CHAPTER 2
Hannah
I bet you will.
Those damn words have been playing in my head all day, despite the fact I keep telling myself I’m not interested in his proposition.
Even though I am very much attracted to Asher Knight.
What sane woman wouldn’t be?
Look up the word “gorgeous” in the dictionary… there’d be a picture of Asher Knight.
Put “gorgeous” in any online thesaurus, and all that would pop up would be picture after picture of the man.
It’s not fair that he’s just my type. Bossy, alpha, and determined. Add on the almost midnight-black hair, light hazel eyes, and what’s clearly an impressive physique under that expensive silk suit he was wearing, and it took all my willpower to be affronted by his offer.
Truth is, however, I’m not offended. He made me an offer that—under normal circumstances, say we’d met at a bar or something—I might have accepted once I was able to decide he wasn’t a serial killer. I have no aversion to casual, safe sex.
Not that I get it often.
Or at all lately.
And… he said it would be safe.
And I could say ‘no’ if I wanted.
He also implied he could get me wet from words alone. That’s not a bet I’m willing make with him, because he pretty much did when he started whispering in my ear in his office.
“Agh,” I mutter as I leave my last cleaning job of the day.
Grudgingly, I have to admit he saved my ass from Gerda’s wrath. When I finally had the strength in my wobbly legs to walk back into the kitchen, she was waiting for me. She pointed at the glass, which Asher must have had to walk over to leave his apartment.
“Clean that up,” she snapped. “And you’re lucky… I would have fired you, but Mr. Knight said he worked out a payment plan and I was not to terminate you. That it was a simple mistake that could be easily forgiven.”
God, I hated learning that. It made me like him just a tiny bit. Although it made me feel beholden as well, and that was something I just can’t be. I have too many things on my plate that hold me hostage as it is. There are so many things pulling at me—there’s just not any room to give another ounce of myself.
Snagging my phone off the passenger seat of my little beat-up Nissan Sentra, I manage to start a call to Nelson. As always happens whenever I gear up to talk with my ex, I must take deep, calming breaths while the phone rings.
He answers without any warmth in his voice, but the feeling is mutual. “What can I do for you, Hannah?”
“I want to speak to Hope,” I say, hating I feel like I need permission to speak to my own daughter.
Which isn’t true, of course. Nelson may have primary physical custody right now, but I have joint legal custody. There are no limitations in our divorce decree that limits the amount of phone time I have with Hope. I could call her ten times a day, which I would love to do, but that would be a little insane.
Nelson sighs into the phone. “She’s not here right now.”
My brow furrows. “Where is she?”
“Amelia took her out shopping for school clothes,” he says, and my entire body bristles.
“I was going to do that this weekend,” I say, tone vibrating with anger. “I told you that. Hope was excited we were going to have a girls’ shopping trip together. Instead, you let your current flavor of the week take her?”
I think my head is going to explode, so I barely hear his mocking laugh. “What were you going to do, Hannah? Take her to some cheap discount store? Buy her twenty dollars’ worth of cheap dresses? Because we both know that’s all you can afford.”
Tears spring to my eyes because he’s right, but I blink them back. It’s all I have to offer her, but Hope is a sweet girl. She doesn’t care about the quality of her clothes, but rather the time spent with me doing something fun. As she’s a girlie girl, she loves trying on dresses. I might only be able to afford discount, but I had set aside some tip money from my evening job to take her for a manicure, too.
Nelson leeched me dry in the divorce. I caught him cheating, told him we were over, and he ended up winning everything. It’s what happens when a man’s golfing buddy is a judge and said man has the wealth, power, and prestige to buy justice. Nelson got primary custody, and I get to see Hope on the weekend. I was also ordered to pay child support, which is one of the reasons I work three jobs. Since she’s living with him for the greater period of the week, I have time.
But I don’t begrudge paying child support for Hope’s welfare, court ordered or not. She’s my child, and I’ll always support her.
“I’ll have her call you when they get back,” Nelson says grudgingly. Because I dared to end the relationship, he punishes me at every turn. I guarantee he will not have her call me. Even if he did, I couldn’t answer. I’ll be working at my evening job as a bartender.
I hang up on Nelson, not bothering with any further courtesy. He extended none to me, and I’m feeling beat to shit by the course of my day so far.
Before I can set my phone back down, it rings. While I’m tired as hell and really don’t want to talk to anyone, I see it’s the one person who is always there for me. “Hey, Mom. Is everything okay?”
“Of course, honey,” she replies with a laugh. God, I love her laugh, and it makes me smile. “Can’t I just call my daughter to see how her day is going?”
Sucking in a breath, I refuse to give into emotion. My mom is calling to check on her only daughter, so I do what I always do with my mom. I paint a gloriously rosy picture. In essence, I lie to her.
“Everything is great,” I say cheerily. “Just got off work and heading home now.”
Instead of, “I miss my daughter, my ex-husband’s an ass who does everything he can to ruin my time with her, and, oh yeah… I broke a vase today worth seventy-five grand, but hey… no worries. I’ll just pick up a fourth job to work and pay it off.”
