Net Worth by Amelia Wilde

5

Charlotte

Elise’slate for our lunch date, which is good, because I haven’t figured out exactly what to say. It feels weird to sip cucumber water at the little place by her apartment in the city like nothing happened. It wasn’t nothing. I definitely haven’t lain awake all week over nothing. But it wasn’t what I expected. None of this is how I expected.

“I am so sorry.” She leans down for a quick hug, then takes her seat. “A last-minute order. I thought I could get it done in less time.”

“It never turns out that way. Literally never. I say that every time I make a dress.”

“And you’re wrong every time.” Elise slips her sunglasses into her purse and peers at me. “Now stop being so cagey and tell me what happened with Mason Hill. It’s not fair to be so stingy with the details.”

My face heats. “Okay, well…this new deal.”

I told her I signed with him, but I didn’t tell her anything else. I’m not sure why I thought it would be easier in person. At least this way, when she judges me, I’ll know it’s happening. I won’t have to guess.

“You said it was like a job, and you didn’t take it, but now you have taken it, so…what is it? Secretary work? Are you filing papers in his office? Aren’t you supposed to be at Van Kempt?”

She’s talking about my weekly responsibilities for the company, which I took over months and months ago. Someone from the family had to be in the office. My mother can’t do it, and my father won’t stop his drinking, so that left me. I work days at Van Kempt for nothing and make clothes at night.

I take a quick look around the restaurant to make sure there are no familiar faces. It would be like Mason to know I was here.

Coast is clear.

“Like I said, it’s not really a job. What he offered me is more of a…more of an arrangement.”

Elise leans in, curiosity sparkling in her eyes. “Tell me right now, Charlotte. That sounds incredibly…illicit.”

I take a deep breath. “I have to see him every Friday night.”

She blinks. “That’s it?”

“No, that’s not—I have to be available every Friday night at sunset. At his apartment.”

This sounded way dirtier in my head. Way more illicit. Like it sounded when Elise said it.

“Are you telling me—”

The waitress comes back to the table and Elise leans back to let her pour more cucumber water. She orders her sandwich and mine, as quickly as possible, with a big smile on her face. Her expression turns serious the moment the waitress steps away, and we both lean back in. My heart beats fast. I would never make it as a spy. People would definitely notice the furtive looks and the lowered voices.

“Are you telling me you already saw him?”

“Last Friday.”

“Tell me everything,” she demands.

“Okay. He lives in a penthouse. Like…a really nice building. I think he might own the whole thing. You have to have a code to the elevator, and the guys in the lobby—”

Elise waves this off. “We can talk about the guys in the lobby later. What was he like? What did he do? Was he still an asshole?”

“He was waiting for me when I stepped off the elevator.”

She nods. “Okay. Okay. That’s normal. That’s not serial killer stuff. If you invite someone over—”

“It’s not really an invitation kind of situation. I’m required by the contract.”

“There’s an actual contract?”

“Yeah.” Her eyes have never been wider, and I know, I just know, that she’s going to ask me what it said. There’s no way I can repeat it out loud in this restaurant. “It’s every Friday night. So I showed up last Friday, and he was waiting for me.”

She folds her arms beneath her, leaning forward another few inches. “Oh my god. What did he do?”

“He…” I replay it in my memory. How long was I there? Fifteen minutes, maybe. “He talked to me. He wasn’t…you know. He wasn’t nice.”

“Did he insult your clothes again?”

“No.” He ran his finger along my neckline and made me think he might tear the whole dress from my body and send me out without anything to wear. “He was kind of taunting me. Telling me how much I hated it.”

Elise’s eyes sparkle. “But obviously you didn’t.”

“Right. Obviously, I didn’t—” No. No no no. “Wait. No. I did. It was terrible. He’s terrifying.”

“Because he’s so hot.”

“Because he’s so mean,” I correct, though it’s not really a correction. He is hot. Thinking of him now, his presence in that space, the smell of him, the height of him, all that muscle. “The only reason he’s helping with Cornerstone is because I signed this deal with him. He can do anything he wants.”

Both eyebrows go up. “Anything?”

“Anything.”

She takes a deep breath. Takes a sip of her cucumber water. “Did he fuck you?”

“No.”

“What? Oh my god. Did he kiss you?”

“Yes.”

“And was that it?”

“He touched me.”

“Did you…” She mouths the words get off.

“Oh my god, Elise. No. It wasn’t like that. It was just a kiss.”

It was not just a kiss.

It was the farthest thing from just a kiss on the entire planet. It sank into all my cells. I can’t stop thinking about it. Can’t stop replaying the taste of him. How powerful he seemed. But when I describe it, when I say it out loud, it seems like nothing.

Did he do that on purpose?

Probably yes.

“What did you wear?”

“The blue dress.”

“The boat-neck one?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I love that dress on you, by the way. But you need a power outfit. You need to wear black.”

