by Kaye Blue
My mind whirled as I tried to figure out what he was up to, but my brain was so rattled, I had no luck. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.
“As good as can be expected,” I said noncommittally.
Wasted words designed to fill the space and buy me some time, but Alex effortlessly swiped them away.
He lifted his lips in another predatory smile. “Another bland nicety from you, Mia. Do you really think that will help you?”
Hell no I didn’t, but I wouldn’t let him know that. Instead, I breathed deep, letting my impatience show on my face. “Look, Alex, I—”
“Shut up, Mia.”
His voice was like a knife slicing through the air, his previous smile gone in an instant, his face now set in a stern expression that dared me to defy him.
I didn’t.
For at least a moment, doing anything other than exactly what he said was impossible, and I went quiet, though I narrowed my eyes at him, hoping at least that would tell him how little I appreciated his tone.
We stood in silence for several long seconds, and when he smiled again, not bothering to hide his pleasure at my compliance, I finally snapped out of it.
I had no idea what was going on, but I knew I was screwed. I didn’t have any information, no lifeline, but I knew I needed to get out of here, try to regroup.
Whatever Alex had couldn’t be good, but I couldn’t think about that now.
All I could do was retreat, hope that maybe time and space would help me when I saw him again, something I knew would happen.
For the first time in my life, I regretted the fact that I hadn’t inherited my father’s natural gift for bullshit. But I’d have to try to fake it and hope that Alex, who was proving quite the formidable opponent, would buy it.
I pulled myself to my full height, hoping my face showed my exasperation and annoyance. I looked Alex directly in the eye.
“I don’t have time for games, Alex. Good-bye.”
Without pause, I turned and walked toward the door, happy that my voice had come out strong, confident. I kept waiting for him to speak, but as the seconds ticked by and the door got closer, I couldn’t shake the hope that maybe he’d bought it.
No suck luck, it seemed.
Just as I reached for the doorknob, he spoke.
“If you walk out of that door, you won’t be able to come back in. And trust me, you’ll want to.”
He spoke calmly, quietly, and I could feel the truth in his words. Still, instinct screamed at me to run. I couldn’t do that, though, not without knowing.
So I turned, my hand still on the knob.
“You have sixty seconds.”
“I’ll only take thirty,” he said.
I ground my teeth together, not letting Alex’s unwillingness to allow anyone to have the last word annoy me.
“The clock’s ticking,” I said a second later.
“Fine,” he said, smiling, the expression wolfish, predatory. “I’ll be quick about it. You have a choice to make: give yourself to me for three months or stand back and watch as I destroy your father, your business, and the town you love so much.”
Four
Mia
*
I stared at him like he had grown two heads.
In truth, he may as well have.
That would have made as much sense as what he’d said to me. In fact, the implication of his words had to be wrong.
I looked at him, felt one brow slowly inching up and did my best to pull it back down, to keep my face and expression as neutral as his was.
“Excuse me?” I said.
I could hear that little rise in my voice, the one that I used when I was displeased and on the verge of saying so.
Alex gave me a quick little glimpse of his smile.
He’d heard it too. But rather than responding to it, taking it for anything like a threat or something he was concerned with, he smiled.
“I think you heard me,” he said, that cocky expression on his face making me want to smack him.
“Yes, I heard the words that you said,” I replied, enunciating slowly, “but I think I mistook your meaning.”
Alex tilted his head, looking as though he was considering a very tough problem. “I don’t think you mistook my meaning, but why don’t you tell me what you think, and I’ll tell you if you’re right,” he said.
I waited a moment, didn’t respond immediately because I didn’t want to go off half-cocked and wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing how fucking shook his words had me.
Because they did.
I still didn’t know what he meant, what he intended, but my panic amped up yet another notch, the pit in my stomach growing ever-deeper.
Finally, after taking a deep, calming breath, I said, “You said if I belong to you for three months, you won’t destroy my father, my business, and the town I love so much.”
“What do you think that means?” he asked.
“I have no idea,” I said stiffly, but not because I didn’t know what it meant but because I didn’t want to accept it.
“Want to take a stab at it?”
“No, Alex, I don’t want to take a stab at it because it doesn’t matter. I don’t belong to anyone except myself, and won’t.”
“You sure about that?”
Something in his voice, the way he uttered the words, made my panic recede and sent my desire spiking.
It was an involuntary reaction, one that shamed me to even acknowledge, but one that I couldn’t resist.
It was very messed up, incredibly messed up that I was reacting to him this way after…whatever this was, but I was.
I glanced at him, saw the little smirk on his face from all the way across the room.
He knew it too.
“Your sixty seconds is up, Alex,” I said, tightening my hold on the door.
“Fine, since you want to pretend to be obtuse, I’ll lay it out for you plainly,” he said.
I had turned to face the door again, but at his words turned back to face him.
He wasn’t smirking anymore.
In fact his face looked dead serious, set in an intractable expression that told me he wasn’t playing.