I don’t tell her any of that because Carol Brantley busted her ass to raise me and my brothers. Now it’s her time to put her worries to rest when it comes to us. As such, I’ve done a damn good job of keeping most of the ugly stuff hidden from her.
That includes how badly I’m failing at life. Of course, she’s aware Nelson has primary custody, but that’s all she knows. She doesn’t have a clue it’s a constant fight to get my basic visitation rights, that I have to work three jobs to support myself and my daughter through child support payments, and certainly she’ll never know I gained an additional seventy-five-thousand dollars of debt today.
She’s also in the dark about the fact I help my two younger brothers out with money as needed. They’re good guys, but both are immature. Toby, the youngest at twenty-one and six years my junior, got a DUI a few months ago. I helped to pay for his lawyer. Frank, who is twenty-two, is struggling to cover the payments on a way-too-expensive truck he bought while working on a road crew for the State Department of Transportation. It’s growing pains for my little brothers, but I’d rather them come to me than Mom because she already paid her dues while raising us.
Settling in for the drive home, I listen to Mom chatter about the mums she planted in the front yard in anticipation of fall, and how she’s making a poke cake for her church’s bake sale this weekend.
When I turn into my neighborhood and see my house, I notice a tow truck sitting out front. My foot hits the brake pedal, and I come to a fast stop.
My little Nissan Sentra is about to be repoed. I’d known missing the last few payments on the car and ignoring their demand letters would catch up to me, but that was the money I sent to Toby for his DUI. I thought I’d be able to catch up on the payments, but it just didn’t happen.
“Hey, Mom,” I say softly. “I have to go. Got to get ready for work.”
“You work too hard,” she replies sadly.
“Nah…” I play it off. “I like being busy.”
“You’re a great mom, Hannah. I know what you do is all for Hope. If you need help, you only have to ask.”
“I got it covered,” I assure her. “But thank you. Now, I have to go. Love you.”
“Love you,” she says, and I hang up.
After checking my mirrors, I execute a U-turn and head in the opposite direction from my house. My car isn’t getting taken today.
I drive straight to my next job. I’d wanted to take a quick shower and grab something to eat while at home. Luckily, I keep a change of clothes in my car. I’ll just have sweaty armpits and gnawing hunger for eight hours tonight while I schlep beers for drunks, but hey… at least I still have my car.
When I pull into the parking lot across the street from the bar where I work—a dive place simply called Joe’s—I reach into my purse and pull out the bill for seventy-five grand Asher Knight gave me before he left for work this morning. Running my finger under the phone number at the top, I dial.
There’s no way he can know it’s me calling, yet he answers in a smooth voice that’s filled with rich undercurrents of sex and sin. “Hello, Hannah.”
“I accept your offer,” I say, swallowing the disappointment in myself.
I try to reason with myself about the truth of my life. I have an asshole ex-husband who unfairly has full custody, and I’m diligently squirreling away money to hire an attorney to win my daughter back. My child support obligation is non-negotiable, as is helping my younger brothers with money as I can. To make it all workable, I eat mostly Ramen oodles, or I don’t eat at all. I spend virtually no money on myself, and I work three jobs. Let’s not forget I have a car I can’t afford, a repo man on my ass to collect, and I’m essentially now on the run to protect my transportation so I can work the three jobs needed to do all the above.
And now, I owe a man seventy-five grand.
Of these three things currently weighing me down, there’s at least something I can do about one.
I can get Asher Knight’s debt off me, which will be freeing.
“I want you in red,” he orders, and I have no clue what he’s talking about.
“Red?” I mutter.
“Red silk panties. Bra is optional. Red dress, too. Oh, and wear your hair down.”
“What part about me being flat broke don’t you understand?” I snap. “I can’t afford that.”
He ignores me. “Tomorrow night. Be at my place at ten. I’ll have clothing waiting for you.”
I grimace, not over his high-handed attitude, but over the fact that I secretly love red lingerie. It looks great with my skin tone.
At least, I think it does. Hell, it’s been so long since I could afford any like that I might not be remembering correctly.
“I can’t tomorrow night,” I say. “I have to work. But I could probably get a night off next week.”
“Tomorrow night,” he merely says, and it makes me roll my eyes in frustration.
“I have a job. Responsibilities. I can’t just—”
“Five thousand dollars,” he says, and the words cut sharp across my tirade, making me go mute.
My voice is raspy. “Pardon?”
“Five thousand dollars,” he repeats. “I’m sure that will compensate for the tips you’ll miss out on tomorrow night. Call in sick. I’m sure it’s not a big deal.”
Five thousand dollars?
Does he know what a figure like that could do for me? It wouldn’t go toward my car, my brothers, or even food for myself.
No, it would let me retain an attorney to fight for custody for Hope.
I don’t even have to consider. “I’ll be at your place at ten.”
His laugh is low and husky, causing a shiver to run up my spine. “Can’t wait,” he murmurs before disconnecting the call.