Chapter Thirteen
Julia
The day of the photo shoot had arrived. Artimus was taken away, much to his dismay, and I was told to stay in a waiting room. Flipping through social media on my cell, I sat in an uncomfortable chair with my ankles crossed.
I’d donned a Fendi cold-shoulder knit top in blue and green with thin horizontal stripes. It was only one of the items I’d picked up on my weekend shopping trip to Bergdorf Goodman. As unsure as I’d felt when Artimus had first suggested the trip, it hadn’t been a hardship at all to pick out so many lovely items.
With Bethey there to help me put money out of my mind, I’d let myself go and bought what I wanted without worrying about how I would ever pay the bill. Since WOLF was taking care of it all, I had nothing to worry about.
The shirt I wore cost just under a thousand dollars, making it something I never would’ve even looked at on my own. The whipstitch black leather pencil skirt I’d bought as a staple of my new wardrobe cost over three thousand dollars. Another item I would never have considered if I had to pay that price myself. But Bethey and the saleslady had both told me that the skirt would outlast me. It was a piece that would go with almost anything, and I would come to depend on that skirt as one of my go-to pieces of clothing.
When you added the knee-high runway mesh boots in black, also made by Fendi, my outfit was worth around five thousand dollars—and it felt that way too. I exuded confidence in my new clothes. I had never imagined that wearing expensive clothing would affect me the way it had.
The sound of the door opening had me looking up to see who it was. “No,” came my quick response as I saw the familiar figure.
Price Stone ignored me as he came in, closing the door behind him. The room had no windows, and there was only one door to get in or out of there, and he stood right in front of it, looking me up and down.
He looked at me with an expression of such disgust that I found it genuinely disorienting. I didn’t understand that look at all. I’d never looked better, in my opinion. WOLF had also paid for me to get my hair cut and styled, and I now wore it in long layers that felt like silk as they flowed around my face, framing it in a way it never had before.
Putting my cell away in my purse, I had to let him know one thing. “I don’t want you in here, Price.”
“So.” He continued to look me over then gestured to me with one long dip of his hand. “What the hell is this, Julia? Designer clothes that cost more than you could ever afford?” He shook his head. “I never pegged you as a gold digger. But here you are, apparently digging away at Artimus Wolfe’s riches.”
Feeling incensed, I narrowed my eyes at the shithead. “He didn’t pay for these things. It’s for the station. WOLF expects me to look a certain way—I am the owner’s assistant, after all. We have meetings and other things to attend where I’ll need to be dressed just as well as those we’re meeting with, Price.” Another thought came to me, and I felt the need to add, “And I don’t want you to tell my boss anything about our past relationship.”
The glare he’d already been wearing only got worse, and fire seemed to be sparking behind his blue eyes. “First of all, I won’t be answering any questions during our interview; he will. And second, there are more than a few people who know about us, baby. Who’s to say someone else here at the New York Times won’t tell him about you and me?”
That thought hadn’t occurred to me. But I doubted anyone would bother to tell Artimus Wolfe something like that about his assistant. It seemed trivial, and I couldn’t imagine it coming up. “I’m not worried about that. I am worried about you messing things up for me though.”
Price shifted his weight, making me think he didn’t to want to walk away from blocking the door, no matter how uncomfortable it was for him to just stand there. “What things are there for me to mess up? You mean me messing up your chance at getting the man to fuck you, Julia?”
Now I was royally pissed. “You know better than that, Price. You know how I feel about sex. How dare you say a thing like that to me?”
A smirk formed on his lips. “You are nothing but a little fucking cock-tease, Julia. You led me around by the fucking nose for six months, making out with me then leaving me with blue balls, using your idiotic notion of only ever being with one man as your excuse.”
I had no idea how he could call my ideals an excuse. “Do you hear yourself? Or do you just talk without listening to a thing you say? I was only ever upfront with you, and I’ve lived my whole life with that plan and have no reason to change my mind. What makes you think I teased you? What makes you think I used anything as an excuse not to have sex with you? I told you how I felt. I told you about how I wasn’t going to have sex with you. You’re the one who said that was okay and that you still wanted to see me.”
“I thought that one day you would get over that shit and grow the fuck up.” He slammed his fist into the side of his leg. “You have no idea how fucking frustrating you can be, do you?”
I looked at his fist as he clenched it at his side. He wanted to take that fist and slam me in the jaw with it, the way he had before. Only he’d always blamed the alcohol for that night. Now he was stone-cold sober.
Would he actually hit me again while sober? Here?
