Page 98 of Resist

Talk about switching bed partners while the sheets are still warm.

“Vaughn.” I ignore the broken way he says my name. Drown it out with the sound of my pulse whooshing through my ears.

I take the check I made out for $20,000 while on the train and shove it at him. “I don’t want your money any more than I want you.” The last word is on a sob, my extended hand trembling as I wait for him to take it.

“Oh, how cute, a lover’s quarrel. Don’t mind me—I’ll just sit here and watch so I know what pieces I have to kiss and make better for Ryker when you’re all done,” Roxanne says, but Ryker is already moving toward me, hand on my biceps now until he pushes open the ladies’ room door of the lobby restroom. He locks the door behind us just as I yank my arm free.

It hurts to look at him. My heart aches just to look at his eyes because for the first time I actually thought something was real, and then . . . and then he let me know exactly where I stand with him.

“What the hell is this?” he shouts as he looks at the check in my hand.

“What the hell was that?” I counter, shoving my finger and pointing at an invisible Roxanne.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Kind of like how you just proved to me I was nothing either?”

“What are you—?”

“You transferred money to my account.”

“Yes . . . and?”

I stare at him. At the wide eyes and confused expression and bill it as an act for me to focus on instead of questioning him further about why the hell he went somewhere with Roxanne tonight.

“What happened between us wasn’t about money,” I grit out.

“Aren’t you the one who so plainly stated that it was just business?” He quirks an eyebrow, his eyes and voice both holding a chill.

“Yes,” I say out of pure stubbornness and hurt that when I pushed him away, he found his way to Roxanne.

“Then why are you so mad that I paid you for your time as agreed upon in our contract?”

“No, the time agreed upon in our contract was for me to accompany you to events and business dinners.”

“Which you have. I’m a man of my word, and I paid you for the time.”

“But—that night—the game . . .” Tears burn in my eyes. “It was . . .”

“It was what, Vaughn?” He takes a step closer, anger burning in his eyes, confusion begging me to say that we were more than that. But I don’t want to admit it. I don’t want to see Roxanne and think about her with him or what her being here means to us. Before I can figure out what to say, he pushes yet another one of my buttons. “Or should I say Vee?”

“Don’t be an asshole.”

He chuckles, and I can hear the frustration in it. He runs a hand through his hair. “How am I being one? We went out. We had sex. You bailed before daybreak. You’re the one who made sure I felt like a client.”

“And you’re the one who made sure I felt like a whore.”

“You can’t have it both ways, Vaughn.” His lack of a denial is like a punch to the gut.

“I didn’t do it for the money,” I say, pride front and center when pride shouldn’t matter right now. All that matters is getting him back, but I’m so used to protecting myself—to self-preservation—that this is the only way I know how to respond.

That’s a lie. I know what I need to do, but I’m too scared to. I’ve already given more of myself to Ryker than I have anyone else in my adult life, and so opening myself up to more hurt is petrifying.

“You didn’t do it for the money?”

“No.”

“You sure about that?”