An Eye for an Eye: Zach and Katie's Story (Redwood Falls) (17 page)

Turning away the troubling thoughts of the past, he threw back his head and downed the bourbon in one shot.
He needed to get a fucking grip
. He put the bottle away, knowing the alcohol would only hurt the situation, and wearily went to find his lonely bed.

****

The next morning, Katie hesitantly opened the door of her room and carefully stepped out. She had finally gotten to sleep in the early hours, but not before endlessly tossing and turning, which had resulted in dark smudges under her eyes.

Zach's door was closed, and she made her way over to the stairway and walked down. Taking her time, she strolled over to the bank of windows and looked out. It was early, and the sun was still low in the eastern sky. The water was a deep blue, and the sounds of the surf and seagulls could be heard even through the windows. It was serenely peaceful and beautiful, and she couldn't wait to go down to the beach.

Zach had said the days would be hers, and pushing the angst to the back of her mind, she ran into the kitchen to scope out the coffee maker. It was recessed into the backsplash of the kitchen counter, and as it was on an automatic timer, already had a fully brewed carafe ready and waiting. She poured herself a cup, found creamer and sugar, and lightly ran back up the stairs to her room.

As she savored the new morning, the aromatic coffee, and the knowledge she wouldn't have to sleep with Zach
immediately
, she threw on her swimsuit and cover-up, grabbed a large tote bag and began packing it for a day in the sun.

When she came out of her room, Zach was leaving his. His hair was a ruffled mess and his eyes were bloodshot as if he hadn't had any sleep, and as he gave her a once-over, he slowly asked, "Where do you think you're going?"

Katie clutched her things to her chest. "You said my days would be mine."

He shot back swiftly, "Did you give me last night?"

Katie stared, silent, as a jolt hit her nerves.

He sighed, ran his fingers through his hair and said, "If you want to go to the beach, give me ten minutes, and I'll take you."

****

Thirty minutes later, they were strolling down the beach side by side, close together, but not touching. A barrage of feelings inundated Katie. Excitement at having this unexpected vacation at South Padre. Fear of what tomorrow would bring. But first and foremost, unnerve that Zachary McIntyre walked beside her, casually flipping his keys around his fingers.

He was dressed in board shorts, and nothing else. No shoes, no shirt, just a wide expanse of hot male flesh beside her.

They left the house and headed south down the beach and after walking for twenty minutes or so, the scenery began to change. The rows of beachfront homes began to give way to waterfront hotels, one after another. It wasn't what Katie was used to seeing in Galveston. There was no seawall, no road or boulevard to separate the huge hotels from the beach. These buildings were built directly on the beach, almost on the sand itself. One beautiful building led to the next, dotted with gorgeous palms and landscaping, intricate swimming pools, lagoons and tiki bars.

This morning, the tiki bars were unoccupied, but the tables around the swimming pools were filling up with early risers intent on eating breakfast while enjoying the view. Katie looked longingly at the sparkling waterfalls of the pools, the shaded tables and umbrellas, and the smells of breakfast coming from the five-star hotels.

Zach noticed Katie's intense scrutiny of the vacation atmosphere coming from the hotels at the same time that an early morning hunger pang hit him. He had left the house before having coffee, and his appetite, always in good working order, didn't fail him now.

"Let's go get some breakfast." He grabbed her hand and made a sharp veer in their footsteps toward the hotel in front of them.

Katie tugged on his arm to slow him down. "Can we?"

He stopped and looked down at her. "Why couldn't we?"

"We're not guests. You don't even have a shirt on. We don't have any money." Her excuses were rushed together.

He smiled down at her and entwined the fingers of one hand with hers while holding up his keys with the other. Several key-sized credit cards flashed in front of her face. "I've always got money. You can count on that. And we're at the beach, everybody is half dressed. And trust me, it won't matter that we aren't guests. They'll take my money. No problem." Explanation finished, he pulled her up a landscaped boardwalk that made a path from the beach to the hotel swimming pool area.

There was an outside kitchen recessed into one area of the building, and two chefs were in the process of cooking breakfast as soon as orders were being placed. Zach led her over to the buffet-style breakfast bar, where he placed their order for eggs, and then began filling up their plates with fruit and bacon.

In a matter of seconds, they were seated at a table overlooking the pool and ocean, a waiter having brought their eggs and taken their orders for coffee, and Katie was digging into one of the best meals she could remember.

