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“And what do I get out of this?” I finally find my voice and ask him softly.
“Whatever your heart desires,” he replies.
“What do you mean whatever my heart desires?” I press. “Like you’ll pay me?”
“If that’s what you want, yes.”
“I’m not a whore,” I say before I can stop myself.
“And I have no intention of treating you like one, Kitty Cat,” he replies, and his eyes flash as if he’s insulted that I might think that. “By doing this, you’ll be doing me a favor. I would be in your debt, and I’m a man who pays his debts with interest.”
My hands clench and unclench. “But you’d still be using me.”
“If that’s the way you intend on seeing it, yes,” he says.
I thought I had steeled myself for his answer. But no amount of mental preparation can stop my heart from splitting at hearing him say it so matter-of-factly, so bluntly, as if he’s talking about the weather.
“I will make you a promise,” he continues. “When this is all over, you can have whatever you want. All you have to do is ask, and if it is within my power to grant, I will give it to you. Tell me, what is the one thing in the world that you want?”
The only thing I want in this world,I think sadly, is to have my sister back. But you can’t bring back the dead.
“I don’t know yet,” I lie to him. “But I know it’s not money. I’m not a whore.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” he says. “And you don’t have to tell me what you want just yet. We can discuss that at the end of this arrangement.”
Arrangement …
I want to scream at him. I want to shout that this isn’t fair, that he doesn’t get to just use me like this. I am aperson,a human being with my own wants and feelings, not a tool that he can use and discard.
But I don’t. Instead, all I hear is a tiny little voice in the back of my head.At least he’s upfront about it with you,it says.At least this way, you know what you’re getting yourself into before he breaks your heart like every other man.
I gulp down one breath after another until my heartbeat returns to something on the edge of a normal cadence. Konstantin just sits there, looking at me and waiting for me to say something.
“Why me?” I finally ask. “You could’ve asked anyone else. Why did it have to be me?”
He looks at me and his hand lifts form his armrest to scrub his jaw. The silence drags on for another heartbeat, and then he finally answers.
“Because I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
Warmth balloons up in my chest and I close my eyes at his answer. I try to tell myself that he’s lying, that he’s just telling me what I want to hear. But I can’t help believe—like a fool—that maybe, just maybe, he might actually give a damn about me.
As the planelevels out in the air, I feel my eyelids growing heavy. The past forty-eight hours have left me utterly exhausted. Unable to suppress my yawn, I try to get comfortable in my seat in an attempt to catch some sleep until we arrive at wherever the hell it is we’re going.
When he sees me yawn, Konstantin rises from his seat. “You should rest before we arrive. It’s a long flight.”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
He extends his hand at me again, and I can’t help recall the moment when he first helped me up from the floor of the airport.
“Wouldn’t you prefer something more comfortable?”
I want to tell him no, but I’m so tired that I place my hand in his. Instantly, the warmth that I felt during our first meeting returns, and I rise to follow him.
The jet didn’t look big from the outside, so I’m surprised when he opens the door at the rear of the plane to expose a large suite with a bathroom in the rear.
And a single king-sized bed.
I have to squeeze by him to reach it. Our bodies brush just slightly, and a tremor of excitement rushes through me again. I force myself to hold my breath as his tantalizing scent of soap and aftershave wafts over.
