A Million Dirty Secrets (36 page)

He shrugged. “No need to, really. I already know everything you’re going to say, and the solution to the problem is simple.”

Well, that sort of pissed me off. How dared he presume to know what I was thinking? And what solution? To what problem? As far as I was concerned, everything was perfect.

Noah walked toward the bed and pulled a folded paper from his inside pocket, opened it up, and then ripped it in half. He let the two halves drift onto the bed beside me. “Go be with your mother and father. They need you far more than I do. Besides, it would’ve never worked between us. Not in the real world.”

As I looked down at the paper, he turned his back on me and headed toward the door. It didn’t take a great deal of studying to realize that the sheet he had destroyed was our contract. What once served as a tether that kept me bound to the man I loved was now an insignificant donation to the Earth Day cause: recyclable material.

“Noah, I—” I started, but he cut me off.

“I have to go,” he said, pausing at the door with his back to me. “You should, too.”

With that, he opened the door and walked out on me.

They need you far more than I do
 … 
it would’ve never worked between us
. His words were almost deafening as they rang in my ears. And why was I so shocked? He’d only confirmed what I’d known to be true all along anyway.

My heart, which had been about to bust with giddiness mere seconds before, was now much like the useless document that lay beside me: destroyed, shredded, torn in two.

“But … I love you, too,” I whispered to the now empty room. I couldn’t let him leave without making sure that he at least heard the words.

I jumped out of the bed to run after him, but when a rush of cold air caused me to shiver, I realized I was still naked. So I grabbed one of his T-shirts and threw it over my head, then ran for the door and down the long corridor. I nearly fell headfirst down the stairs, but I somehow managed to stay upright long enough to reach the foyer. Then I wrenched open the front door and opened my mouth to shout the words just in time to see taillights of the limousine as it pulled down the drive.

Too late. He was gone. And I was all alone.

To be continued …

My decision to publish the Million Dollar Duet did not come quickly or easily, but I’m glad I did it. Obviously, this page is dedicated to acknowledging those people who gave a little bit of their blood, sweat, and tears to help me make that happen. So let’s get on with it, shall we?

First and foremost, I simply must thank my incredibly talented friend and mentor, Darynda Jones. If it hadn’t been for you, this adventure would have taken an entirely different direction. I am convinced people are put into our lives for a reason. Lady, you were put in mine to help make my dreams come true. I love your luscious face.

I still can’t believe how lucky I am to have scored my very remarkable agent, Alexandra Machinist, and my extraordinary editor, Shauna Summers. You are two of my most favorite people in the world. Thank you for taking a chance on me.

Huge thanks to my pre-readers: Patricia Dechant, Melanie Edwards, Maureen Morgan, and Janell Ramos. You are my anchors, my sounding boards, and my biggest cheerleaders. Love you. Mean it.

A special shout-out to my street team, Parker’s Pimpin’ Posse, and the members of PNSS. Most important, my loyal readers, thank you. I wish I could call you all out by name because it is your support that keeps me doing what I’m doing.

I am a man who paid for sex. Not that I needed to, mind you, but it was the only way to be sure I wouldn’t get fucked. Well, getting fucked was kind of the point, but not the one I’m trying to make. Bottom line: I paid an insane amount of money, two million dollars to be exact, to own a woman for two years. She was a virgin, and well worth the trade, but then I did the unthinkable.

I fell in love with her.

To make matters worse, I found out the truth behind why she put her body up for sale in the first place. She did it to save a life. I had purchased her to get laid. Clearly, I was the ass in the equation, but I was going to make it up to her or die trying.

My name is Noah Crawford, and this is the continuation of my story.

Walking away from Delaine Talbot was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. And that was saying a lot considering I’d been responsible for the death of my parents and had subsequently inherited a multi-billion-dollar corporation, Scarlet Lotus, that I ran alongside my mortal enemy, David Stone.

