“If you think I’m letting you go this easily, you are behaving stupidly. Don’t forget that I paid a quarter of a million dollars for the privilege of doing anything I want with you. Your services didn’t come cheap, sweetheart. Mine won’t either.”
He turned away as he took a deep breath. Unbelievably, this conversation was taking a lot out of him. It shouldn’t. He was letting her upset him and that wasn’t even a little okay.
“So you threaten me, bribe me, then get what you want and won’t hold up to your word?”
That made his hands clench into fists. When he felt the urge to slam them into the wall, he knew this conversation had best end soon. It wasn’t going at all the way it should. Finally, he turned back around and the look on his face must not have been as composed as he had thought it was, because she seemed to shrivel down into the bed.
“Believe me, Jewell, if I threaten or blackmail you in any way, there will be no doubt. I don’t need to hide my words in secret meanings. I don’t need to beat around the bush. I will express myself very loudly and clearly, and I will get exactly what I want,” he said harshly.
“But I did what you wanted,” she practically cried.
“You haven’t even tapped the surface of what I want!”
She glared at him as she tried to find words, and he was eager to hear what she would say next. With Jewell, he really had no idea. She was obviously feeling forced into a corner, but that was good right now. Sometimes that’s what it took to make people go outside their comfort zone. She wanted him. She just felt that she had to be pushed to accept that. He could live with being the one to push her.
Her expression hardened. “How long will you want me in your bed, Blake?” She was waiting for a number.
The question made him smile. No, not a real smile, but a smile of a shark about to snatch its prey.
“Do you really want to hear my answer, Jewell?” he asked, his lips turning up even more.
“What? A month? A year?”
“Ah, Jewell, you underestimate yourself. Do you really want your brother? Will you really do whatever it takes to get him?” He refused to even think about the small sting of regret his atrophied conscience might try to make him feel over his next words. Look, this was just another business deal. It didn’t make him a monster.
“Yes, I’m willing to do whatever it takes, Blake. You obviously know that.” Her voice dripped with loathing.
“Good.” He said the word and then turned his back on her as if the conversation were done.
She jumped from the bed, jerking on the blanket and wrapping it awkwardly around her delectable body.
“Don’t walk away from me, Blake. Tell me what you want,” she demanded.
He faced her again and pulled her into his arms, kissing her breathless before he spoke. “If you want your brother, then you will rip up this contract, and you will remain mine.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m not letting you go, Jewell — maybe ever. Quit planning your escape, quit trying to leave me, and just agree to belong to me.”
“I don’t belong to anyone. And what makes you think that I would keep my word? I could tell you anything you want to hear right now, and then walk out anyway,” she pointed out.
That stopped him for a moment. She was correct. What could he do that would ensure she wouldn’t leave him? He paused as he looked down at her and then he got an idea. No. That was ridiculous. It was something he’d vowed never to do. So he was just as shocked as Jewell when the next words emerged from his mouth.
“Marry me and I’ll give you your brother.”
When her mouth dropped open, she was incapable of speech, so Blake decided to kiss her again. In his book, after all, she’d just consented and it was time to seal the deal.
Chapter Eleven
Whoosh! Her lungs were robbed of oxygen. She really had to have heard Blake wrong — he couldn’t have just told her the price she’d have to pay to get her brother back was marriage to him.
Why in the world would he want to marry her?
When he finally released her from his grasp, she stumbled backward, still clutching the blanket to her as if her life depended on it. Maybe it did. Everyone talked about security blankets. This blanket represented her sanity, and if she lost her hold on this fine bit of fabric, she would also lose her hold on her mind. Heck, that made as much sense as Blake’s demand that she marry him.
And yet these strange thoughts gave her new determination, and she changed her focus. She wouldn’t reply to his off-the-wall proposal. If she didn’t reply, then it was a nonissue, right? Of course it was. So instead of even looking at the wretched man, she moved away from him and went off to get her clothes, which were strewn around back in his front hall. Somehow managing to keep a grip on her blanket, she reached out with her other hand and gathered up her clothing, some of it rather the worse for wear…and tear.
Maintaining a resolute silence, she walked to his bathroom, and firmly shut the door. The next thing she knew, she was in the shower. How had that happened? One second she was thinking she needed to get clean, she had to get clean, and then the next, hot water was cascading over her.
When she realized she was still clutching her so-called security blanket, she let it fall to the shower floor and kicked it into the corner, where its luxurious silk now lay ruined. She peeked through the glass doors and was grateful to see she’d at least dropped her clothes on the bathroom floor.
If she hadn’t, she’d be wringing them out and putting them on as they were, and then wandering outside cold, wet and confused. Just to cap everything off, of course, the police would surely pick her up and haul her down to the station, and they’d probably treat her like the prostitute that she was. With those happy reflections, she washed her hair and kept scrubbing her body, and when the bathroom was thick with steam, she shut off the water, climbed out of the massive shower, and took her sweet time in toweling off.
When her clothes were back firmly in place, offering her a measure of protection from Blake — yeah, right, just like they had earlier — she decided she couldn’t hide out in his bathroom any longer. She needed to get out of his apartment so she could try to figure out what in the world she was going to do next.
Why had his words shocked her so much? She didn’t know. It wasn’t as if she planned on marrying someday — especially now, given her recent job history — so why should a piece of paper upset her? Maybe because at one time in her life, marriage had actually meant something special. It had been a cherished dream of hers to fall in love, have a dream wedding with a meaningful church ceremony, and then have a few children and two cats in the yard. But that dream had seemed to die around the time she buried her mother.