“Why not by me?”
“Because,” she hissed at him. “You’re the one who got me drunk on my birthday. You’re the one who propositioned me on my birthday. I might not be as smart as you, Carter, but that doesn’t give you the right to be mean.”
She’d surprised him. She could see it in his face, for the briefest of moments. But he was also furious. With her? With him? With the situation? She didn’t know. But the lift doors opened and she stepped into it with a sense of gratitude and pain.
“What? Are you quitting?”
She swallowed past the lump in her throat. Was she?
“We have a deal, Jane. Money, in exchange for you.”
She had thought she couldn’t feel worse, but in that moment, her stomach ached and she had to fight not to grab it and double over.
“It was also part of our deal that you wouldn’t speak to me as though I were scum,” she reminded him, stepping further into the elevator and pressing her back to the wall.
Again, her gently delivered recrimination caught him off guard. He frowned, staring at her beautiful, wounded face, as the elevator doors slammed shut. But even after the lift had shuttled to the ground, her face stayed with him. Those beautiful eyes of hers, wideset and dark, had shimmered with tears. Her lip had quivered, and her expression had been haunted.
He had hurt her. He had done that to her. And he couldn’t fathom exactly why.
Jane struggled with her coat, but it was wet, and she couldn’t get her arms back through the sleeves. The best she could do was to wrap it around her shoulders and clutch it across her breasts, which were embarrassingly visible through the material of her blouse. Her shoes squelched as she poked her feet back into them.
But as soon as the elevator doors opened, she stormed across the lobby. She needed to put some distance between herself and Carter. It was a case of self-preservation.
She heard the lift doors ping open again as she stepped out of the lobby. It wasn’t necessary for her to turn around. She knew it would be Carter. Leaving as she had, with unfinished business between them, would be impossible for him to accept.
Jane didn’t stop. As she emerged onto the busy footpath, the rain was still falling. Umbrellas bubbled around her, and she cut through them, moving with determined purpose towards the subway.
“Jane!” His voice, commanding and firm, made her feet stumble a little, but she pushed onwards.
“Jane!”
The subway was a block away. She half ran towards the street, but traffic was travelling thick and fast. She cursed under her breath, staring at the stoplights and willing them to change.
Carter appeared, his blonde hair as wet as hers. He shrugged out of his enormous trench coat and wrapped it around her shoulders. The water ran down his face, collecting on his jawline before dropping to the sidewalk.
“What do you want?” She begged, tormented and distraught.
“For you to come back upstairs before you get sick!” He replied, having to speak loudly to be heard above the buzz of traffic, and the swirl of the rain.
She shook her head, and looked past him, to the break in cars. She could go. In just a moment, she could dart across the street, and lick her wounds.
His words were burned into the fabric of her soul. “Why?” She asked, shaking her head. “So you can reprimand me some more?”
He lifted a hand and cupped her cheek. “No.” He smiled, and when she still didn’t meet his eyes, he lowered his head into her field of vision. “So that I can apologise properly.”
Jane stared at him, but her heart was still sore. Red raw from his hurtful description of her. “You’ll always think that of me.” She bit down on her lip. The gap in traffic was coming up. As if sensing that he was losing her, Carter lifted his other hand to her cheek, and cupped her face.
“You have misunderstood me.”
“No.” she turned her face to his, uncaring that the rain was pounding her face. “I understood you perfectly.”
He swore. “Please, Jane. Let me explain.”
She bit down on her lip. “It’s not like I think I’m a genius, Carter. I know who I am. What I am. I just thought… I thought you didn’t care.”
“Jane…” His voice was tortured. “I was angry. I spoke without thinking. Please, come upstairs.”
Her eyes sparked with his. “Because you’re paying me to?”
“Because you want to,” he responded without hesitation. “Because I want you to.”
The light switched to green. She looked at it, and a part of her wanted to cross the street. To walk away from him. If he could hurt her so much after a few days, how would she feel in a week? A month? She swallowed past the lump of bitter weariness that was lodged in her throat.
“Please, Jane.”
She nodded slowly, but, as she fell into step beside him, she felt like she was making a terrible mistake.
The small puddle she’d left was still just inside the door of his penthouse. They both added to it, as they stepped out of their wet clothes once more. Uncaring that her body was visible beneath her shirt, she turned to him quietly. Expectantly.
“I’m sorry.” He said, his blue eyes on her face. “It was wrong of me to speak to you like that.”
She lifted her chin. “I don’t pretend to be clever, Carter. But you don’t need to throw that in my face.”
He furrowed his brow. “Jane, I wasn’t making a statement on your intelligence, so much as your common sense.”
She frowned. “That’s more or less the same thing, isn’t it?”
“No.” He slowly began to unbutton his own shirt. “What angers me is that you catch subways in the middle of the night; drink alone in bars, where every man probably wants to take you home; date strangers for money – any one of who could have been a murderer or rapist. You are free spirited in a way that makes you vulnerable. And what I want is to wrap you up and keep you safe from that.”
Jane stared at him, her expression completely blank. No one had ever, in her entire life, since her mother had died, anyway, taken care of her. No one. She was flummoxed out of the ability to speak.
