Except with Daniel.
Who is for some reason off limits.
Which doesn’t matter because I don’t know Daniel and would love to get the hell away from him — because it seems I’m only capable of the poorest decisions in his presence.
If I stay through dinner, they’ll tell us how this little competition is supposed to work. They’ll tell us if we’re being watched, and where they’re hiding the cameras. They’ll tell us if the bathroom is safe, which it by all rights should be because even slaves deserve some privacy. And if I knew it was safe, I could at least feel comfortable in here. I could relieve some stress with my fingers or the detachable shower massager, if the mood struck me.
My fingers linger as I sit. I press where the pressure won’t stop building. I squeeze my muscles, both inside and out. Can I make myself come without it being obvious to anyone watching or offering a show? Maybe I could climb under the covers and do it that way. But if I did, they’d know what I was up to even if they couldn’t see my goodies. And if there’s one thing I don’t want to give this whatever-it-is, it’s satisfaction.
As I resettle myself in the bedroom, there’s a knock on my door.
At first, I ignore it. There’s nobody here I want to talk to.
Erin passed as I was talking to Jessica, and she wouldn’t meet my eye. It was fine because I couldn’t meet hers. I don’t know anything about Erin, and I’m aware just how absurd it would be to judge her given what I was doing during her little interlude … and, if I’m honest, how much I secretly enjoyed the show. But we started out on one foot and are now on another, making the ground beneath us unknown and uncertain. I expect our next conversation to be awkward now that Erin’s made come-join-us eyes at me in the heat of passion, now that I know how she trims her pubic hair and what she sounds like when she comes.
I liked Jessica when we spoke, but ironically I’m afraid to know her. I like to keep my friends on one side and my fantasies on another, and it feels like a matter of time before this place swallows Jessica same as it swallowed Erin. We could have been girlfriends back home. Three fun gals who knew where the lines were drawn. But now Erin is on the other side of that line, and I can’t imagine Jessica will take long to follow.
So who’s left? Logan, whose sideways smile makes me think he already knows what I look like naked? Richard, who looks as sweet as Erin but who, if I wanted, I could command to make camp between my legs? Or Tony — our tour guide who went from affable to thrusting beast on a dime?
The knock comes again. Light. Considerate. As if the person on the other side is afraid to bother me.
“Bridget?”
Daniel. But the voice and the knock are so unlike what I’ve seen of him, I ask anyway. “Who is it?”
“It’s Daniel. From the interview.”
I just stare at the door. From the interview. As if there would be any question. Depending on your definition of things, we’ve had sex up to three times now. The way he feels it necessary to explain makes my brow bunch up, my mouth form a frown.
“Can I please see you for a moment?”
I don’t know what else to do. So I open the door.
He’s dressed in a tux, and holding a single rose.
He eyes me up and down, taking his time. His assessing look is, now, somehow different than before.
He holds the rose out to me. It doesn’t have a long stem. I look closer, and see that it doesn’t have much of a stem at all. In his other hand is a straight pin with a round white head.
“Do you mind? I can never do this right.”
It’s a boutonniere. I don’t know what else to do and it seems petty to refuse, so I pin the rose to his lapel. Its scent is rich and evocative, and Daniel’s musk is beneath it, which I now realize I’ve been smelling on myself all day.
I look up expecting to see a gotcha look on his face and realize that this strange interlude was yet another trial. To see if I can be domestic as well as submissive. To test me out for his boss, to see if I’d be to Trevor Ross’s liking. And maybe I’ll see lust in his eyes again. I desperately want to leave this place. But as I hear the rhythm of Daniel’s breath above me and feel the rise and fall of his chest as my finger pushes the pin the rest of the way, I realize that part of me wants him even more.
But Daniel’s just smiling. A familiar grin I seem to know from somewhere, beyond all of this.
“Let’s take a walk,” he says.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Bridget
I’m sure it’s tacky to walk through a billionaire’s arboretum barefoot, but I don’t give a shit. I won’t try it in heels. I took them off as we neared the garden door, but when I realized we were headed for an interior space instead, I set them down by the entrance. There’s one way in and one way out, so I won’t miss them.
