Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 67140 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 336(@200wpm)___ 269(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67140 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 336(@200wpm)___ 269(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
Anger suffuses my chest so quickly I’m speechless.
She raises her chin. “What will I get if I spend the night? Another ten thousand dollars?”
“I’m not paying you,” I grind out. “I’m not hiring you.”
“Then—”
“You are my woman.” I take her hand and check the ring, making sure it’s secure. Her soft hand in mine calms me. I press a kiss to her palm and release it. “Ask for anything, and it’s yours.”
She blinks a few times. “Like the throw pillows.” She lifts one to demonstrate.
“Yes.”
Her eyes narrow. “Helping my sister. Making sure she and the kids are safe. And that she has her meds.”
I nod. “Done.”
“And this ring. You think this makes me yours.”
“You are mine.” I set my hand at the base of her throat. “I’m not asking. You don’t have a choice in this, baby.” I lean close enough to hear the catch in her breath. To smell the sweetness of her sex as she starts to cream for me. “But I will make it good for you. You’ll want for nothing from now on.”
Elodie
I stare into Jaeger’s eyes, glittering more brilliantly than any jewel.
He bought the ring. He bought the ring!
“I’m not for sale,” I blurt, desperate.
“I’m not buying you.” The weight of his hand around my throat is comforting. “I’ve claimed you. You’re already mine.”
He wants to claim you. Honey had told me, but I didn’t want to listen. He wants you to be his elita.
Newsflash, Honey, he thinks it’s already happened.
He’s upset at my confusion. As if my being here, belonging to him, was a foregone conclusion.
Today he took me shopping and bought everything I’d need for a life with him. I mentioned once that I didn’t like his home, and he redecorated everything. Immediately.
He’s acting like we’re a couple already. On some level, I knew this. It’s likely why I got weirded out by the ring.
But then he gave me a briefcase with a hundred thousand dollars for services rendered. My eyes dart to the wall panel where he put my money in the safe.
He follows my gaze and my line of thinking. “The payment was for one night, an exchange between two independent parties. There’ll be no more payouts. We are no longer independent parties. We are one.”
I shake my head slightly, and his hand tightens until I can’t move. I’m the poor, helpless prey caught in a trap.
“You’re not independent, little red. You’re mine.”
9
Elodie
I lay in bed, icing my ankle. Since Atticus’s visit a few days ago, the swelling has gone way down, but I’m still taking pain meds and icing it. Keeping to the routine and staying off of it so I can heal.
There isn’t much else for me to do. With Margot and the kids safe, I don’t have to scramble to survive. I’m so used to going from one crisis to the next that I have no idea what to do with myself except worry about me and Jaeger.
You’re my woman. Just like that, I belong to him.
What would it be like to be so certain? So sure?
We’ve settled into an uneasy truce. He seems to sense I need time to digest this. He’s left me alone to eat delicious food—he has some sort of meal service set up for his penthouse because whatever I’m in the mood for shows up on a covered tray within minutes—and lounge around the cozy living room watching rom-coms.
The ring sparkles on my hand. Every time I look at it, I want to hyperventilate, but I don’t take it off.
This can’t last. Men always leave. I might as well get what I can out of this crazy arrangement before he gets tired of having me around.
If that makes me a gold digger, so be it.
Jaeger disappears for most of the day, which I’m grateful for at first but also resent. He doesn’t have a traditional nine-to-five sort of day job but lurks around, taking phone calls, then coming and going at all hours. It leaves me to wonder what he’s up to. What does he do for Fraternitas? All the evidence points to him being an enforcer for the brotherhood, which means blood and violence. I spiral on this before telling myself I don’t want to know.
He does take every opportunity to kiss, eat, or fuck me. To the point where I get wet when he walks into the room.
This afternoon is no exception. I wake from a nap to the door opening.
“Honey, I’m home.” Jaeger prowls to my side and kisses me before I realize I’m not dreaming about a Viking marauder breaking into my fantasy hygge home to ravage me. His golden stubble scrapes my cheeks, and the prickly sensation wakes me up.
Before I know it, I’m wrapping my arms around him and sliding my hands under his shirt and up his back. There’s a rough edge under my palm. His brand. I realize what I’m touching and yank my hand away.