“I got you something.”
“You did?” She said, finally, to his retreating back.
He returned a moment later clutching a medium size white bag. Curiously, and with a small shiver, she took it from him. What she saw made her burst out laughing. “A phone charger?”
“Several, actually. One for each room of your house, I hope.”
She shook her head in laughter, and placed the bag beside her handbag.
“This is what I mean,” he said throatily. “You let your mobile phone battery die. You take no care of yourself. And I don’t like it.” He put his hands on her hips, wet through the fabric. “When you arrived, I felt very angry that you could have neglected your own well-being yet again.”
She shook her head. “But you’re overreacting. It’s a little rain. A short walk from the subway.”
“No. It is all unnecessary discomfort and risk. Jane, do you know what I’m worth?”
She straightened her spine. “I don’t care.”
His laugh was indulgent. “Fine. Let’s just say ‘a lot’.” He lowered his face and pressed a kiss against her damp forehead. “I want you to take cabs or use Martins. Not the subway. Forget it exists. I want you to be comfortable and safe. I need to know that I can give you that.”
Her heart turned over. But it wasn’t real. It was an illusion. For the brief time they were together, he was being attentive and sweet. But what about when it ended? Inevitably, that time would come, and she’d be right back where she was now: fending for herself.
“Carter, I take care of myself. But I’m not like you.” She shrugged out of his hands and sat down so that she could once more slip her shoes from her feet. “I grew up in the city. I know it like the back of my hand. I can pick a dodgy character a mile off. I’m fine.”
He sighed as he eased himself to the ground beside her. Her short, sle
nder legs were stretched out in front of them. He put a hand on her knee, looking at the way his tanned fingers perfectly matched her skin. “Then oblige me. Just humour me. Let me do this for you.”
Again, her heart felt squeezed and she felt forced to attain an air of pragmatism. “For how long, Carter?”
“Huh?”
“You give me these things, and then one day, you wake up sick of me, and poof! I’m like Cinderella at midnight.”
His expression was difficult to comprehend. So she continued. “I know that this is temporary. That’s the best part of our deal. We both went into this knowing what we were getting out of it. I don’t want to get used to luxuries that I can’t afford.”
Her logic, though impeccable, insulted him. “Then afford them.”
It was so ridiculous, that she laughed. “Carter, you and I are just different.”
“Yes.” He nodded. “I appreciate that.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it gently. “So what made you steam off?”
“I…” She bit down on her lip. “I don’t usually care that I’m not bright. Most people I know don’t care either.”
He felt anger in his chest. “You mean the men you meet through your agency?”
“Yeah. They’re not looking for smart. They’re looking for someone attractive to hang on their arms for a night. I’m good at that.” He opened his mouth to say something and she lifted a finger to press against his lips. “I am good at that. I know I’m great, actually. That’s what I have to offer a guy. My body and my looks. And that’s enough for me. If it isn’t enough for you, then we shouldn’t continue this arrangement.”
He was silent; contemplative.
“I’m happy, Carter. But I won’t be happy if you have these expectations of me that I can’t match up to.”
“Where the hell are you getting any of this from?”
‘The lobotomy comment. That first night I was here, you seemed almost offended by the idea that I had ‘chosen’ not to go to college. And various other things,” she muttered quietly, shivering again.
His eyes were unusually earnest. When he spoke, he was almost contrite. Except someone like Carter Mann-Hughes didn’t do contrition. Not really. “I was angry tonight. I spoke without thinking. It was not a reflection of how I feel about you. But please, Jane, can we continue this conversation after you’ve showered? You are shivering like a puppy in the ice.”
She knew why she was trembling and it had very little do with her drenched body. Shock and sadness mingled with desire, and Jane couldn’t have said which emotion was stronger inside of her. But she knew she felt more alive than she had in years, and that alone was something she was glad for.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jane hummed the theme song from Indiana Jones to herself, as she moved through his apartment. Being there without him was somehow illicit. Exciting, and intriguing. She placed her groceries on the kitchen counter and then stood on the spot, her hands on her hips. Without him, it felt larger, somehow. Colder. Scarier.
What she needed was noise.
She picked up the remote control she’d seen him use several times, and stared at it in consternation. She didn’t do technology, and this thing looked like it could facilitate a moon landing. She put it back down again and slipped her iPhone out of her back pocket instead. She loaded a playlist and then placed the phone into a clean coffee mug. The music amplified pleasingly, almost as though it were coming from a sound system.
“That will do,” she said with a small smile of self-satisfaction.
She had, perhaps, an hour before Carter would be back from the evening meeting he had been obliged to attend. She rifled through his kitchen until she found a baking pan, still wrapped in plastic. She removed it and placed it in the bin. The rest of the kitchen was in a similar state of disuse. Most of the implements she required were still in their manufacturer’s packaging.
As she had done a thousand times before, she prepared dinner, but this time felt different. She realised she’d cooked out of necessity for Anita and Jenna. Out of gratitude and a need to keep the home running. That night, she was cooking out of something else. Anticipation and excitement. The pleasure she took in preparing a meal for Carter was wholly unexpected.