“I made a mistake,” he tells me.
We’re walking past an azalea bush. There’s some sort of tall grass on the opposite side, not the kind of thing I’d expect in a place meant to showcase plants. Ahead I see glass within glass, and wonder if you can put one greenhouse inside another. If you can, I’d bet that’s where the roses came from. We’re headed that way. But then we turn, and we’re passing a fountain with a stone mermaid in the center, standing on her tail, spewing water from her mouth.
I feel my lip curling. He means the money. It’s not ten thousand dollars a day after all. Because that would be absurd.
“I thought the offer seemed too generous,” I say. “At first, I figured I misheard you, but then I talked to one of the others and she said — ”
“It’s not that. I shouldn’t even have brought you here.”
I stop. I turn. Immediately, my hackles are up.
“Just me?”
“It was a mistake. I regret it.”
A bitter smile touches my lips. It makes sense, but that doesn’t change how much it pisses me off. Not because I’m apparently being ousted, but because of what the situation has made me do under false pretenses. I used to think I couldn’t be bought, but this man and his unseen boss have proved me wrong, just as Daniel said. Everyone has their price, and the real cost for me isn’t missed opportunity. It’s truth about who I am and how far my integrity actually extends. Or, as the case may be, doesn’t.
“So that’s it? Nothing for Bridget? You told me you knew my situation. You used it to get me here. And if you try to back out of paying me now, I’ll — ”
“You misunderstand. I made a mistake. But now it’s too late to fix it.”
I stop ranting. My mouth slowly closes.
“Tell me,” he says. “Why didn’t you take Tony?”
I shake my head.
“Tony. He was supposed to … ” Daniel trails off. “When he took you around, he was for you, not Erin.”
Now that my mind reels back, I guess that makes sense. He kept looking at me, but it wasn’t possessive like Daniel. It was almost shy. The look of a man who’s eager to do a lady’s bidding but won’t act until asked. I noticed the glances. They even stirred something inside me. But Erin picked up on the energy, and I was happy to keep her between us.
“You expected me to have sex with some random guy? Just to score points in your stupid little contest? A contest that nobody has even explained?”
“No, Bridget. That’s what you’re not understanding. I expected you to be yourself.”
“I’m not following.”
“Everyone here, we’ve profiled within a certain margin of error. It’s not hard to predict behavior once you know someone and their triggers. For all of us, civilization gets in the way. It complicates things that are supposed to be simple. There is how we mean to act, and then there is a layer atop it that determines how we should and shouldn’t act. Remove the shoulds and shouldn’ts, and none of us, honestly, are all that hard to understand.”
“Erin— ”
“Needed permission. Some people just need to be told that what they want is okay. Others must be compelled to do what they actually
want to do.”
It sounds so familiar. “You told me my problem is that I won’t let myself want what I want.”
“And so does everyone,” Daniel says. “The difference is that for everyone else here, what they want is a lifestyle, and their own inhibitions are standing in their way. Tell me. How impressed are you by all of this?” He waves his arm around the arboretum, but I assume he means the mansion, the private plane, the limo, all of it.
“It’s very nice.” I’m still guarding my answers. I don’t trust Daniel, though I’m sort of shocked by this side of him.
“Do you want it? With all your heart, would you like a place like this?”
I know what I’m supposed to say. It’s what everyone would say. Of course I want it all. I want to shower with Dom Perignon and bathe in Krugerrands. I want seven handmaidens to slide my shoes onto my feet each morning and bare-chested Chippendale butlers to feed me peeled grapes. But I hesitate because in truth it all seems so high maintenance. Brandon and I grew up with less than nothing, and in a strange way I’m thankful. I’ve always believed that the more stuff you own, the more stuff owns you. I’d take the limos, the plane, the mansion, the help. But only on my own terms, after I’ve satisfied everything more meaningful, and earned what I have.