“Yes. Yes.” I can’t stop thinking about next Friday, but making plans—that’s better. That’s the way to deal with a scary situation. An…exciting situation. Plan to be my best. “Do you think I should make a new one?”

“Do you have fabric?”

“I have a coupon.”

Elise nods decisively. “Then yes. More of like a—” She traces the shape on her own chest.

“A sweetheart.”

“A sweetheart neckline. But then…” We both lean in again. More state secrets. “Then there’s the slit.”

I can absolutely see it. How it’ll look when I put it on. How he’ll look when he sees me in it. I take a long drink of cucumber water. It feels impossible to stop nodding.

Elise reaches across the table and puts her hand on mine. “Do you want to get our food to go so we can go to the fabric store?”

“You’re my best friend,” I tell her, already on my feet.

A last-minute dress like this begs for optimism. It requires optimism. The less I think about begging, the better.

Anyway.

I only have tonight to work on it. Tomorrow I’ll be in the office at Van Kempt and I have to leave soon after five to make it to Mason’s penthouse by sunset. It has to be done before I go to work in the morning.

And it has to be perfect. So perfect that he doesn’t make a single comment about it. I won’t be terrified in this dress. I’ll be powerful.

I won’t even miss my necklace.

It’s damn near perfect by the time I fall into bed three hours before my alarm on Friday. It waits for me on the back of my closet door while I throw myself through a bleary shower. I drink too much caffeinated tea at the Van Kempt Industries offices and tell everyone who’s left they can leave at four. This dress needs makeup to match. Not the sweet look I wore with the blue dress, though it was my favorite. The one I feel most comfortable in.

If anyone’s going to make me feel uncomfortable, it’s going to be me. And I’m going to do it before Mason Hill.

But once the dress is on, once my makeup is done, once I’m in my Target heels…

I’m not uncomfortable.

Oh my god.

I look so good. The best I’ve ever looked. I try out a sultry expression in the mirror and end up pointing at myself in congratulations, which ruins the effect.

The town car’s radio is broken so I turn the volume all the way up on my phone and toss it into the passenger seat for the ride into the city. I intend to take this mood in through the parking garage. All the way through the lobby. All the way up the elevator. All the way into his foyer, and—

“Your keys, Ms. Van Kempt,” says the guard at the security station.

“What? Why?”

“We’ll be parking your car for you tonight. Mr. Hill has requested that you meet him in front of the building.”

A request from Mason isn’t really a request. It’s an order. My confidence ticks down a notch. The guard gives me enough space to open the door and step out, but then I have to go around to get my purse and my phone from the passenger seat. I have trouble with the door—it sticks, and won’t shut all the way sometimes—and a second guard hops behind the wheel and pulls it closed for me.

“Okay,” I say to no one in particular. It looks like every Friday with Mason is going to start with my face on fire.

My heels click and clack all the way out of the underground garage.

He’s waiting for me in front of the building, that beautiful, infuriating smile on his face. A shining black SUV idles at the curb. Mason looks me up and down as I approach.

My heart is the first to respond to him, even though I don’t want to. I want to be cool and collected and untouchable. It’s a lost cause. My heart knocks against my ribs with every step I take. My skin goes hot at the sight of him in his flawless dark suit. He’s the untouchable one. All perfect dark hair and eyes turned a deep green in the glow from the lobby of his building. Sunset comes late in the summer. After eight. It’s burning down the sky behind him. Melting into a darkness that’s as forbidding as he is.

And as alluring.

Damn it.

“Are you leaving, or are we going somewhere?”

His mouth tilts up at the words. “I have reservations for a late dinner. You’ll be coming with me.”

Dinner. With him. I don’t let the shiver of nervousness show, I just climb into the SUV. It smells brand new. Nothing like the end-of-life leather smell of our town car. Mason gets in after me, and his driver comes around to shut the door. There’s more space back here than I thought. Enough for him to stretch out his legs, which he does. There’s something about the way he moves. The fit of his clothes…

I can’t put my finger on it.

There would probably be rumors about him on the Internet. Speculation. Gossip. But I haven’t put his name into a search engine. It gives me secondhand embarrassment to think about it. I didn’t want to know how much money he had after that first meeting when I turned him down.

“Don’t you think it’s early to be taking me out to dinner?”

His eyes meet mine in the half-dark of the back of the car. “Compared with what? Is there a regular schedule you follow with the men you sell your body to?”

It’s so blunt, so harsh, that I start to suck in a gasp.

And stop. That’s what he wants. Of course that’s what he wants.

“You’re the only one I’ve ever done this with, Mr. Hill.” It’s hardly my voice. It’s the voice of someone who’s sure of herself. Whose life isn’t falling apart.

He shifts closer to me. Close enough to feel his heat across the narrow space between us. Close enough to put one hand on my thigh, over my dress. A shock runs through me like he’s coaxed my knees apart with his hands. I inch them apart before I can stop myself.

