Page 28 of Unhinged Cravings
“They don’t have many options at the gallery that scream punk goth girl.”
I gave her a wounded look. “I beg your pardon, but I am not goth. I like to think of myself as cute and quirky.”
She let out a sound like a snort before throwing a pair of jeans and a shirt at me. This one, at least, was a half-shirt. “Try those on. And…” She sorted through another bag before pulling out a few bras. “…these.”
“Oh, thank God,” I said, grabbing one from her. “These girls were getting sore hanging free for so many days.”
“I wouldn’t know,” she grumbled, tossing a handful of panties into a pile. “I’ll get these washed up. The rest you can deal with as they are. Go on, get dressed.”
I walked into the bathroom and did as instructed, not bothering to argue. The bra fit perfectly, as did everything else. “How did you know my size?” I asked, zipping the jeans up as I emerged.
She crossed her arms and looked me over. Again, I felt like I was some experiment she was evaluating. “I have a knack for clothes. I went to school for fashion before I came to work for Cade.”
“Why did you change direction?” I asked, taking the designerrip in the jeans that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe and widening it until my knee was hanging out.
“You did not just rip those,” she scolded.
“I did,” I replied, going through the pile of clothes. There were cute shorts, more shirts, and a few tight ones in colors I loved. I may have looked hardcore to some, and I got that sometimes at work with my tattoos and piercings, but black wasn’t my only favorite color. I loved pinks and purples and—I dropped the clothes and yanked the dress buried at the bottom, pulling it out and staring at it—dresses. I adored dresses, but never got to wear them. Riley’s bridesmaid’s dress was the first dress I’d worn since I was a child.
I held the dress up, knowing my eyes were large as I considered just how Jill had known I would love it. Black silk edged with pink. It was the type of dress that hugged curves but, in a flattering, delicate way. Falling to my ankles with a slit that ran up to the mid-thigh, I could just imagine it with a pair of strappy pink heels. Just like the ones Jill pulled from another bag.
“Just in case,” she said, taking the dress from me and hanging it in the walk-in closet I had paid little attention to. There was nothing in it. Jill had bought no dresses for Riley’s stay. Only for mine.
“In case of what?”
She shrugged. “You never know.” The smug look on her face told me she had already planned out when I might need it. Again, I wondered if Emerson knew how devious his housekeeper and personal shopper was. “Why don’t you work on putting those away?” She pointed to the bed. “Just leave the things you don’t want and the ones I bought for the other woman in the chair, and I’ll get them later.”
Steady steps to the door had me acting irrationally. When had I acted rationally since I’d been here, though? “Can you stay longer?” I asked, suddenly desperate for company.
She looked back at me, her eyes scrunched.
“It gets lonely in here and Em…I mean, Cade doesn’t let me out unless he’s here.” She gave me an amused grin when I started to say Emerson’s real name. “All I have is the book Breaker gave me.”
“Breaker gave you a book? I highly doubt that.” A few strides and she was picking up the book he had given me the day before. “Hmm.” It was all she said before she turned to me. “Share your sandwich with me and I’ll stay. But don’t tell Cade I wasn’t cleaning or I’ll take all these clothes back and make you wear the clothes that were already here.”
“It’s not a pretty sight,” I said, cringing.
“Must be something,” she commented, grabbing the sandwich and holding half out to me.
We sat on the bed and talked, and for a few minutes I felt normal again, like I wasn’t locked in the estate of a brutal mafia boss. A man I couldn’t talk about without an annoying heat entering my cheeks. It turned out Jill differed greatly from what I had first judged her to be. She’d married one of Emerson’s men right out of college, which led to her emersion into this life. That was all she told me before she questioned me about my life. I kept my secrets to myself, talking about school and Riley, my uncle and the years I’d spent trying to find myself. But nothing before then. And nothing about my nightmares.
Those were my secrets to keep. Ones I wouldn’t give up, no matter how comfortable this façade of normalcy was. And that was all it was. A moment to forget I was a prisoner with no way to escape. It was easy to forget and every time I was with Emerson, that reality slipped away, just as easily as it did with Jill. But when she left, and I was alone in my luxurious cell, surrounded by mounds of expensive clothes, that reality returned, along with the heavy reminders that this wasn’t right. That I needed to stop forgetting I was nothing more than a pawn to Emerson. A means to an end, no matter how it seemed I was becoming more than that.
Chapter Twelve
EMERSON
Another day of inspecting my warehouses and checking in with my suppliers meant another day away from Ava. As annoying as it was, I missed her company. Irritating was more like it. A woman I barely knew, who had been in my life for forty-eight hours and I couldn’t get her off my mind. It was completely irrational. Madness. If I had known her for months, I might have been tempted to say the attraction made sense, that I liked this woman too immensely to ignore. Enough to have her in my bed, to want to hold her each night, to see her curled up in my sheets, have her smile light the crevices of my rotted heart. But I hadn’t known her for months, so saying those things only made me sound like a feeble-minded teenager who was smitten with the new girl in his class.
“Boss?” Pack jerked me from my thoughts, and I found him waiting for me to get out of the car.
Clearing my head, I exited, snapping the lapels of my jacket and adjusting my cuffs. Pack flanked my right side while Vin flanked my left with two more of my men following behind. The wharf was busy, but this end belonged strictly to me and my business endeavors. Jimmy nervously paced in front of the warehousedoor and my hackles rose. Jimmy wasn’t a nervous man. He was smooth and calm, a viper slithering silently in the long grass, which was exactly why I had hired him.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you have bad news for me, Jimmy. You know how I dislike bad news.”
He stopped, his fingers fidgeting with his collar.
“The shipment didn’t make it, boss.”
