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God, what the hell had she said?
The cynical curve of his mouth… The emptiness in his eyes… She never wanted to be witness to that ever again.
She didn’t want to see that flash of pain in his eyes ever again, much less cause it.
“That…that came out wrong. I just… I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ve never…” She took a bracing breath. “Seeing you just reminds me that he’s forever gone, Dmitri. That he never had a single chance to break away from it all.”
He stepped away from her as if to avoid the poison of her words. “Until I can ensure that there’s no danger to you, you have no choice but to face me, Jasmine.” Still, he didn’t sound angry or upset. Still, he only spoke about her safety.
As if it was an onerous duty he had to take on even if she was ungrateful.
Jasmine wanted to kick herself for her impulsive mouth. Or curl into a ball and cry. In one swoop, she had spewed out all the bitterness she had struggled to keep at bay for years. She couldn’t bear to look at herself, much less at Dmitri. She couldn’t bear to be in his presence for a second longer without wanting to slap herself.
It was being near him, she realized. From the moment he had stepped in there, it was as if she had lost all sense of herself. It was as if she had forgotten all the hard lessons she had learned so early in life.
“I have seven thousand and change saved that I can pay you instantly. The rest of it will take me time, but I will pay you back even if I have to…”
A slow grin spread across his devilish mouth. He shifted his feet, bit his lower lip, as if to contain the laughter spilling out, leaned his hip against the wall as if he were posing for a photo shoot and smiled again. The veins in his forearms stood out as he folded his arms, oozing sex appeal.
Jasmine’s breath caught at the sheer, stark beauty of it.
There was nothing false or practiced about the curve of his mouth now.
It lit up his light gray eyes, carved a dimple in his cheek. Her knees turned to mush as he dipped his head low and batted at her with his shoulder. “So you’re determined to pay me back, then, yes?”
Of course, the man didn’t need his fists anymore. He could charm the birds from the sky with that smile. Was it any wonder that women threw themselves at his feet? What woman wouldn’t want him to look at her with need in those gorgeous eyes? What woman wouldn’t want those rough hands on her, that luscious mouth driving her wild?
She was getting hot just thinking about it. “Every last penny,” she croaked out.
“How?”
“I’ll come up with something.”
“You know, Jas…” He pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes in an exaggerated show of patience. “Spanking’s never been my thing but, Theos, I’m so tempted to give it a try right now. You and your ideas and your plans…”
She gasped, heat streaking her cheeks. “I was running out of options.”
He prowled toward her like a predator. Heat from his body enveloped her, coating her very breath.
“And what if someone else ended up buying…you?”
“You’re trying to scare me.”
“There was someone else, Jas, someone who was willing to pay a lot of money to own you.”
Jas remained silent, fear and confusion stealing rational thought from her.
“Didn’t you think of contacting me even once? Did you have to wait until it got this desperate?”
She had. She had thought of him countless times, her body and mind weary after another long night, after facing another of her mother’s drunken episodes. After feeling as if she would never make a dent in her debt, after facing another man look at her as if he could own her body and soul for a few bucks. After seeing her life pass day after day in that pit.
In a moment of weakness, she had called Katrakis Textiles in Athens once. The receptionist had even politely asked her for her name. In the end, she had chickened out.
In the end, it had been easier to hate him from a distance than take his pity.
“I don’t like depending on anyone for anything,” she said instead.
“Fate has a way of punching us with exactly what we don’t want. There was someone else who bid for you. Which meant Noah had two dogs out for the same bone, and he let us go at it.”
Another bidder? Her knees gave out and she sank to the longue.
Sweat beaded her brow, nausea climbing up her throat. Noah had tricked her. If Dmitri hadn’t come along, he would have sold her virginity to someone else.
The horror of what could have happened filled her with dread.
“Noah said you called it a virginity auction. And that’s what it truly was. What I can’t figure out is who else wanted to pay off that debt and why.”
Her head spun in a thousand different directions and Jasmine struggled to hold on to her sanity. Clutching her head, she walked away from him.
Just leave. Don’t care what he paid, Jas. He can afford it.
Walk away, the survivor in her begged.
“How much did you pay Noah?”
“You’re not my priciest toy, if that’s what worries you.”
Her gut heaved with anticipated dread, her right eye twitching uncontrollably from keeping her gaze so straight. Something was very wrong; she knew it in her bones.
