Page 10 of Whispered Desire

“What?”

With his back turned to me, another garbled response hangs in the air, but this time I let it go. If I ask a third time, he'll accuse me of not listening and get pissed. It's happened before.

His footsteps fade the further he gets from the living room, and the prick of tears behind my eyes has me rapidly blinking up at the popcorn ceiling.

Don't cry.

Don't cry.

So what if I drove over a hundred miles just to be ignored and abandoned? It's not personal. It's their problem, not mine.

I repeat things my therapist has said—facts I logically know are true—but emotionally?

They don't do much to ease the pain of feeling unwanted.

And always being alone.

CHAPTER SIX

ALLISON

One million dollars.

That can't be right.

Curiosity creeps through the numbness that’s cocooned me since returning from Paris and that disastrous weekend at my parents’. I tap around the banking app trying to figure out what's going on.

Someone hijacked my account. It’s the only explanation.

But who?

And why?

Hackers steal money. They don't deposit a boatload of it.

So why is my account—one previously depleted by groceries and bills—suddenly flush with a million dollars?

The bank didn't even call to question whether or not I was some kind of drug mule with that amount of cash. I only discovered the deposit when their weekly balance text appeared on my phone.

Aren't large deposits supposed to be questionable?

I scroll to the transaction, hit the little arrow to expand the details, and scan the screen. One million dollars from Blackchapel Incorporated.

Who the hell is that?

A quick internet search later, and I’m clicking through the company’s website. A list of board members appears, along with a picture of two extremely attractive men posed in front of a Blackchapel sign.

The man on the left immediately draws my attention. I didn't get a well-lit view of the guy I saved, but there's no mistaking those stormy eyes and intense aura.

Mathias Beaumont—Blackchapel Incorporated’s CEO.

More of the ever-present numbness chips away.

It’s been three weeks since being discharged from the hospital. Twenty-one days since I flew home.

When I didn’t hear from him again, I’d hoped that meant I was out of the woods. That he believed me when I said I didn’t have an ulterior motive for saving him. That whatever trouble he was mixed up in didn’t involve me.

But now there’s this—one million dollars.

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