by West, Jade
Normally I’d have been over it like a rash all night through. But no. I hadn’t given it a fucking thought all night through. My attention had been well and truly elsewhere.
“You need to accept them!” Eric gushed, like it was needed. “Drake says these people deserve the very finest feedback. Now, he said. He said right now, Bran.”
I could imagine his face as he spat out the instructions to Eric. His disapproval at the way I was handling his cuntish billionaire butt buddies.
The list was a whirlwind of high bids and zealous promises. I should have been euphoric, grinning like a fucking lunatic at the cash value of the girl in my bed.
But I wasn’t.
The way the prospect of selling her jammed into the woozy bout of weird-arsed fluffy bullshit tumbling through my brain was enough to make me pat my pockets for a smoke.
“Click them!” Eric urged. “Log in as you right here and click them! Get them rolling! Now!”
“I’ll go through them in my own time,” I grunted as I pulled out my cigarettes. “At my own pace, whenever I damn well see fit.”
His eyes were pathetic saucers. His jaw slack, even though it was still swollen from its run in with my fists just a few nights previous.
“Drake can spout all the demands he wants,” I continued, “but I don’t jump to demands. Not for anyone. Least of all that piece of shit.”
He tipped his head towards the bedroom behind me. “She in there? With you?”
“None of your business, as per,” I told him. “I’ll handle the sixty-day goods however I deem fit.”
Saucer eyes kept their stare right on my face. I hated what I saw there shining across at me. His next words came out dry. Weak. Alive with honesty. “What’s happening to you, Bran? What’s the girl doing to you?”
I sneered and lit up, past giving a shit about heading to the porch. “Like the girl’s doing anything to me, jackass.”
“You know that’s it, right?” he asked as I took a drag. “You know that’s why the world’s going crazy?”
“Enlighten me,” I jeered, and leaned my weight against the balustrade. “Tell me, oh wise brother of mine, why is the world going crazy over sweet Miss Emmerson?”
“Because you are,” he hissed. “Because you’re going crazy over sweet Miss Emmerson, Bran. You’re out of your fucking mind over sweet Miss Emmerson.”
I laughed.
It was cutting.
Vile.
Barely more than a jeer.
And fake.
Because I knew there was truth in his words. I knew it as well as he did.
“Don’t give me that shit,” I told him. “Like I’m going crazy over some sorry little sixty-day purchase from the back end of beachville. Fucking please.”
“It’s true.” He folded his arms, self-assurance bristling. I could have pushed him over the bannister for my distaste at him holding up a mirror to my insanity. Sent him tumbling without a second thought for the pile of crumpled misery he’d be at the bottom. “You’re losing your shit over her, Bran. I can see it. Drake can see it. Hell, fucking everyone can see it. And that’s why they’re bidding… don’t you see it? That’s why they want a go on the action themselves… because if she’s good enough to make you lose your fucking marbles after a couple of days messing about with her, then what’s she gonna do to them, hey? What’s she worth to them?!”
I took another long drag before gritting my jaw. “They’re bidding because she’s a good proposition, Eric. Nothing fucking more than that. I told you she would be.”
It was his turn to laugh. Unlike mine, his was real. One hundred percent fucking genuine.
“You need to look at yourself, Bran. How many girls have I seen you with? How many girls have they seen you with? None of them made you break a sweat. None of them made you bat a pissing an eyelid beyond making them suffer for the cameras. You didn’t give a shit for any of them.”
“Stop this crap,” I snapped, but he shook his head.
“Seriously,” he said. “This is for you, not for me. Because you’re my pissing brother. Because you need to know what’s happening to you. You need to sort your shit out before it eats you up whole.”
“This is what Drake told you to tell me, is it?” I tossed my cigarette butt over the railings, manners be damned.
“Drake told me to tell you to check your messages. That and click accept and get the scheduling pings out to the people who want them.”
“And if I don’t?” I snapped. “Did you run along and skip all the way up here, kissing Drake’s ass over the phone all the while?”
He held up his hands at the accusation. “I’m on middle ground. This shit storm is between you and him.”
“Yeah, sure it is,” I scoffed. “Like he isn’t bringing you under his wing with some promise of deputisation at my expense. Is that it, Eric? Is that what he’s promising you for chasing me down like a rabid dog on a fine December morning?”
I was wrong.
It was obvious. His brows pitted hard, eyes hurt in a way I hadn’t seen them before.
Or maybe I had.
Maybe I’d just chosen to ignore every scrap of genuine emotion I’d seen in him since we were teenagers and our father was still head of our household and I was vaguely human. Maybe I’d chosen to ignore every scrap of everything in him since I’d stopped giving a shit for anything in existence other than where the next pay check was coming from.
“Don’t do this,” he said. “Go up against him and he’ll take you apart.”
I couldn’t hold back another sneer. “You were busting to be in charge of this place a few nights ago. Why the sudden concern?”
And then I saw that too.
My gut lurched afresh. My intuition spiked in a way usually reserved for knowing when girls were teetering on the edge of their limits.
