Chapter Eleven

Whoosh! Her lungs were robbed of oxygen. She really had to have heard Blake wrong — he couldn’t have just told her the price she’d have to pay to get her brother back was marriage.

Why in the world would a billionaire like him want to marry her?

When he finally released her from his grasp, she stumbled backward, still clutching the blanket to her as if her life depended on it. Maybe it did. Everyone talked about security blankets. This blanket represented her sanity, and if she lost her hold on this fine bit of fabric, she might also lose her hold on her mind. Heck, that made as much sense as Blake’s demand that she marry him.

And yet these strange thoughts gave her new determination, and she changed her focus. She wouldn’t reply to his off-the-wall proposal. If she didn’t reply, then it was a nonissue, right? Of course it was. So instead of looking at the wretched man, she moved away from him and went off to get her clothes, which were strewn around in his front hall. Somehow managing to keep a grip on her blanket, she reached out with her other hand and gathered up her clothing, some of it rather the worse for wear — and tear.

Maintaining a resolute silence, she walked to his bathroom and firmly shut the door. The next thing she knew, she was in the shower. How had that happened? One second she was thinking she needed to get clean, she had to get clean, and then the next, hot water was cascading over her.

When she realized she was still clutching her so-called security blanket, she let it fall to the shower floor and kicked it into the corner, where its luxurious silk now lay ruined. She peeked through the glass doors and was grateful to see she’d at least dropped her clothes outside on the bathroom floor.

If she hadn’t, she’d be wringing them out and putting them on as they were, and then wandering outside cold, wet, and confused. To cap everything off, of course, the police would surely pick her up and haul her down to the station, and they’d probably treat her like the prostitute that she was. With those happy reflections, she washed her hair and kept scrubbing her body, and when the bathroom was thick with steam, she shut off the water, climbed out of the massive shower, and took her sweet time in toweling off.

When her clothes were back firmly in place, offering her a measure of protection from Blake — yeah, right, just as they had earlier — she decided she couldn’t hide out in his bathroom any longer. She needed to get out of his apartment so she could try to figure out what in the world she was going to do next.

Why had his words shocked her so much? She didn’t know. It wasn’t as if she planned on marrying someday — especially now, given her recent job history — so why should a piece of paper upset her? Maybe because, at one time in her life, marriage had actually meant something special. It had been a cherished dream of hers to fall in love, have a storybook wedding with a meaningful church ceremony, and then have a few children and two cats in the yard. But that dream had seemed to die around the time she had buried her mother.

Maybe, in spite of it all, there was still a small piece of her that held hope of a brighter tomorrow. But with the way Blake was eclipsing the sun from her life, that wasn’t likely. Maybe she just needed to accept that some people didn’t get the fairy tale they thought they deserved.

Yet Jewell knew deep down inside, and had known it even when in her darkest moments of despair, that life would change, that someday things would eventually even out and she’d have days of true happiness. How could she not? Life couldn’t be completely unfair, could it?

But she couldn’t understand at all what Blake would get out of marrying her. He could have anyone; he could be with the wealthiest of the wealthy, with landed aristocrats, and even with royalty. What in the world would give him the least idea of tying himself down with her? She was a nobody, someone who could do nothing for him.

When she finally slipped on her shoes, she got ready to flee, but when she reached the front door, she found him standing there, his face a mask. As usual.

There was no way of escaping unless she suddenly developed some prize football prowess and could knock him on his ass and vault right over him. That thought nearly made her smile — almost, but not quite.

“I need to go,” she said, standing far enough away that he couldn’t snake out his arms and grab her.

“You haven’t responded to my request yet, Jewell. You’re the one who wanted to talk, and when I did talk, you rushed off into another room for an hour and then you headed straight for the front door. To me, that’s not talking.” He had propped himself up against the door, and the doorknob was hidden behind him.

Taking a calming breath, Jewell looked at his nose, knowing better than to meet his eyes. “Yes, I wanted to talk. I was wrong. I … this … I can’t think,” she stammered, frustrated that she couldn’t find the words she was searching for. “You already have me in your bed. I don’t understand why you want more than that. It doesn’t make sense, and my head is too muddled right now to try to make anything make sense, so I need to just be alone. Please.”

He didn’t move.

So much for attempting to reason with him, she thought bitterly. “Look, Blake, I’ll do anything to get my brother back, but that doesn’t mean you have to marry me to continue getting me in your bed. You paid for me, remember? Of course you do. You reminded me of it earlier in your inimitable way. Hell, I know that I wouldn’t quickly forget paying a quarter of a million dollars for someone or something. Ms. Beaumont was quite specific: I have to make you happy. But now … I just … I need to go right now.”

