Page 40 of Skin Trade

Arms folded across her chest again, she glared so sharply she hoped it jabbed at him. It wasn’t feelings of insecurity this time, or even weakness. No. It was him. She stared right at him, lips forming a firm line.

“You’re mad at me.”

“No. I’m not.”

He came into the lift, letting go of the doors and pushing the button to keep the lift where it was. “Admit it. You think I’m--”

“An arsehole?”

“That is all? I need to work on that. Now what was your real reason for coming down to my office? If it had been for food, you’d have got dressed first.”

A long pause as she stood there with a ton of things she wanted to say to him, but all of them pointless. Chewing on her lip, she shook her head, and then let her arms relax a little so they rested under her breasts. “My friend died last night.”

That was enough to make Seth drop his smirk. “Yes,” he said, nodding. “She did.”

She felt her brows furrow at his simple statement, and she felt the air in her lungs like it was a block of something cold and heavy. But it was as simple as he said. Josie had died … Josie had died, and no one could undo it.

“I cannot take back what happened,” he said, and after a moment, he added, “it was never supposed to happen the way it did.”

“It doesn’t bother you?”

“I have lived a long time, Payton. I have seen many deaths.”

“And that makes you immune to them? She was a child. A teenager and he killed her, just like that. Like she didn’t matter to him. Like she was nothing. He grabbed her, tossed her about. He passed her around like she was some kind of whore and it doesn’t bother you?”

“Caring about it does not change what happened. She died, but we did not.”

“But she didn’t have to, did she? If I hadn’t been there? If I hadn’t gone to speak to her.”

“You did not kill your friend.”

Payton backed herself into the corner of the lift. The furthest point she could get to. But it wasn’t really Seth she was trying to get away from, it was herself. Herself and what she felt about what had happened.

“She was going to die anyway.” Seth said.

“What?”

“Your friend. She was going to die anyway.”

“I know, I heard you. But what do you mean? They were going to kill her? Is that why you took me there?”

“No,” he said. “Alexander requested your attendance. But your friend, she would die anyway. Maybe not yesterday, and maybe not today, or even tomorrow. But she had been enslaved. It was there on the deepest level. Human bodies do not sustain that level for very long. She would have died before the month came to an end. Your guilt is misplaced.”

“Why did Alexander want me there? I don’t even know him.”

“I do not know. We all have places, Payton, this is mine.”

“So, you don’t ask?”

He didn’t answer her. But she didn’t need any answer from him.

“Is that how you do it?” she said after a moment. “You decide people are going to die anyway, so it doesn’t matter. No responsibility for it?”

He let out a long sigh and pulled off his tie. She watched him as he wrapped it around his hand and then put the rolled-up tie into his pocket. “Your lives are shorter than ours. One day, everyone here will be gone. Every human. You, Tasha. You will age and pass on, and I will still be here. Death happens.”

He said it flatly, yet there was something in it, some sadness she couldn’t place.

She raised her gaze to those blue eyes of his. “Josie wasn’t aged. She was a child.”

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