Acquired

by Charlotte Byrd

  I shake my head. No, I can’t forgive that, because next time it might be much worse. I sigh.

  I tried. I really tried. I came here. I had dinner. I even kissed him. This is all that he could’ve expected from me. It’s okay if I go now. I’ve tried to repay my debt. It didn’t work out. Because of him. So it’s not my fault, right? Right.

  There’s a knock at the door. Then another. And another. I don’t answer. I’ve said enough. I don’t want to argue anymore. My mind is made up. In the morning, Mr. Whitewater is ordering me a cab or a driver, and I’m getting out of here.

  The following morning, I sleep in late. I’m still in bed at eight a.m. The bed is made of feathers and softness beyond my imagination. I feel like I’ve slept on a cloud, and I’m not looking forward to going home to my thin, uncomfortable mattress at home. I got it for $99 on sale, and it feels like it.

  I pull on the most comfortable pair of jeans I own and my favorite turquoise tank top. Someone once told me that I looked great in turquoise, and I’ve stocked my closet with turquoise tops ever since. I always thought they were right, but this morning, I’m not so sure. I look pale and tired. A big part of me is regretting the fact that I’m leaving, but I’m not sure I have the courage to go back on my word.

  There’s a light knock on the door.

  “Who is it?”

  “Good morning, Ms. Cole,” Mr. Whitewater says after I open the door.

  “Good morning, Mr. Whitewater,” I say with a yawn.

  He looks like he has been awake for hours. His hair is perfectly groomed and coiffed, and his suit is starched and ironed, or whatever one does to suits to keep them wrinkle-free.

  “Mr. Wild told me that you will be leaving this morning. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Yes, me too,” I nod. I am sorry. I wish this weren’t happening.

  He doesn’t say another word, doesn’t make a move either. I stare at him. What’s wrong? Slowly, his eyes tilt down. I follow them to the floor and see a light pink box.

  “Oh, what’s this?” I ask.

  “I’m not sure. But it’s for you,” Mr. Whitewater says. He quickly takes a step back and turns away from me to give me some privacy.

  I examine the box carefully in my hand. The cardboard looks old and smells a bit like cake. I carefully open the flap and peek in. It’s a book! A book?

  I pull out the book and let the box drop to the ground. Oh, my God. My heart starts to pound. Is this really what I think it is?

  A first edition of Jane Eyre!?!?

  The book is rather small and weathered, but otherwise it’s in excellent condition. I open it and run my hand along the smooth spine. I flip through the pages until I get some resistance at the very front. The pages are thicker here. Carefully, I flip the pages one at a time until I get to the title page and discover a note. It’s written on perfumed paper, the kind that you see in expensive paper stores. There’s a delicate floral design gracing each of the ends.

  I open the note.

  It’s from Wyatt. I see his name written in beautiful, careful script on the bottom. The W is elongated and flowery, the y is elegant and the two sets of t’s are defiant and proud.

  * * *

  Dear Brielle,

  I’m sorry. For everything.

  You deserve a lot better than me, of course. But please give me another chance.

  * * *

  Yours,

  Wyatt

  * * *

  Yours. I like the sound of that. I’ve never had anyone who was mine, in that way. My heart skips a beat again. And then another.

  Mr. Whitewater clears his throat, and I remember that he’s still here.

  “I think I need a moment, Mr. Whitewater,” I finally manage to utter. I go back into my room and close the door.

  “Oh my God,” I whisper. “A first edition of Jane Eyre!”

  I press the hardback book to my breasts and inhale its beautiful musty smell. This book has been around for hundreds of years, and now it’s mine. It belongs to me.

  But can I accept it if I decide not to stay here? I want to. He owes me an apology, and this was a marvelous apology.

  My thoughts drift back to Wyatt. Suddenly, I remember the softness of his lips and how they danced with mine to a tune that only we heard. I remember how hot I felt in between my legs and how much I wanted him to push up my taffeta skirt and let me wrap my legs around his strong, powerful torso.

  He wasn’t alone in feeling what he was feeling. I was there right along with him. We shared a chemical and electric connection. I was drawn to him as if he were a magnet, and I had trouble pulling away as well. I loved how hard his cock felt pushing into me, pressing me to the wall. I wanted to rip off his clothes. I wanted him to rip off mine. And then it was just too much. In a split second, it was suddenly too much.

  I don’t know what I should do. I want to stay, but I also want to go. I want to stay to get to know Wyatt more. And I want to run away from this place and its games.

  The sound of a startled horse scares me, and I walk over to the window. I lift the window and open the shutters. I didn’t notice it last night, but there are stables to the right of me. The horse makes another piercing cry, sending shivers over my body.

  “It’s okay, Sebastian. It’s okay, guy,” Wyatt says. I can’t see him, but his voice is firm and commanding, and I really believe that it’s going to be okay.

  Suddenly, they emerge. Wyatt is dressed in jeans, a pair of brown boots, and a simple white t-shirt. He’s tan, and his sweaty body glistens in the sun. His hair looks wet, either from sweat or water. He’s riding a tall black horse with a thick black mane that flies up with each gallop. They are moving as one. I look closer, and I see that the horse is not wearing a saddle. Wyatt is riding bareback!