A laugh, and then a big hand comes down and turns my face toward him. All the lights are different shades and colors, and they swim through his green eyes as he stares down at me, tracing paths on my skin over and over again.

“You can’t stand this.”

It’s a lie. He knows it. I know it. He just watched me attempt to spread my legs for him. Oh, god. It cannot get worse.

A little voice in the back of my mind whispers that it can. It will.

“No,” I agree with him. “It’s awful.”

He gives my face a little squeeze and I want to fight. I should push his hand away. Slap him away, if necessary. But I’ve agreed to do this. And a dark, twisted part of me likes the feel of his grip on my face. It’s not right. In fact, it’s very wrong. My body trembles with the contradiction. I agreed to let him do this in exchange for saving our lives. He wasn’t lying when he said I sold my body to him. I did.

“You’ve never done anything like this, Ms. Van Kempt. Does that mean you’ve never been fucked?”

The question reminds me of begging him for a deal in his office. It’s that same tone. That same power. Trying to hide the answers will only make him meaner. Only make me want him more. And I can’t do this.

“No.” The smallest pause urges me on. “I’ve never been f-fucked.”

“What about this criminally fuckable mouth?” His thumb brushes over my bottom lip.

I clear my throat. “No.”

“Good,” he says lightly. “That will make things considerably hotter when I take your throat.”

My entire body, head to toe, every inch, knows what’s coming next. I might be a virgin but I’m not so naive that I don’t know anything. I do. And what I know is that Mason is about to touch me. He’s about to make me say the most humiliating things out loud. He could make me do it over his lap, with my dress pushed up around my waist. He could—

The car pulls over to the curb, and he lets go of me.

It’s a sudden loss but I catch myself on the door handle. Mason steps out of the car and comes around to open the door for me. I put my hand in his with an angry, mortified push.

I don’t know why I’m embarrassed at all. He didn’t do anything.

He didn’t do anything.

One measured step, and he’s in front of me, blocking the entrance with his height. His hand comes up and glances over my throat. A light squeeze. His grip comes up under my chin and he forces my eyes up to meet his.

His brim with heat and cruel laughter. “You wanted me to ask. Oh, Ms. Van Kempt. You wanted to give me all those answers.”

“No,” I lie. “What I want is for you to stop calling me that. It’s so—it’s so—” I hate the distance of it. If he’s going to embarrass me like this, if he’s going to take everything from me, the least he could do is stop pretending he doesn’t know my name. “Everyone calls me Charlotte.”

“You sweet little thing,” he says, and he makes it sound like an insult. Worse than an insult. “Charlotte. Have you been fucked in any other holes? I already asked you about your pretty mouth.”

“I haven’t. I told you. I haven’t.”

“Feel better?” he croons.

“No.”

“Perfect.” He leans down and brushes a kiss to my lips. I lean into it, trying to take more from him than he’s giving, but he doesn’t let me. He straightens up and calls for his driver, who comes to his side carrying a black box. Mason flips the top open.

There are jewels inside. Jewelry. He lifts out a necklace first. A diamond necklace. Real. I know it by the way the light from the restaurant glints off the facets.

He reaches around me, standing so close I can smell the heat of his skin underneath that spiced-rain scent, and fastens the clasp behind my neck. The square-cut diamond solitaire falls into place at the hollow of my throat. He pulls back to look at it and makes a low noise in the back of his throat. Then he’s reaching for the box again.

It feels like he’s dressing me up like a doll.

Earrings next.

His fingers are deft at my earlobes. He’s been close enough to know my ears are pierced, and now he’s close enough to guide the post through the hole and slip on the backing. Mason holds up the second one in the light so I can see it. They match the necklace.

“What are you doing?” I murmur. Like it might be dangerous to startle him when his hands are on me. Though I’m not sure he can be startled.

“Dressing you appropriately for our company.”

I thought I couldn’t be more nervous.

“What company?”

He glances over his handiwork and then he’s moving, putting himself next to me. It’s too deliberate. Too graceful. A man who moves that carefully is hiding something. I don’t know what. He tucks my hand into his elbow and reaches across us to skim his fingertips over my jawline. I turn my face to him. “Don’t embarrass me in front of the investors. Be very good, Charlotte.”

“Fine.”

I move to take a step, but he holds me back. Turns me to face him. Anyone looking would think he was being gentle, but he’s not. He just disguises it with gentleness for everyone else. I end up with his hand fully around my throat. More pressure this time. I keep getting lost in this. I keep going the wrong direction. “What did you say?” he asks lightly.

“I’ll be good,” I whisper. “I’ll be very—I’ll be very good.”

“That’s better,” he answers, and then he’s guiding me inside the front doors of the restaurant, my nerves on edge, my cheeks blazing.