In her mother’s last conscious moments, her only concern had been for Ari’s safety. Her mom had managed to tell the officers they needed to get to her daughter – that Ari was in danger. Only then did her mother succumb to her injuries.
The policemen showed up in her mother’s place at the frat house and then transported Ari to the hospital where she’d waited for hours in the lobby, terror helping to sober her up real fast.
When the doctor eventually came out of surgery, his news hadn’t been good. Her mother was stable, but in a coma. They’d done all they could do for her. Only time would tell if she ever came out of it.
She’d had severe swelling in her brain and they’d had to operate , drilling bur holes into her skull. Along with the head injuries, she’d also suffered two broken ribs, a cracked hip, and lacerations to her face. When Ari entered her mom’s room, she’d nearly passed out at the image before her.
If the staff hadn’t guaranteed that the person lying in the bed was her mother, she wouldn’t have known who the woman was. She was unrecognizable with her swollen face and the bandages covering her. Ari had sobbed as she’d laid her head on her mother’s bed and apologized repeatedly. If it wasn’t for Ari, her mom would be home, sleeping safe and sound. Ari would never forgive herself for what she’d done.
Trying to push such heart wrenching memories aside, Ari focused on the road as she pulled up to her small studio apartment. She slowly made her ascent up the staircase, her feet dragging as her mind raced. The papers Rafe had handed her were burning a hole in her purse.
She got to her door and fiddled with the key for several moments, having to get it into the lock just right so she could turn it. It would probably be faster for her to insert a credit card in the doorjamb to get it open than to mess with the key.
She’d watched enough movies that she could probably break into a place if she needed to. The thought made her smile as the lock finally clicked and she pushed open the door. Maybe she could find a breaking and entering job. It would be a more dignified profession than prostitution.
Though the day had started only a few hours ago, exhaustion was nipping on her heels. She sat down on the couch and glared at her small purse as if there were a snake inside of it just waiting for the opportunity to strike. Did she really want to see what he had planned for her?
With great reluctance, she finally unzipped the bag and slowly pulled the papers out, her gaze a bit cloudy as she glanced down at the words. She fought the urgency to toss them, but reality – and slight curiosity won out.
With only a week left at the apartment before rent was due, and no other jobs on the horizon, she needed to at least weigh her options. The weight of knowing her mother’s living conditions would worsen without Ari's financial support made the decision about the position even more crucial.
She’d already sold her mother’s home – the place Ari had grown up. It had broken her heart to pack her mom’s most valuable possessions and take them to storage. She’d pre-paid the unit for a year, not taking chances on losing those items that meant so much to her mom.
Everything Ari had of any decent value had been auctioned off. She’d done everything she could do at this point. Now, she had to find work – and it seemed no one wanted to hire a college drop-out, even if she had been on the honor role. It meant nothing if she couldn’t finish her degree.
In the end, she really had no choice but to look at the material before her. With a determined grasp of the papers, she unfolded them and started scanning the words. By the time she got to the end she literally wanted to throw up. She couldn’t do it – no way.
Chapter Three
Ari was speechless. She didn’t know what to think. Her bright eyes gazed at the words while her mouth hung open in shock. There was no way. She wouldn’t do this. There had to be another option.
The words jotted down circled in her head, showing her a side of life she never imagined existed. He owned her body? He could take what he wanted – day or night?
Ari didn’t think so. She’d end up going to prison because she wouldn’t abide by the stupid rules he’d set forth, and then he’d prosecute her. Could he do that? If she chose not to satisfy him as much as he wanted, could he have her locked in jail?
She slowly read back through the contract, and felt a smidgeon better. No. That wasn’t what he was saying. He could only actually prosecute her if she broke his confidentiality clause.
What did he mean, though by unknowingly? If she didn’t know she’d done it, then how could she be responsible for her actions? As she gazed at the paper she realized what that meant. If she left papers laying around that someone got ahold of and it led to people finding out.
Well, she wasn’t going to become his employee, or mistress, or whatever he chose to call the position, so she wasn’t taking chances of someone getting ahold of the dang contract. She walked to her stove and turned on the burner, then placed the edge of the paper against it, consumed with overwhelming satisfaction when the contract began to go up in smoke.
She held onto it for several seconds, making sure it would burn every last word, then she tossed the remains in her empty sink where it finished burning and turned into nothing but ash.
Washing the ash down the garbage disposal gave her an increased relaxation in her shoulder muscles. She could close that door in life behind her, and step forward. It was a good thing she didn’t have smoke detectors in her place, or her little act of defiance would’ve set every one of them off.
Opening a window to let out the smoke before she choked, Ari then grabbed the newspapers she’d gathered all week and began fanning the smoke out the window with a wide up and down motion. As the smoke lifted to the sky, the realization of the opportunity to be making one hundred thousand dollars a year began to sink in and her hopes of taking care of her mother were now plummeting.
She stopped fanning and laid the newspaper out on the table, running her thumb along the fold creases to make it lay flat in another attempt to search through the ads again. She had to have missed something. There was a job out there for her. She just wasn’t trying hard enough to find it.
After a three hour search and twenty-five calls later, Ari flopped back on the couch and the tears started. At first, they were just a tender trickle, but it didn’t take long for them to flow down her cheeks and drip off of her chin.
It just seemed so hopeless.
What was she going to do?
After allowing herself a half hour of falling apart, Ari brushed away the last of her tears just as the phone rang. Her head spun around as she gazed at the contraption like it was a lifeline to save her in the middle of an ocean where the sharks were slowly circling closer.