Page 13 of Rotanev
She remained silent while I washed up and dressed, her naked body lying splendidly across the mattress. It urged me to return to her, to take her all over again, but I couldn’t. Not until I understood what in Hades’s name was going on here.
But I did lean over to kiss her soundly once more, needing to brand her mouth with mine. “I mean it, Kailiani. No other commitments. I don’t share.” I nipped her lower lip hard enough to mark her, then laved the wound with my tongue, tasting her distinctly human blood.“See you soon, darling siren.”
3
Liani
Corban sat behind his big,oak desk, green eyes glimmering. “What did you do, Liani? Rob a bank?”
“No.” I refused to tell him how I’d acquired the money, mostly because I still couldn’t believe it myself.
Three days, and I still felt Nero between my thighs.
Not least of all because he’d taken me without protection—a fact that had me terrified. JBI had required a medical screening during my interview, and implanted an IUD as well, but that wouldn’t protect me from contracting something from a client who refused to use a condom.
“Liani,” Corban snapped, pulling my focus back to him. My gaze had drifted out the window, to the Hudson beyond.
“Yes?”
“Tell me where the money came from.”
I cleared my throat and sat up a little straighter. “Why does it matter? You have what you need—a down payment in good faith. I’ll continue working until I earn the rest.”Assuming JBI contacts me. It’d been several days since my audition and no word from JBI or Mister “I don’t share.” Not that I really expected to hear from either. They’d confiscated my cuff and sent me home directly after I exited the bedroom, stating I was too disheveled to continue working.
Which meant I was short the one grand I should have earned at the end of the night.
But Nero’s ninety-minute session payment made up for the difference, and then some.
Corban rubbed the blond scruff dotting his square jaw, his pupils little pinpoints of displeasure. “Your mother kept secrets from me. Look where that got you.”
I bristled at the mention of the reason I’d landed in this mess. “Well, unlike her, I won’t be running.”
“No, you won’t,” he agreed. “Because I’ll find you, Liani. And you won’t like what happens when I do.”
“You asked for a show of good faith, and you have one. I’ll get the rest of your money; I just need time.”
“Now you sound just like her.”
“Well, I’m not her,” I fired back, insulted by the relation. “She never paid you back a dime.”And she threw her own daughter under the bus. Something I would never do to anyone, least of all my child.
But I hadn’t been raised in a fairy tale. No, quite the opposite. I learned from a very young age how to fend for myself. It was what had prompted me to excel in school, to achieve all the best grades and earn a full-ride scholarship to NYU.
Too bad my mother had destroyed my senior year with all this bullshit. I’d been a semester shy of graduating when her life had imploded in my face.
The day she’d introduced me to Corban.
An internship, she’d called it.
Yeah, some internship that turned out to be.
He relaxed his broad shoulders on a shrug. “All right. Bring me a similar payment in ten days, and I’ll give you more slack.”
“Ten days?” I squeaked.
“Go rob another bank, or whatever it is you did.” The devilish glint in his irises said he knew exactly what I’d done. Which wouldn’t surprise me. His men had been following me for weeks to make sure I didn’t run. “It’ll bring you to about ten percent of what your mother owes me. Some would call that generous on my part, to even contemplate a down payment. Especially considering your mother’s track record.”
I gritted my teeth and swallowed a complaint. Because none would matter. If I didn’t produce the funds as he required, he’d find a different way for me to earn him money. One not too dissimilar to that of the other night, except then it would be on his terms and not mine.
If only this had happened six monthsaftermy college graduation and not before. Then maybe I would have found a day job.
