Another knock sounds, and I concede that, nope, my visitor is not going away. Inwardly, I shake myself and tug at the hem of the simple light blue dress I still wear from today’s final tenth-grade English class of the summer. I inhale and open the door to have a cool blast of San Francisco’s year-round chilly night air tease the loose strands of my long brunette hair that have fallen from the twist at my nape. Thankfully, it also cools my feverishly hot skin. What is wrong with me? How has a journal affected me this intensely?
Without awaiting an invitation, Ella rushes past me in a whiff of vanilla-scented perfume and red bouncing curls.
“There it is,” Ella says, snatching up her journal from the coffee table. “I thought I’d left it here when I came by last night.”
I shut the door, certain my cheeks are flaming again with the knowledge that I now know more about Ella’s sex life than I should. I still don’t know what made me open that journal, what made me keep reading. What makes me, even now, want to read more.
“I hadn’t noticed,” I say, wishing I could pull back the lie the instant it’s issued. I don’t like lies. I’ve known my share of people who’ve told them, and I know how damaging they can be. I really don’t like how easily this one slipped from my lips. This is Ella, after all, who in the past year as my neighbor has become my confidante, the younger sister I’d never had. Together we are the family neither of us has or, rather, neither of us wishes to claim. Uncomfortably, I ramble onward, a bad habit brought out by nerves, and guilt, apparently. “Long day of classes,” I add, “and I had piles and piles of paperwork to finish up for the summer. Lucky you got to avoid that this year, though I had some great kids I enjoyed.” I purse my lips and tell myself I’ve said enough, only to find I can’t help but continue. “I only just got home a few minutes ago.”
“Well, thank goodness you have some time off now,” Ella says, lifting the journal. “I brought this over last night when we’d planned to watch that chick flick together. I wanted to read you a few of the entries. But then David called, and you know how that went.” Her lips tilted downward, guilt laden in her tone. “I deserted you like a very bad friend.”
David being her hot doctor boyfriend. What David wanted from Ella, he got. Now, I know just how true that is. I study Ella a moment. With her dewy youthful skin, and dressed in faded jeans and a purple tee, she looks like one of my students rather than a twenty-five-year-old teacher herself. “I was tired anyway,” I assure her, but I’m worried she’s over her head with this man ten years her senior. “I needed to get to bed to be ready for today’s classes.”
“Well, they’re over now and yay for that.” She indicates the journal. “And I’m so glad to get this back before my date with David tonight.” She wiggles an eyebrow. “Foreplay. David is going to love this. This thing is scorching hot.”
I gape in utter disbelief. “You read him your journal?” I’d never have the courage to read a man such intimate personal thoughts—especially not about him. “And it’s foreplay?”
Ella frowns. “This isn’t my journal. Remember? I told you last night. It’s from the storage units I bought at that auction at the beginning of summer.”
“Oh,” I say, though I don’t remember Ella saying anything about the journal. In fact, had she, I’m 100 percent sure I’d remember. “That’s right. The storage auctions you’ve been attending since you got obsessed with that Storage Wars show. I still can’t believe people store their things and then default and let it go to the highest bidder.”
“And yet they do,” Ella says. “And I’m not obsessed.”
I arch a brow. “Okay, maybe I am,” she concedes, “but I’m going to make more than double what I would have teaching summer school. You should really consider going to the next auction with me. I’ve already turned around two of the three units I bought for big money.” She holds up the journal. “This came from the last unit I bought, and it’s the best yet. It has artwork I know is going to sell for big bucks. And so far I’ve found three journals that are absolutely spellbinding. My gosh, I can’t seem to stop reading them. This woman started out like you and me, and somehow got pulled into this dark passionate place that is terrifyingly exciting.”
She’s right, and I can feel that burn in my belly as I If I Were You 9
recall the words on those pages. I can almost imagine the soft, seductive voice of the woman whispering her story to me. I try to focus on what Ella is saying, but I’m wondering about that woman instead, wondering where she is, who she is.
