Page 47 of Resist

“Do you actually think that will work?”

I bite my tongue to keep from saying no. “I’ll ask the question again, Vaughn. Yes or no? It’s quite simple.”

“If you’re not blackmailing me, then what exactly do you call this?”

“A negotiation. And that’s not an answer.”

It’s her laugh this time that comes through the connection loud and clear. “A negotiation? That’s funny.” But I don’t respond. I let the silence sit. Let the uncertainty eat at her mind and wait for her to speak. “What’s in it for me?”

“Your reputation. Your company. Your livelihood. It’ll remain intact, and no one—say, for instance, Lola—will ever know you stole one of your girls’ clients right out from under her nose.”

“I didn’t steal—”

“In their eyes it would appear differently.”

Her huff fills the line, but her silence tells me she knows I’m right. “And for you? What’s in it for you?”

“Getting what I paid for,” I state.

“Nothing’s ever that simple.”

And fuck if she’s not right.

“Not everything has to be that complicated,” I counter.

“Mr. Lockhart—”

“Ryker,” I reiterate.

“Why are you doing this?” she asks softly, and the sudden change in her tone throws me momentarily.

“I told you. I want you. Can’t get any simpler than that.”

She laughs, but there’s something about it . . . about the way it starts out strong and then fades softly. It’s the silence, what I feel is her suddenly doubting herself, that gets to me. And then she speaks. “Ryker.” It’s just my name. Not Mr. Lockhart. Just Ryker. The name I’ve wanted her to call me, and yet when she does, there’s a vulnerability to it that does shit to my insides. It makes a man whose heart is cold and dead flicker to life. “What if I can’t give you what you need?”

And that’s the fucking question of the day, isn’t it? That’s the reason I’m chasing after this woman when I know sure as hell I could have any other one I want with the dial of my cell.

What is it about her that makes me want to be the one she needs?

She’s not yours to fix, Lockhart.

“Are you there?” Where her feistiness is sexy, the uncertainty in her voice, the vulnerability in it, is unnerving to me.

She’s yours to fuck.

“Do you want me, Vaughn?” I ask the question full well knowing the answer.

I ask the question maybe hoping she says the words so I have a reason to hang up on her and stop whatever bullshit there is inside me that’s not supposed to be there.

I ask the question to gain back the upper hand.

“No.”

Goddamn stubborn woman.

“There’s that word again.”

When I hang up on her this time, I know she won’t be calling back.