“I’m sorry, I can’t see her.” And she really couldn’t. “But please know that this is a good thing.” She heard Chuck grunt from behind her, and she internally winced. She was going to pay for this later, but she didn’t have the heart to screw over a woman who was looking for her dead daughter. “It’s a good thing, because it means that she is at peace.”
Bullshit line, but the woman smiled, and it made it all worth it.
The woman grabbed her purse, slipped her a few dollars, then made her way out of the tent.
Chuck came up from behind her and grabbed her wrist before snatching the money from the table.
“What the fuck was that?” Her stomach rolled as an image of a woman screaming filled her mind, and she realized that Chuck had gone out to the local bar last night and some woman had paid for it.
He was getting worse, and she didn’t know how to stop him.
A quick flash, an image of her dream from the night before whirled into her mind, her dream man telling her that he was coming for her, sounding as if far away. But just as quickly as it appeared, it was gone, and Chuck jerked back, dropping her hand.
“I told you not to read me!” he seethed, and she flinched, closing her eyes tight as he raised his hand. She knew what was going to happen, and she didn’t want to see it. The whistling of the air was the only notice she got before pain whipped across her face, her body lurching with it, landing her on the floor next to him.
“Sir,” his guard said from the door, and Chuck grunted again.
“Fucking get up. I have another man coming in, and you will not fuck it up this time.” She nodded as best she could as Chuck stomped away.
Her head was pounding so viciously that she didn’t hear Chuck or her new customer talking as she forced herself to get up and sit at her table. She sat with her head in her hands, her despair eating at her, till movement made her look up and a man sat in the chair across from her.
She blinked.
Once
Twice.
But he was still sitting there, staring right at her.
His big, muscled body, just like she remembered. His dark hair and even darker eyes seeming to sear straight through her.
Her dream man.
“Mr. Charmante is here to see if you can help point him in a direction that will help him in his business,” Chuck said grandly, as if they were in something other than a worn-down tent draped with fake silk scarves.
“Yes. I’m torn right now. I need to know if this new investment is the way to go, or if I should pull out,” he answered Chuck, but he never looked away from her. Chuck, for his part, didn’t seem to notice, as he was busy folding an envelope of cash and stuffing it in a bag.
“Very good. Go ahead, girl,” Chuck said, motioning for her to start, and she blinked out of her trance, but then she hesitated for another reason.
There was no way that she could do this to him.
She didn’t know him. Obviously, she hadn’t known that he was in business trading, but she had seen him in her dreams for years. Years where sometimes he was the only reprieve to her otherwise lonely life. There was no way she would be hustling him.
She wouldn’t do it.
“Girl,” Chuck said with more aggression, and the man across from her nodded to her while holding his hand out, as if he was telling her to continue.
She shook her head at him, trying with all her might to convey just what was happening.
He might not know who she was, but she did.
And she was not going to do this to him.
She had to draw the line somewhere.
“It’s okay. I know,” he whispered softly.
“What was that?” Chuck barked, standing up taller and glaring at them.