Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Esme
There are bad days.
Then there are bad days.
After everything else going on in my life, I’m now laying in the street, soaking wet, looking up at a man that looks like he could kill me with his pinkie.
Or break my heart with his eyes.
“What are you doing running around out here in the rain, anyway?” he asks, reaching down to slide his hand under my back even after I slapped him away a second ago.
I let it go because…ugh…I kind of want his hands on me.
“That’s on a need-to-know basis,” I snip, the pressure from the day and the horrific outcome of what I thought could be a saving-grace job bringing out more bitchiness than is my usual. “And you don’t need to know.”
“Okay, then.” His voice is as deep as the thunder rumbling above, and another crash and flash of lightning make me startle and yelp.
“I don’t need to know, but I do know we both need to get off this street.
Let me get you in the car before we become lightning rods—or we both get run over. You okay to stand?”
He runs his hand down one leg, then the other, making my heart pound. It’s not sexual—his touch feels protective—but it’s having a crazy effect on me nonetheless.
The headlights from his SUV show a face that looks like it’s seen its share of fights, but the ruggedness gives him an edge that is wildly sexy.
He’s older, like a lot older, but that, too, is only adding to whatever voodoo he seems to have cast over me.
Rain is dripping from thick black hair plastered onto a jutting forehead and running down over lips that were made for kissing.
Even crouched down next to me, he’s enormous. Like, otherworldly enormous. And I wonder if he has to have all his clothes custom made.
I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment, realizing it must just be the bump on my head making me feel weird.
“Yes, I can stand,” I answer, shifting my legs under me and smoothing the wet fabric of my dress down around them, trying to shake away the vulgar porno playing with him as the lead in my head. “They don’t hurt, just scratches.”
That’s a lie because my head is pounding, and my knees are burning from smacking the pavement.
Water is running into my eyes and down my face, soaking through the dress and sticking it to my skin.
My nipples tingle and harden, and I’m not entirely sure if it’s from the freezing rain or something else.
There’s something about this guy that feels both dangerous and safe at the same time. He looks like he belongs in a boardroom, but the energy around him feels more like The Godfather.
He helps me up, leads me around to the passenger door and lifts me up and inside before jogging around the front of the SUV and hopping in the driver’s side while I fight back more tears.
When I showed up for work yesterday morning at the courthouse, bringing everyone who’s anyone their morning coffee, as usual, I did the best I could to hide my swollen, red eyes.
I had spent the night before at the dining room table with my mother at the home where I grew up, two hours away in Greenbriar, going over the mountainous stack of medical bills and other past-due expenses for my father’s now full-time nursing home care.
He broke his back falling off a ladder six months ago.
I offered to postpone school and come home and help, but my parents were both adamant that the best thing I could do for them was to stay in school and work my hardest. So that’s what I did in between bus trips home to visit and offer the best support I could.
My parents ran a house painting company their whole lives, but when Dad fell, their medical insurer weaseled out of paying, citing a loophole in their policy that work-related injuries needed to be covered by a separate rider.
I didn’t know how serious their financial struggles were until the night before last, when Mom finally told me that, despite fighting, there was no insurance money.
The only saving grace, as I know from a case I worked on, is that as long as we make a payment plan with the doctors, hospital, rehab, etc., we can manage it all. But they still need money every month to make that happen.
Being an intern for the district attorney’s office was what I planned for all year.
I saved money from my waitressing job to be sure I could afford a little apartment and my meager expenses for the summer.
I got a full-ride academic scholarship to the University of Michigan, so I could save almost everything I made during the school year.
Little did I know taking an unpaid internship—emphasis on unpaid—would leave me desperate and wondering if I’d made a terrible mistake.
Hence the need to find paid employment that could fit around my work schedule.
Yeah, that didn’t exactly work out as planned.
I glance over now to see the man looking at me. His size is even more evident here inside the vehicle. He takes up the entire space behind the wheel with the seat pushed back as far as possible, and I wonder if I’ve just put myself in another position I will regret.
“Here.” He reaches into the back seat and pulls a suit jacket off a hanger, handing it to me. “Lean forward.”
I’m shivering, so I do as he asks, and his monstrous hands wrap the jacket around me as though I’m as delicate as a rose, then I settle back in the seat, wondering what the hell I’m going to do now.
I reach up and wince as my fingers touch the throbbing knot just above my temple where my head hit the street.