  The horse and the rider dance together for a few moments in a circle. The horse kicks up swirls of dust, which in the sunlight look like periwinkle. Then suddenly, the horse shifts his weight and raises his front legs in the air.

  “Oh wow,” I whisper in awe. Wyatt remains in place on his back holding on by nothing but his powerful thighs. It looks like the horse is going to land on his front legs and morph into a trot, but he doesn’t. Instead, he lands hard on his front hooves and lifts his back hooves up high in the air. Then he does it all again.

  My smile fades quickly after I realize that something’s going wrong.

  “Oh my God,” I whisper and bring my hands to my face. “No, no, no…”

  But it’s too late. The horse bucks one last time, and this time, Wyatt doesn’t hold on. I see him flying through the air. He misses the chain-link fence by less than a foot and lands flat on his back.

  “Oh my God!” I scream. My voice echoes around the room, but Wyatt doesn’t get up.

  “Get up! Please get up,” I scream, but he doesn’t.

  For a brief second, I consider running to the back of the room, down the long hallway, down the winding staircase, out of the front door, and around the entire 10,000 square foot house, but then I see a simpler way down.

  “What are you doing?” Mr. Whitewater enters my room.

  I’m already hanging out of the window, half of my body is on the roof of the patio.

  “Wyatt is hurt, call 911!”

  I climb down the post of the patio, jump into the orange grove below and run toward Wyatt.

  I finally reach him. His face is so pale that it’s the color of those white Mexican plates from dinner. All blood has drained from his face, and his lips are blue.

  “Wyatt? Wyatt?” I scream. I want to shake him and bring him back to life. But I’m afraid he has broken something in his body, and that will make it worse.

  “Wyatt? Wyatt? Please wake up. Please, please, please,” I shout cradling my arms around him.

  Mr. Whitewater runs over.

  “How is he? Oh my God. He’s unconscious.”

  I nod. I don’t know what else to do.

  “I just called 911, but they won’t be here for some ti
me.”

  “What, why?” I demand to know.

  “Twenty minutes at the earliest,” he says and puts the receiver back to his ear. “They say that we shouldn’t move him until they get here. He might’ve broken his back.”

  The world fades to black with those words. ‘He might’ve broken his back’ is all I hear in my head over and over again. The paramedics arrive sometime later. They have to scream at me to get out of the way. I don’t move. I don’t even know if I can move. Someone pushes me out of the way, and they take Wyatt away. They strap him onto a gurney and roll him to the ambulance.

  I can’t go along. No one can. They tell me and Mr. Whitewater that we can follow along behind the ambulance if we want.

  I’m in a daze. I don’t know what to do. I follow Mr. Whitewater to his car.

  “Are you sure you want to come? I thought you wanted to leave this morning? You still can, if you want to.”

  I stare at him. All thoughts of leaving have all but dissipated. I don’t even know what he’s talking about. All I know is that I can’t leave now. I don’t know what’s wrong with him, and I can’t leave until I find out. What if he needs my help?

  Twelve hours later.

  I’ve spent the last twelve hours in the hospital looking at magazines and mindlessly reading books that I did not understand on my phone. I read the words, but they don’t make any sense. I don’t know who wrote them or for what reason. The only thing that makes sense to me is the pictures. I leaf through the celebrity magazines and pay close attention to which movie stars have lost and gained weight. Which ones were pregnant. Which ones got engaged and which ones got divorced. It’s all things that I used to find interesting, but now none of it makes any sense.

  This hospital reminds me of the one back home, where I waited for hours for my mom to get out of her various surgeries. Time stands still here. It’s as if the waiting room is some secret time travel chamber in which I can go into and not age for hours and days and months. I age, of course. I noticed it whenever I went into to the bathroom and looked at the horror that was my face, but I never felt time passing. Not even one second.

  Breathe, I say to myself. Breathe.

  I take a deep breath. And then another. And another. I feel a little better, but as soon as I look around, all of my thoughts and concerns and regrets creep back in.

  A doctor who is in charge of Wyatt and his condition comes out from behind the double doors with a smile on his face.

  “Wyatt’s awake now,” he tells Mr. Whitewater. “He’s one lucky young man. Even though both of his legs are broken.”

  Broken legs. I sigh. He is lucky.

  “Wait here,” Mr. Whitewater tells me. I have no right to go see Wyatt. I’m not really anybody to him. Barely an employee. Still, I hope that I can go in to see him.

  “And he doesn’t have any brain damage?” Mr. Whitewater asks the doctor.

  “No, not that I can tell. But it’s too soon to know for sure.”

  I wait for what seems like a century for Mr. Whitewater to come back. Now time is positively moving backward. I wonder if it’s 1993. Finally, he comes out.

  “He’d like to see you,” Mr. Whitewater says.

  “How is he?”

  “Fine. Definitely all there.”

  I smile. A wave of relief sweeps over me.

  Want to read the rest of Indebted Book 1?

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  Indebted (Book 2)

  **This is a Standalone NOVEL!

  When unemployed college graduate Annabelle receives a mysterious job offer from a company to which she has never applied to, she can't say no. But the job comes with a complication.

