7. Emma #3
One night. Danny’s charity. No photographs.
“Okay. I’ll go.”
Alex gives a single nod, as though my agreement was inevitable.
“But why me?” I ask. “You could find someone else in five minutes.”
“I could.”
The answer comes too easily.
“Then why don’t you?”
“Because I require a date, and you made yourself available.”
The words hit exactly where he means them to.
Convenient. Replaceable. Nothing more.
The Alex I knew would never have said something like that. This one watches me absorb it, then waits for me to step back behind the line he has drawn.
I should.
Instead, I hear myself say, “But you want me.”
Something shifts in his eyes.
Heat rushes up my neck. I want to take the words back, but they are already hanging between us.
Alex steps closer, taking back half the distance he put there.
“Careful.”
“Am I wrong?”
His gaze drops to my mouth.
“No.”
The word is barely louder than a breath, but I feel it everywhere.
The answer is so quiet it slips beneath my skin.
My breath catches, and for one second he lets me see it—the hunger in his face, the same hunger that has been burning through me since he stepped close.
Then it is gone.
“You already know Danny,” he says. “Your presence will serve its purpose.”
“What purpose?”
“You don’t need to understand every decision I make.”
“And after New York?”
“We’ll discuss that when I decide I need you again.”
Need me in what way? The part of the bargain I should have thought about before I offered him anything.
He could ask for another gala. Another dinner. A week in another city. He could keep inventing reasons to put me beside him, and I would have no right to refuse.
The thought should make me feel trapped.
Instead, my mind gives me his hand at the small of my back as he guides me through a crowded room. His mouth close to my ear. His body moving between mine and anyone who comes too near.
I have completely lost my mind.
“And Liam’s safety?” I ask the question I really should focus on.
“If you keep your end of the arrangement, I’ll keep him safe.”
It sounds like a promise until I hear the threat beneath it. With Alex, I no longer know the difference.
Maybe that is for the best.
If Alex let me believe he protected me because he cared, I might start wanting things from him that neither of us could survive.
“When does this arrangement begin?”
“It already has.”
My shoulders tense.
Alex watches me without revealing anything.
I search his face for any sign that he is lying, but all I find is the hard certainty that has replaced the boy I once knew.
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“I said I’ll go.”
His gaze falls to my lips again.
“And when I ask for something else?”
My stomach knots.
“I said anything.”
This time, the words do not sound defiant. They come out softer than I intended, stripped of every excuse I could hide behind.
Alex closes the remaining distance until the front of his shirt almost touches me.
Then he lowers his head.
For one reckless second, I think he is going to kiss me.
My lips part before I can stop them.
His eyes catch the movement.
He draws in a slow breath, but instead of taking my mouth, he turns his head until his lips hover beside my ear.
“Don’t offer me more than you’re prepared to lose, Belle.”
A shiver runs through me.
He steps away before I can answer, leaving me alone in the cold space between us.
“Go back to bed.”
The order should make me angry.
Instead, I stand there wondering what he would have taken if I had leaned forward, and why some foolish, aching part of me wishes he had.
Bee follows me into the bedroom. She finally realizes I exist outside of her feeding schedule. She slips through the door before I can close it and winds around my ankles, brushing her tail against my calves.
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed whose side you’re on.”
She has spent days sleeping in Alex’s office chair and following him through the penthouse as if she has decided he belongs to her.
Now she looks up at me and gives a small, demanding cry.
I sit carefully on the edge of the bed.
Bee jumps beside me, crosses my uninjured thigh and settles into my lap.
Her weight is warm against my stomach. Her purr begins the moment my hand touches her back.
I stroke the narrow space between her ears.
Anything.
I said it because Liam is the only person left in this world I cannot survive losing.
That is the truth.
It is not all of it.
Alex stood in front of me with hunger in his eyes, and I told him to decide what the word meant.
I keep replaying the moment he bent toward me. The pause beside my mouth. His breath against my ear.
He could have asked for my body.
For a kiss.
For one night.
The shameful truth is that I do not know whether I would have refused him.
Bee pushes her head into my palm when my hand stops.
I start stroking her again.
“What did I just do?”
She answers with a louder purr.
Outside my room is a man who believes fear is the only way to keep me from leaving.
Inside me is a woman who may have offered him anything because some starving part of her wants to be given a reason to stay.