Page 143 of Arran's Obsession

“It’s nothing personal. My concerns are for Arran. You won’t like the reason.” At my head tilt for her to continue, she took a short inhale. “His father is the worst person to have ever breathed air in this world. I mean evil to the core. You have no idea how bad his reign of terror was, and his son lived right in the centre of that.”

I frowned, trying to follow. “Arran hates his father. He does everything he can to avoid being like him. He actively works to fix the damage the man caused.”

Alisha finally met my gaze, some depth of despair in her eyes. “Then you came along. A pretty blonde girl who’s just his dad’s type. After years of him finding out who he is and establishing this place, protecting us all, one arrow into his sexuality and the tide starts to turn.”

“I don’t understand. How is our relationship a threat to anyone else?”

A staff member strolled into the room, her posture changing from perky to exhausted the moment she was out of sight of any customers. She spied us and grabbed a bag, disappearing into a shower room.

Alisha dropped her voice. “Why would you understand? You know shit about him. Listen to me, and I’ll tell you what the implications of this relationship are. I was given to Arran when he was a skinny boy of about twelve and I was an experienced fifteen-year-old. That’s sixteen years of knowledge and of watching out for him. He surprised me right from the start by rejecting my advances, and I was devastated because I assumed I’d be punished for not doing my job.”

“He told me this from his point of view. I can’t imagine what your life was like.”

“Don’t try, a person like you can’t even comprehend it. Arran told me to leave his rooms, but I burst into tears, and he stoppeddead like he’d never seen real emotion in his life. After that, we talked, and between us, we agreed that we’d lie to his dad and to the rest of the women. He swore to me he would never share his father’s obsession or treat women like that man did. I believed him. I trusted him. Don’t you see? He wasn’t ready for what his dad wanted, which was to follow in his footsteps.”

I listened, trying to work out her meaning. Slowly, a horrible picture materialised in my mind. “You think from dating me, he’s ready now?”

She held herself so taut she could fracture. “You tell me.”

Outrage filled me. I was ready to yell that from someone who was meant to care about him, to be fiercely loyal after their shared traumatic experiences, she was betraying him in the worst way.

Except another thought sprang up in its place.

Alisha was scared. So afraid that her glass shook in her hand. Her life was this place, she’d told me so on the tour. Arran managed everything, so any difference in him was terrifying to her. She took no part in a leadership role because that would affect what worked, what kept her alive. My coming along upset a carefully balanced apple cart, and the impact for her would be life-changing.

For all that I thought I was fitting in here, I’d missed this major issue.

I calmed myself and placed my words carefully. “I will never know how bad things were for you or for Arran, but I know in my heart he’ll never be like his father. He and I are in a relationship. He didn’t buy me, and I’m here because I want to be. We’re unconventional, sure, but we’re real.”

Alisha leaned in, clinging to every word. “He hunted you down. He’s controlling you.”

“Yet at one word from me, he’d drop to his knees. I don’t fear him.”

Slowly, she sat back, deep concern still etched on her brow, but something else there, too. A shifting of opinion, maybe. A reduction of her terror. “He looks so much like his father, but maybe inside he’s got more of his mother.”

“Did you know her? What was she like?”

“She’s the only person who knew about our deal. Audrey was kind and sexy as hell, but scared, all the time. Did Arran show you her video? The one she made exposing his dad?”

I stared, my brain making the connection. Arran said his mother had provided evidence on his father. My breathing caught. “That’s still available?”

“It’s been online for a decade. A series of women made them, but she was the only soul who lost her life because of it. Hand me your phone.”

I did, and Alisha searched until she found a video. Then she pressed play and handed it back.

She left me alone to watch.

An ordinary, pretty woman in her mid-thirties appeared on my screen, a medical mask the only attempt at concealing her identity. She spoke clearly and started her story of being sold into prostitution by a family member. I curled in the chair, hearing Arran in her tones. Seeing him in her hand gestures. Audrey spent most of her life as a sex worker but never had the protection of a place like Arran had established.

The more I watched, the more tears fell. The staff member left the shower and silently handed me a tissue. I swiped at my cheeks and thanked her but couldn’t take my eyes off the story.

“Women should have the right to choose if they want to sell their bodies. I don’t want that taken away from me,”Audrey said, wrapping up her tell-all.“What I hate is seeing girls pushed into it in the way I was. Or women having kids taken away from them when instead they should be given support.My son was raised by his father—the man who bought my time and who considered my baby as his property.”

Her expressive eyes crinkled at the edges.

“I had no hope. No one to turn to. I never got to take care of my little boy, was never permitted to tell him I was his mum for fear that I’d never see him again, and that cut me up. If anything should change, women need to have a voice. That’s why I made this video today. I never had one, and at last, I got the words out.”

When it finished, I started it over again. How must Audrey have felt each time she saw Arran on visits to service his dad at Kendrick Manor? She’d cared about him. Missed him. No wonder she tried to do anything to spend time with him, in her own traumatised way.

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