“Oh my!” Ella exclaims. “You’re blushing. You read the journal, didn’t you?”
I blanch. “What? I . . .” Suddenly, I can’t talk. I am so not myself right now, and I sink helplessly into an overstuffed brown chair across from Ella, stuck in the trap of my earlier lie. “I . . . yes. I read it.”
Ella claims a couch cushion, narrowing her green eyes on me. “Did you think I wrote that stuff?”
I cast her a tentative look. “Well . . .” “Whoa,” she says, clearly taking my reply, or rather lack of reply, as confirmation. “You thought . . .” She shakes her head. “I’m speechless. You couldn’t have read the good parts or there’s no way you would think she was me. But you’re sure blushing like you read the good parts.”
“I read some parts that were, ah, pretty detailed.” She snorts. “And you assumed I wrote them.” She shakes her head again. “And here I thought you knew me. But heck, I so wish I could live up to that assessment for just one hot night. There is a mysterious eroticism to that woman’s life that’s just . . .” She shivers. “Haunting. It, she, affects me.”
In some small way it comforts me to know she is as affected by the words on those pages as I am, and I don’t know why. What in the world do I need comfort for? It isn’t logical. Nothing about my reaction to this unknown woman is logical.
“Once David and I finish with the journal,” Ella continues, drawing me back into the conversation, “he’s going to take pictures of a few intimate pages for potential buyers and we’re listing the journals on eBay. They’re going to bring in big money. I just know it.”
I gape, appalled at this idea. “You can’t seriously intend to sell this woman’s personal thoughts on eBay?”
“Heck yeah, I do,” she says. “Making money is the name of the game. Besides, for all we know, it’s fiction.”
Her words are cold, and she surprises me. This is not the Ella I know. “We are talking about a woman’s private thoughts, Ella. Surely, you don’t want to profit off her pain.”
Her brows dip. “What pain? It sounds like all pleasure to me.”
“She lost everything she owns at auction. That isn’t pleasure.”
“I’m guessing her rich man flew her off to some exotic location and she is living life in a grand way.” Her voice turns somber. “I have to think like that to do this, Sara. Please don’t make me feel guilty. This is money I need, and if I didn’t do this, some other buyer would have.”
I open my mouth to argue but relent. Ella is alone in this world, with no family aside from an alcoholic father who doesn’t know his own name most of the time, let alone hers. I know she feels she has to have money for emergencies. I know that feeling myself all too well. I, too, am alone. Mostly, but I don’t want to think about that right now.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, and I mean it. “I know this is good for you. I’m happy it’s working out.”
Her lips curve slightly, and she nods her acceptance before she pushes to her feet. I stand with her and give her a hug. She smiles, her mood transforming into the instant sunshine I so often find she brings into my life. I love Ella. I really do.
“David and I are looking forward to a bit of that spellbinding action ourselves tonight,” she announces mischievously. “I have to run.” She laughs and waves a few fingers at me. “Enjoy your night. I know I will.”
I sink back into my chair and watch the door close.
The sound of pounding on my door once again take
s me from bliss to panic. I sit up in the bed, disoriented and groggy, and eye the clock. Seven in the morning on my first day off from classes.
“Who the heck is pounding on my door?” I grumble, throwing the blankets off me and sliding my feet into the pink fuzzy slippers one of my students gave me last Christmas. I grab my long pink robe that is not fuzzy, but does say pink across the back. More knocking has begun.
“Sara, it’s me, Ella!” I hear as I shuffle my way toward the living room. “Hurry! Hurry!”
My heart flutters not only because Ella is clearly in some sort of panic but also because, unlike me, who doesn’t like to waste a second of any day, Ella doesn’t get up before noon on days she doesn’t have to. The instant I yank open the door, Ella flings her arms around me and announces, “I’m eloping!”
“Eloping?!” I gasp, pulling back and tugging Ella inside, out of the chill of the early morning. She’s still wearing her clothes from the night before. “What are you talking about? What’s happening?”
“David proposed last night,” she exclaims excitedly. “I can hardly believe it. We’re flying to Paris this morning.” She eyes her watch and squeals. “In two hours.”
