by Hannah Ford
I almost laughed at the idea of talking to a stranger about my relationship.
“No.” I shook my head and shrugged. “Everything’s getting back on track.”’He studied me for a long moment, and I felt something in the room subtly shift. A strange feeling rose inside of me, a physical sensation. Almost like a premonition or an urge.
An urge to what, though? I wondered. Confide in this man I hardly knew?
I swallowed my uneasiness, and a second later, the moment passed.
“Great,” Jason said. “Then I guess we’re finished.”
“Great,” I said.
But he didn’t move.
Finally, after another long beat, I stood up and held my hand out to him.
“I will send an email to the administration and cc you on it,” he said. “And you’ll be all set to get back to your classes.”
“That’s great news,” I said, nodding. “It was nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too, Charlotte.”
Once I was outside of his office, I breathed a sigh of relief.
I exited the building, then sat down on a bench in the quad. The morning was cool, but the sun was shining down, its rays bouncing off what was left of the morning dew.
I pulled out my phone so I could call Noah and tell him I was done with my meeting, and that it had gone well.
“Charlotte?” he demanded when he answered. There was brusque tone to his voice that instantly put me on edge. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Sorry to make you nervous. I just got out of my meeting and I wanted to let you know it went well. It was just a formality.”
“Good,” he said, his tone clipped. “Listen, we’ve run into a bit of a roadblock with the Lilah Parks case.”
“What?”
“Lilah’s disappeared.”
“She’s disappeared?” I shook my head, confused, trying to downshift from the relief I’d just felt from finishing my meeting to the tension of working on a high-profile murder case. “But how?”
“I don’t know.” Noah’s s voice became muffled as he began talking to someone in the background. It sounded like he said something like, “Go ahead, try whatever number you can find.”
Then I heard the murmured sounds of a female voice.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“At Lilah’s hotel.”
“Wait, what?” I had no idea what he was talking about. Lilah’s hotel? Wasn’t Lilah at the hospital?
“Yes. I got an emergency injunction this morning to get her arraigned and out on bail. She had nowhere to go, so I was going to put her up in a hotel. But I left her alone to get her some food and she took off.”
Lilah and Noah had been alone? In a hotel room?
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
“Tell you what?”
“That you were planning on bailing her out.” Had he put up the money himself? How much would that have cost? I wondered.
“I didn’t even know it was a possibility until this morning. I was waiting until you were done with your meeting. I didn’t want to upset you.”
I fought the wave of annoyance that rose inside of me. How could he say I was his business partner if he was always trying to shield me from things? If something was going on with our case, I had a right to know.
“Can you get down here?” he asked. “To Loft 37?”
Loft 37. Why did Lilah have to be put up at one of the most exclusive hotels in the city? After jail, you would have thought a Red Roof Inn would have been fine.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m heading back to the car right now.”
“Good.”
I could still hear a voice in the background.
“Who’s there?”
“Clementine,” he said. “I called her because of her tracking skills.”
Great. Now not only had Noah been in a hotel room with Lilah Parks, now he was there with Clementine, his ex-submissive.
“I’ll be there soon,” I said, and then I hung up.
When I got to the car, I didn’t even have to tell Jared where to go. He already knew, guiding the car smoothly onto the highway.
I sat in the backseat, my fingers tapping impatiently against the door handle as the car inched its way slowly through the gridlocked Manhattan traffic.
I hated this.
Just when everything felt good and right between Noah and I, it had been yanked out from under me again, leaving me feeling insecure about our relationship.
I just wanted things to calm down, for everything to be normal.
But how could that ever happen with the kind of lives we led?
My phone buzzed, and I looked down, hoping for a text from Noah.
But it wasn’t a text.
It was en email alert.
One new email.
From Dr. Jason Cartwright.
Wow. He was nothing if not fast.
It was addressed to my faculty advisor, Dr. Yessnow, and I was cc’d.
Dear Dr. Yessnow,
I had the opportunity to meet with Charlotte Holloway this morning, and have deemed her fit to return to school effective immediately. However, I am also recommending ten counseling sessions with me, in my office, to be completed as part of the conditions of her reenrollment.
She can schedule them at her convenience, and I will reach out to Charlotte separately to start that process.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Dr. Jason Cartwright
I blinked my eyes in disbelief.
What the hell?
Ten counseling sessions?
Ten hours of sitting there with Dr. Cartwright, talking about what? I couldn’t tell him about anything that was going on in my life! That was humiliating and totally invasive.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the seat.
“Is everything okay, Miss?” Jared asked from the front of the car. His eyes met mine in the rearview mirror, his face kind and creased with concern.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, Jared, everything’s fine. It’s just been one of those days.”
Jared nodded, as if he understood this. “Would you like to listen to some music?” he asked.
