Buyer Beware

by Colleen Charles

  At her offhand comment, my hand flutters to my abdomen. I'll never forget the night I thought I was going to be raped. But what actually happened instead might be even worse.

  "You eat something rancid for lunch, Marshmallow?" She's the only one allowed to call me by my childhood nickname. My dad started calling me that back in grade school, and it stuck. Now, it reminds me of him, and only people close to my heart are allowed to bring the memories back from the darkness into the light.

  "Nah. Just got a sudden cramp." I've gone to great lengths to keep my naked body from my best friend and have succeeded so far. She doesn't need to know. She'd be horrified. Her parents crossed the border legally.

  "Just one more after this, and we're done for the day." She looks around the room. "Nice work, bestie. You even managed to avoid being touched by old Bob."

  I give her a cheesy grin, showing nearly all of my teeth. "Yup. I'm getting better and better at avoiding him. I've got his schedule down pat in my mind, so I know when he's coming and going, and I'm always on the second floor. He's too fat to haul his spandex-clad ass up here."

  Lita smiles and starts to whistle a happy tune as we finish up for the day.

  * * *

  Some girls fantasize about The Thunder from Down Under or the Chippendales, but I've never had that inclination. And even now as I stare around the dilapidated trailer, it's not debt, filth, or even sculpted muscles that have my mind tied up in knots.

  No. It's a dark, brooding man. He's huge and broad-shouldered. But his eyes. I've never seen anything like them. They're black as coal and just as dead. Lifeless, really. I wonder what a man like that would be capable of doing to me. At the prospect, my heart flutters in my chest, and my panties flood with wetness. There's something dangerous about him. Something that turns me on like nothing I've ever felt before.

  I sigh. At work, I'd been too busy and too distracted by Lita and the job at hand that I hadn't many moments to think about how he made me feel. But now…

  I take a college brochure for UCLA and fan myself with it. Thank God Manny's still at work, and he's not here to start plying me with questions. Like all big brothers, he seems to know when I'm panting after a man like a dog in heat. And they're never good enough for me in Manny's eyes. But this man, his boss, I can't imagine what he'd find wrong with a hot billionaire like Nixon Caldwell.

  I've never seen a man fill out a suit the way he did when I spotted him with his henchman, Troy Cass. I've heard Manny mention Troy once or twice. He's kind of one of those "jack of all trade master of none" guys. I shudder. I'm sure Nixon has ordered his second in command to do many dastardly things during his meteoric rise to the top.

  I wonder how many women he's slept with?

  Shit. Where in the hell did that thought come from? It's none of my business. I don't care about the identities of his faceless, random bed partners.

  Except, I do.

  Because I wish I was one of them.

  I tossed and turned all night long because all I could think about were the man's hands on me. And it made me hot. So damn hot I threw off the covers and writhed on the bed in just my panties all alone until I fell back into the blessed oblivion of sleep.

  Nothing about Nixon Caldwell says he's inviting female attention. He's groomed to perfection, but it almost makes him look plastic. As if he's a mannequin and not a flesh and blood man at all. But my blood, that's another story. All it took was one sight of him, and something tripped my heart to beat faster. I have no idea why because he's clearly out of my league. I'll never be able to even exchange pleasantries with the sexy man, let alone have him consider me for any kind of liaison.

  My body hasn't gotten the message, and it screams for him, pounding, throbbing, and aching for something I inherently know only he can deliver. I want to be pressed against him and for him to be my first. To belong to him. Every inch of me begs to let him strip me bare and see everything. All of me. Even the parts I struggle to hide.

  I know it will never happen. This sudden desire that boils inside me, threatening to overflow, will never be sated. It's probably because I've never had a serious relationship, so I'm just fantasizing about an unavailable man. Instead, I'll watch him from a distance and dream about touching the chiseled planes of his face. Dream of how they would soften under my touch, and I'd reveal the real Nixon Caldwell dwelling behind the mask of calm indifference.