It turned out she was hungry after all. The last few days, her nerves hadn't allowed her to eat much, and now the relative safety she felt at having her own room, and the fact that Zach had seemed to back off a bit, brought her appetite to the fore.

After polishing off half his meal and taking care of the most pressing need for food, Zach spoke. "I've cleared my schedule for the next two weeks. There will still be a few phone calls I have to take, but for the most part, I'm taking a vacation."

Her appetite suddenly vanished completely and she looked across the table at him with turbulence etched across her features.

Katie didn't like the sound of that. In her mind, she had it all figured out. He would close himself in his study, work all day, and then only come out to join her for an evening meal. She knew she would be trying to avoid him at night, but now it looked as if this was going to turn into a game of
staying out of Zach's reach twenty-four-seven
. Not a game she was looking forward to playing. She knew he had only given her a reprieve from his bed for a short while, and if he didn't have anything else to occupy his time, she would quickly become the center of his attention.

When she made no response to his comment, his eyes focused firmly on hers, torturing her with the knowledge that his intent was inflexible. Her eyes lowered from his, and he returned to his meal. She couldn't help but notice that nothing seemed to affect his appetite. It was just another small thing that wasn't fair that she stored up in her arsenal against Zach.

A few minutes later, he'd signed the credit card slip, and was reaching down and dragging her to her feet. He was pulling her after him; she took a couple of steps before sanity prevailed. "Where are we going?"

Zach stopped in his tracks and turned to face her. "Back to the house."

Katie swallowed a lump in her throat and said, "I like it here." She broke eye contact and looked around the hotel, people milling around everywhere.

Zach wasn't fooled. He knew what the appeal of the crowded hotel was. Still, he had lots of time to accomplish his goal. He didn't want a victim in his bed; he never wanted Katie to be a victim of any kind. The same competitive streak that made him so successful in business rose up within him now. Seduction would have been his first choice, with his true goal to have Katie as an active partner. He wanted her to want him. But now it was even more basic than that. He'd already maneuvered her so that she was under his power. Within his control. Yes, he had done that. He had that now. She was locked up tight for five years, if that was what he wanted. But this would be so much more enjoyable if Katie was with him a hundred percent.

And so much easier on his conscience. And so much more satisfying to the deep-seated need within him.

The seductive image of Katie being a full participant in his bed tempted him, just as it always had. He only had one shot at making their first time together work in his favor. He didn't want her agreeing because she had no choice. The image that now teased his brain tempted him beyond all reason. Katie, coming to him naked, of her own free will and because of nothing but her desire for him. He had forced her into this situation; if he forced her to go through with it, he could never play it over. He would be setting the precedent for all future encounters. Why did it matter now? An uneasy feeling came over him and he pushed it aside, refusing to look too deeply within his psyche.
It didn't matter
. Nothing mattered except what he wanted at this moment in time. And at this moment, he knew he wouldn't be satisfied with just her body anymore. He wanted her body
and her soul.

With his motivation veering off course, indulging her seemed to be the appropriate action. He lifted her chin with a finger and rubbed his thumb over her bottom lip. "You like it here?" he asked in a teasing, questioning tone.

Katie felt the press of his thumb against her lip, heard the teasing quality of his voice, and a sultry feeling of languor invaded her system. As his brown eyes held hers captive, she managed to answer him softly. "Yes."

"You want to stay here awhile?" His thumb continued the soft stroke of her lip.

"Yes, please." Katie stood still, lightheaded, breath hitching in her throat at the rasping feel of his touch on her lips. He swiped back and forth, cupping her jaw, softly pressing her lip into her teeth, applying enough pressure that an arrow of heat slid through her veins.

"I like that word on your lips." His gaze held hers. "You know I'd probably give you any damn thing you asked for, right?"

She sucked in a sharp breath, and wondered what exactly he meant by that. "Will you let me go back to Redwood Falls?"

His expression froze and turned pained and his answer was almost inaudible. "No."

"Then I just want to stay here for awhile."

"Okay, baby." With one last touch, he took her hand and led her over to a couple of lounge chairs by the side of the pool. He tossed her bag and his keys onto a small table, sank down onto one of the loungers, and pulled the other chair over within inches of his, patting it in invitation for her to sit next to him.

Katie hesitated only slightly before reclining next to him. Her insides tightened when he picked up her hand, entwined her fingers with his, and pulled it over onto his stomach. She lay there, shaken, avoiding looking at him by continuing to look out over the ocean, and wondered how long he would imprison her hand.

