Page 21 of Bought

“Yes, Forsyth. Instruct the kitchen to prepare two servings of my favorite.”

“Very good, sir.”

The man glides away so smoothly I almost suspect he has rollers in his shoes. I am left alone with Ethan again, his masterful form starting to become silhouetted against the sky as we lose the light of day.

“I was asking why you’re bothering,” I say, finding the courage to address the subject again. “Are you just bored, or…”

“Bored?”

“I mean, you have an international corporation to run, but you’ve spent most of the last twenty-four hours dealing with me. There must be more important things for you to do.”

“More important? No.”

Chapter Six

Ethan

She doesn’t understand how special she is, how unique she is. She doesn’t understand how I have bribed and seduced, and otherwise manipulated my way through the swathes of people who have stood between me and what I want.

She is an obstacle in a world where there are increasingly few. I live a life in which almost anything is possible. I could quite easily make a phone call to a friend with a rocket ship and be in low earth orbit inside a week if I wished to be. That has little relevance to this situation directly, but the fact that the sky is no longer the limit for me does weigh heavy at times.

A man is made a man by the difficulties he overcomes. I have overcome all of them—all, except her. I was impressed by her strength yesterday, and then again today. I am impressed again now. I know she is uncomfortable in her new garb. I know she is out of place, and that given the chance, she would slink away and hide, like a frightened kitten. But she does not have that option, so she sits opposite me, and she questions me, the man who has become her tormentor.

She has a purity I no longer possess. She has ideals and ideas. She is brilliant in her own right. I respect her intellect immensely, even though it is her body I make the most use of.

Now she is looking at me with an expression of adorable perplexity. She doesn’t know what to make of my comments, because she doesn’t understand me. Not yet. Maybe she will soon. Maybe she’ll unravel me and maybe I’ll take her apart and maybe we’ll come together and make something…

These are all very highbrow ways of rationalizing something very simple to myself.

I am lonely.

A man cannot have friends in this stage of life. He has allies who can become enemies at any moment. As for female companionship, that can be bought directly, or come at a cost later.

It is impossible to trust a smile. But I can trust her, because she has no artifice. She wants to destroy me. And that is the most refreshing thing I have experienced in quite some time.

* * *

Casey

We sit in a silence I find hard to fathom. Ethan is impossible to read. When he looks at me as he’s looking now, his face half hidden in growing evening shadows, he is enigmatic and aloof.

Forsyth breaks the silence between us by appearing with two plates covered by silver serving hats. That’s probably not what they’re called. He puts one down in front of Ethan, the other in front of me, and sweeps the covers away together to reveal…

“Is this fried chicken?”

“It is,” Ethan smiles. “My favorite.”

It smells incredible. It looks amazing. Though I have no idea how we’re supposed to eat it in our finery or with the cutlery, which is laid out like a full assault range with my plate in the center.

“Which one of these forks is the fried chicken fork?”

“This one,” he says, holding up his fingers and waggling them a little.

I watch, stunned, as Ethan picks up a piece of chicken and begins to eat it just like a normal person. It says something about the last couple of days that this is the oddest thing I’ve seen, a billionaire eating chicken.

“Don’t let it get cold,” he encourages me.

I am starving. This is the first meal I’ve had all day, unless you count the snacks I rustled out of the bus station vending machines, which I don’t.

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