Page 54 of Trapped
“All the cash you borrowed,” he said smoothly.
“Borrowed?”
“Yeah. What, you thought that wasfree? After you took enough for a down payment on a house?”
He laughed, and panic threaded through my dread. I fought the urge to show him the boutique’s website and prove I wasn’t wasting his money.
I gritted my teeth. “Those were gifts.”
“Cash gifts are for wives and serious girlfriends. You’ve made it clear you want to be neither.” He shrugged, his mouth twitching. “If you don’t want to be more to me, I’ll have to treat you like you’re not.”
“But I wasn’tawarethey were loans,” I choked out.
“Delilah, I’m a loan shark.”
Irritation clawed at my skin. “You never mentioned there were any strings other than sex attached to the money.”
“I have every dollar accounted for in my ledger. You’ve been at two points. That’s two percent of the principal. It adds up fast.”
I bristled. “So how much do I owe?”
“You’re just shy of a hundred grand.”
I glared at him, hands on my hips. “There was never an asterisk next to the jewelry you gave me, so why would there be one on the money?”
“There’s always an asterisk, baby. You chose not to see it.”
I took a step back. “You can’t just spring this on me!”
He shrugged. “I warned you. You didn’t listen.”
“The hell you did! I don’t rememberthatconversation.”
“I did, at the fighting ring. I told you to have a plan. You said, and I quote, ‘I’m not looking for an escape.’”
“I was flirting with you!”
His lip twitched. “Everything has a price.”
My stomach knotted. “I thought we were…I thought…”
Santino’s black eyes bored into mine. “You have to pay your dues, principessa. That’s how this world works.”
“I can’t believe I trusted you.”
“Me neither,” he drawled. “But you did, and there’s no going back.”
I’d been naive to think the thousands I lifted from Santino’s wallet were gifts. The carefree spending, the luxurious lifestyle—it all had a price tag.
I shook my head. “I’ve been so stupid.”
“You’re not. You just didn’t understand the rules.”
I looked up at him, my vision blurring. “Are you blackmailing me into being your girlfriend?”
“I’m reminding you of the terms. If you want to keep pretending this is just a fling, I can make it feel that way. But we both know it isn’t.”
I wanted to push him away, but watching him beat the crap out of Dimitri knocked something loose inside me. What if he’dgotten hurt? The balled-up tissues on Santino’s coffee table proved that he meant something to me, and that scared me.