When had that happened?
It was in that moment I realized how truly inexperienced and foolish I really was, a small-town girl attempting to play in the major leagues with a man who was larger than life itself.
After what seemed like an eternity, we finally released each other and I retreated to the bathroom for yet another shower. I might have needed one, but more than that, I wanted the time alone to collect my thoughts. It wasn’t until the hot water from the shower hit my skin that I began to silently cry.
The pretenses—oh, God, the pretenses I had been hiding behind, that wall of I-am-woman-hear-me-roar: it all started to crumble in rapid succession. I was nothing but a girl crushing madly on a man who saw me as nothing but his property. And he truly did own me in every sense of the word.
My mind wandered back to earlier in the day, after the romp in the limo. I had thought he’d said he loved me, and my heart had stuttered, felt like it had dropped to the pit of my abdomen, lying in wait to be birthed and handed over to the one person I felt I might actually be able to hand it over to willingly.
But that wasn’t at all what he had said. Was it? Which proves how truly inexperienced I really was. Such a silly, foolish little girl.
Noah Crawford was a man who had the whole world sitting in the palm of his hand, and I had nothing to offer. But, God help me, I was falling madly in love with him.
From out of nowhere, Noah appeared, having opened the shower door and catching me by surprise. “Hey, I’m going to go shower in one of the guest suites. Just wanted to let you know in case you get done before—” He stopped talking abruptly and furrowed his brow. “Have you been crying?”
I turned my head away and started wiping my eyes. “Um, no. Of course not,” I lied. “That’s a silly question. Why would I be crying? I just got soap in my eye, that’s all.”
He slowly lifted my chin to look at my face and I saw something in his eyes, but before I could let my mind wander too far into the land of delusional idiots, I realized that it was just a mere reflection of what was in mine. And it scared the crap out of me. Again. Because I shuddered to think of the consequences if he saw what I felt. He’d probably take me and his receipt right back to Scott’s customer service counter for an exchange or a full refund.
He didn’t feel the same way about me. He never would. Never could.
“Okay, if you’re sure, I’m just going to …” He jerked his head toward the direction of the bathroom door.
“Yeah, I’m good,” I said with a fake smile. “Go ahead, you’re freezing me to death.”
“Well, we can’t have that, now can we?” He leaned in, spray from the shower splashing against his bare chest as he gave each of the girls, and then my lips, a chaste kiss. With a wink and that crooked grin, he was gone.
Just like he would be gone if he ever found out I was developing feelings for him, which undoubtedly was not part of the contract. Kind of went against the whole no-strings-attached clause. I had to get my shit together and push past my moment of weakness. I could do it. I could get over him and be there in the capacity that he needed me and nothing more. I’d survived far worse.
I was not a vulnerable woman. I was strong. I was resilient. I had done everything within my power to help my parents in the face of the impending loss of my mother, the foundation of all that we were. I had blindly sold myself to the highest bidder to make sure that she, that we all, had a fighting chance.
I could get over this. I had to.
Noah
The next morning, I found myself sitting at my desk with my hands tearing at my hair in frustration. I hadn’t been able to sleep well the night before. I couldn’t get that look on Delaine’s face out of my head. It haunted me. Something was different about her eyes. I’d seen that look before. I just couldn’t place my finger on it.
She’d lied to me. She had been crying, and since she wouldn’t tell me why, I was left to draw my own conclusions. It didn’t take me long to figure it out. She was a prisoner in my home. Although I’d pretty much given her free rein, she was still a prisoner who was forced to submit to my primal urges whenever the mood hit me. Why had it never crossed my mind before that she might actually find that demeaning? Sure, a lot of women threw themselves at me, but they did it of their own accord, not because they’d been paid to and therefore had no other choice.
I stood up and went into my private bath. I turned on the cold water and let it pool in my hands before splashing it across my face. I did that over and over again until I realized it was having no effect. Nothing was going to shake me from the numbness I felt. I grabbed a hand towel to dry my face, but I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and froze. I could see it then. I had become the one person that I despised most in the world: David Stone.
After all, what I’d done was something he might have done, except I paid for a long-term contract instead of using her as a one-night stand. I was using her for my own benefit and with total disregard for how this might affect her in the end. And I did it all with the safety net of telling myself that she had chosen to do this, so she knew what she was getting herself into. While that might have been true, it certainly didn’t mean I should’ve taken advantage of that fact. What if she was mentally ill? She didn’t really seem to be to me, but who in her right mind did something like this? Someone with her back to the wall, that’s who.
If I was taking advantage of her desperation, how was I any different from David? Ignorance really wasn’t a good excuse. I should’ve known that anyone, whether it was Delaine or some cracked-out whore, would only do something like this as a last resort. So, regardless, I was still in the wrong.