She shoves something into my hand. “That has the key to my apartment. On the kitchen table, you’ll find the journal and the key to the storage unit. If it’s not cleared out in two weeks, it has to be rented, or it’s auctioned off yet again. So take it and sell the stuff. The money is yours. Or let it go. Either way, it doesn’t matter.” She grins. “Because I’m eloping to Paris, then honeymooning in Italy!”
Protectiveness fills me for Ella. I don’t want her to get hurt, and I’ve never even heard her say she loves David. “You’ve known this man for only three months, sweetie. I’ve met him only once.” He always, conveniently, got called away when we’d been planning to get together.
“I love him, Sara,” she says, as if reading my mind. “And he’s good to me. You know that.”
No, I don’t know that, but while I try to find the right way to say it, she is already reaching for the door. “Ella—”
“I’ll call you when I arrive in Paris, so keep your cell handy.”
“Wait!” I say, shackling her arm. “How long will you be gone?”
Her eyes light up with excitement. “A month. Can you believe it? A whole month in Italy. I’m living a dream.” She hugs me and gives me a kiss on the cheek. “Since we high school folks don’t go back until October, thanks to the longer school days, I’m going a full month! Can you believe it? I’ll never complain about our longer school days again. A whole month in Italy—I’m living a dream! I’ll call, and when we get back we’ll have a reception.”
Her eyes soften. “You know I wanted you with me for this, don’t you? But David knew I had no family. He wanted to whisk me away so that it wouldn’t be painful.” She pokes at the puckered spot that always appears between my brows when I frown. “Stop making that face. It’ll be wrinkled when you get older. And I’m fine. I’m perfect, in fact.”
“You better be,” I say, attempting my best teacher voice, but my throat is too tight to do much more than croak out the warning. “Call me as soon as you arrive so I know you’re safe, and I want pictures. Lots of pictures.”
Ella smiles brightly, “Yes, Ms. McMillan.” She turns and rushes away, giving me a last-second wave over her shoulder before she rounds the corner. She is gone, and I am fighting unexpected tears I don’t even understand.
I am happy for Ella but worried for her, too. I feel . . . I’m not sure what I feel. Lost, maybe. My fingers curl around her keys, and I am suddenly aware that I have just inherited a storage unit and the journals I swore I wouldn’t read again.
Can't get enough of New York Times bestselling author Lisa Renee Jones?
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Denial
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Escaping Reality
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If I Were You
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LISA RENEE JONES is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than forty books across many romance genres—contemporary, romantic suspense, dark paranormal, and erotic fiction. Her books have been translated all around the world, and her highly acclaimed Inside Out series is now in development for cable television. She loves to hear from readers.
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Also by Lisa Renee Jones
The Inside Out Series
If I Were You
Being Me
Revealing Us
His Secrets *
Rebecca’s Lost Journals
The Master Undone *
My Hunger *
No In Between
My Control *
I Belong to You
All of Me *
The Secret Life of Amy Bensen
Escaping Reality
Infinite Possibilities
Forsaken
Unbroken *
The Careless Whispers Series
Denial
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Julie Patra Publishing, Inc.
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First Gallery Books trade paperback edition May 2016
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Cover design by Frauke Spanuth
Cover photograph © katielittle/Shutterstock
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Jones, Lisa Renee, author.
Title: Demand / Lisa Renee Jones.
Description: First Gallery Books trade paperback edition. | New York :
Gallery Books, 2016. | Series: Careless whispers ; 2
Identifiers: LCCN 2015047542 (print) | LCCN 2016000186 (ebook)
Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Romance / Suspense. | FICTION / Romance /
<
br /> Contemporary. | FICTION / Contemporary Women. | GSAFD: Romantic suspense
fiction. | Erotic fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3610.O627 D45 2016 (print) | LCC PS3610.O627 (ebook)
DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015047542
ISBN 978-1-5011-2287-3
ISBN 978-1-5011-2293-4 (ebook)
Demand Page 24