“You don’t,” he says.
“I do. But not badly enough to … ” I let the sentence hang. Not badly enough to win whatever contest you’re putting on here.
Daniel sits on a wooden bench. He motions for me to sit beside him, but I sit on a short stone wall opposite him instead, my knees primly together.
“When I said that with Tony, I expected you to be yourself? That’s where I made my mistake. By pushing for you to be here, knowing what I do. And what I don’t.”
I’m not so sure he’s making a cogent argument. Maybe I didn’t fuck Tony, and maybe any one of the other girls would have, or at least would’ve wanted to. But I did back my wet pussy right into Daniel’s fingers. My body still remembers his touch. My knees still twitch at the memory of my climax. And that’s not to mention the two other times I let him force himself on me. How I, too, seem to have only needed permission.
“You think you know me.”
“Not as much as the others.”
“You’ve been spying on me.”
“It’s part of why you’re so well compensated.”
“So that’s how you work? You think you can do whatever you want, then just buy people off?”
“Yes,” he says.
I wait for more, but there isn’t any. His cockiness has returned. His certainty that the world is here to amuse the rich man he works for. His worldview has been poisoned by wealth, which is one reason I’ve always been suspicious of it.
“And just because you’ve been watching me, listening in on my phones in ways the FBI might have a problem with if I reported you, probably having me followed, who knows what else … you think you’ve got me all figured out.”
The assessment comes out covered in bile. Presumption is just about the worst thing to me. I don’t like anyone to feel they can pre-guess me for the same reason I hate the idea of fate. Nobody pulls my strings. Throughout my life, the best way to get me to go right is to insist I go left. The best way to get me to do the wrong thing is to command me to do everything right.
“I thought I did, yes.”
“And Trevor Ross?”
“Selections were my job. He trusted me to do that job to the best of my ability.”
“That’s very nice of him.”
“Don’t act pissed off, Bridget,” Daniel spits, breaking my spell. “Self-pity doesn’t suit you. You’re too goddamn pleased with yourself to be a victim, and we both know it.”
“What the hell are you — ”
“I’m not apologizing for selecting you. I’m just telling you I made an error.”
My head snaps up. I look into Daniel’s eyes and realize he’s angry. If he’s been saying he misjudged me, that’s an understatement compared to how much I’ve misjudged him in this moment. He seems sorry, but his regret is for himself and his mistake. He’s right; he hasn’t apologized at all. I jumped from “it was a mistake” to “I’m sorry” all on my own, but that’s not what he means. Daniel isn’t expressing regrets for my benefit. And what I took for surprising tenderness was only more of the same asshole I’ve seen before.
“You’re pissed at me? After convincing me to come here, refusing to let me make any phone calls, coercing me into — ”
“And you fought me so hard, didn’t you? Practically begged for it every step of the way.”
I bolt to my feet. “That doesn’t give you any goddamned right to — ”
“I could have left you there, you know. I told Trevor about you, and he said no. But I insisted. I wanted to see what you were made of.”
I look down. He found out, all right. Right there in the alley. Fucking me from behind as I screamed into the brick.
“I made my bed. Now I need to lie in it. I can’t kick you out before it starts or he’ll know I know screwed up, but if you stick around, you’ll be a disaster. I knew it going in, of course I did. Bridget Miller can’t be coerced unless she wants to be! Her Highness Bridget Fucking Miller doesn’t need the billionaire’s trappings. Strip away your inhibitions, and what’s there? Just you, that’s what.”
I watch Daniel’s face. There are at least three competing emotions on it, and I can’t decipher a single one. He’s giving me half statements full of unknown presumptions, and I can only see the top card in his deck. Yet whatever this is, it’s a game he’s been playing for a while now. He hates me, he wants me, he’s sorry, and yet that seems to make him angry. He really did fuck something up; I can see that for sure. But it’s not just about whatever this contest is, or his job, or any of the other things he’s claiming. There’s an unseen piece of this puzzle, and I have no idea what it is, or how to protect myself against what surely must be coming.
