Buy Me Sir(117)

I almost throw up.

“You can’t go,” Dean says. “Not on your own. He’ll fucking kill you.”

But I’m already up on my feet.

“I’m going,” I tell him and he curses at me.

“Did you not hear me? He’ll fucking kill you, Lissa. Call Helen, get her to babysit.”

“I need to go alone,” I say.

“No, you really fucking don’t.”

But I do.

I do need to go alone.

I take a shower and throw my everyday clothes on. A worn cami and a pair of budget jeans.

I don’t wear any makeup and I don’t spritz myself with designer perfume samples.

I just go as me.

I want him to know me. Me.

I want him to stare into my eyes and see me staring back at him.

I want to hear him say my real name.

But most of all I want to say sorry. I need to say sorry.

Even if it’s the last thing I ever do.





Chapter Forty-Three





Melissa



I don’t bother checking into my own room at Delaney’s. I walk straight through reception and call the elevator. It takes me right up to the top floor, and I head for suite twelve with frantic steps.

I’m not scared.

My heart is already broken. I already hate myself for what I’ve done.

My dreams are already in tatters.

My breath is ragged as I reach the door, but I make no move to compose myself before I knock.

He keeps me waiting this time, and I wonder if he’s right on the other side. I wonder if he’s having second thoughts.

Tears spring to my eyes the very second he opens the door. Bittersweet relief floods through me.

Black suit, white shirt, black tie.

Dark eyes. Angry eyes.

Hurt eyes.

His hair is slick and his jaw is gritted.

The fine lines around his eyes look etched in. He looks tired. Damaged.

There’s a lump in my throat as I breathe him in for what might be the final time.

I soak in the shadow of stubble on his jaw. The birthmark on his cheek. The heaviness of his brow.

“Amy,” he says, and my heart stops.

“Alexander,” I say, and he steps aside to let me pass.

I flinch as the door slams behind me. “It’s Ted fucking Brown,” he snaps.

I nod. “Ted,” I whisper.

There’s no champagne this evening. He reaches into his jacket and pulls out the envelope.

“Let’s get the fucking practicalities out of the way first, shall we?” he spits.

I shake my head. “I don’t want your money,” I tell him. “I’m not here for the money. I never have been.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

It was the wrong thing to say. He tears into the envelope with a fierceness that makes my legs tremble. He throws the notes at me in plumes of rage. They rain down on me, landing on the floor like leaves.

“Pick it up!” he snaps. “Don’t be fucking shy. You want more?”

He pulls out his wallet and empties it at my feet.

I’ve never felt so cheap as I do when his loose change lands on my toes.

“Why are you here?!” he seethes. “Are you that fucking greedy for more?!”

“I don’t… it’s not about money…” I repeat, but he doesn’t care.

“I’ve made you a fucking millionaire, isn’t that enough?! You want more?!” He takes off his watch and throws that at me too.

I can’t stop the tears as his cufflinks bounce off my chest, and I don’t understand it. I’m not a millionaire. I’m not here for his money.

“Pick it up!” he shouts, but I don’t move. He drops to his knees and gathers notes from the floor to throw in my face all over again, and I don’t even flinch. “Take it!”

“I don’t want it,” I whisper. “I swear I don’t. I used the money for my brother, that’s all, to make sure he has enough for a good life.”

“Oh he’ll have a good fucking life,” he barks as he gets to his feet. “He’ll have a whale of a fucking time with the six fucking figures I paid for you.”

My eyes meet his, and I don’t get it.

“Don’t play fucking dumb,” he snaps. “I know you get seventy fucking percent.”

“I get what you give me,” I tell him. “I’d have taken whatever you gave me. I’d have taken nothing.”

He sneers. “What I give you and the rest of the fucking money Claude wires to your fucking account, you mean?”

But I don’t. I don’t mean that. I don’t know what he’s talking about. I tell him so and he rages all around me. He storms across the room and pours himself a whisky from the mini bar, and I just wait.

“Enough of the lies,” he says and lights up a cigarette. “I’ve had fucking enough of it.”