David had once been my best friend until I came home from a business trip to find him fucking my girl, Julie, in the bathtub. Needless to say, Julie was no longer my girl. A pariah, yes, but my girl, no. All of those events inadvertently led me to Lanie. I still wasn’t sure if I should be bitter or happy about that fact.

I’d heard about an underground organization that procured women to auction off to the highest bidder. It was all very illegal, of course, as human trafficking—voluntary or not—should be. However, these women agreed to become the property of the winner in whatever manner they required. I might not have trusted women after the Julie/David debacle, but I was a man, and I had needs like every other man. So
when I’d heard about the auction, it seemed the best route to take.

Scott Christopher was the proprietor of Foreplay, a club that, on the face of it, catered to the shenanigans of college students, but hosted the auction underground. I didn’t like Christopher in the least, but I hadn’t gone there to make friends. I’d had a single purpose in mind, and I’d always gotten what I wanted.

Delaine Talbot was a twenty-four-year-old virgin. Unsullied, untamed. Perfect. The two million dollars I paid to own her for two years was a very fine investment, indeed. Two years for me to have my very wicked way with her whenever and however I wanted. And I did. Although I hadn’t expected her to have zero experience with sex, I was pleased that I’d be the one to teach her. She was a star pupil, accelerating in her lessons to the point that I thought she might actually be the death of me. An added bonus, she came equipped with an attitude. You’d think that would be a turnoff, but it had only made my cock even harder for her.

We went round and round, butted heads like nobody’s business, but in the end, it always landed with my cock buried deep inside her exquisite pussy while she moaned my name. I was a sex god and she was every bit the goddess. That was until I found out she was actually an angel and I, the devil in disguise.

Had I been half as smart as I’d thought I was, I would’ve hired someone to do a background check on her from the beginning. But no. I was a horny fucker without morals, hence the purchase of a human being in the first goddamn place.

It turned out Lanie Talbot had made the ultimate sacrifice. She’d sold herself to save her dying mother’s life.

Faye Talbot was in need of a heart transplant. The problem was that the Talbot family couldn’t afford the transplant, nor did they have health insurance. Mack, Lanie’s father, had lost his job after having missed so much work tending to his wife. Corporate America could be a cold bastard at times, caring more about the bottom line than the people who made it to begin with. But what had been done had been done. All they could do was trudge forward and hold out for hope.

That hope came in the sum of two million dollars that I’d paid to have my very wicked way with Lanie.

Charitable of me, huh? I didn’t think that had been what my dearly departed mother, Elizabeth, had in mind when she’d first started the charity campaign at Scarlet Lotus. Noah Sr. would’ve disapproved greatly as well.

Once I’d found out what I’d done to Lanie, I knew I couldn’t do it to her anymore. I’d fallen for her. Big-time. And although it nearly killed me to admit it, I knew I had to let her go. She belonged at her mother’s side, not in my bed.

I’ll admit I hadn’t thought I could actually follow through on it, so I’d hedged. It was the night of the annual Scarlet Lotus Ball that the dam had finally broken. First of all, Julie had shown up and shown out. She had been all over me like a second skin and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it at the time because of all the board members and potential clients who were in attendance. Add to that the fact that Lanie had been openly flirting with David Stone and you had a catastrophe in the making. So I’d been forced to drag Lanie out of
there before I lost all composure and made a horrific scene from which I’d never be able to recover. It was what David had been hoping for, I was sure.

Lanie and I had argued on the ride home. Well, she had argued. I ignored her. Which had only pissed her off more. She wanted me to fuck her, expected it, because that was what we’d always done. Only I hadn’t wanted to fuck her anymore. I couldn’t. Not after everything I’d learned. Don’t get me wrong; I wanted her. Goddamn, did I ever. But I couldn’t do that to her anymore.

She wouldn’t leave well enough alone, though. Nope. Not Lanie. When I’d spurned her advances, she’d bolted from the limousine and into the rain toward the house. I’d followed after her, of course, but she was crazed, spewing anything at all to get a rise out of me.

