Chapter 1

• "Yeah, exactly. Her father owes you a fuckton of money and yet she is living in your house. And you're staging a fucking impromptu intervention? What is that all..."
• "She told me you said I was a nice guy."
• "Yeah, maybe that was a bit of a stretch," he admitted with a small, evil little grin. "You can be a ruthless, heartless bastard, but usually only when it matters. And you don't just fucking... take women in exchange for debts owed to you. So, I'll repeat: what is it with you and this girl?" He paused and when I didn't answer, shrugged a shoulder. "She's pretty. I'll give you that. But not drop-dead gorgeous. Very girl next door which has never been your thing. She's got a nice body, but again... you've had better. And, well, she hates your fucking guts, man. Nothing about getting her seems like it would be easy."
• "Maybe I'm getting a little old for easy," I said with a shrug.
• To that, Aaron's confused face broke out into a shit-eating grin. "You're not serious. You can't be thinking about trying to... date her?"
• "Don't be ridiculous," I said, shaking my head. "She's in my house, parading around in barely more than underwear, spitting fire at me all day and night..."
• "So you just want to fuck her and brush her aside. Classy, By."
• "How the fuck is this news? Ever know me to parade around with the same woman on my arm week after week?"
• "So you're gonna get her in bed then keep forcing her to wash your sheets?"
• "Something like that."
• Probably.
• I just needed to get her out of my system. That was the problem.
• I hoped.TENPrueI won't lie.
• It hurt.
• Every word out of my mouth was forced, was like ripping a layer of skin off. It burned. It made me choke on my words. It made me cry so hard that I couldn't even get coherent words out at one point. And every single one I did get out seemed to pierce my father's heart. His usually jovial, kind, loving face simply... crumpled. It was like I reached out, grabbed him, and wrung every last drop of happiness from his body.
• But, I realized, as I finally got it all out and cradled my face in my hands, trying to pull it together, it made me feel lighter, like a weight was lifted off my chest and shoulders, like I could breathe again and walk without feeling like I was going to collapse under the burden of everything I had never said.
• "Where's the list, Dear Prudence?" my father's small voice asked through my sniffles. Small. My father's voice always burst out, like his body wasn't strong enough to hold it in. It was always larger than life, filling the room. To hear it shrunken made me have to fight another wave of tears.
• But I blinked it back and looked around Byron's desk, realizing he hadn't given me any kind of instruction on where to find that information. His desk, like his desk in his home office, was orderly. Everything seemed to have a place and be in it. The drawers had files that I didn't dare open. I swiveled the chair and looked on the cradenza, finding a metal file holder with labeled folders. One was for car companies. Another was listed 'others, x'. And, finally, a folder with 'rehabs' written on top. I grabbed it, pulling out a sheet of paper and handing it to my father, barely able to meet his eye.
• "I've never done in-patient," he told me unnecessarily. No one knew that fact better than me. "They're expensive."
• "Don't worry about the cost," I said, though my belly was swirling with worry about it. But I would find a way. I always did. Besides, if it put him on the path to recovery, whatever it cost would likely be way cheaper than a life of continuing to bail him out.
• "I guess Dover Clinic sounds fine," he said, shrugging and reaching for his cell. I watched and listened as he spoke to the woman, his face downcast, and I had to deep-breathe through the knowledge that he was ashamed because of the things I had said. I had shamed him. It was an awful feeling. Even if it was, maybe, necessary. "Okay great. See you then. Thanks. Bye now," he ended the call on a false-cheerful note, then finally looked back up at me. "I check-in in the morning."
• "That's great. Dover is the one in..." I started, reaching for the sheet.
• "Just outside Washington, D.C.," he told me with a nod.
• "Okay. Um. I will have to ask Byron if I can..."
• "Byron?" his voice cut me off, a little sharper than I was used to hearing it.
• "St. James. My boss. Sort-of," I reminded him.
• "You call him Byron?"
• Oh.
• I had just called him Byron. I never said his name aloud like that before, casually, almost intimately. It slid off my tongue like something familiar, like I had been saying it for years. "In my head, yeah," I covered, attempting a smile. "It would be weird to call him Mr. St. James in my head all the time."
• There was a slight tap at the door that drew both of our attention as the door slid open. I felt a strange, trembling feeling in my belly that felt both like anticipation and relief. But Byron didn't step into the doorway, Aaron did. I swear my face must have fallen slightly because his head cocked and he gave me a small smile of his own before he turned his attention to my father. "Heya Mack. Did you guys make a decision?"
• "Dover," he answered, standing slowly and buttoning his jacket. I stayed in my seat, not yet trusting my legs.
