Page 30 of To the Highest Bidder

The subway was a block away. She half ran towards the street, but traffic was travelling thick and fast. She cursed under her breath, staring at the stoplights and willing them to change.

Carter appeared, his blonde hair as wet as hers. He shrugged out of his enormous trench coat and wrapped it around her shoulders. The water ran down his face, collecting on his jawline before dropping to the sidewalk.

“What do you want?” She begged, tormented and distraught.

“For you to come back upstairs before you get sick!” He replied, having to speak loudly to be heard above the buzz of traffic, and the swirl of the rain.

She shook her head, and looked past him, to the break in cars. She could go. In just a moment, she could dart across the street, and lick her wounds.

His words were burned into the fabric of her soul. “Why?” She asked, shaking her head. “So you can reprimand me some more?”

He lifted a hand and cupped her cheek. “No.” He smiled, and when she still didn’t meet his eyes, he lowered his head into her field of vision. “So that I can apologise properly.”

Jane stared at him, but her heart was still sore. Red raw from his hurtful description of her. “You’ll always think that of me.” She bit down on her lip. The gap in traffic was coming up. As if sensing that he was losing her, Carter lifted his other hand to her cheek, and cupped her face.

“You have misunderstood me.”

“No.” she turned her face to his, uncaring that the rain was pounding her face. “I understood you perfectly.”

He swore. “Please, Jane. Let me explain.”

She bit down on her lip. “It’s not like I think I’m a genius, Carter. I know who I am. What I am. I just thought… I thought you didn’t care.”

“Jane…” His voice was tortured. “I was angry. I spoke without thinking. Please, come upstairs.”

Her eyes sparked with his. “Because you’re paying me to?”

“Because you want to,” he responded without hesitation. “Because I want you to.”

The light switched to green. She looked at it, and a part of her wanted to cross the street. To walk away from him. If he could hurt her so much after a few days, how would she feel in a week? A month? She swallowed past the lump of bitter weariness that was lodged in her throat.

“Please, Jane.”

She nodded slowly, but, as she fell into step beside him, she felt like she was making a terrible mistake.

The small puddle she’d left was still just inside the door of his penthouse. They both added to it, as they stepped out of their wet clothes once more. Uncaring that her body was visible beneath her shirt, she turned to him quietly. Expectantly.

“I’m sorry.” He said, his blue eyes on her face. “It was wrong of me to speak to you like that.”

She lifted her chin. “I don’t pretend to be clever, Carter. But you don’t need to throw that in my face.”

He furrowed his brow. “Jane, I wasn’t making a statement on your intelligence, so much as your common sense.”

She frowned. “That’s more or less the same thing, isn’t it?”

“No.” He slowly began to unbutton his own shirt. “What angers me is that you catch subways in the middle of the night; drink alone in bars, where every man probably wants to take you home; date strangers for money – any one of who could have been a murderer or rapist. You are free spirited in a way that makes you vulnerable. And what I want is to wrap you up and keep you safe from that.”

Jane stared at him, her expression completely blank. No one had ever, in her entire life, since her mother had died, anyway, taken care of her. No one. She was flummoxed out of the ability to speak.

“I got you something.”

“You did?” She said, finally, to his retreating back.

He returned a moment later clutching a medium size white bag. Curiously, and with a small shiver, she took it from him. What she saw made her burst out laughing. “A phone charger?”

“Several, actually. One for each room of your house, I hope.”

She shook her head in laughter, and placed the bag beside her handbag.

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