“That would be wonderful.”
He hit a button and the soft notes of a classical concerto wafted through the car, its tone rich and melodious.
I knew nothing about classical music, but I knew this was soothing. “I like this,” I said. “What is it?”
“Mendelssohn,” Jared said. “Violin Concerto in E minor.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “Do you listen to a lot of classical music, Jared?”
“Oh, yes,” Jared said. “I find it not only relaxing, but interesting as well. Every time you listen to a brilliant classical piece, you pick up something different, some new rhythm, new note, new instrument.”
“It’s like discovering it all over again. So it never gets old.”
“Exactly,” Jared said. “Some people think classical music is boring, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.”
I nodded. “Who’s your favorite composer?”
“Oh, that would be impossible,” he said. “There is no…” Suddenly, he trailed off, though, and I saw him sit up straighter in his seat.
“Jared?” I asked. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine, miss,” he said. But his eyes were on the rearview mirror, his face hardening.
“Then why are you sitting up straight and acting like something horrible is happening?”
Jared locked the doors, the clicking sound echoing through the car. Panic flooded me as I flashed back to being in Professor Worthington’s car, the sound the locks had made as he’d trapped me inside with him.
“I want you to stay calm,” Jared said. “And not panic.”
It was impossible. I was already panicked. “What’s going on?”
“We’re being followed.”
“Followed?
”
“Yes.”
“By who?”
“I don’t know,” Jared said, and then he turned down a side street. A black sedan followed us, and my heart caught in my throat. I gazed out the back window, but I couldn’t see the driver.
“Hold on, miss,” Jared said.
And then he hit the gas as the car lurched forward down the back streets of New York, the black sedan hot on our trail.
Jared did his best to lose the tail, turning this way and that, but eventually, we got caught up at a red light.
As soon as we rolled to a stop, the man in the car behind us stepped onto the street and began walking toward us. There was nowhere to go—we were on a one-way street, boxed in by cars in both the front and the back.
The man tapped on my window, motioning for me to roll it down. He didn’t look dangerous – he was physically intimidating, probably six foot three or so, with shaggy brown hair and full lips. But his shoulders sagged and his facial expression had a certain softness to it that made me sure he didn’t mean any harm.
“Do not roll down the window, Charlotte,” Jared said as he began to call 911.
“I’m sorry, “ the man said, struggling to be heard through the glass. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
The voice was familiar, but it took me a second to place it.
The man on the phone yesterday.
“Please,” he said. “You have to help me find Mikayla. I think I know where she is.”
I hesitated, remembering Noah’s warning about all the crazy people in New York who would come out of the woodwork and try to hurt me.
But then I remembered Mikayla, her eyes so haunted, her situation so desperate.
I hesitated for one more second.
And then I rolled down the window and waited for the man to speak.
End of Book Sixteen – Look For Book Seventeen, Coming Soon
Need more Hannah Ford? Click here to read the first book in her scorching new series, BECAUSE HE OWNS ME, available now. Or check out the excerpt below!
BECAUSE HE OWNS ME (Because He Owns Me, Book One)
by Hannah Ford
Copyright 2015, Hannah Ford, all rights reserved. This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
CALLUM
I was about to leave when I caught sight of her.
She was sitting at the bar alone, her hands clutched nervously in her lap.
Long blonde hair hung straight down her back, and she was dressed in tight jeans that hugged the curve of her ass and a snug black t-shirt with a line of tiny white buttons down the front. The shirt clung to a pair of full, pert breasts. It was cold in the club, and her nipples were prominent through the cheap material.
It probably tore easy, I thought, imagining what it would feel like to rip the buttons off one by one until her swollen nipples came into view. I wondered what those high breasts would look like covered in ropes of my cum.
My cock twitched.
A pair of black high-heeled sandals encased her feet, and her toenails were painted a deep pink. I’d never had a foot fetish, but the color was undeniably sexy.
She had full pouty lips and a wide face, her skin porcelain and smooth. She’d obviously never been here before. I could tell by the way she’d laid her phone on the bar, keeping it close in case she needed to call someone.
A first-timer.
My cock twitched again, more insistent this time, as I thought about pulling on that long blonde hair, tangling it in my fingers, her back arched and my dick nestled between her ass cheeks as she moaned in ecstasy. I imagined tying her up in one of those back rooms, pushing her to her knees, her full lips stretching out around my dick.
One night only.
It was my rule.
I was never with a woman for more than one night.
It was a rule that could never be broken.
No exceptions.
Ever.
I had my reasons.
But was she the type that would go for an arrangement like that?
I took another sip of my drink, letting the beat of the music wash over me.
The girl at the bar looked around nervously, and as she did, she met my gaze.