She set the timer on the oven and padded towards his bedroom.
Everything was as she would expect it to be. Bed made (she knew a cleaner came and did that each day, once he’d left). The air had a slight, lingering hint of his aftershave and she breathed it in deeply.
She had no desire to think about a time when she would no longer smell that. When she would no longer be free to touch him. That day would come, but for the moment, he was as much hers as he would ever be anyone’s.
She changed quickly; out of the utilitarian jeans and shirt she tended to run around in each day, and into a far more sophisticated cream dress. It was scooped at the front and clung to her body, down to her knees on one side and mid-thigh on the other. The asymmetrical hemline was one of her favourite things about it.
The music in the kitchen stopped playing for a second, then resumed. With a frown, she moved towards her phone and lifted it out of the mug.
A text message blinked on the front.
I can’t wait to see you.
Her pulse began to simmer. Before she could reply, he messaged again. Where are you?
She lifted the phone and snapped a photo of herself, with the unmistakable background of his kitchen tiles behind her. She sent it to him with the caption, Waiting for you, like a good employee. It was a joke, but also, a reminder. To both of them. Her feelings for him were rapidly becoming very real, but he didn’t need to know that.
My kitchen’s never looked so good.
She put the phone down, and held a hand to her heart. It was thundering against her breast.
What I want to do to you on that big, cold island bench will have to wait, unfortunately.
Unconsciously, she ran a hand over the slab of marble while she waited for him to elaborate. He was a rapid-fire texter. She’d come to realise that he shot a message, then followed up almost instantly with another. This time, though, her phone didn’t bleep again.
Impatiently, she sent him a question mark.
It crossed over with his next message – a picture in response to hers.
Two heads – his and Karina’s, smiling at the screen. It looked like it was taken in the back of his powerful limousine.
Worse for her heart rate than the idea of being ravaged by him on the bench, this was so sweet, and so normal, that she had to put her phone down again. She didn’t want to think of him in that way. As just a regular Joe. He wasn’t. He was an incredibly wealthy and influential guy, who had offered her money because he found her attractive. Who had wanted to own her, as much as any one person could own another. She was, in some ways, his slave. Not his girlfriend.
But she was also under his skin. That much had been proven by his reaction the night before. His protectiveness was a sign that he wanted to keep her from being hurt. And she trusted him. He would probably end up hurting her anyway, because, in their dynamic, he had all the power. But it would be an inevitable result of her caring for him more than he did her. And she knew, somehow, that he would do everything he could to protect her.
For a girl who’d spent the last six years caring for everyone else, and being strong, it was very nice to let someone else fuss over her for a while.
She was sitting on a stool in the kitchen making some notes in her notepad when the apartment door opened inwards a short while later.
Karina and Carter were in mid-conversation, but Carter stood still when he saw her. His eyes flashed from her, to the bench, and she knew what he was thinking. His desire communicated itself to her easily, and it found purchase in the blood of her veins. They simmered with barely contained need.
“God, Carter, it smells like home in here!” Karina enthused.
Carter nodded. “Why do I suspect you’ve gone against my express wishes
and not ordered take-out?”
Jane stood with an unconscious elegance, unfolding her tanned legs and placing her bare feet on the tiled floor. Her dress was pure sexy glamour, but the bare feet with unpainted nails were what made Carter harden in his pants.
“It’s nothing. No trouble.”
He furrowed his brow, his handsome face wearing a perfect expression of consternation. “I don’t think my kitchen’s ever been used to make more than toast.”
“I can well believe it,” Jane said with a smile. “I had to unwrap most everything I cooked with.”
Karina crossed to Jane and pressed a kiss about an inch wide of her cheek in a gesture of greeting. “I won’t stay long, darlings. I didn’t know you were having a romantic dinner.’
“Oh, it’s not,” Jane assured her. An unwelcome thought occurred to her and she looked past Karina, to Carter. “Do you two need to work? I don’t have to stay.”
A muscle flexed in Carter’s jaw. He moved across the penthouse with a warning expression on his face. “I have been waiting to see you all day. You are going nowhere, Jane.”
Karina bumped out of the way. She had never seen her cousin behave in such a possessive manner. She surreptitiously studied the slight brunette who had accomplished what no one else had. To hold Carter’s attention, this Jane must have something very, very special.
“Good. Because I’m starving.” She walked into the kitchen, and Carter’s eyes stayed glued to her the whole way. Karina smirked. Okay, the physical appeal was pretty obvious. Jane was short, but voluptuous in the way Karina could only dream about. Big breasts, a curved butt, and slim waist. Her skin was smooth and clear all over, and her hair was glossy like polished walnut.
“Okay, I’ll get out of your hair.” She looked at Carter. “This can all wait until tomorrow. It’s not that urgent.”
“No, no,” Jane insisted with a shake of her pretty head. “Don’t be silly. Don’t go, Karina. There’s more than enough food.”
Carter’s look was mutinous, but he quickly transformed it into a smile of agreement. Though he wanted his cousin out of his hair so that he could run his hands over Jane’s body and remove that piece of white fabric.
To the Highest Bidder Page 8