  "Damn." I glance down at the mail. A letter from Hunter sits at the top of the pile, beckoning me with its false hope like a beacon in white parchment. It's the one I've been waiting for, but at the same time, the one I've been dreading.

  I reach down and hold it up to the light. Part of me doesn't want to open it because I already know what's inside. And I also know it will break my heart. After my angst-ridden teenage years, there isn't much heart left to shatter.

  I feel different somehow. Even though it will be a challenge to keep the disappointment and sadness from reaching my eyes, at least I know I'm good enough. Good enough to make it into the top college in the US for students seeking to be occupational therapists. I want to help disabled kids. I feel a kinship with them. Most write anyone who isn't perfect off like they don't matter. It's the way I've felt for most of my life. But people with imperfections matter. And I do, too.

  I rip open the acceptance letter and sigh deeply, heaving an exhalation of breath that includes my hopes and dreams for a better future. At least for now. Maybe someday things will be different. I tilt my head back and allow my eyes to flutter closed, grateful for the blessed blackness behind them. I don't want to keep looking at the letter and consider its implications.

  I open them after several long, tortured moments and take a sip of water to fortify me. There's not much to eat in the house because payday isn't until Friday and the cheap fuckers that stay at the rent by the hour Heartbreak Hotel don't know they're supposed to tip housekeeping. We only got five dollars today between us, and I need it in case of emergency. I'm not the kind of girl that likes to be left without even a dollar lining my pocket. It makes me feel unsafe, and all the bullshit around this town makes me feel like an easy mark already.

  Reaching out, I touch the dirty glass, delighting in the smoothness under my fingers but wishing it was Nixon. How would he feel underneath the touch of my hand? Hard? Rough? Would he be hot, like a summer day, ready to envelop me with his strength? God, how I wish I could find out. I wonder if anything on this earth could ever hurt me again if I belonged to a powerful man like him.

  I shake my head and bite my lip as I put the fantasy away for good. It can't happen.

  Ever.

  Chapter Four – Nixon

  I stare down at my chrome desk and chase away the impulse to smudge it up. Sometimes my perfect office and my orderly life piss me off for no apparent reason other than that they're ultimately boring. It's all my futile attempt to control everything. Because if I'm in control, I don't have to experience those pesky emotions that I don't want to feel. Since I fell into the pools of chocolate brown masquerading as Marcella Castillo's eyes, I've been roiling in them.

  Lust.

  Want.

  A damn yearning for flesh so strong that I've been forced to give myself a happy ending in the shower every time I've gone inside the frosted glass.

  The door flings open after a curt knock, and I snap my head up as Troy strides into the office. He pauses a moment to admire the breathtaking view from my floor to ceiling windows. It's eight at night, and the lights twinkling on the strip are providing the magnificent backdrop to Sin City.

  "Working overtime again, boss? I half expected that you wouldn't be in here this late. I should have known better."

  I give a stilted little laugh. We've been friends since grade school, and Troy knows everything about me. Even the things I wish I could forget. We've been through it all together. Troy's from the wrong side of the tracks with a crack addicted mother and a father still wearing prison orange. In spite of it, we became fast friends and bl
ood brothers, pricking our thumbs with contraband pocket knives and smashing them together behind my dad's first casino. We'd do anything for each other.

  "As I said the other day, her name's Marcella Castillo," Troy says, stopping only long enough to slap a manila folder down on my desk. "Her brother's a dealer here. They had a little spat because the brother apparently has a poker problem. Thinks he's way better than he is just like most amateurs, wiling away their precious hours in online outfits and on gaming apps. Apparently, the little shithead gambled away the rent money."

  My heart throbs against my ribs, and I almost don't want to look inside. Once I go down this road, I can't go back. I'm a hard and unfeeling man underneath my smooth veneer, where I can already tell that Marcella is all softness and light. What if one interaction with my steel venom robs that vulnerability away from her, replacing it with frost? The last thing I'd ever want is for a woman with her whole life ahead of her to end up dead inside like me.