The first thing I thought about was getting the hell out of that room. “I’ve got to go.” I got up and found his hands on my shoulders. “Price, let me go,” I tried to keep my tone stern and unshakeable, but I had to admit there was an edge of fear to it, and I knew he could hear that as well.
His blue eyes were seething with anger. “What makes you think that you’re any better than anyone else, you bitch?”
Bitch?
No one called me that. I wasn’t about to let him get away with it either. “Listen to me, Price Stone. I am not a bitch. I do not think I’m better than anyone. I just have a set of rules I live my life by, and you have no right to call me names just because you don’t agree with them. I expect anyone who wants to be involved with me to accept that or move the fuck on. I didn’t beg you to be with me; you chose to be with me. I didn’t make you any false promises the way you did me.”
Shock replaced his angry expression, and his hold on me loosened. “What kind of false promises did I make to you, Julia?”
His words ruminated in my brain, so I repeated them, “Julia, I don’t want more than you’re willing to give. I only want to be in your life.”
His head dropped. “I do remember saying that to you.”
Moving his hands off me, I felt like I’d brought him back to the man he usually was, instead of the forceful jackass he could become. Price Stone wasn’t all bad. When he was good, he was very good. When he was bad, he was very bad. And that bad part of him was just more than I cared to take.
I decided to remind him of how good he could be. “Price, you’re really a nice man, most of the time. I think the sexual frustration may have made you hit me that night. You should forget about me and move on. Be with someone who has the same ideals as you and then the monster you can become most likely won’t come out again.”
I hadn’t meant to provoke the man at all, but the fire in his eyes told me that I had done just that. “I am not a monster. If you want to know what I think, I think that you’re the one who’s a monster, Julia. You little prick tease.”
No one had ever called me so many names in my life. This man had hit me and called me names. All I wanted was to get away from him, but he didn’t seem to care about what I wanted. I felt like he was some kind of parasite, intent on sucking me dry for some unknown reason.
Could me not having sex with him really have caused all this? Or was there more to it?
All I knew for sure was that I wanted to get out of that room and the hell away from him. “I’m done with this.” I turned to leave once more, heading toward the door.
In a swift movement, I found him once again grabbing me by the shoulders before pinning me to the wall. His hot breath flowed over my face, his lips mere centimeters from mine as he pressed his forehead against mine. “No, you’re not done with this.” His body held me against the wall while he moved one hand up to cup my face in his palm. “Julia, I am sorry, baby. I really am. I care so damn much about you. It makes me do things I normally wouldn’t.”
I didn’t care what he said. I knew he was capable of controlling himself. “Things like hitting me and then stalking me when you didn’t get your way?”
“Please stop talking about that.” His lips grazed my cheek. “Let’s just put this behind us, baby. I just want to get back to where we were before you said I hit you.”
His audacity stupefied me. “I didn’t just say that you hit me, Price. When you came to my apartment the next day, I showed you the bruise on my cheek that I had to hide with makeup. I showed you the five bruises your fingers left on each of my arms as you gripped me so tightly when I tried to leave your place.”
Once again, he used the same excuse I’d heard way too many times already. “I don’t remember doing any of that, baby. I really don’t. All I do recall is waking up on my living room floor with a huge knot on my head, and you gone.”
“I’m not rehashing this with you anymore, Price.” I huffed with anger and frustration, his body pressing mine against the wall beginning to feel suffocating. “Now let me go.”
His hand ran down my skirt before hiking it up a little. “I could fuck you right here, baby. I could rid you of that precious gift you have and end all of that nonsense for you. Maybe then you’d see fit to forgive me and give me another chance.”
I could feel his cock pressing against me as it thumped in his pants at the evil thoughts he was having. He and I were all alone in the room. Price was stronger than me. He really could do everything he said, and unless someone walked in to help me, I wouldn’t be able to stop him.
So, I had to make what I said sound real convincing, or something might go very wrong for me. Gathering every ounce of courage I had, I made my tone stern and serious. “Price Stone, if you don’t let me go within three seconds, I will bring my knee up and fuck up the rest of your day.”
He pulled his head back to look into my eyes, and I made sure mine told him that I was being entirely serious. I would knee him in the jewels if he didn’t let me go.
Moving back, he let me go, looking tired and defeated. “I never wanted things to be this way, Julia. Not ever.” And then he left me without saying another word.
Stumbling to a chair, I fell into the seat, fighting back the urge to cry. I had to stay strong. No matter how much he’d scared me, I had to act as if nothing had just happened, and least until I was in the privacy of my own home, where I could process what had just taken place.
This had to stop before something terrible happened.