• Aaron nodded. "Well, I am here to bring you out to your driver. He will take you back to your apartment to grab your things then drive you to D.C. You don't have to worry about anything."
• "His driver?" I repeated, inwardly calculating how much that would cost.
• "Byron insisted. It's in everyone's best interest. And the service is on payroll whether they work or not. So they'll be earning their keep for a change," Aaron smiled, trying to lighten the mood.
• "Right, well, we should get a move on then," my father said, clapping once as he moved across the floor.
• "Dad?" I croaked out when he didn't come to me, didn't even so much as turn back to me.
• "Dear Prudence, you know I can't do the goodbyes," he said, shaking his head a little.
• I swallowed hard. Knowing that was the truth didn't stop it from hurting. "Okay. Welcome home party then, okay?" I asked, forcing cheerful.
• "Absolutely," he agreed, moving out into the hall with Aaron who closed the door to give me the privacy I obviously needed as I sank forward. My elbows went on the desk, my body arching over so I could rest my head in my hands.
• It seemed like forever later when the door clicked open again. "I'm fine, Aaron," I snapped, not bothering to look over.
• "It's not Aaron," Byron's voice called, making me jump slightly. "And what the fuck purpose does it serve to lie?"
• "I'm not lying," I bristled, sniffling hard.
• "Last time I checked, a woman sitting by herself crying for an hour is usually not fine." Had I not been sniffling so hard, I might have noticed his voice was getting closer. But I hadn't heard it. Then the next thing I knew, my chair was being twisted to the side suddenly, making my arms leave the desk and my back fly back against the chair. And then there Byron was, kneeling down beside me, dark eyes on my face that I knew was a wet, red, splotchy, awful mess. "How about the truth this time?"
• "I... I broke him," I said, my voice wobbly.
• "You didn't do anything to him. He did this. You were just calling him on it for a change. And by doing that, you got him help."
• "I'm paying you back for the car service," I said, my pride somehow a much more easily expressed feeling.
• "Fuck off," he said, making a sound that might have been a chuckle, but wasn't quite fully there.
• "No, seriously. I am..."
• "Prue, stop. Jesus Christ."
• "I don't want to owe you anything."
• "You don't owe me shit."
• "It doesn't feel like that."
• "Then that's on you, not me."
• "Why do you have to be such an ass?"
• "Why do you have to argue over every thing?" he countered. "It's a car service, not a fucking Porsche. If I say we're even, we're even."
• "Except I still have to work for you," I clarified.
• "Until Mack and I are square. Then you're free to going back to your button-all-the-way-ups and kitten heels and ponytails and weekend baking."
• "You make me sound pathetic."
• "Didn't say that. You feel that way, that has nothing to do with me."
• "I just... I don't understand the purpose of any of this," I admitted. Apparently with the dam broken open inside, it made it much easier to admit things and to ask for things I never would normally be able to. "None of this makes sense. Yeah, it makes sense for my father to need to pay for what he's done. But it doesn't make sense why you took me or why he wasn't banned. It doesn't fit that you would help him into recovery. You seem like a practical businessmen. But none of this fits that."
• "Maybe Aaron was right about me," he said, but his tone said otherwise.
• "Somehow I doubt that," I said with an eye roll.
• "Like the fire more than the rain, babe," he said and I imagined he meant my snapping at him over my crying everywhere. And, well, I had to agree.
• "Good. Get used to it. If you're keeping me around, you're going to get a lot of it."
• "I'm counting on it," he said, his voice dipping low and sexy, his eyes getting dark.
• "I didn't mean like that," I insisted quickly, sitting straighter in his chair.
• "Didn't you, though?" he asked, one of the hands on the edge of the chair, shifting closer, brushing my stocking-clad thighs. And, well, there might not have been anything in the world more erotic than hands sliding over your stockings. My legs pressed together without me even thinking about it, making a quiet laugh escape his lips. "Think we'd both be a whole lot happier if you stopped trying to bullshit the both of us."
• "I'm not interested in making you happy."
• "No?" he asked, and that one word was a challenge.
• "No," I agreed, but even I didn't fully believe it. There was a certain kind of happy I did want to experience, with him, and we both knew it. "You know what would make me happy?"
• "A lobotomy?" I mused.
