Page 64 of Bought

Still, I didn’t know what else he was going to do with me. He wouldn’t hurt me, I was certain, but God knew how long until ‘the situation had been handled’ was going to be.

You don’t even know if he even did it.

I’d been certain he hadn’t, and yet he’d avoided the question when I’d asked. Had he done it? Had he murdered his mentor? I couldn’t imagine a man as controlled as he was hurting anyone in a fit of anger. If he had, it would have to have been very purposeful and even knowing him as briefly as I had, he would have had a very good reason for it.

Does it really matter anyway? It’s not as if you’re going to be getting involved with him after all.

It didn’t matter, because no, I wasn’t. And I didn’t care about him. I didn’t.

The day passed with aching slowness and eventually, sick of the way my thoughts circled around and around, I curled up on the bed and tried to sleep.

At some point the door opened and a stranger delivered a tray of food for me, before leaving.

A prisoner. I was a prisoner.

Pacing around didn’t help, so I sat disconsolately on the bed, flicking through the channels on the TV on the wall opposite.

I didn’t see him and that night, I went to sleep alone.

I didn’t sleep well.

Monday morning came and another tray was delivered. I’d been hoping to at least get my cellphone back but that clearly wasn’t happening.

I picked at the breakfast and when the door opened a second time that morning, I was expecting the stranger once again.

It wasn’t though, it was Fox.

He stood in the doorway, dressed in an expertly tailored dark suit and a silver tie. He looked cold, ruthless, every inch the powerful billionaire he was, and I didn’t want to care that I’d been going to sell him out for the sake of five hundred thousand dollars. That if I’d managed to get the evidence I’d needed, he could very well have gone to jail, which was where he should have been if he was guilty.

But I did care, and I hated that I did.

I pulled a blanket from the bed around my nakedness, feeling exposed as his cold blue gaze raked over me, but I lifted my chin at the same time, letting him know I wasn’t going to be intimidated.

“To what do I owe the honor of this visit?” I asked. “Do I get to know what you’re going to do with me or are you going to keep me here another day with no word?”

“I’m going to work. I’ll figure out what to do with you later tonight.”

I lifted a shoulder, trying to look as if I didn’t care. “Fine. It’s not like I have anywhere else to go. But can I at least have my phone please?”

“No,” he said.

Something ached inside of me, not so much because of the phone, but because of what his refusal meant. “You don’t trust me?” I wanted to say it out loud, I had to say it.

“No, I don’t trust you.” There was an edge in his voice now, a flicker of fire in his blue gaze. “Why would I?”

He’s got a point.

He did, but I still hated that ache of disappointment, the sign that his opinion mattered to me. That he mattered to me in some way. It was ridiculous. So, he’d given me pleasure and had made me feel cared for and cherished. So what? I’d given him a couple of pieces of myself, but nothing more. He didn’t know me, and I certainly didn’t know him.

Yet that ache pressed against my ribs like a sharp stone.

“I’m sorry,” I said, even though I hadn’t meant to. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you who I was or why. I just…wanted the money.”

The tension in him had pulled tight, his posture rigid. “Did you ever think that doing what the Hamiltons wanted would have an effect on Isabel too?”

A thread of shame wound through me, because of course I hadn’t, and of course that made me angry. “No,” I said. “But she’ll be okay. She’s got money protecting her, just the way you’ve got money protecting you.” I swallowed again, fighting the urge to explain, because why should I justify myself to him? Yet I couldn’t stop. “I have nothing,” I said baldly. “Not a single fucking thing. I’ve never had anything. No education, no prospects. Just a father who beat me and then swore if I ran away, he’d hunt me down and kill me. I do hacking jobs for a piece of shit guy who hires me out and pays me cash, and he kicked me out of the apartment he’d let to me and stole all my savings because I wouldn’t sleep with him. So, when the job for the Hamiltons came up, yeah, I took it, I didn’t care. I just want to get out of here. Get out of New York where I’m not sleeping on some stranger’s couch. Find a new life where I’m not beholden to assholes who only try to take advantage of me.”

Fox said nothing, his gaze expressionless. Apart from that muscle jumping in his strong jaw.