He was worried.
Worried about me.
I felt the fine hairs bristle on the back of my neck, knowing in that heartbeat that whatever messages Drake had conveyed to my young goof of a brother had hit home hard.
“I mean it,” he said. “He’ll take you down.”
“Relax,” I told him. “Drake is Drake. There’s too much cash coming in for him to tip the apple cart. He wants the money rolling, I’m giving him his sixty-day profit fest.”
He shook his head. “He’s seeing what I’m seeing, Bran. That you’re losing your shit over this one. That she’s different. That she’s sending you round the twist.”
I shook mine right back. “You should all be giving me more fucking credit for my control.”
“Accept the bids,” he said, and shunted his mobile handset closer to my chest. “Please, Bran, just accept the fucking bids and get things back in order.”
But I couldn’t.
I stared at that list, at the names of those with fresh new bids, filth on top of filth with crazy cash values, enough to make any man sweat at the thought, but I couldn’t bring myself to authorise a single one.
The list of approved bids above the new ones had been accepted on a whim, but the scheduling forms were still to be sent out to the bidders. There was nothing concrete in the Paige Emmerson purchase page, nothing confirmed and factored into a real life calendar. No virtual handshakes with any actual weight behind them other than an impulsive click of an accept button.
“I told you I’ll go through them in my own time,” I said. “I wasn’t lying.”
“Fine,” he snapped. “You do what you want. What do you want me to say to him if he calls back asking for an update?”
I hated my own stupid arrogance when it slipped from my mouth. “Tell him whatever you like. His opinion means fuck all to me.”
I lost Eric at that. He held out a hand for his handset and I returned it to his open palm with a slap. He didn’t hang around for another word, just retreated back along the landing like I’d kicked him hard in the ribs all over again.
Unfortunately for me, I felt unmistakeably like I’d been ki
cked in mine when I stepped back inside my bedroom.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Paige
I hoped his return would see my pulse calm down to some kind of normality, but it didn’t. Brandon Grant didn’t look like the Brandon Grant I’d come to know so vividly over the course of our past few days together. He seemed different. Moved somehow.
His eyes were burning raw, raging but not cold as I’d come to know them.
“What is it?” I asked him when he stepped back into the room.
He shook his head, seemingly oblivious to my lack of sir as he paced across to the window. The winter sky was bright outside. I moved across to his side of the bed to get a clear view of his expression as he stared out at it.
“Is something wrong?” I asked. “Have I done something?”
He looked amused at my question. “Have you done something? Nothing to concern yourself with, sweetheart.”
But I was concerned.
It was a strange feeling, the concern biting deep. It wasn’t for me, or for Phoebe, or even for the money I was so desperate to earn through this whole crazy process. It was for him.
The man I barely knew but wanted to. The man who’d saved me from certain doom, only to act like he was the biggest monster to ever cross the path of a girl like me.
I shuffled further under the covers and took a breath, tension high in my chest. I wasn’t expecting him to speak again after giving me such a brush off of an answer. My eyes shot right back up in his direction when his voice came out strong.
“Business is a cunt to navigate when there is anything worth navigating.”
“Business like me being here?” I asked.
He paused before he spoke again, turning in my direction so his eyes slammed mine. “Tell me. It is worth it? All this? Giving up your very self for a truckload of cash at the end of sixty days here with me?”
I couldn’t meet his stare.
My belly churned along with the words in my throat.
I wanted to be confident in my conviction and common sense, and tell him it was worth it for Phoebe and that was all. That this meant nothing other than earning my way out of the desperation of having a sister who needed saving at any cost.
I didn’t want to let my heart cough the words up and tell him it was about more than that. About more than the money. About more than giving myself to him only to walk away at the end of my contracted time without looking back.
I couldn’t tell him how my body craved his with every breath of mine. How my heart was already panging at the thought of walking away from the man who’d captured my soul already along with my body. How I was petrified that Rebecca Lane’s desperate reaction to him on the pier would be nothing compared to mine at the end of sixty days at his side.
“Yes,” I managed to tell him. “It’s worth it.”
“Really? It’s worth doing whatever I want, is it? How about worth giving your body to anyone I put in front of you? You have no idea what’s lined up on the road ahead, little girl.”
I guess that’s when I flinched.
I guess that’s when he noticed my physical reaction before I’d had the chance to speak a word.
“You do know that’s what’s coming, right?” he prodded. “You being a slut to whichever cuntish piece of shit I put in front of you for the next sixty days? This isn’t the time to be surprised, sweetheart.”
“I know that’s coming,” I said. “I’ll take anything you tell me to, I’m just…”
“Just what?” he pushed. “Worried the pay day won’t match the pain?”
I shook my head at that. “No. I’m not worried the pay day won’t match anything. The pay day is very generous.”
“Then just what?”
It was his eyes, digging. His stance so strong, even though he seemed so raw.
My inner tension snapped. Broke free and uncoiled. I stared up at the ceiling, lost in the moment of giving up to whatever was coming.
