She says the words softly, but I hear them like a banshee in my ear and it makes me instantly angry. Piper doesn’t get to decide if she can do this or not. The contract she signed is binding, and I won’t let her walk away until I say it’s time. She owes me for all the work I’ve put into this so far, and even though I screwed things up by fucking her, I’m still going to make damn sure that she ends up with a good match. A match that’snotme.
“That’s not up to you,” I say.
“Why are you acting like this? Because we slept together?”
Yes. No. I’m acting like this because cutting her off now is the right thing to do, and because if I don’t shut this down, I’m going to turn into somebody that I don’t recognize. I saw it happen to my father when he crumbled after my mother’s affair, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to follow in those footsteps. I’ll never let my heart dictate my life choices.
“No, it’s not because we slept together. You’re ready now. I just told you that.”
Despite my better judgment, I look at her and immediately wish that I hadn’t. Her tousled dark hair and pink cheeks give her an angelic appearance. But it’s the pain in her eyes that grabs my attention the most.
“You’re lying to me,” she says. “Why?”
It’s easy to ignore the question, ignore how hurt she is. That’s a skill I perfected a long time ago. I’ve seen the way she looks at me. Her infatuation has only grown stronger over the last several weeks. I ignored it at first, brushing it off as nothing more than a byproduct of living together and being intimate. But at some point, I began to like the way she looked at me. Began to look forward to coming home to her. Began to enjoy hearing her stories about the kids in her dance classes, unloading to her about the pressures of presenting the most optimistic financial reports for QG, deciding what to have for dinner together.
“Here’s a better question, Piper. Why did you agree to the contract?”
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about her over the last three months, it’s that she is not a materialistic person. Granted, she grew up with money, but she’s equally graceful without it. If you didn’t know about her past, itwouldn’t be obvious that she was once part of an elite social circle. Maybe that’s what’s drawn me in more than anything. She accepted my help without ever asking for anything except for a bodyguard to make it possible for her to continue teaching children how to dance. She could have asked for money, a chauffeur, a new wardrobe, vacations. All the standard things that might come with an arrangement like ours. But she didn’t, never once.
“Why did I get into this arrangement with you?”
“Yes.”
She stares at me like she doesn’t understand or doesn’t want to answer, and my anger grows hotter. The way I’m feeling isn’t her fault but it’s easier to think that it is, so I don’t have to admit just how deep I’ve gotten involved with this woman. Her hands fist the sheets as she pulls them up to her chin. She looks so small and vulnerable. So wounded.
“Why does it matter?”
Ah, so she doesn’t want to answer. She’s been hiding something all along.
“Answer the question,” I press.
It matters because I want to find a reason to push her away that makes sense. One besides the excuse that I’m incapable of love, that I refuse to get trapped in a poisonous relationship like my parents. It’s a tired mentality but it’s so deeply rooted inside me that ithasto be true. I’m not cut out to be someone’s permanent anything. Piper needs to hate me enough to see that.
She lifts her chin. “For my grandmother, if you really must know. She lives in a very expensive care facility, a really good one that knows how to take care of her medicalneeds. The only way I could think of to continue financing her care was to let you auction me.”
A chill races down my spine. I can’t tell if she’s being serious or if she’s trying to play to my emotions, but I don’t know why she would lie.
“But you and I both know that this isn’t about my Nana, or anything else except for the fact that you have feelings for me, and you’re scared.” Piper says this with so much certainty, as if she can look straight into my soul and read me like an open book.
I haven’t been careful enough with my emotions. Maybe I’ve made it too obvious.
“This isstrictlybusiness,” I grind out, “and any feelings you might’ve developed for me are your own problem, as I explained to you right from day one.”
“Nate—”
Slicing my hands through the air, I spear her with a look. “Enough!”
Piper startles a little and the sheet slips from where she protectively grips it at the base of her throat, revealing her collarbone and the slight pink bruise blooming there. My lips tingle with the recall of her soft flesh as I suckled along her delicate body, leaving little marks before I made the ultimate claim and drove myself into her tight, wet, virgin pussy. My stomach clenches with self-disgust. What the fuck was I thinking?
She moves to the side of the bed and wraps the sheet more tightly around herself. It tangles around her legs as she marches past me to the closet.
“Fine, have it your way. But I’m done. I’m out.”
Ripping clothing from hangers, she drops the sheetbefore dressing angrily inside the closet. I watch her without really seeing. What she just said has me riveted.
“You can’t walk away, Piper. You signed a contract. It’s binding until the term is up or until I revise the termination date. You can’t just go.”
Her eyes blaze as she whips me a look. “Really? Watch me. What are you going to do? Press charges? Take the contract to a judge and demand that I share your bed for the remainder of the term? They aren’t going to throw me in jail for not sleeping with you.”
