I shrug. “You wanted it.” What my woman wants, she gets.
She fiddles with the ring as if she’s reluctant to accept it but likes the look of it too much to remove it. She clutches her hand to her chest and worries her lip. “I can pay you back.”
I rear back. “No.” I glower at her, offended she would offer. “You’re my woman. You don’t pay for anything. Ever.”
“I’m… your woman?” Her brow furrows. She’s back to twisting the ring around her finger, thinking hard. “Is this payment?”
“What?”
She holds up her hand, showing off the ring. “Is this my payment for sleeping with you again?”
Anger suffuses my chest so quickly I’m speechless.
She raises her chin. “What will I get if I spend the night? Another ten thousand dollars?”
“I’m not paying you,” I grind out. “I’m not hiring you.”
“Then—”
“You are my woman.” I take her hand and check the ring, making sure it’s secure. Her soft hand in mine calms me. I pressa kiss to her palm and release it. “Ask for anything, and it’s yours.”
She blinks a few times. “Like the throw pillows.” She lifts one to demonstrate.
“Yes.”
Her eyes narrow. “Helping my sister. Making sure she and the kids are safe. And that she has her meds.”
I nod. “Done.”
“And this ring. You think this makes me yours.”
“You are mine.” I set my hand at the base of her throat. “I’m not asking. You don’t have a choice in this, baby.” I lean close enough to hear the catch in her breath. To smell the sweetness of her sex as she starts to cream for me. “But I will make it good for you. You’ll want for nothing from now on.”
Elodie
I stareinto Jaeger’s eyes, glittering more brilliantly than any jewel.
He bought the ring. He bought the ring!
“I’m not for sale,” I blurt, desperate.
“I’m not buying you.” The weight of his hand around my throat is comforting. “I’ve claimed you. You’re already mine.”
He wants to claim you.Honey had told me, but I didn’t want to listen.He wants you to be hiselita.
Newsflash, Honey, he thinks it’s already happened.
He’s upset at my confusion. As if my being here, belonging to him, was a foregone conclusion.
Today he took me shopping and bought everything I’d need for a life with him. I mentioned once that I didn’t like his home, and he redecorated everything. Immediately.
He’s acting like we’re a couple already. On some level, I knew this. It’s likely why I got weirded out by the ring.
But then he gave me a briefcase with a hundred thousand dollars for services rendered. My eyes dart to the wall panel where he put my money in the safe.
He follows my gaze and my line of thinking. “The payment was for one night, an exchange between two independent parties. There’ll be no more payouts. We are no longer independent parties. We are one.”
I shake my head slightly, and his hand tightens until I can’t move. I’m the poor, helpless prey caught in a trap.