  Her boss is a sexy and arrogant soon-to-be billionaire playboy who always gets what he wants. He likes to play games and he's keeping a secret: he's Annabelle's one and only one night stand.

  As they get locked into a game of seduction, both are shocked to find themselves falling for each other...

  **WARNING: Steamy scenes, NO Cheating, HEA!

  1

  I came here so that no one would hear me scream. The redwoods surrounding me are muffling my sobs. Birds are flying away frightened, and rabbits are running for their lives.

  I have been here for a few days already, all alone, surviving on energy bars and bags of dried fruit and nuts. I brought real food – dried soups and pasta – and a tiny camping stove for heating up food and water, but I just don’t have the energy for all that.

  I haven’t had much of an appetite in weeks, actually. Not since it happened. A part of me thought that my appetite might return here. But it hasn’t. Now, the forty-pound bag stuffed with all the food and supplies that I have no use for serves no purpose except to make my shoulders raw.

  But there’s nothing to do. I’m lost and angry and self-destructive, but not self-destructive enough to throw away food. I’m in the backcountry of the Yosemite National Park. I haven’t seen another human in four days. Who knows what awaits me in the five days to come. My supplies could mean the difference between life and death, and I am not throwing them away.

  * * *

  Looking down at my topographical map, I try to figure out how much longer it will take me to get to the lake. I have been hiking for five hours, and I want to get there before the sun dips below the horizon and the chill of the night returns. I haven’t had a shower in days, and I need to wash off the thick layer of dirt covering every inch of my body.

  According to where I think I am on the map, the lake is still about half an hour away. But I’m wrong… I take a few steps around the bend and see it right in front of me.

  Majestic and elegant, a thick forest of pines surrounds the lake, which cradles it as if it’s a gem.

  I drop my bag and run down to a barely-existent path through the pine trees. As I run, I peel off my clothes piece by piece until I step out of my panties and jump into the ice cold, glacier water.

  “Oh my God! Oh my God!” I yelp.

  The water rushes over me and through me and, for a brief moment, I forget everything that has happened. My mom isn’t dead. I didn't spend two years of my life nursing her. I didn't hate my dad for leaving her right before she got sick and never returning.

  * * *

  I rise out of the water. The warm sun feels nice on my erect nipples, comforting even. I dip back down, this time submerging my head. Freezing water rushes over my head, and I scream under water.

  “Fuuuuuuuuuuck!”

  I scream. The water is so cold I feel like my lungs are collapsing within my chest. I scream again. I had to be a rock for two years, and I just can’t take it anymore.

  The temperature difference between the air and the water is probably more than 50 degrees, and I can’t get enough of the water. It’s focusing my mind. Nothing else exists except right here and now.

  It’s quite a change from the world where I came from. That world of anxiety over the future and the depression over the past makes me wish that I were the one who had gotten cancer instead of her. It would've been easier for me to handle.

  Here, I don’t dwell on the past or worry about the future. My mind doesn’t spin in circles on what could’ve been or what might be. Rising out and diving back into the crystal-clear water centers me.

  Alive.

  Awake.

  Aware.

  I’m present in this moment, and this moment is all that matters. It’s all I have.

  * * *

  “Hey! Hey, there!” A deep voice pierces my solitude.

  Who is this asshole infringing on my one moment of fun and hope? I turn around.

  “Mind if I join you?” he yells from the shore. “You’re the first person I’ve seen in two days.”

  “Whatever,” I yell back and dive under the water.

  It’s going to be okay. I’m not going to let this stranger invade my fun. The lake is more than two miles across. There’s room for both of u
s here.

  When I come back up for air, the stranger is waist deep in the water. His body is tan and strong. He descends into the water and comes back up again. When he comes up, every defined muscle in his body glistens in the sun as if he is a Greek god.

  “Wow, it’s cold,” he laughs. I smile and try to look away from his toned stomach and all six clearly defined muscles that form his six-pack.

  My fingers sweep over my thighs. Suddenly, I come to my senses. Somewhat.

  I am naked. Completely naked. Shit.

  “This feels amazing, doesn’t it?” he asks.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I nod. Are we really going to talk about the temperature of the water?

  “What are you doing here?” he asks, coming closer.

  He submerges into the water up to his shoulders. My mind focuses on his face. He hasn’t shaved in a couple of days, but his jawline is strong and powerful. His eyes are piercing blue, the color of the cloudless sky. Long strands of light brown hair fall into his face.

  He dives under the water. I wrap my hands around my body as if there is anything I can do if he opens his eyes under the water.

  He rises out of the water a god. He tosses his head and all hair from his face dances and falls into place. A beautiful, friendly smile forms on his lips.

  * * *

  “I’m Tristan,” he says. “What’s your name?”

  I want to lie but lose my train of thought. “Annabelle.”

  “Annabelle? I’ve never met anyone by that name before,” he smiles. His white teeth sparkle in the sunlight.

  “I’ve never met anyone named Tristan before,” I mumble.

  I’m flirting. I haven’t flirted in who knows how long, and something about saying those words reminds me that I am a woman. It’s a nice feeling.