Finally summoning up enough nerve, she glanced over at him, and found him sound asleep.

******

Later that evening, Katie was sitting on the couch with a magazine, hiding from Zach's penetrating eyes, when her phone softly chimed. Zach was working on his laptop while engaged in a telephone conversation not far from where she sat. She picked up her cell from the coffee table and glanced in his direction. His gaze was firmly concentrated on her, even as he was able to listen and absorb the information he was receiving on the phone. He'd said he wasn't going to work, but if what he was doing wasn't work, she didn't know what was. It was all right with her though, because it kept his attention away from her. But he was damn sure watching her now as she glanced at her phone.

A slight shiver trembled through her body as she broke away from the intensity of his gaze. She read the message on her phone and alarm bells began going off in her head. It was from her mother, asking if Katie knew how long Josh would be away with Hannah.

Katie's mother was worried about Josh, yet little did the older woman know she probably should be more worried about Katie. Her parents thought she was on a long beach vacation with another single teacher she knew from her school. Zach knew that was her cover story. Katie hated to lie to her parents, but she couldn't see any other way of protecting them from the truth. None of what she was sacrificing would do any good if her parents found out what was going on.

The central air conditioning system came on; the background noise and Zach's phone conversation intruded into her thoughts. But she was distracted by the text message and only caught about half of what he was saying into the phone.
'We need to find a way. I want you to catch the next flight to Houston and be all over that consortium. Somebody's going to find the additional capacity to transmit the power. It's going to be us.
You know as well as I do that generation isn't the goddamn problem.'

Zach's voice weaved in and out of her head while Katie wrangled with whether or not to text Josh for her mother, which was what her mom was hinting at. Diana was the closest thing to a mother that Josh had, and unfortunately for her mom, sometimes he treated her as such. If he didn't want her maternal apron strings pulling at him-- and he was a grown man, after all-- he would go for a long time before giving her a definitive answer.

But the problem was that Katie was afraid to text Josh. She was already fighting a guilty conscience about Josh and Hannah. She for sure didn't want to be in on any more of their secrets, if there were any. If Zach ever found out about the two of them
and
that Katie knew about their relationship--she was scared to go there.

Her guilty conscience zinged louder, and she argued with herself. What was she supposed to do? Was she supposed to tell Zach,
'oh, yeah, by the way, your sister is in love with my cousin?'
No, that wasn't going to happen. And why should it? For one, it wasn't her secret to share. But also because she didn't owe Zach anything. There wasn't anything binding between them.
Nothing but a contract
.

She stiffened her resolve. Zach had forced her into this. Forced her to come here. Forced her to quit her job. Just because
the
force
hadn't extended all the way to the bedroom, was not a reason to think she owed him her loyalty. She didn't. This was about her family, about protecting them, and what was theirs. And that loyalty extended to Hannah. Katie loved her like a sister.

"Who was the text from?"

His deep voice interrupted her internal monologue and she looked up at him, stricken with a guilt she couldn't hide. "Just my mom."

"What did she want?" His eyes pierced her, looked straight at her, as if he were trying to see into her soul.

She looked down at her lap; Katie had never been a good liar. It was one of the reasons she avoided lying altogether. "She wanted to know if I was having fun. If we were enjoying the beach, the hotel, that sort of thing."

He observed her in silence for a moment. "She asked all that in a text?"

"Not all of it. But I know my mom and can read between the lines. She's curious about my trip. She didn't know Angela and I are supposedly such good friends, well, yeah, because we're not that close really . . . and I'm sure she's wondering how it's going."

Her voice skidded to a halt when she realized she was saying too much.

Zach studied Katie in silence.
She was lying to him
. She wouldn't look him in the eye and she was babbling.
Why the hell was she lying to him?
Anger simmered in his gut. Anger that she had a defensive wall between them. He had a fierce determination to get into her head. He needed to know what the hell was going on inside her brain. He wanted that. He wanted to know what made her tick, what fuelled the lie she was telling him. She was being deceptive and it was irritating the shit out of him.

He stood up, prowled over to her and lifted her chin. Her eyes closed and she wouldn't look at him. "What are you lying about?" His fingers held her chin in a firm grip as he stood over her, holding her immobile in her chair. "You want to rethink that answer?"

Katie dragged a ragged breath into her lungs, raised anguished eyes to his and whispered, "I can't tell you."

