Page 57 of Bought

I shut my eyes. I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to go riffling through his house or hack into his computer to find evidence that he’d killed a man, because I was sure that he hadn’t. Not the man who’d cooked me the most delicious food and then fed it to me bite by bite. Who’d picked me up off the floor after an intense scene and then sat on the couch holding me close in his arms as I trembled through the aftershocks.

The Hamiltons had gotten it wrong, surely?

Then again, I couldn’t let myself think about him, because none of this was about him. It was about the money. The money I needed to get out of this city and go to Greece. To pretty, white houses and blue, blue water, and safety.

I’d imagined myself there so many times when Dad was shouting and throwing things at the walls. When I curled up in a ball on the kitchen floor as he kicked me. Imagining myself not here but in that place where it was sunny and warm. Where I slept in one of those white houses and every day, I’d drink a thick, black coffee in a white cup and look at the water just outside my window.

My happy place.

I had to get there. I had to, and I couldn’t let one man who’d somehow unlocked the passion inside me, stop me, no matter how beautiful he was.

I groaned and rolled over, burying my face in the pillow.

The one mercy was that he hadn’t asked me any more questions, at least not so far. There was still a whole day to go, though, so I wasn’t home free yet. I needed to think about what answer I wanted to give and how I could cover the fact that I was going to have to lie. How I could make him believe me and not see through me the way he always did.

Finally, I sat up, thinking about slipping out of bed and taking a look around, but then the door opened, and he strode in carrying a breakfast tray, and I shoved all of that aside in favor of him giving me breakfast in bed.

In fact, I successfully managed not to think about it for a good couple of hours until after the breakfast had devolved into him wanting to know how long I could last without coming and testing me pretty thoroughly, and I was zoning out after the orgasm he’d let me have, that had just about blown my mind, when he checked his phone and after a glance at me, quietly left the room.

I lay there for a few moments, trying to pull myself together, realizing as I did so that for the first time since I’d woken up, I was alone.

Get your shit together, come on.

I let out a breath and slipped from the bed, going over to the door, and opening it. Outside in the hallway, it was silent. I couldn’t hear anything. Where was he? In his office? It was on the next floor down, I was pretty sure since the only rooms on this level were bedrooms and bathrooms.

Quickly, I checked the other rooms, but he wasn’t in any of them, which meant he wasn’t on this level. Good.

I went to the stairs and took a few cautious steps down them, but the hallway at the bottom was empty too. I still couldn’t hear anything. I hadn’t been on this level before, so I took the opportunity to have another lightning fast look around. It appeared to consist of a darkened home theater, a library, a bathroom and near the front of the building, a spacious home office.

Fox wasn’t in any of the rooms.

I stood in the doorway of the office, listening, my heartbeat thumping.

I wasn’t guaranteed to find anything in here either, but I wouldn’t get another chance to search. Perhaps I’d hack into his computer and see what I could find, and if it wasn’t evidence of a murder, then there had to be something else. The Hamiltons had said they’d be happy with anything they could potentially use against him.

I stepped into the room.

It was as minimalist as the rest of the house, with shelves lined neatly with books and a few other boxes. His desk was clean of everything except a keyboard and a monitor. The walls were bare in here like they were everywhere else, and there were no knickknacks or anything personal lying around.

I crept over to the desk, pulling open a few drawers to find only stacked office stationery. I didn’t think there was a diary lying around somewhere with ‘Today I killed Sir George’ written down helpfully in it, but you never knew.

After finding nothing of interest in the desk, I grabbed the back of his chair in preparation for pulling it out and sitting at his computer.

“What are you doing in here, little sub?”

I just about jumped out of my skin at the sound of his cool voice coming from the direction of the doorway.

Fuck. He was a problem creeping around like that.

Trying to get my racing heartbeat under control, I took a step back from the desk and looked up.

He’d leaned one shoulder against the doorframe, his cold blue gaze meeting mine. There was something about the way he was standing, a certain tension, and the sharp glitter in his blue eyes looked like…anger.

Shit.

I swallowed, ignoring the ball of tension sitting my gut, and came around to the front of the desk. Then I levered myself up, so I was sitting on the edge of it, one leg draped decorously over the other, hoping I looked sexy and sultry and not guilty as hell.

“Oh, Sir,” I said huskily. “I woke up and you weren’t there. I was just trying to find you.”