  "What's inside, Troy?" I ask, stalling.

  He moves to stand in front of the windows, giving me his back. I know something's coming that I won't like because he's avoiding looking in my eyes when he spills it.

  "The Mona Lisa is looking especially gauche tonight."

  I don't appreciate his effort to delay, but I tolerate it. From him, I'd tolerate anything. If any of my other employees were standing in this office, I'd be barking at them to tell me what I want to know. "Doesn't it look that way every night? It looks like Clark Griswald's house in 'National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.' I'm surprised it doesn't cause a citywide blackout."

  "No shit." Troy chuckles. "Fucker has too much money. A man with that much money always gets up to something. Rarely anything good."

  "Agreed."

  After several tense moments, I realize he's not ready to tell me, so I open the folder and glance inside. The first photo, the one laying on top causes me to hiss in a breath, and I see red. White hot dots of unexpressed rage dance before my eyes. I don't even really know this woman, and I want to go to the trailer park and blow that piece of shit she's living in sky high until it's reduced to prefabricated ash. After I torch it, I'd grab Marcella in my arms and carry her away to my private suite, like the prince in a Disney movie.

  What the fuck is wrong with me?

  "She lives in this shithole?" I ask, even though I already know the answer.

  "It gets worse."

  "Fuck me."

  Troy turns back around, and I expect to see pity on his face. He already knows I'm harboring tender feelings for this stranger. He probably knows my emotions before I can identify them. But he's not judging me for it. It's why I love him like a brother. I never have to be anything other than myself when I'm with him. He takes all of me. The good the bad and the ugly. And since my father died, there's been far more ugly than anything else. Hitting my knees in gratitude for his unending friendship, support, and loyalty wouldn't be misplaced.

  "She graduated at the top of her high school. National Merit Scholarship and all that fancy shit. In fact, she got awarded a number of scholarships. She even got accepted to Hunter College in Philly, but she declined and then was forced to drop out of the local community college a few months before she graduated. She declined a fucking full-ride scholarship because her worthless brother keeps stealing all her money for gambling. She's got nothing. I doubt she even has enough money to eat or put gas in her car. And don't even get me started on that piece of shit. It shouldn't even be on the road."

  I clamp my eyes shut, anger slicing through me. If I were a bottle rocket, I'd explode off my platform and shoot so far into the sky I'd be reduced to nothing but a flaming trail of rage. I want to stalk down to the casino floor, grab her wastrel brother by the back of the neck, and shake him until he gains sense. But I won't. There has to be another way to save her from him. When I open my eyes and look down at the folder again, Troy's taken a seat across from me. I ruffle through the photos and documents, each one painting a bleak picture of a woman with promise being denied the opportunity to soar.

  "This is not right," I say, needing to break the awkward silence as if I might be able to say something that would make this situation better. But I don't have a magic fucking wand. I do have a hotel. And a hotel has jobs. Tons of high paying jobs for proud women who are too intelligent for their own good.

  "It's a sad story for sure. Her parents were illegal immigrants who died a few years back. The brakes went out in their ancient vehicle, another one that should have been relegated to the scrap yard. Marcella was left to deal with the fallout even though she's the younger sibling."

  Minutes pass, and I picture myself saving her. The illicit fantasy leaves me standing in front of her, holding my heart in my hands, beseeching her to take it. But she doesn't. I can already tell a woman with her obvious brilliance won't appreciate or accept a handout.

  When I've finished reviewing everything inside the folder, I shut it, and the dark cloud envelops me again. A sliver of light peeks through only when I have a challenge, something I'm working toward. If I take this woman on as my project, I'm afraid I might fall even further into the darkness if she rejects me. There's nothing good in my life right now outside of my family and the Armónico. Maybe it would be good for me to have something else to focus on. Something that would inspire me to step away from this God forsaken desk. Something that breathes life into my spirit.

