Traded(60)

“Listen here you motherfucker, I have no idea who you’re talking about but if you don’t get out of here in the next five seconds, I’m going to consider it a threat. And trust me when I say you do not want to threaten a guy like me.”

His eyes went wide and his body jerked. I went to open my mouth but he’d vanished, racing off into the night. My body still on alert, I looked around but there was no one else there.

With an effort, I unclenched my fists. I needed to see if Elena was okay.

She was white as a sheet, trembling from head to toe. I reached out my hand but she recoiled, which hurt worse then I’d imagined it would.

“Elena, look at me.”

Her eyes panned up to mine, unfocused, and I knew nothing would get through to her. I had to get her home, away from the bullshit.

I placed my hands on her shoulders and gently maneuvered her into the car. She didn’t speak a word as she mindlessly buckled her seatbelt and waited. I stood at the back of the car, whipping out my cell and shooting a text to Brock.



Me: I need a favor. Meet me at mine in 20?

Brock: I’ll be there



His reply didn’t surprise me. I paid him and paid him well to be available wherever, whenever. Palmer would understand how to contact me correctly by the time Brock finished with him. Under normal circumstances, I’d do it myself. If he’d stopped when I’d asked him to I would have let it go, but he pushed it. There was nothing I’d enjoy more than seeing to it that the guy never upset another woman as much as he’d upset Elena, but my attention needed to be with her, so Brock would have to relay the message on my behalf.

Hurrying around the front of the car, I peeled out of the parking lot. Concern pulled my attention to her. She sat facing forward, her hands clutched in her lap. Taking her hand, I moved it to my lips, placing a soft kiss on it.

“Elena, talk to me.

“No.”

“What can I do?”

She swallowed hard. “Does stuff like that always happen?”

Everything in me said I wanted Elena to stay after the three months was up. To do that, I not only needed her to leave her husband, but to feel comfortable with me. I couldn’t lie to her. “It’s happened once or twice before. Most of the clients know and understand the rules before they borrow the money. And if they don’t, we remind them.”

She shivered and I squeezed her hand tighter.

“I don’t hurt them—not right away at least. So far most have obeyed the rules after the first conversation. Those that don’t are no longer an issue.”

She didn’t reply, but I could see her lower lip trembling.

“I’d never hurt you, Elena. You have to know that. It’s just business.”

“Is it? You told me earlier in the night, you only work for your dad because you feel like you have too.”

I groaned. It was supposed to be the perfect date, not an analysis on wants and desires. “And I do. Me enforcing the rules doesn’t change anything.”

“Maybe for me it does.”

I slammed my fist into the wheel. “You knew what I did when you first climbed into my bed.”

That snapped whatever had been keeping her temper in check. “So that makes it okay for me to have it thrown in my face that I’m your latest fucktoy?”

And there it was—the comparison to Tolley. Because he treated her as nothing but a slave, that’s what I was going to do, no matter what I did to prove I wasn’t the same man.

What was the point? I’d worked my ass off to show her that I wasn’t him; that I could offer her more. I hadn’t been that guy ever. Hell, I was a better guy for her than I’d been to any woman. She saw Ashton Hawes 2.0—the nice guy. So why, after everything, would she think me a liar?

I didn’t know why she thought that way, but I’d be damned if I would let it continue.





CHAPTER 19





Ashton




“Goddamn it, Elena. Why would you say that?”

I pulled into the drive and slammed on the brakes, sending us both flying forward.

“Ashton,” she screamed, grabbing the belt.

I turned toward her, grasping her chin to move her head to face me. “Do I have your attention now?” I snarled.

“What?” she snapped.

“I have never, nor will I ever consider you a fucktoy. If that were the case, I’d use your body for what I needed like your piece of shit husband suggested instead of having you sleep in my bed because I like you there. I would not set up auditions for you. I would not take you to dinner. And I would never sit through a movie with you, no matter how good you were at giving head.”

I didn’t give her a chance to think, much less to reply. Lowering my head, I took her lips in a brutal kiss. I needed her to believe me. I needed her to know that what we had was no longer a product of circumstance. I put everything into the kiss.