Her honesty hit Zach in the guts. He'd fully expected her to deny she was lying about anything. He hadn't expected her to confess that anything was wrong. And
goddamnit
, he didn't like that confused, almost fearful look in her eyes. He didn't want her to be afraid to tell him anything.

He stared down at her small face cupped in his hand. She was
so fucking beautiful
. Her skin was porcelain, with only a hint of the sun she'd gotten today, and her dark, silky hair and eyebrows over those slanted green eyes gave her an exotic look that continually affected him as no other woman ever had. It had always been this way with her. But there was something he'd only recently realized; she wasn't at all like the other beautiful women he knew. She wasn't conceited. She wasn't vain. And she had no idea what kind of weapon she held. She wasn't aware of her beauty, so she didn't understand what that beauty could do to a man. What that beauty did to him.

He thought about what she had just said. The way she had said it. Whatever the hell she was hiding wasn't something she had done. He knew that for sure. This was about something else or someone else. And whatever it was, he wasn't going to let it come between them.
Nothing
would come between them.

He lifted his other hand and held her face gently, as tenderly as he could manage between his large palms, when the overriding emotion within him was to strip her naked, sink inside of her and mark her as his. He inhaled deeply and tried to lock down his need to possess. "Sweetheart, I'm not going to hurt you. Don't lie to me, babe. That's all I ask."

His expression became pained, introspective, and Katie knew he was thinking about the woman who had hurt him in the past.

But they didn't have that kind of relationship. He was asking something of her that he didn't have any right to. "I'm not lying to you." She lowered her eyes and her voice dropped to expel on a sigh, "I'm just not telling you everything."

His hands remained gentle on her. "That's the same as lying to me."

"No, there's a difference," she argued softly.

His grip tightened on her. "It's the same damn thing, Katie."

"It's not."

"Was the text from your mother?"

"Yes," she answered quickly.

He studied her intently, and Katie held her breath until finally, he released her and turned away and sat back down in the chair he'd just vacated.

Chapter Ten

The next morning Katie was sitting at the breakfast bar sipping on coffee and watching the waves through the bank of windows when Zach came in fully dressed for the day in a business suit.

Throwing a desultory glance in her direction, he walked to the coffee-pot and poured himself a cup.

Her control was still shaken from the emotional turmoil of the night before, and she silently watched him until he spoke. "I'm sorry I have to desert you today, but something's come up and I need to fly to Dallas. I know I said that I wouldn't be working, but this can't be helped. I'll be back tonight and we'll spend some time together. Will you be okay here by yourself for a few hours?"

His tone of speech was very formal and Katie wondered at his actions. "Yes, of course."

He studied her silently for a long moment before giving her a quick nod. Shutting his briefcase and pocketing his keys, he walked over to where she sat on a barstool. He lifted her chin and began stroking her cheek with a long finger. "Don't swim in the ocean by yourself."

He held her chin and waited for her compliance. Even though she nodded her head in affirmation of his request, he continued speaking as if she had rebelled. "I mean it, Katie. The red flags are posted today. The riptide is treacherous, and you're not used to the ocean currents. When we have a calmer day, I'll take you out and teach you how to survive if you get caught in one. Until then, I want you safe and poolside where I don't have to worry about you. Got that?"

"Okay. But I can go to the beach as long as I stay out of the water?" She felt like a child asking for permission.

He was silent for a moment, his eyes narrowing and his answer held reluctance. "If you feel like you must. Stay in front of the house or the strip of beach in front of the hotels. Don't go wandering far."

"Yes, sir."

He looked visibly taken aback by her cheeky tone. He lifted one eyebrow. "You think it's safe to get sassy with me?"

"I hope so." Her words were so solemn that Zach stared at her a moment with a gobsmacked expression on his face.

He quickly recovered, and said, "Yeah."

Then he leaned down and kissed her. He nipped her lips once, twice, then went back for a third time, opening her mouth with his lips and sinking his tongue deep inside.

Katie was held spellbound on the barstool as she received a kiss from him she wasn't expecting.
Did it make her feel this way because he was about to leave and she knew he had no intention of doing anything more than kiss her?
His lips were firm but gentle, his hand on her face caressing her, running back and forth from her ear to her jaw line. It was a kiss that was simply a kiss; it carried a depth of feeling, but it wasn't a precursor to anything more. She didn't feel threatened by it, at least not physically. She reacted so quickly to the feeling of safety in his arms, that before she could stop herself, her hands went to his head and twined through his hair. She moaned softly, and was shocked to feel a tiny dart of arousal go from her breasts to the point between her thighs.