  Reaching over, I click the intercom and tell Carol to get Manuel Castillo up to my office.

  Troy smirks. "Carol left three hours ago."

  "Shit. You're right. I guess I was just talking to myself."

  Troy tents his hands in front of his face and gets that pensive look. He's about to become the fucking voice of reason. "What are you going to do?"

  "I'm going to put the fear of God into her brother for starters. I can't even imagine stealing from any of my brothers. Can you imagine what Mom or Dad would have done if we'd turned on each other like that? Shit. My mom was so fucking American she named all of us after presidents."

  Troy laughs, a deep, rumbling sound that almost makes me feel normal. "Yeah, your mom was a great lady. Back to Marcella. Didn't you see that information about her internship?"

  I open the folder back up and rifle through. Stopping at the community college transcript, I run my finger down the text but don't notice anything strange or intriguing. "What?"

  "She did an internship this past year. As a para."

  I narrow my eyes and squint until I find it. Sure enough, Marcella's counselor approved her to work as a para for a learning disabled child as she worked toward being a occupational therapy assistant. From what I could tell, her next goal was to attend Hunter to pursue being a therapist.

  "I see it now," I say, pissed at myself for missing something so important. Lust has overtaken leave of my senses because Marcella just dropped herself right into the lap of a lascivious wolf.

  Troy looks at me as if I've lost my mind. Probably because my cock has been hard since I first saw the beauty, and all of my brain cells have traveled straight south.

  "Didn't Linc's therapist just quit to go back home to Iowa?"

  Since I gave the search for the new therapist over to Carol, I'd completely forgotten about it. Marcella would be perfect to work as an aid under the direction of a therapist. That way, I can keep her close at hand and look my fill, even if I can never touch her.

  The thought pisses me off, and I pull out her high school graduation photo. Her chocolate eyes are so big and innocent. I try to keep my body calm as I take in her smiling face. Most kids get professional photos taken by local photographers. Marcella's is some cheap face shot from Wal-Mart. Shit, I wish I could get somebody from Hollywood to fly into Vegas and make that right. Her fuckwad brother probably stole the money that was earmarked for photos. I bet she never even had a party when, with her accolades, she should have been gifted the gala of the decade.

  "Great idea. I think that's the perfect way to make it work so
she'll actually accept the job. Pride and all that. What if we bring Manuel up here and offer to pay off all his debts if he can get his sister to take the job? Seems she still has a soft spot for the little pecker. Doing it that way will keep it all business and give them both a fresh start."

  Because all I want to do is make it personal. So fucking personal I can think of nothing else but marking her as mine.

  Troy snorts and leans back in his chair, causing the leather to squeak under his considerable bulk. "I'm calling bullshit on you, Caldwell. I don't think your interest in Marcella Castillo has anything to do with business, although Linc does need someone right now, so it's a win-win. I won't call out the real reason you're sniffing around because I'm actually happy about it. You're getting too prickly and crabby. You could use a good lay."

  I sweep the photo from my mind. "She's a baby, Troy. She's not a hooker."

  "She's twenty-one."

  I scowl. It might have been better if she was still in her teens because that would have made her totally off limits. If she can drink in a bar, she can ride my cock.

  Calm down, Caldwell. She's not for the likes of you.

  I tap the folder. "Make it happen." I have full confidence that he won't balk.

  "What if the brother creates a problem?" Troy asks, thinking of everything. But then again, that's what I pay him to do. He's good at it. Better than me.

  "We'll make him an offer he can't refuse," I say, puffing my chest out like Marlon fucking Brando in "The Godfather" because nothing is going to stop me from getting Marcella Castillo into this hotel.

  "Shit, Nixon. Don't play like that. You sound like that mafia bastard Dante, and you're better than that."

  Am I? Most days I doubt it. Troy still thinks I'm a good guy, but he doesn't realize that most of my soul got sucked out of my body the day my father took himself deep. My friend's crediting me with more goodness than I deserve.