His Property(13)

My father hadn’t paid the debt. I was still Liam’s property.

I caught sight of myself in the reflection of the window on the other side of the vestibule. My hair was disheveled and my dress slightly wrinkled. I wondered if we would have time for me to stop at a hotel when we got to California, if perhaps the hair and makeup people would be waiting there. For some strange reason, all I could think about was what Tevi had told me, that the paparazzi hung out around the airports in California. I imagined myself next to a picture of London Banks at the same airport, one of those “who wore it better?” kind of pieces they always did in magazines.

“Now we go to California,” Liam said.

“So that’s it?” I asked, even though his answer was what I’d been expecting.

“That’s it.”

He stepped into the elevator and slid the key card he’d been given into the slot. For a moment I thought we were going back up to the rooftop level, the level we’d been on when Liam had spanked me in that suite. But instead, Liam pushed the button marked UC – Upper Concourse. The elevator began to move, and the dinging sound it made reminded me of the dinging sound that had happened when I was on my knees out there, the concrete burning my bare skin, rubbing it raw as I pleasured him. God, had someone seen me? The thought made my cheeks burn.

Liam leaned against the side of the elevator and pulled out his phone, began scrolling through it.

But my mind was racing, questions burning in my brain, leaving me desperate for their answers.

“So what would have happened?” I asked him. “If my father had paid you?”

“Are you hungry?” Liam asked, ignoring my question. The elevator stopped and we stepped off. We were on a different floor of the casino now, one we hadn’t been on before.

This level was filled with fancy-looking restaurants, all of them arranged in a circle around a railing that looked over a level of high-end stores. The air was somehow cleaner up here, as if they had siphoned out all of the cigarette smoke and slovenliness from the riffraff, leaving the air pure for the people who could afford to eat in these restaurants and shop at those stores.

“I’m not hungry.”

But Liam was walking toward a restaurant on our right. It was called Alia, and it was one of those places that had the menu posted outside the door, the kind of menu that didn’t provide prices but gave you a chef’s name. “You need to eat, Emery.”

He walked into restaurant, and the pretty blonde hostess immediately brightened when she saw him. “Mr. Rutherford,” she said, straightening up and hitting him with a dazzling smile. She completely ignored me. “Long time no see, sir.” The way her eyes traveled over him made it look like she wanted to devour him right there, like she was half-hoping he’d come there to order her off the menu.

Had he fucked her? I wondered. Was he the type of man whose dalliances weren’t just limited to famous movie stars and socialites, but also pretty blonde hostesses?

“There will be two of us,” Liam said.

“Yes, sir.” Her eyes flicked over me, instantly dismissing me as no competition as she began to walk toward the back of the room, but I grabbed Liam’s sleeve.

“Sorry,” I said to the hostess. “I just need to talk to Mr. Rutherford for a moment.”

I pulled him back out onto the concourse.

“Yes?” he asked, sounded impatient. He checked his watch, some French brand I didn’t recognize with a wide black band. The diamonds in the face sparkled in the overhead light. “We have limited time to eat, Emery, if we’re going to make it to California at a reasonable hour.”

The trace of impatience in his voice, as if I was the one who was slowing us down, as if I were the one who’d wanted to come here, annoyed me.

“I don’t even want to eat,” I said, and then I realized I was defending myself about something that wasn’t even an issue.

“Then what is it?”

“What would have happened if my father had paid you?” It was the question that had hung, unspoken, in my mind, ever since Liam had rushed down those back stairs hoping to find him.

“Then your ransom would have been paid.”

“Yes, I get that. I’m not stupid. I mean what would have happened after that?” I swallowed and gathered my courage. “With us.”

“This isn’t the time or place to talk about this,” he said sternly.

“This isn’t a game, Liam.” My voice was calm, even though inside, I felt unsettled, shaken. Something had shifted in the air between us. This wasn’t like downstairs in the casino, when I’d been acting crazy at the slot machines, this wasn’t like upstairs when I’d been about to pull out my hair extensions and had started rubbing off my makeup in an effort to get through to him.