She hit the proverbial jackpot when she told me if I wouldn’t fuck her, someone else back at the ball would, and one person in particular sprang to mind. David Stone.

My possessive nature kicked in. Admittedly, I was angry, but it was no excuse for what I’d done. None too gently, I’d grabbed her and fucked her senseless, right there on the staircase. I hadn’t cared if it felt good to her. I hadn’t cared if she was uncomfortable. I hadn’t cared about anything other than claiming what I’d considered mine.

Only she wasn’t mine. Sure, maybe I owned her body, but I didn’t own her soul or her heart, and those were the parts of her that I’d wanted the most. Those were the parts of me that I’d given her without even realizing it. And they hadn’t cost her one red penny.

After fucking her like a goddamn animal, I’d finally forced myself to confess everything I’d been keeping from her. I told her that I knew about her mother, about why she had to auction herself off to the highest bidder. And as fucked up as I knew it was, I told her that I’d fallen in love with her. And then I left her there without another word.

To my utter amazement, Lanie had come to find me in the shower. Imagine my surprise when instead of cutting my balls off, she asked me to make love to her, to let her know what it felt like to be loved by me. Just once. That was all she’d wanted. And I would’ve given her anything she asked for, so of course I gave her my heart, bloody but still beating, on a platter.

I’d known while I was making love to her, while I was baring my fucking soul to her, that it was the last time. I’d known it, and still I managed to push all of that to the side and revere her the way she should’ve been revered from day one. I loved her freely and completely, with all of my might and all of my being. There had been no room to doubt how I had felt about her, how I still felt about her.

I loved her. God help me, I fucking loved her.

Afterward, she made it a point to state the obvious, that we needed to talk. But I’d known everything she was going to say already, so I claimed the night and just held her. I knew it would be the last time I’d ever be able to do so. That had been last night.

This morning, it had taken every ounce of strength I had to leave the measured serenity of that bed. It had to be done. So I’d nuzzled her neck and softly kissed the bare skin of her shoulder before whispering one last “I love you” into her ear.
She’d stirred and smiled in her sleep, which made it even harder to leave her side, but I somehow did.

The shower was quick, my dressing time even quicker. And when I’d come out, there she was, my million-dollar baby, looking even more beautiful than I’d ever thought her to be before. She’d wanted to talk, but again, I knew the score, and I just didn’t think I could handle hearing her say the words. So I did the right thing.

I ripped up the contract and told her to go be with her family. And then I willed my shaky legs to take me away from her. She didn’t follow after or try to stop me, which was as it should’ve been. The fantasy I’d tried to buy was over, and it was time for me to get back to the real world.

As the limousine pulled away, I refused to let myself look back at the front door. I didn’t want to see that she wasn’t there. It was hard enough knowing she wouldn’t be when I got home. Maybe the day would eventually come that she’d think about me and not hate my guts. Maybe she’d even smile warmly. Maybe, but I wasn’t counting on it. As long as she was happy, that was all that mattered to me.

And so I found myself in my limousine, alone and fucking dying on the inside. I’d turn to the only thing that had gotten me through every other tragedy in my life, Scarlet Lotus.

As I watched the limousine disappear from sight, something came over me. I expected it to be defeat, agony, betrayal, or heartache, but it wasn’t.

Rage. Rage and more rage.

How dare he? Stupid man with his stupid big house, and his stupid big ego, and his stupid big head thinking he knew what was best for me. He said it wouldn’t work, but I didn’t believe he meant it. I saw that look in his eyes. It was killing him. So why do it? Why go through all he had the night before to prove how he felt for me only to turn me loose at dawn’s first light? Because he had control issues, that was the reason. Well, he couldn’t tell me what to do. I wasn’t one of his employees anymore. The shredded piece of paper he had discarded onto the bed was the end of that contract.