He still didn’t move, which made her even more nervous.

“Why don’t you want to marry me, Jewell?”

She stopped squirming and finally looked in his eyes, but as usual, she could read nothing there.

“Because even though I’ll probably never get married, the act of marriage still means something to me. The institution is not a mere charade to my way of thinking. Yes, a lot of people seem to see it as a meaningless piece of paper legally binding two people until they tire of each other, I was taught that it’s more than that …”

“Our marriage will be real,” he told her calmly.

“There won’t be a marriage, Blake. I don’t know when or how you got this idea, but it’s not going to happen,” she said, her voice rising with each word.

“I met with the judge, Jewell, and he told me that because you didn’t meet the conditions the court set at the first hearing, you would have zero chance of getting your brother back unless you were married to a solid member of the community.”

What he said knocked her feet right out from under him. This was too close to what the attorney had said to her.

“I … I … How can they put that sort of condition on getting custody? It’s wrong,” she said, her head spinning.

“It is what it is, Jewell.” He was speaking so casually — as if he had conversations like this every day.

“What’s in this for you?”

He looked at her intently and for several moments she didn’t know whether he was going to answer her or not. She remained silent, too, since she didn’t know what she could possibly say at this point.

Then, when he finally opened his mouth, she wished he hadn’t.

“I’m working on a big deal with a company in a conservative country,” he said. “The owner doesn’t trust bachelors. He thinks that they are either gay or out to prey on other men’s wives. So, you see, this works out quite nicely for both of us.”

“Why me, though? Why on earth would you marry someone like me? I’m sure you could find a hundred other women — socially acceptable women — who wouldn’t hesitate to take your name, and you’d lock in this deal with no problem.”

“But I want you. And you need me. It’s that simple,” he said. “This way we both get something important to us, and you won’t have the constant urge to run and hide.”

“I could still run, even if we were married,” she told him.

“Not if we both have custody of Justin.”

“You actually think I would give up my rights to him as soon as I get them back?” she gasped.

“You won’t get them back without me, Jewell.”

This was what she’d been afraid of. If what he was saying about the judge was true, she had no hope without Blake. So why fight this?

“What sort of man are you?”

“I’m the sort of man who knows what he wants and goes after it.”

“I hate to tell you this, Blake, but you can’t own another person. Not in the twenty-first century.”

“You’re very wrong there, Jewell. I can own you. I do own you,” he told her coldly, and the shiver that ran through her veins had nothing to do with the temperature of the room.

Her eyes flashed danger. “I do so hate you,” she grated out.

“I don’t need love from you, Jewell. I need your compliance, and your truth … and I need your body,” he said with an unreadable smirk. “And I’ll even give you a day or two to think about whether you’re willing to give those things to me.”

Gee, wasn’t he magnanimous!

“Do you really know what you’re thinking about getting yourself into? Do you know how much work caring for a child is, especially one who has been through the traumas that Justin has? You can’t do whatever you want whenever you want to if you have a boy of his age and his circumstances living in your home. Children are messy, they are demanding, and they are exhausting. Why don’t you give me back my brother, if you can, and go and find some easy woman, one who is willing to bend all the rules for you? Why are you hell-bent on making a bad situation even worse?”

“I’ve already said this to you numerous times, Jewell. I want you, and I won’t change my mind.”

The steel in his voice told her that he was speaking the truth, and the anxiety in her stomach told her the same thing. He wasn’t going to back down from this — not unless it was his idea.

“You aren’t giving me a choice, and you know it.”

“I’ve told you what I want and expect, Jewell. Anyway, you’re not for sale, because you’ve already been sold — to me. But because I’m such a stand-up guy, I’ll let you think about it, just as I said.” With those words, he took a step toward her. She stepped back in fear, but then he turned away, leaving the way wide open for her to make a speedy exit.

Was this a trap? She wouldn’t put it past him. She was afraid that if she went to the door, he’d strike like a python and swallow her whole.

She yanked open the door and had taken a step toward freedom when she felt his fingers grip her arm. Yep. She’d been right to think he wouldn’t make it that easy for her. She also knew she had no real power left to resist him.

“Something to remind you of what we have together,” he said before his lips descended and he was kissing her breath away again. When she swayed toward him, he released her. “We’re good together, Jewell. We both know that in the end you’ll bend to my will, but if you need to fight this so that you’ll feel better about yourself, take the time to do it. There’s no doubt in my mind that you’re already mine.”

With that, he stepped back once again, indicating with a gesture that she could go or she could stay.

She fled.

Jewell didn’t know if she’d ever stop running, and she didn’t even know from whom she was really running — Blake or herself.