“Stop taunting me, Dmitri. How much do I owe you?”
“A hundred and thirty thousand pounds, but since I’m feeling generous I’ll round it down to an even hundred.”
A hundred thousand pounds? Her gut flopped to her feet. “That can’t be true. That much money… It’s ridiculous, God…”
Clutching the wall behind her, she gasped for breath. “This is my worst nightmare come true… Oh, God…” It would take her ten lifetimes to make so much money. She would never be able to pay him back, never walk away from this.
“Being saved from a life of trading your body is your worst nightmare?”
Uncontrollable shivers overtook her. Hunger and lack of sleep from the past two days hit her like a battering ram, the sheer willpower with which she had kept herself going, shattering finally. “No. Bound to you eternally by this debt is.”
She swayed and sank to the thickly carpeted floor.
A soft curse ripped through the air before she was pulled up like a rag doll. “Theos, Jas.” His voice wasn’t loud, yet it carried something. His gaze searched her, his fingers splayed against her jaw, a strange glitter darkening his eyes. “Now is not the time to lose that reckless pride.”
Pushing his hands away, she sank back onto the chaise longue. Her body felt boneless, as if she would never stop falling.
All she wanted was to curl up and sleep for the next decade. All she wanted was to let someone else bear the burden, just once. “How am I going to pay you back? Lord, what am I going to do?” she muttered to herself.
The bedroom door opened and an army of uniformed staff set down an array of dishes that had her gut twisting with hunger. She looked at the clock, which said five in the morning.
The staff vanished just as they had appeared, with minimal fuss, making her wonder if she had imagined them.
“Until you figure out a way, you will eat, sleep and generally keep your presence in my life to a minimum.”
Swallowing at the mouthwatering aroma from the dishes, she nodded. Eyed the distance from the chaise to the table and groaned.
With a curse that sounded filthy to even her untrained ears, he stopped by the table and lifted a silver dome off a plate. “When did you eat last?”
“A cheeseburger about twenty hours ago,” she whispered pathetically.
Pushing her legs out of his way none too gently, and careful enough to not even accidentally touch her hip that was propped up, he sat down at the foot of the chaise. Forking pasta with his left hand, which was such a familiarly intimate gesture from her childhood that a lump formed in her throat, he brought it to her mouth.
Jasmine closed her mouth over the farfalle eagerly.
“Don’t make a habit of this, Jas.”
He sounded uncomfortable, wary. Was he afraid that she would climb all over him again and embarrass them both?
Closing her eyes, Jas chewed, relishing the thick white sauce. “Won’t even remember this, Dmitri.”
She ate in silence while the influx of carbs lulled her to sleep. She finished off a bottle of water and stretched back down on the chaise.
“I’ll see you later.”
She lifted her thumbs as he stilled by the door, pensive. She felt like that mangy dog again. Only instead of letting the doorman kick her, Dmitri had decided to keep her.
Something strange was going on with him. The fleeting thought came to her even as her head felt as if it was filled with cotton candy.
One minute, he was shredding her into pieces with such ruthlessness, and the next…such tenderness showed in his eyes that she thought she would shatter in the face of it.
“Where are you going? When will you return?”
He stared at her for a long, disturbing, soul-crushing moment before he covered the distance between them. Still reclining on the chaise, she waited with bated breath, her heart hammering behind her rib cage.
He would surely cut her to pieces for asking that question, for assuming such…
Kneeling down to her level, he took her hand in his. Her hand was delicately slender in his huge one, and suddenly, she felt a sense of security she hadn’t known in a long time. It was as if a fuzzy feeling unspooled in her gut.
“I have a very irate portfolio manager that I have to mollify after my latest bout of shopping frenzy,” he whispered, and she laughed through the weariness.
“Tonight I can sleep, can’t I? For as long as I want?”
He squeezed her hand, and she thought how rough his palm was. “Yes, you can, Jas. No one will come in. You’re…safe here.”
Her eyelids felt as if they would glue together forever. Jas squeezed his hand back and whispered, “Thank you,” before giving in to the sleep claiming her.
Maybe she didn’t have to hate Dmitri so thoroughly, the thought came to her. She would still pay him back, yes, but they could at least be friends, couldn’t they?
As much friends as she could be with a man who had bought her and who set her pulse racing like nothing in life ever had.
A man who was making it harder for her to hate him.
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