CHAPTER 7
Kenzie
I collapsed on the bed in the most gorgeous room I’d ever seen with a sigh of relief. Theo had finally finished telling me where I could find everything in the suite, and had retreated, so I was alone for the first time since I’d been picked up at the airport.
Dane had almost sent me away, and I shuddered to think about what might have happened if I had to try to start all over again.
I’d be homeless.
I’d have nowhere to go.
I’d have nowhere to run.
This job opportunity had meant everything to me. I thought it would be my chance to build up my resources and plan my life. I needed a new start so badly, and I’d been desperately hoping that working for Dane Walker would be the beginning of something different for me.
Now, I knew it was going to be just one more battle for survival.
I didn’t want to have to move every time my location was discovered. I’d been doing it since I’d hit adulthood.
I lay on my back and looked around the enormous bedroom. It was tastefully decorated in a light, bright, beachy décor. The blue room was actually an aquamarine color. Splashes of bolder navy blue and other deeper colors made the bedroom fun and relaxing.
There wasn’t anything fussy or pretentious about the space. But it screamed luxury anyway.
I’d seen the attached bathroom when Theo had brought me upstairs, and I knew that the colors and theme had been carried throughout the space. The bath was the same color, and I love the bold accents.
The only really strange thing I’d noticed was the surprising lack of mirrors. Luckily, I had a large makeup mirror in my suitcase, but the fact that an amazing suite like this lacked reflective glass was rather…odd.
There was a lovely sitting area and desk on the other side of the room, and I knew I was going to love having my own TV. Sharing a space with several other women meant I rarely got to watch what I wanted on the television. Not that I’d had much time.
“No slacking,” I told myself sternly as I sat up. I was here to do a job, and I was going to accomplish as much as I could immediately.
I started putting away my clothes, unwilling to believe that my stay would only be temporary.
I have to stay here. I need to stay here.
After changing into a pair of jeans and light shirt, I told myself I was ready.
Even though I wasn’t thrilled about having another interaction with Dane, I was ready to get to work. I couldn’t stand to be idle. I was fairly certain it wasn’t in my DNA. I’d spent my whole life being busy, very rarely taking the time to kick back and relax.
I’ll be fine.
Dane Walker had definitely not left me with a good first impression, but I’d have to get over my fear of running into him. I was here to help him.
Unfortunately, he was more than a little intimidating. He looked like he was in his mid-twenties, about the same age as me. Not that it helped to know we had something in common. The tension between us could practically be cut with a knife.
I’m attracted to him. Really attracted.
Now that was a problem.
There was no way I could look at his massive body and not feel slightly daunted. He was ripped, but I had a feeling that it wasn’t from lifting weights or working out. Dane had sun kissed skin, and the appearance of a man who worked a lot outside. His skin was naturally tanned by the sun. So I was betting he was incredibly active around the island.
His chocolate-brown stare had been unnerving, but I couldn’t deny how much it had gotten to me. He had strong features, and they were topped off by his unruly jet-black hair.
Yeah, he had some scars, and I’d wondered how he’d gotten them, but they weren’t something that would put anybody off. My heart ached for whatever had happened to him, and I assumed that he’d gotten those marks from the accident that had killed his father.
I went downstairs to explore, trying to get my bearings in the mammoth home.
On the first floor, I found a living room, a family room, and a chef’s kitchen that I was dying to check out. I wasn’t a great cook, but I did know my way around a kitchen.
I walked by the theater room, looking at the indoor pool and spa for a moment before I kept moving on.
Finally, I reached his office.
To my dismay, I found that it was already occupied.
“Mr. Walker?” I asked hesitantly as I passed through the open door.
“What do you want?” he asked unhappily.
“I’m your assistant. I meant to ask you what you wanted.”
“Nothing. Working hours are over.”
Thank God he’d donned a shirt. It made looking at him far easier to do without drooling over his heavily muscled form.
“What exactly are my working hours?” I asked, hoping he wouldn’t say I had to leave.
“Since you’re my assistant, I guess they’re whatever I want them to be,” he stated in a bemused tone.
He wasn’t looking in my direction. He was standing in front of the French doors with his back to me, apparently lost in thought. Jesus! I did like the view. The man had the tightest ass on the planet. “Okay,” I said obligingly.
I was pretty sure he was trying to get rid of me, but I lingered inside the room. It didn’t feel right for me to just leave.
“Tell me why a beautiful woman like you ended up here?” he demanded.
I stared at the broad shoulders that were encased inside the stretched cotton T-shirt. “I needed a job,” I said honestly.
Dane turned to me, and then took a seat at his desk. His expression was still broody, but he motioned for me to sit down in the chair in front of his desk.
“Why did you need a job?” he pressed.
I moved to sit down, considering what I wanted to reveal about my disastrous personal and professional life, feeling like a loser for messing things up so badly. “I lost my job. I worked at an art gallery in New York.”
He lifted an arrogant eyebrow. “Which gallery? And why did they fire you?”
“I didn’t say they fired me,” I protested.
“Did they?”
“Yes,” I said in a defeated tone. “It wasn’t they; it was him. I worked at Keith Maxfield Fine Art.”
He nodded. “I do business with him.”
“I know. I saw your painting in person for the first time when I went to work there.”
“Tell me what happened,” he demanded. “I’m your employer now. I have the right to know.”
I let out a nervous sigh. Dane was right. He should know my work history, even though I wasn’t technically his employee. I’d actually been hired by his brothers. But I knew I was rationalizing.
I made it as simple as possible. “He’d deny it, but Keith asked me out a number of times. I said no. He tried to force himself on me. I kicked him in the balls. The next morning, he fired me.”