“Thanks,” I mumble, running my hands up and down my arms under the jacket. “I’m fine now. I’ll call an Uber. Or just drop me off somewhere I can go inside. I’ll find my way home.”
“I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“No,” I half shout, then try to control my tone. “I’m fine. It’s a little bump, no hospital.” I shake my head, and it makes me dizzy.
He clears his throat as he puts the oddly quiet SUV into gear and begins to drive forward. His masculine scent is mixed with the unmistakable new-car smell as he turns up the heat, and the warm air blows around my feet.
“You hit your head. You need an X-ray at the very least.”
“Just, I can’t—”
“Can’t what?”
“I’m fine,” I try again, but I can see he’s having none of it, so I decide to try the truth.
“I don’t have insurance. I can’t afford a hospital, and I’m really fine.
” The pain in my head begs to differ, but having gone through all the bills from my father, I know what one simple emergency room visit is going to cost.
“Don’t worry about that. I hit you. You aren’t responsible for paying. I insist you go, and I’ll take care of any costs.” His tone darkens, and it makes me nervous, but in a way that feels exciting.
I chew on my bottom lip, trying to get a grip on this energy I feel between this stranger and me. For all I know, and with the day I’m having, he’s probably a serial killer.
But somehow, and maybe it’s the bump on my head, I can’t fight this odd attraction I feel toward my soon-to-be murderer.
We drive toward the hospital in silence, then after barely a minute, his hand comes over to take mine from my lap and my heart leaps. He looks over, and I see kindness in his dark eyes and feel warmth in his touch.
“You’ll be okay. I’ll make sure of it.”
I nod, unsure what else to say or do, and my thoughts drift back to why I was running around in the rain in the first place.
After delivering the coffee to everyone yesterday morning at work, there was a bright spot when one of the paralegals came around my desk and asked me what was wrong.
Her name is Nadine, she’s been decent with me since I started, and she's easy to talk to. She’s the sort of person that tells you how pretty you are just to brighten your day like she’s not three steps higher up the ladder than me.
So, feeling ready to snap and running on little sleep, I gave her the Reader’s Digest condensed version of what's going on with my parents.
She listened quietly, then peeled a Post-it note from the pad on my desk and wrote down a name and number.
She said it was a friend of a friend, someone who might be able to give me some evening work; not a lot of hours and for good money. He might even be able to give me an advance.
My heart soared at the prospect of being able to do something to help my parents and keep my internship. Nadine told me all she knew was he had connections with clubs and high-end restaurants, and I’d be a hostess or something like that.
I called as soon as she walked away. He asked who sent me, and when I told him, he said to come to his office at 9 p.m. the next day, Saturday, and gave me the address. Said I came with a good reference, so he was sure he could help me out.
Nadine told me to dress like I was going to a five-star restaurant, so I spent the better part of today looking through clearance racks with my friend Karen until I finally found this red silk Calvin Klein dress that had been marked down three times.
It accommodated my curves in a way even I thought looked pretty darn good.
Unfortunately, as it turns out, it wasn’t exactly the work I thought it would be.
When I met Mr. Salvatore tonight—no last name—he said I was exactly what he was looking for.
He proceeded to give me a rundown of the potential monetary arrangements, all of which had my hopes up, and the hours I’d be expected to work.
He then started describing the duties of the job, none of which sounded like hostess work to me.
By this point, I was already starting to panic and look for the nearest exit, and then…
he took his cock out and told me it was time to audition.
Fast forward to me running out into the rain without calling my Uber for a ride.
And now, here I am.
Soaking wet, in more ways than one. Holding the hand of this monster-sized man, whom I know nothing about—including his name—only that he hit me with his car.
But there’s a feeling I'm getting from him that he’s responsible for me in some way, and as much as my rational mind tells me it’s insane, I have to say that I like it.
As he holds my hand, we pull up to the hospital. He looks over, and I see his face a little better in the bright lights from the front of the building.
He licks his bottom lip, then his front teeth, and I notice one is chipped, but it only makes him sexier to me.
“Sit tight. I’ll get a wheelchair.” He squeezes my fingers one last time then lets them go.
“I don’t need a wheel—” He brings two fingers to my lips and presses, narrowing his eyes in a way that tells me there won’t be any negotiation.
As I watch him move out of the car and through the sliding doors into the emergency room, I realize I've decided he’s probably not a serial killer.
But as my heart flutters in my chest and my palms sweat, I think…he might just be the death of me.