• To that, a small, wicked little smile pulled up one end of his lips. His hand shifted, moving to the top of my thigh and sliding upward, pressing in hard enough for me to know he wanted me to be aware of every inch he touched as he traveled to the top of my thigh then over my hip, up my belly, between my breasts, then settled on the side of my neck, his thumb pressing against the front of it hard enough to make me sure that he meant business. His fingers dug in as my air seemed to get caught in my lungs, unable to exhale, and pulled my face roughly downward toward his. "For you to keep up this act of yours. 'Cause let me tell you, babe, it's hot as fuck. I've been half hard anytime you've opened up that sweet mouth of yours to snap at me. So, by all means, go on and hate me. Just makes me sure it'd be all the more fun to find new, inventive, and filthy ways to make you shut that mouth of yours. And," he said as I went to open my mouth, "don't even try to tell me you don't want me, Prue. I've had my hands up that skirt. I know exactly how wet you get at the thought of me."
• With that, he released me completely, taking his feet, and moving away from the desk, leaving me to suck in a deep breath that burned my lungs. Because, damn him, I was wet just from that freaking speech of his. That was how much my body wanted him. I never much bought into the opposites attracting thing before. In my life, I chose men who were like me: practical, level-headed, average, maybe a little boring. But Byron was about as opposite as someone could get from me. He was very free with his thoughts and opinions and, I imagined, his emotions. But in a macho, badass kind of way. And I was about as repressed as a person could be. He was selfish. I was always bending over backward until my spine threatened to crack for others. He was cocky as I was comfortably confident with no delusions of grandeur. He was rich. I was poor. He demanded things. I was afraid to even ask for them.
• And maybe a part of me was drawn to that dichotomy.
• Maybe my psyche or whatever it was, was reaching out for the parts of myself that felt lacking or missing.
• Or maybe I was just freaking horny, I decided, standing up and following him toward the door, willing myself to not go all mushy-brained over some hot, rich, jackass. If my body wanted him, my body wanted him. My brain and heart and soul had nothing to do with that. It was a physical urge that needed to be dealt with. Like an itch. Or a sneeze. That was all it was. I just needed to deal with my sexual frustration and things would settle back down again.
• We silently walked back into the lobby of Mandy's as I inwardly cursed myself for not packing a vibrator. Or having one to begin with. What self-respecting, single, sexually experienced woman of my age didn't have a freaking vibrator? That was just completely...
• "Prue," Byron's voice reached me, making me jolt to a stop, looking around for him. I found him behind me, standing at the valet with a raised brow.
• "Sorry. My mind was wandering," I said, a little embarrassed, as the valet helped me into my seat.
• "Thinking about how I might plan on shutting that mouth of yours?" he asked as soon as we were alone in the car, turned almost fully in his seat to watch me.
• "Don't flatter yourself," I said, reaching for my belt and pointedly clicking it on and focusing my attention out the windshield.
• "Careful, babe. I'm not above proving it to you right here with the door guys looking on."
• And, somehow, I didn't doubt that. Not even a tiny bit.
• I was just too wrung out to fight anymore. My father was on his way to rehab. I was a prisoner until he finished. I had just laid out twenty-seven years of pain and anger and bitterness onto the only person who gave a shit about me. I didn't have it in me to go another round with my boss... or whatever the hell he was.
• "Can we just go home, Byron?" I asked, looking over at him, not caring that my eyes were pleading.
• His head jerked back slightly, his eyes getting a little deeper, the lids almost heavier. And, in his reaction, I realized that was the first time I used his name. He paused for a long moment, looking over my features like he was seeing them for the first time and I was too tired to even care about my tear-stained cheeks and red nose and puffy eyes. What the hell did it even matter?
• "Yeah, babe," he said finally with a small nod before turning back to the windshield, hitting the push-start and reaching for his belt.
• I leaned against the passenger window, watching the sights move past us, feeling oddly detached from it all. My eyes felt heavy, lulled by the quiet purr of the stupidly expensive car and maybe just a little comforted by the smooth ride. The quiet snap of Byron's door was what startled me awake fifteen minutes later, my swollen eyes trying to adjust to being awake. Then my door was being pulled open and Byron was beside me, reaching across me to unfasten my seatbelt, his hand not retreating, but moving down and slipping under my knees. Before I could object, his other arm went behind my back and I was moving. He took his feet as my side met his chest. And, well, sometimes a woman just had to make a choice to do what felt good, even if she knew it wasn't right. And it wasn't right to lean my head into the crook of his neck, to breathe him in, to close my eyes and let myself pretend just for a moment. But it was what felt good, deep down to my bones, so I wasn't going to fight it.
• I didn't open my eyes as we went inside, as I was carried carefully up the stairs, held gently as if I weighed nothing more than a feather pillow. I didn't even open them when I felt Byron's and, therefore my, body lower down onto a bed. His hand left my knees and slid down my legs, snagging my shoes and pushing them off. Then his body shifted to the side and I felt myself lowering to the mattress. And that was when I realized something.
• It wasn't my mattress.