I hated to think about that day. It had been one of the worst of my life. I would have just walked off the job and never gone back if I hadn’t desperately needed that position. Had I known Keith was going to fire me, I would have left without having a dismissal on my work record. Unfortunately, I had needed my job, so I’d stayed, hoping Keith would recover from having his balls handed to him and leave me alone.
Dane leaned back in his chair, assessing me. “That motherfucker tried to assault you?” he asked in a hoarse, guttural voice.
“Yes.”
There was an eerie silence between us until he finally answered, “First thing tomorrow morning, you’ll be contacting the gallery and letting them know I won’t be giving them any more of my work. I don’t do business with guys like him.”
I nearly choked on the big lump in my throat as I stared at Dane in shock.
His order had been matter-of-fact, but I had no doubt that he meant what he said. “You believe me?”
“Do I have reason not to think it’s true?”
I shook my head, my heart pounding heavily in my chest. “No. But I’m nobody. Maxfield is a big gallery.”
“Until you give me reason not to trust you, your word is good with me,” he answered.
My eyes watered as I took in what he’d just said. I had just been a woman in the lowest position somebody could have at the gallery. Yet, Dane believed me. Just like that. It made my chest ache with gratitude that he had taken me at my word. “Thank you,” I said in a low, emotional tone.
“For what?” he asked.
“For believing me. Most people would take Keith’s side. Especially his clients. He’s pretty powerful in the art world.”
“I don’t give a damn about how well he can throw his weight around. All he is to me is a peddler who can sell my pieces. I don’t need him.”
Dane was right. He didn’t need Keith. Any other gallery would kill to exhibit his work. “I know a few that are still up and coming,” I said haltingly. “They’d love to have any pieces you’ll give them. I have a friend. An old roommate. She’s a female, but extremely knowledgeable in abstracts.”
He shrugged. “Fine with me. Contact her. I have a painting that’s ready to be sold.”
“Oh, my God. She’d be elated,” I told Dane excitedly.
My happiness soared as I thought about telling Stephanie that Dane Walker was actually putting a piece into her fledgling gallery. She’d worked her tail off, but the art world in New York was a hard enterprise to crack. Artists wanted the most prestigious galleries, and Steph wasn’t quite at that level right now.
“Like I said, it doesn’t matter to me,” he grumbled.
“What does matter to you?” I queried. “I don’t want to screw this job up.”
“I have no idea what to give you to occupy your time,” he answered roughly. “I’ve never had an assistant. I do everything alone.”
“Why?”
“Because I prefer it that way,” he said in a disgruntled tone. “Let’s just get this out of the way now. Then you can stop pretending that you don’t see my messed up face. I have scars that people don’t want to see. I know it, and I try to stay out of the public eye. That’s why I live here.”
I gaped at him with disbelief. I opened my mouth, then closed it again. Did he really think his scars were so unsightly that he had to hide himself away from the entire world?
“You do have scars,” I replied carefully. “But they aren’t that bad.”
Dane snorted. “They suck. Let’s get real. My mug isn’t anything that anybody wants to see.”
I felt sad as I watched him basically mock himself. It had taken an enormous strength of character for Dane to survive and thrive after his accident. He’d experienced a great deal of loss at a very young age. Yet, he’d created magnificent paintings that had skyrocketed into the world of art. “I want to see them. I don’t think your face is messed up at all,” I said, wondering what he’d make of my comment after I’d blurted it out. It wasn’t that I actually wanted to see the marks that had caused him so much pain in his past. But they made him more unique. How could anybody look at Dane and not see enormous strength? “It must have been hard to handle things with so much bravery when you were badly injured and then lost your father that young.”
He let out a strangled, humorless laugh. “Brave? You think I’m brave?” he questioned. “I’m a fucking coward. It wasn’t difficult to buy myself a private island because I was born rich. The only thing I had to do was stay away from people.”
“Easier said than done,” I observed. “Loneliness is enough to drive a person crazy. So yes, I do think you have a lot of courage. Most people would want somebody to talk to about what happened. They’d want to be taken care of.”
With Dane’s wealth, he could have hired a gazillion employees to be at his beck and call. Obviously, he hadn’t handled his injuries that way at all.
“I don’t talk about it,” he snapped. “What’s the point? It is what it is. I can’t change the past.”
I stood, knowing I was probably crossing some kind of line. I could see how tense he was, and I didn’t want to keep trying to convince him that he was wrong. Nobody knew better than me how it felt to feel rejected and outside of the norm. “Not everybody cares about your money or your appearance,” I said as I walked slowly to the door. “I think you’ve just met far too many who do.”
He’d obviously had some bad experiences after his accident. His self-protective instinct was pretty strong.
Dane glared at me as I turned around at the exit to the room. “Really? What do you know about being unattractive? You’re fucking beautiful. You could have easily been a model.”
His words made me visibly flinch, and my stomach began to churn. “That doesn’t mean my life has been easy,” I defended.
“At least you don’t have to hide on this goddamn island. You chose to be here.”
I nodded. “I did. But didn’t you choose it, too?”
He felt stuck here. I could sense it. For some reason, he seemed to think he needed to be isolated.
“I suppose I did,” he admitted in a husky voice.
“Nobody is holding you prisoner here except yourself,” I informed him as I left the office and closed the door behind me.
I felt his pain, and I want to reassure him that he was so much more than just a body and a face. Granted, he had an incredibly nice body and he was attractive, but his talent—and his compassion— were the most remarkable things about Dane.
He believed me when nobody else had.
He was apparently not going to throw me out of his house without letting me try to do the job I was hired to do.
He created art that touched people on a gut level.
I sighed and walked slowly back upstairs.
Someday, if I could only stop hiding and running myself, maybe I could take my own advice about not feeling like a prisoner. It was difficult to tell someone else they were wrong when I wasn’t following those rules myself.