Involuntarily, I shivered again, my body unable to resist what my mind so desperately wanted to.
I stayed where I was, practically frozen to the spot, but the same wasn’t true for Alex.
He walked toward me, moving slowly, gracefully, like he was waiting to pounce. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was his prey.
Couldn’t ignore the fact that I kind of liked that feeling.
There would be time for recrimination later, but for now I kept my attention on him, watching the way he approached me, the seconds ticking by slowly, but not slowly enough.
He stopped in front of me, close enough that our shoes were touching, our bodies no more than an inch apart.
I wasn’t sure if his proximity was meant to intimidate, but if it was, he had sorely missed the mark.
Because as frustrated as I was by this, as confused, as annoyed by his games and the way he seemed so dissimilar from the Alex I had known, I was anything but afraid.
Hungry for him, needy in a way that put me on the verge of doing something to embarrass myself… Yes, I was all of those things.
But I wasn’t afraid.
Perhaps I should have been.
No, I definitely should have been.
My mind was still racing, confusion, just a touch of fear, in a full-out battle, but none of that compared to my desire for him.
“You pretend you don’t know what I mean, what I want, but I think you do,” he said.
I didn’t, or at least I didn’t think I did, but I was so off balance, I couldn’t say for sure.
As much as it shamed me, I knew what I wanted him to mean. His voice was soft, barely more than a silky whisper and it felt as though his words themselves were caressing my skin.
An impossibility, of course, but the sound of his voice, the w
ay it filtered through my body, settled deep in my core, left me on the verge of breathless.
I ignored that feeling, difficult though it was, and kept my eyes locked on his.
Hoped my face didn’t give me away, did everything I could to make sure that it didn’t, and made my expression as impassive as I could muster.
“You’re mistaken. I don’t know what you’re talking about, what you want, but I don’t want to play games,” I said stiffly.
To my surprise, those words earned me another tilt of the corner of his mouth.
“That’s a lie, Mia,” he said.
“Now you’re accusing me of being a liar?”
“I’m not accusing you of anything. I just watched you do it. Like I said, you can pretend, but your body gives you away,” he said.
He stopped speaking then, let his eyes drop, his lids lowered halfway as he examined me.
“You think I don’t see it, the slight hitch in your breath, the pulse beating at your throat, but I see it. I bet if I pulled that jacket open your nipples would be hard. And what would I find if I reached between your thighs?” he asked.
I said nothing, unable to, not when my breath, which he had been right to note had hitched, was coming out even faster, my sex clenching wildly around emptiness that I knew Alex would fill, my blood rushing through my body, carrying equal parts shame and desire.
I knew exactly what he meant, but wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of admitting it.
“Your sixty seconds is up,” I repeated.
I’d held onto the doorknob the entire time, like a lifeline, though it wouldn’t help me if I didn’t have the will to walk through the door, and I certainly didn’t.
When I looked at Alex, saw the calm certainty in his face, I knew he could see that too.
“It’s as I said. We have unfinished business between us. I want to finish it.”
“Alex, I still don’t know what you’re talking about. Really,” I said, the last word coming out far too much like a plea.
“I think you do know. The way we left things. It wasn’t satisfying. Not to me. I’m going to correct that,” he said.
He seemed to be closer to me, but he hadn’t moved.
With a burst of embarrassment I realized what had happened.
Unconsciously I had leaned closer, something I told myself was to better hear his voice. That was a lie as well, because I had heard him perfectly. Some part of me, one that went beyond my conscious thoughts, had wanted to be close to him.
I didn’t want to interpret what that meant, but it wouldn’t take a genius to figure it out.
So instead of thinking about that, I looked at him, searching his eyes, searching for some clue.
There was none.
All I saw was that beautiful green, green that used to sparkle with life but was now flat, predatory.
For reasons I didn’t understand, that again made me shiver, and again not in fear.
He noticed that too, but at this point I was too far gone to be embarrassed. I had no clue what I had been expecting when I’d shown up this morning, but it hadn’t been this.
“I assume this satisfaction is of the carnal variety,” I said, forcing the words out of my mouth.
“See? I told you you knew,” he said.
It seemed this version of Alex wasn’t above gloating. I wanted to roll my eyes but didn’t waste the effort, deciding it was better to keep focused on the matter at hand.
“Why do all this? If you wanted to see me, why didn’t you just come visit?” I asked, exasperated.
“I don’t want to see you, Mia. I want to fuck you.”
He said the words as if they were nothing, but my reaction was anything but. Almost instantly, the image of tangled limbs, mine and Alex’s, the sound of our heated breaths, the feel of his hard muscles and smooth skin under my hands filled my mind.
I ruthlessly pushed those images away, tried to bring my mind back to what mattered, and that certainly wasn’t fantasies of sex with Alex.
“Fine,” I said, managing to speak with a level of calm that I certainly didn’t feel. “The question still remains. Why wouldn’t you just come visit me?”