Her eyes were clear blue. I thought about how she’d look down on her knees, her hands tied behind her with a rope, those big wide eyes looking up at me as I fucked her mouth.
You can’t do that to her, Callum, I thought. You could have any woman in this club. Find a different one. She’s too pure.
But her pureness was what drew me to her.
Was she even from New York? Everyone who came to Manhattan was looking for something. What was she looking for? A quick little tryst before she went back to East Bumfuck or wherever it was innocence like hers came from?
She turned to look at me, and our eyes locked. Something rushed through me, an overwhelming feeling unlike anything I’d ever felt before. It was as if the wind had been knocked out of me.
I recovered quickly and smirked at her, and she flushed and turned away.
I was about to get up and go get her when she dipped her hand into her purse.
Then, ever so slowly, I saw her remove a small white pill from a pink shell case.
Well.
That settled it.
I had two rules.
The first was one night only. Never any more.
And the other was no drugs.
Ever.
I turned away, the disappointment that rolled through me out of proportion to the situation.
Five more minutes.
Then I was getting out of here.
ADRIANA
I’d been stood up.
It was my own fault, really. I’d known meeting a guy on a dating app was not the best idea. But Nathan had seemed nice enough – he’d gone to Stanford, he was at NYU business school getting his MBA, he had a nice smile and sandy blonde hair. Nothing about him screamed raging asshole or serial killer. Of course, I’d been a tiny bit suspicious when he’d insisted on meeting for a drink and not dinner or a movie, but he’d sounded nice enough on the phone, and if I was being honest, I knew little about the New York dating scene.
Everyone here was so busy and rushed. Drinks or coffee seemed like a reasonable suggestion.
I sighed and took another look around the restaurant/bar, wondering if perhaps Nathan was here and I’d somehow missed him. I searched for any guys who were sitting alone or seemed like they might be looking for someone.
No one looked even remotely like the pictures of Nathan I’d seen online.
Although the man in the corner booth was staring at me. I blushed, feeling the color rising on my cheeks. God he was gorgeous. Everything about him was just so dark -- dark hair, dark eyes, dark stubble on his chin, dark suit with a matching black button-down underneath. The only thing light about him was his eyes– a piercing blue that stood out even all the way over here.
The man was sipping something clear, and he was all alone, which made no sense. Why was he sitting alone? He was the most gorgeous man in here, all smoldering eyes and broad shoulders and messy hair. It wasn’t even a matter of taste or debate. Women should have been throwing themselves at him. My pulse pounded and I my blushed deepened as he caught me staring.
A smirk played on his beautiful full lips.
Those lips.
I turned away, embarrassed.
I was sure he was making fun of me.
Suddenly, the lights in the restaurant dimmed, and the music – a heavy rotation of 90s songs that had been remixed to give them a pounding bass line – got louder as the time on my phone screen switched over to 11 o’clock on the dot.
Something about the bar getting darker and louder flipped a switch inside of me, and the social anxiety I’d struggled with since I was teenager roared to life, threatening to take over. I reached into my bag and pulled out an Ativan, then changed my mind and put it back in its case.
Wh
y waste a perfectly good Ativan on some asshole from a dating app?
I stood up and grabbed my phone off the bar, threw a twenty down to pay my tab (I’d had two diet cokes and a cranberry juice while I’d been waiting) and headed for the exit.
I was almost to the door when I felt a pair of strong hands slide around my waist.
“Where are you going?” a deep male voice breathed into my ear, and I felt myself getting pulled back into a hard, broad chest.
I turned around and fell into a pair deep blue eyes.
It was him.
The man from the corner booth.
He moved so he was standing in front of me, loosening his grip on me but keeping his hands on my hips, like he was afraid if he let me go I was going to slip through his grasp and out into the New York City night.
“Um, I’m leaving,” I said.
He was even more commanding up close – at least six-foot-two, his suit impeccably cut, his hair fading perfectly into a pair of short sideburns. He smelled like a yummy aftershave, something so male it made me dizzy.
“Sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “Are you… are you Nathan?” He looked nothing like Nathan’s picture, but perhaps Nathan was one of those catfishes I’d heard about who used fake pictures stolen from someone else’s facebook profile. But if you looked like the man standing in front of me, I had no idea why you would bother to use a fake picture. Nathan’s picture had been nice enough, but it had nothing on the man standing in front of me.
“Never apologize,” the man admonished. “It’s a sign of weakness.”
“What?” I asked, confused. “I didn’t –”
He was still holding my hips, and his hands snaked around to my lower back. A delicious warmth radiated through my muscles, instantly relaxing me.
“Give me the drugs,” he demanded.
“What?”
“The drugs in your purse.” He let go of me and held his hand out. There was no threat in his voice, just the tone of a man who was used to ordering people around.
“I don’t have any drugs in my purse.”