CHAPTER 15
Ember
Ember felt strange about eaves dropping, but for some reason she did not turn away from the door. Instead she moved quietly towards it until she was able to rest her ear right against it and hear with perfect clarity what Zander was talking about. She imagined it was probably business but wasn’t it a bit early, even for him? Glancing across the room, the bright red digital display of the clock on his bedside table (who had an alarm clock anymore?) shone brightly in the darkness reading 5:15 A.M.
She’d slept all night there. It was nice being with someone for a change. Sleeping alone was something she’d never really liked doing, even when she was a kid and had become too old to climb in bed with her parents she still longed for the time back. As an adult woman, she had only shared her bed a few times, but it had been a long time since her last relationship. She wasn’t sure exactly why.
Ember tried to shake off the thoughts that were trying their hardest to distract her from what Zander was saying. Even with her ear pressed to the door she had to hold her breath and cut through the silence to make out what he was saying.
“Yeah, that sounds right,” Zander said. “I don’t want there to be any waiting. I don’t like that. The whole process took way longer than it should have.”
Then fuzzy noise of a voice on the phone that was indecipherable to Ember. Was it a man or a woman? She couldn’t tell.
“Ok, well that is all well and good. But that doesn’t change the quality. We need to get much better with our selection. I understand they are the top of the tops, but I’ve been around the world a bit—there are even better girls out there.”
Girls? Did he say girls? What was he talking about? The club?
“Ok, well I don’t want to wait to sample that. I want to be on the ground floor of it, so to speak,” Zander said with a laugh. “I mean when it comes to that I am definitely the better judge of what constitutes quality.”
He wanted to sample the goods? Is that what he was saying? Was he really arranging a way that he would sample the women they used in the auction? No, it had to be something else, didn’t it?
Ember’s mind was racing as terrifying thoughts of betrayal threatened to rear their ugly heads. Surely, she was mistaken… but she knew what she was hearing. This was not joke, was it?
“Oh, well then you need to expand your search on that. Maybe you are just concentrating on locals, like too local. This is a big city. We need to expand the search a bit. Hell, we can even get girls from all over the country or the world for something like this if we get big enough, and who’s to say we can’t? We can take our auction to the next level and have a club in every major city. That has always been your problem Harrison. You think too small.”
Ember wanted to retreat and crawl back into bed but she forced herself to stay strong and stay right where she was. There was no turning back now. She had to find out what was going on.
“Well, if they want to do this that badly then they are going to have to play by our rules, right? It’s nice having everything coming to you for a change,” Zander said. “Club Privaat will go nationwide and then global, mark my words. You have no idea what a goldmine you have. That’s always been your problem. You won’t commit. Yeah, well maybe I won’t have to pay a hundred grand for the next one, but it was worth it. That one is so worth it. We can make so much cash off her.”
Ember swallowed hard as the tears welled up in her eyes. So, he was just all about the business after all. She was a goldmine, a cash cow. Is that really all she meant to him? It couldn’t be true. There had to be some other explanation. She was only hearing one side of the story, right?
But her mind was already made up. She’d been cheated on in the past and dumped like she was nothing more than once. It was precisely this sort of heart ache that had turned her a bit skeptical and bitter towards the dating scene to begin with. Ember did not like to talk about it much and it had taken a lot of prodding from Liza to get her to open up about any of her past, and there was still some secret pain in her past that she kept in the past. This was precisely why.
The tears were coming strong now as she tried to fight them back and began to gather her clothes. Standing in front of Zander’s full length mirror she looked at her nude body and hoped that Zander had got his money’s worth out of it.
Then she started to put her clothes on in a hurry. She hated to feel this way. She’d been used, plain and simple. Hell, she’d been used twice. How many times did Zander think he was going to be able to keep using her? He was just going to string her along until he decided that he was done and cast her aside? Was that it? Not for this girl. Twice was more than enough.
The door opened right then slowly and Zander was now standing there confused by the sight of Ember getting dressed. He flipped on the light and stepped into the room.
“What’s going on? I thought we would have some breakfast?” Zander asked.
“No, I’m not hungry,” Ember said. She stormed past him out of the bedroom and started walking down the hall towards the door.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Ember stopped and glared at him. “Gee, I don’t know. Could it be that I’ve been duped twice?”
Zander gave her a look that said he was utterly confused.
“What?”
“Oh, you’re good. You should be in movies,” Ember replied.
“Will you just talk to me? I have no idea what is going on.”
“The first time I could kind of understand. I mean it was an auction and you bought me fair and square. It was my own fault for feeling like we had a connection that was not really there. But this time I came at your beck and call. And you got what you wanted again.”
“Honey, I do care about you. Where is this coming from?” Zander asked.
He was really playing this part very well.
“You can’t keep doing this to people. Women are not disposable tissues that you can toss aside when you are done. But then again for a guy like you anything is disposable since you own the world, right?”
Zander was getting annoyed.
“What the hell are you talking about? If I’ve done something to upset you I’m at a loss. Just pretend I’m stupid and tell me.”
Ember laughed.
“I heard your little phone call. You were setting up your next victim. You are going to try out all the girls and pick the best one. I know exactly what you mean.”
Zander rolled his eyes.
“Honey, this is silly. You have no idea what I meant. You are overreacting to nothing, I swear. Give me a chance to explain.”
“I’m done giving you chances,” Ember said.
She opened the door, slammed it behind her, and got on the elevator.
Zander did not follow her as she expected he would, which lent further credence to what she already knew. If the guy really wanted to plead his case it seemed to her he would have tried harder. But he just half-heartedly asked her to wait, although his confusion did seem real. What was it about guys who are caught in lies exposing what pigs they really are that they can all become Oscar winners?
Ember was done with all of it. She did not need this distraction from her real life and she damn sure wasn’t going back to the auction anymore.