“When I left, I told you I would never set foot there again. That hasn’t changed,” he said.
Though his voice was still even toned, seemingly unbothered, I saw the flash of steel in his eye, saw his resolve, and remembered how he had been all those years ago when he’d walked away and hadn’t once looked back.
“So why not call? Take me for coffee?”
“I know it would be a blow your sensibilities to think that some of us can’t be bothered to pretend. But I’m one of those people, Mia. I don’t want to take you to coffee. I’m not going to woo you. This is strictly an arrangement designed for my satisfaction. I didn’t want there to be any misunderstanding about that,” he said.
He sounded so calm, so logical, that it took me a second to understand what he was saying. But when I did, I looked at him, incredulous.
“So you invited me here to proposition me for sex?” I asked.
“I thought we’d made that point clear,” he said.
His nonchalance was yet another irritant but I ignored that, instead concentrating on what else he had said.
“If that’s the case, what’s all that stuff about my father and the town and the business?” I asked.
Alex’s outrageous words had momentarily distracted me from his threats, but I was soon thinking about them and what they would mean to me and the people I cared about. My chest tightened, felt like it might cave in from the tension that was building.
“Think of it as an incentive,” he said, bringing me back to the moment.
“We’re back to the word games, huh?”
“No. But I know that people need proper motivation. I just thought I’d increase yours.”
“You’re actually threatening me?” I asked incredulously, my voice raising an octave, as it often did when I was excited, and afraid, which was something I knew Alex would remember.
“I would never,” he said, looking dramatically offended, which proved to me he didn’t care at all. “What I’m doing is offering you a series of options.”
“Oh, you mean options where I…have sex with you,” I said in a low voice. “Or what?”
“Or Marshall & Sons goes out of business and takes about five hundred jobs with it.”
Even though I hadn’t fully processed what he said, hadn’t processed this situation at all, I believed him. My stomach dropped into a pit of despair that seemed to come from nowhere.
“I never took you for a bullshitter, Alex,” I said, trying to bluff, knowing it wouldn’t work.
He feigned surprise, lifted a brow. “I’m not,” he said.
“You are if you’re talking about shutting down Marshall & Sons. You know that’s not possible. We own the property. We own the company. What could you possibly do to us?” I asked.
My voice was as firm as it had been all day, and that was entirely a facade. I might have been portraying a strong front on the outside, but inside I was quivering and this time with fear.
Alex was thorough. There was no way he didn’t know all there was to about Marshall & Sons.
Which meant I was fucked.
“You sure about that?” he replied, his voice relaxed, almost playful.
The bastard was enjoying this.
“What are you talking about, Alex?” I said through clenched teeth.
This game he was playing with me was one I didn’t like, but to bring in the town, my family’s company, was something I wouldn’t abide. I’d given everything to protect them and that wouldn’t change.
“Your father’s still a shitty businessman, isn’t he?”
“We’re not here to talk about my father,” I said.
My father had hated Alex on sight and Alex had felt the same. The years apart seemed not to have cooled those tensions.
Alex smiled, then shrugged. “You’re right. We’re not
here to talk about him and he’s irrelevant anyway.”
I glared at him, not that it had any effect. “Why do you say that?” I asked stiffly.
If anything his smile brightened.
“So modest, Mia. But you forget I’m not one of the idiots too blind to figure out what goes on at Marshall & Sons,” he said.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.
“Of course not. Does it still bother you? The name Marshall & Sons. I mean, your father doesn’t have any sons and you run the business anyway. Isn’t that right?” he asked, his gaze coolly assessing me.
Alex knew that was just a name, one based on my father’s hopes and not reality. He also knew how much it bothered me. I wouldn’t let him get under my skin, though.
“If you know so much, you would remember that my grandfather named the business,” I said, feeling compelled to defend my father, even though I had much bigger fish to fry.
“That’s right. And there was never supposed to be a place for you in it, was there? But now you run the whole thing and your father’s too stupid to notice.”
“You will not insult my father, Alex,” I said sternly.
He shrugged. “Your father’s not worth the breath it would take to insult him,” Alex said. “But you’re right, we need to get back to this conversation.”
I stayed silent, pride demanding that I do something, say something to defend my family, the reality of this situation leaving no doubt I could do no such thing.
“You’ve done an impressive job. Took a small-time used tire shop and turned it into a successful tire recycling business. How did you get the old man to go for that?” Alex asked.
My nails were pressed so tightly into my palms I worried I would break the skin. I stayed silent, breathed deep, and then, finally managed to loosen my fingers ever so slightly, again look at Alex’s mocking expression.
“We saw an opportunity to expand and took it,” I said, wondering why I was even bothering to answer his question at all.
“So you made him think it was his idea? Smart, but it wasn’t enough, right? Even with all your efforts, there wasn’t enough money to keep things afloat, not with your father’s mismanagement. It must have gotten hard, cleaning up his messes without him knowing. Is that why you took out the loan?” he asked.