I couldn’t stop the zany humour. The zany fear of confessing anything of my feelings to a man who claimed to have none.
“Nothing to concern yourself with, sir,” I said, but I wasn’t mocking him. I wasn’t mocking a thing but my own crazy emotions.
He sat himself down on the edge of the bed, eyes still digging hard.
“I hope your sister realises how lucky she is to have you on her side,” he said in a sombre tone, and it hurt.
“I only hope she realises I’m trying my best for her,” I told him. “I hope she realises that wherever she is in the shit out there my heart is right with hers.”
“I just hope she’s fucking grateful for what you’re doing.”
“Does it matter?” I said. “I’d still be doing it if she wasn’t.”
He raised an eyebrow. “If she wasn’t thankful? Why the hell would you put yourself through the wringer for someone who didn’t have a basic scrap of gratitude?”
“Love,” I told him, beyond caring that we were likely going to enter another round of crosshairs on the same churning argument. “Love doesn’t have conditions. Not when it’s real.”
He pulled a cigarette from his pocket. “Love isn’t ever real. It may seem like it is, but it’s a pitiful illusion.”
“It is real,” I insisted. “Love is real, and so is gratitude. So is compassion and selflessness and humility. All of them are real. They are worth everything.”
“Doing well for you in this shit hole of a life you’ve been living, are they? Saving your skin from the dregs of crap, are they?”
Another pang of hurt bloomed in my chest. “No, they aren’t saving my skin from the shit hole of life,” I said. “That’s you. You’re the one saving my skin from the shit hole of life right now. Sometimes the biggest saviours come in the strangest suits of armour.”
His laugh was hollow. “I’m not a saviour.”
“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. My sister’s probably out there running from the same alleyway assholes who would have fucked me over that night, but she wouldn’t have a hope of ever making it through this shit in a million years if you hadn’t offered me this opportunity.”
“An opportunity to put yourself through hell for sixty straight days? To lose control of every scrap of yourself for a cash lump sum? Such a saviour I am.”
The words came tumbling out before I could stop them. “It’s not hell. This isn’t hell…”
“Try shifting that battered fucking body of yours out of bed this afternoon and tell me again it’s not hell.”
I shook my head. “That isn’t it. It’s about more than that,” I said, but my voice trailed off.
His laugh was cold. “You’re enjoying it, are you? Like being here, do you? Like being the sweet little dolly jumping at my words, my touch, my every fucking demand? Think you’d hang around a heartbeat longer if I transferred that juicy sum of cash to your bank account right here and now? Sure you would. Yes, quite the fucking paradise here.”
I should have shrugged it off. Told him he was right. Told him this was a job, like any other job, just with a bigger salary. Should have told him he was right, that he was just a man offering me money for doing what I was told and nothing more.
But I couldn’t.
I couldn’t say a thing.
I felt the burn of my cheeks as I pulled my gaze away from his.
“Well, indeed, Stockholm syndrome,” he said. “It always happens. Although this is somewhat quicker than most girls in my company.”
“It can’t be. You aren’t a kidnapper,” I mumbled.
“I may as well be, sweetheart. You’d do well to remember it.”
My conflicting emotions were a tumble of crazy. His coldness was at odds with the man who’d lowered me into the warm bath the night before. The man whose kiss had landed on mine and meant the world after a sea of filth for the cameras. The man who’d loaded me into his car from the alleyway after having saved my skin with his own bare hands.
I wanted his body next to mine afresh.
I wanted to feel his heat with mine. To feel his mouth all over again. To feel the strength in his steel. In his will. In his control.
No matter how crazy it was and always would be, and how it should never be the case in a million crazy years, I wanted him. I wanted him enough to take my breath.
Instead of coming closer he got up from the bed and paced across the room to his wardrobe. “Like I said earlier,” he told me. “Business is a cunt to navigate when there’s anything worth navigating. It’s time I did some navigating.” He fished a phone from a jacket pocket hung on the wardrobe door. “I’ll get some food sent up to you.”
“Wait…” I whispered, wanting to say so much. So much crazy rattling from my crazy heart all fit to burst. “Wait just a minute…”
But the door was already closing behind him.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Brandon
I couldn’t keep going with this. Not with the spiking pit of frenetic emotions bubbling under my steel. I needed out. I needed my walls back in place and solid.
For her sake as well as mine.
It was the same fucked up whirlwind of emotional bullshit within her as all of the others. It had to be. Her own world of wants, needs and truths may have seemed somehow different from those pushed to the limit before her, but they couldn’t be.
Genuine affection had no place here. Not in this world. Not around me.
Genuine affection — hell, love — had no place anywhere that cold hard cash couldn’t counter. It could always be converted, bought, sold.
She wasn’t different.
She couldn’t be different.
And neither could I.
My frazzled senses around her couldn’t be any more real than those I’d made it my life’s mission to deny. Only they seemed real enough that I was beginning to defy every scrap of common sense I thought I stood for.