. When someone cheats on you, it’s almost impossible to be able to trust again.” I press my lips gently against hers, to silence those fears and thoughts. To create new ones for her. But even as our lips touch and I inhale her scent, soak in her familiarity which is now almost like my second skin, a warning bell goes off in my head.
I am sliding across thin ice. I might not be cheating on her the way her ex did, but my initial intentions were just as bad.
“Anyway, I was thinking, why don’t we go looking at some places I could move to? You said you had some ideas.” She pulls me out of my thoughts and stares at me as if I can solve all her problems.
She’s just solved mine, but it doesn’t feel like a victory. “I ... uh... sure.”
“I’ve got nothing better to do now.” She shrugs. “How about we go now?” She must have seen my expression because she hurriedly says, “Unless you’ve got plans.”
I can hear it in her voice. The hint of nervousness. The doubt. The suspicion. There is a lot about me that must give rise to questions that are unanswered. She never pushes me, but I can tell that she needs more answers than I am able to give her.
I’ve done enough damage, and even though she doesn’t know about it, she soon will. I’ll break her. At the very least, I’ll ruin her trust in me.
“I have a better plan,” I offer.
“I’m listening.”
I’ve been hiding her. I’ve been hiding what we have, what I feel, and all because everything about me, about us, is based on lies. “Why don’t we get some lunch?”
“Lunch?” Her eyes light up, as if I’ve announced that I’m taking her on a luxury vacation. How easily some people are pleased. A flash of happiness crosses her face; something new, something I like to see, especially when she’s looking at me. My heart floats in my ribcage, in a way that is alien to me. “You want to?”
Her words break me. They imply so many things that must be weighing on her mind. I decide in that moment that when we go to lunch, I will tell her everything.
Since we’re in her car, she offers to drive, and we go to lunch, finding a little restaurant tucked a few streets away from Grant Park.
Our conversation is easy and flows naturally. We seem to have come full circle from who we were back on the first day I met her. I’ve come to admire her because she has balls, a hard work ethic, and truckloads of compassion. Hard not to have that compassion given the kind of people we see on a weekly basis. It has softened even a hardened cynic like me. I once couldn’t bring myself to even look at these people, let alone make time for them, but my newfound understanding arises from seeing their lives magnified under the lens of the food nights; of seeing them up close, recognizing their pain and suffering and doing what we can to ease it in some way.
Kane’s ghost haunts me. I try not to think about it. I’ve tried to push it away and as always, the story I’ve told myself from the beginning is that he is better off without me.
I watch in amusement as Kyra takes a huge bite of her chicken burger then looks at me as if she wants to say something. For a small woman, she has the biggest appetite I’ve seen. Not once have I heard her groan at the menu in dismay or count calories. She hasn’t ordered salad. She happily chomps away at her fries, dipping them into the hot, fiery dip, oblivious of my scrutiny.
Mentally, I compare her to Jessica. It’s impossible not to. Why I now find everything about Kyra endearing confuses me. I have a checklist of things for a suitable wife and she doesn’t tick any of those boxes.
Jessica can take an entire evening working her way through a plate of salad. Kyra eats with gusto. It’s refreshing to see. She picks up an big fat fry and slowly bites her way through it, then licks her fingers, looking extremely sated. This is something else I’ve never seen Jessica do. She doesn’t lick her fingers, but she digs her claws in when she sees fit.
“What?” she says, when she sees me observing her.
“Nothing. I just like watching you eat.”
Her expression changes from embarrassed to sombre and I can tell that something is playing on her mind. “Are you ever going to tell me what you do on your days off?”
And there it is. What she wants to know. Do I tell her that I spend those days at Hawks Enterprises? That I am the CEO, not just of that company, but of many others.
That I am not the man she thinks I am.
“There he goes again, keeping quiet,” she says, loud enough for me to hear. “Is it something illegal?” She lowers her voice and surreptitiously looks around.
I sit forward, moving my face closer towards her, conspiratorial-like. “Illegal?” If only she knew how close she was to the truth. I have corrupt people in my pocket. People who will lie and bend the truth and the law for me so that I can gain. It’s what my father has done, and taught me to do.
I am Brandon Hawks. I will always be Brandon Hawks. The other boy never existed. “What type of illegal activity do you think a man like me would get involved in?”
She drinks through her straw again, and my eyes are riveted to the pout of her lips.
“I don’t mean illegal,” she says, naive, good, caring Kyra. She could never envision the depths of my deception. “But ... are you a male stripper or an escort on the side?”
Her question makes me roar. “You think I could be in that industry? With this body?”
She sits back, breaking the bubble of our tiny, sexy spell. “You’re just fishing for compliments.”
“Oh?” I like this. “You think I could? Are you saying I would make a good stripper?”
“Stop fishing, Hartley. You’re not skinny or obese.” She leans in, further than before, making it impossible for me to look anywhere else but into her eyes. I find myself tumbling into them faster than I can pull back. This won’t end well. I’m in too deep. I can stop the speed with which we’re hurtling head first into the abyss. I can stop it now by telling her.
I should tell her.
I should tell her now.
But the urge to suck her lower lip, to kiss her long, and slow, and hard, and dirty, that thought consumes me. Blood rushes south between my legs. Reason vaults out of the window.
And just like that, Kyra Lewis, a woman who ordinarily, in another lifetime, would never had even registered on my radar, gives me the start of another boner that threatens to build and go unsated.
“Can I get you some more drinks?” An annoying server interrupts at the most inopportune time.
“Could I have another refill of this, please?” Kyra hands the server her glass. I nod my head. The server disappears, having ruined the moment. Kyra sits back, resting her hands on her lap. She smiles at me, and I wish she wouldn’t. The ground shifts beneath me because my whole reason for being here, the goal I set out to achieve, crumbles a little every day before me. “Are you never going to tell me?” she asks, even though she manages a smile, it’s not one that lights up her eyes. It hurts her, not knowing what I’m up to, and yet whatever she might think I do, it’s never going to be anywhere near the truth.
“My days off ...” I drum my fingers on the table, trying to buy more time. She sits forward eagerly, as if she’s hanging on my every word. The server returns with her drink. Kyra’s slipped her sweatshirt off, and my eyes fall to the little sun tattoo on her shoulder.
Arousal shoots to my crotch, confusion mingling with desire, making unlikely bedfellows. Kyra is not my type, I remind myself. But this isn’t even true anymore. With every passing day, with every kiss, every touch, every moment spent with her has proven this wrong. She’s everything I want.
“Your tattoos …” I press my lips together without thinking. Breathe slowly as I remember the compass between her shoulder blades. “Will I ever get to see the third one?”
“The rosebud?”
“The rosebud.”
“Do you want to see it?”
Is the sky blue? I inhale a deep breath. A server walks past, hovers then asks if everything is okay. It’s a welcome interruption, because I can’t answer Kyra’s question yet. Not in words, but the answer is probably written all over my face, because she bites her lip, and I catch her smiling as I tell the server that everything is just perfect.
She said it was lower down. My mind naturally comes up with images that scorch and torture me. How do I answer her? Crude, vulgar words come to mind. But I want to make love to this woman. She means something to me, and that is something I never considered going into this entire sorry mess.