Chapter 21

Barrett

“Fuck, that was a long day,” I told my driver as I collapsed into the passenger seat of the SUV.

Norris smiled knowingly. He’d been with me for a decade, and while I often drove myself, he knew me well enough to know that I hated days of back-to-back meetings. “Am I driving you and Adam to the Highlander, then, sir?”

“Not today; there will be none of the usual drowning of my sorrows tonight,” I told him, smirking at what, or rather who, I would be drowning in. There was definitely no sorrow about it. In fact, I was bursting to get inside her, but first, I had a surprise planned.

After our conversation, I’d spent the afternoon mostly ignoring the droning meetings and instead, devoted my time to texting with my assistant to set up something special for Demi.

“Where am I headed instead?” Norris’ voice drew my attention to the fact that we were still sitting in the office parking lot while I was staring into space like an idiot.

“We’re headed to, uh.” Damn. There was a tiny snag in my plan. I’d never been to Demi’s place before, and she hadn’t texted me the address yet. Presumably because it was still early.

Norris’ eyes shone with amusement. “I’m not sure where ‘uh’ is, sir.”

“Shut up,” I grumbled. My staff and I had great relationships, but I hadn’t been able to get Norris to drop the ‘sir’ thing yet. It was my plan for the next decade. At least he’d relaxed enough in the past decade to joke with me sometimes.

When I first started hiring personal staff, it had been a priority for me to form actual relationships with them. It was a good thing, too, since they knew every in and out of my life, and I didn’t want to have to buy their loyalty.

It was important to me that they kept my personal life private because they wanted to, because I was a good enough person to them that they didn’t feel the need to sell me out.

So far, so good. There had been no leaks from inside Camp Hart. I was infinitely grateful for it, and I made sure that they knew it with generous bonuses, time off when they needed it, and treating them like the family they’d become to me.

“Sir?” Norris prompted again, a wide grin on his face. “May I ask, who is it that has you out of sorts this evening?”

“Demi Fowler,” I answered honestly.

Norris’ eyes grew wide. “That new model you’ve hired as the face of the company?”

“One and the same, but my being out of sorts about her and having hired her as the face are two completely unrelated things.” I didn’t know why I felt the need to explain it to him, but I did.

It felt important that he should know that I’d hired Demi because she was perfect for the job, not because I wanted to fuck her. She was beautiful and talented, and I didn’t want anyone to think anything else.

“I would never have thought otherwise, sir,” Norris said kindly. “You’ve always been good about keeping business decisions separate from pleasure. Are we headed to her, then?”

“Yes, I just have to get her address from the paperwork.”

Norris nodded, sitting back in his seat and switching off the engine as he waited for instructions.

A minute later, my assistant texted me her address.

“Have you ever heard of Hunt’s Point?” I asked Norris.

Squinting at the address, I double checked that it wasn’t Hunters Point in Brooklyn, but it wasn’t. I’d never heard of Hunt’s Point.

Norris’ eyes narrowed. “A buddy of mine who used to be a cop told me about it once. They did a massive prostitution raid there as a training exercise, if I remember correctly.”

Something twisted in my gut. That couldn’t be right, but I rattled the address off to Norris anyway. He dragged a hand over the graying beard on his chin.

“You sure that’s right?” His apprehension didn’t sit well with me.

“It’s the address listed on her paperwork,” I said.

“Okay, then.” Norris eased us into the traffic, glancing at me with a strange expression on his face.

The closer we came to her listed address, the more I was starting to understand the look Norris gave me. The neighborhoods we drove through became more and more rundown, until we had completely left behind the city as I knew it.

The buildings became lined with graffiti, and not the artistic kind I was used to seeing, while the streets became dirtier, and the apartments started resembling laundry-lined matchboxes. My apprehension grew to a rock in the pit of my stomach as Norris slowed in front of a particularly rundown building.

“This is it,” he told me, waving away a woman who appeared to me as high as a kite and must’ve slipped through the cracks of that raid Norris had mentioned earlier.

She flipped him the bird and disappeared into an alleyway. I gave the building a look, then unlocked my door and stepped out.

“Wait for me, okay? I’m pretty sure we’ve got the wrong place here.”

“You got it, boss,” Norris said, keeping the engine running, but I heard the doors click locked again as soon as I was out of the car.

The address my assistant had texted me matched up to the basement apartment of the building. A tattered door with paint chipping off of it hung behind a security gate so pathetic anyone would be able to break through it. Reaching through the gate for the knocker, I let it fall back and waited for whoever lived here to tell me that Demi didn’t.

It wasn’t possible. I knew that she came from money, and she’d confirmed it herself that first night at my house. People with money, no matter how frugal they were, didn’t live in places like this.

My blood froze in my veins when someone, a very familiar sounding someone, called out, “Coming, just a sec.”

No, it wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. My heart jackhammered against my chest, the edges of my visions blackening as I watched the knob turn. Blood rushed in my ears when the door cracked open. Please, god, no. Please don’t let it be Demi.

My world came crashing down around me when I found myself looking into the very surprised but friendly, smile of the woman I had fallen head over heels in love with. And who had apparently been lying to me from the get go.

“Barrett, you’re early,” Demi said as she started unlocking the joke of a security gate. A tatty towel was wrapped around her long hair, and her face was bare of makeup. She was as beautiful as she’d ever been, and yet I had no clue who she really was.

“Come on in,” she said.

Her arms reached for me, and I caught them on instinct. The relaxed, surprised smile fell from her face, morphing into a fearful grimace. My feet stood rooted in place, as if they’d forgotten how to move. Thunder clouds rolled into my mind, making it foggy and sluggish, and I focused on only one question.

“What the fuck is going on here?”

“What do you mean?” Demi paled as I pushed past her, my legs suddenly working again as the burning desire in my chest to confirm what I already knew to be true kicked me into motion.

My hands gestured wildly at our surroundings. “What do I mean? What the fuck do you think I mean, Demi?”

“I… I don’t know,” she stammered.

Her eyes followed mine as they swept the minuscule apartment. It was neat and clean, brightly but sparsely decorated. A picture of Demi with an elderly couple sat on a side table that looked like a speck of dust would send it caving in.

“Fuck,” I roared.

It really was her place. The sweater she’d been wearing the previous night was draped over a cheap stool at the kitchen counter. And if the picture and the sweater didn’t give it away, the ghastly expression on her face did.

Her expression turned to stone, and her arms crossed defensively over her chest. “What is your problem, Barrett? My place isn’t up to your standards?”

I’d never heard Demi’s voice so cold. So detached. It pushed me over the edge. She was pissed at me? That was fucking rich. As she, apparently, wasn’t.

“My standards?” I spat out at her. “Let me tell you what my fucking standards are, Demi. People being honest with me, to start with.”

“What?” Confusion played on her features.

“You told me you had money. You lied to me. A woman with money doesn’t live in a hovel like this.” Rage boiled in my stomach, and a peal of sarcastic laughter ripped from my chest when it hit me. “That’s why you were working in the diner. It wasn’t some kind of exercise in humility or some shit. You were working there because you actually needed to work for a living.”