I know two things:
Daniel Rice is bad fucking news. He doesn’t even know who he is, and that makes him dangerous. He’s wearing a tux but has tattoos like a biker. I’d have sworn he was vulnerable five minutes ago, but now I’m almost afraid he’ll hit me.
And I don’t need to win this. Not the contest, but the argument. The clash of wills. Daniel brought me here, and now for some reason he resents my presence. I could keep pointing that out to him, and it’s what I’d do to just about anyone else, simply to mock them. But I’m afraid to with Daniel. Best to cut my losses now. Get out while I’m ahead, if that’s what I am.
“I’ll leave,” I say. “You don’t have to kick me out. I’ll just go.”
His jaw works. His eyes have grown hard, and I can see yet another motivation working now behind the scenes. He’s a man with a team of warriors competing inside his head, and I have no idea what any of them want or which will win.
“No,” he says.
“You just said you made a mistake. You can’t kick me out. I can’t stay. So I’ll quit.”
I’m saying this for me. Not to help him. For me.
“No,” he repeats. “You’ll stay.”
After he fingered me, he said, Stay for dinner.
And yet I know this man hates me as much as I hate him. Everything I’ve heard from him over the past few minutes says, Get the fuck out.
I watch him, my nerves on high alert, sure somehow that he’ll come at me. Hit me. Push me down. Straddle me. Fuck me until I scream his name.
He stands up. Glares at me. And in that glare, I see resentment. Lust. Regret. Anger. Loathing and self-loathing. Fear. And indecision.
“Be at dinner at seven,” he says. “And if you’re one minute late, I’m going to stick my cock down your throat and fuck it until you learn how to listen.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Daniel
Fuck her.
FUCK. HER.
I knew it was stupid to bring Bridget into this, but ironically a lack of willpower sits in the center
piece of our mutual backstory. I’ve never been good at seeing something I want but shouldn’t have, then taking it anyway. And these days, there’s not much I can’t have if I truly want it. Pop Tarts and french fries are behind me. Now it’s people. Companies. Power.
But the principles are the same. I used to be in the middle of doing something I shouldn’t, and I’d think, I shouldn’t do this. Then, hating myself, I’d do it anyway because desire is stronger than sense. And that’s how it is now. That’s how it is with Bridget.
I lock my office door. I walk to the closet, pull out the chair, and rake the clothes aside. With the door closed and Bridget’s light off, I’m almost entirely in the dark. She left some sort of a small device, maybe a Fitbit, charging on the nightstand in front of the mirror, and in the moonless evening that tiny light is all I have to see by.
Fuck Bridget Miller. Fuck all she represents.
I should never have reopened this box. I thought I had it all figured out. I’m in control now. I’m different now. She doesn’t even have a clue who I am; of course she doesn’t. I made a point to change as much as possible, ironically thanks to her. Now I live here, in this house, Trevor Fucking Ross notwithstanding. Every extravagant form of transportation known to man is at my disposal. I can raid the cabinets and wine cellar, drinking more in a light evening than most people earn in a month. I’ve trained so hard, I swear I’ve spent a decade hunched over a garbage can, puking from the intensity. I have the world’s best trainers, and always did exactly they said. I’m all I never was back then. Today, I could make Bridget Cunting Miller cream her panties by lifting my shirt.
So fuck her. Fuck this situation. Fuck her willingness to go, to help me out of the jam I’ve got myself into. The way things are now, there’s no way to win. She can’t know that, or know why. But I blame her anyway. Because without our past, I never would have sullied this competition. I’d have picked twelve hot women with corruptible morals to dance and writhe while Trevor held court. While they stood in line to suck his dick and he made his selections, thumbs-up or down, like a Roman emperor. Even while I was running Bridget through the protocol, I knew it was a mistake. I regretted it while it was happening, but my lack of willpower was back in charge, wearing a different set of clothing but pulling my strings just the same.
Burning Offer (Trevor's Harem #1) Page 10
