Net Worth by Amelia Wilde

15

Charlotte

I makea new dress for Friday night. Black and fitted, with a skirt that moves on the air when I walk.

Maybe it’s just an excuse not to go through my father’s office and the offices at Van Kempt to look for the proof Mason was talking about. Maybe it’s because everything else I own is already steeped in humiliation. It doesn’t feel right. Doesn’t feel sexy.

I need something fresh, and right, and sexy.

Because this is the first Friday after Mason has told me something about himself. Something real. Something that put a bend in his voice, an edge, like it hurt to say the words.

It’s the most raw he’s ever been with me.

My heart pounds to think of it. The tiny flares of light caught in his eyes. His mouth on mine. How exacting he was with his hands. In control of every inch of me, even the places he didn’t touch.

I stay up all night with my cheeks on fire and my fingers trembling against the fabric I’m using.

Close your legs. Unless you want me to take Thursdays too.

I’ll never forget it. Even when this contract ends and Mason Hill is nothing but a memory, I’ll have that burned into my brain. Those words in his voice and the way I felt afterward. I could have moaned. I could have begged.

So screwed up. So wrong. Even imagining it is wrong. Feeling this hot and scared and conflicted is wrong. It should be simple between me and Mason Hill. A transaction. Me in exchange for my family’s safety and security.

I leave the Van Kempt office early so I can go home and change. I’m so tired from pretending that everything was fine at the gala and from staying up to work on the dress and from thinking about Mason. My head swims. I feel like I have a full-body sunburn, though I haven’t had time to spend in the sun. I’m already oversensitive.

It takes loud music and intense focus to drive into the city, but the nice part about bringing the car is that I can leave on my own terms. It would be worse to have to climb into the back of a car that belonged to Mason with a driver who would tell him everything I did.

It would be more humiliating. I’m not actually sure if it would be worse.

Mason’s waiting for me when the elevator doors open.

He’s leaning against the table, arms crossed, eyes as dark as they were in the gardens last night. A shiver makes my nipples peak underneath my dress. Shit—they’re already so sensitive, and now, looking at those eyes—

They’re darker. I see it as I step out into the foyer and the doors close behind me. Take my first breath of the air. It’s like the snap of fabric in a stiff wind. A warning. Something worse is coming. Or—something worse already happened.

The pain in his voice comes back to me. That memory attaches itself to another one like the inner lining of a garment to the outer. He was different at the Cornerstone site, the day he told me about the new plans. There’s more to him than what appears on the surface. All that’s on the surface today are Brioni slacks and a perfect white shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the elbow to show off strong forearms.

He straightens up. Looks me up and down.

Then he lifts something from the table behind him.

It’s the collar necklace from last Friday. The one with diamonds. The sight of it in his hand makes goose bumps run from the top of my head all the way down to my shins.

Mason hasn’t spoken a word, and the realization dawns that he won’t until I do what he’s demanding. It doesn’t matter that he hasn’t said it out loud. It’s an explicit order, as plain as the ones on our contract.

I’m supposed to go over to him and let him put it around my neck. He won’t come to me.

He won’t come to me, which means he won’t block my path to go back into the elevator. He won’t stop me from leaving. No, I have to choose my own debasement.

My shiver makes the air in his penthouse feel even cooler. It makes my dress feel even thinner. It might only be the illusion of a choice, but dangling it in front of me like this makes me more ashamed than if he’d walked over here and put that necklace on himself. This is a reminder of what I did last week.

It’s a challenge. My last chance to walk away from him. I won’t get another one.

So it makes no difference that my face feels feverishly hot or that mortified heat pools low between my legs. I have to do this thing.

My heels click on hardwood all the way across the foyer. I’ve never wanted to look at the floor so badly in my life. There’s always something harder to survive with Mason Hill. Always. I keep my eyes on his anyway. When I’m well within reach but not touching him, I stop.

He studies my eyes. Carefully. Assessing them the way I imagine he’d assess a property to determine if it had value. Like I’m a blank, beautiful gemstone.

I want him to think that I have value. I want it so badly. There’s no good reason why. There’s no good reason for anything I feel about Mason Hill. There should only be room for hate. Instead, all the emotion has bunched up like a crinoline under a skirt. There are so many layers it’s impossible to separate them out.

Oh—but one of them is fear. Fear that he’ll tell me that the contract is canceled. That he wanted me close so he could see my face when he told me. My heart feels attached by a single thread. It could throw itself right off my body and that thread would snap.

He makes an indecipherable sound in the back of his throat and lifts the necklace to my neck. I keep my hands at my sides in fists, one around the strap of my purse, so I don’t give in to the urge to slap it out of his hands. I’m terrified enough to do it, but I’m even more determined.

I’m going through with this.

The necklace settles onto my collarbone and Mason steps back for a better view. “You’ll do this necklace justice tonight, Charlotte.”

The words or else hang in the air as clearly as if he’d said it out loud. I know what the consequences are for screwing this up. I know there are no more chances.

Mason leads the way back to his living room. To the center sitting area, with its round table and chairs. The same chair he sat in last week.

He takes that seat again. Something changes in his expression when there’s no more pressure on his knee, something eases. What happened? I want to ask him again. Those things he said to me in the botanical gardens made me curious.

They made me care, in a strange, forbidden way. And I want to know.

Curiosity will be the death of me.

“Come here.” His voice is low and velvet.

“Mason, what you said last night—”

“Don’t.”

The word feels like a slap. I’m not even sure how I meant to finish that thought. I want more of the intimacy between us. More of his pain in exchange for mine. His dark expression makes it clear I won’t be getting that tonight. In fact, it seems like he regrets it.

Like he’ll make me pay for what he told me.

“You aren’t angry with me, are you?”

His lips carve a humorless smile. “I’m afraid I am.”

“But I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“That’s the unfortunate part, you sweet little thing. You don’t have to do anything wrong. I can be angry with you for a million reasons. For making me hard. For making me want you.” His eyes turn dark. And mean. “For what your parents did.”

A shiver runs through me. Protest lodges in my throat. Except what can I say? I don’t want to know the truth about my father. I have to take what Mason gives on behalf of my family. I don’t need to know.

I go, dropping my purse onto the table on the way. I’m hoping—oh, it’s so fucked up—but I’m hoping he’ll kiss me again. That felt right. In the gardens, so many things were wrong, but the kiss was right right right.

He takes me by the waist and pulls me into his lap, arranging my legs as he does it so that I’m straddling his hips, hovering over his too-expensive-for-words pants and his Tom Ford belt buckle.

Mason threads his hands through my hair for leverage and pulls me down into a kiss.

Yes.

Yes, yes.

He tastes outrageously good. Outrageously clean. And when he kisses me like this, hard and vicious like I’m property he paid for, it chases all the thought from my mind. There’s no anxiety about the future when the thing you were anxious about is happening—and it feels so good. It hurts, too. His teeth hurt, and his grip hurts, and it should be too much but it’s not, it’s not.

I kiss him back. I’m going to keep up with him. Would it be bad to give in completely? Probably. I won’t rock my hips into the front of his pants. I won’t. I won’t.

My panties make contact at the same moment he takes my mouth with his tongue. All that sensation feels centered over my clit, but he shifts underneath me so I can’t touch where I want. I can’t get the contact I need. Mason kisses me for a long time like that. So, so long.

And then, with an abrupt laugh, he extricates himself from the kiss and puts me on my feet.

Mason stands up after me and I can see the outline of his cock through his pants. He’s hard. This could be it. This could be the moment he takes my virginity, which already belongs to him as per the terms of the agreement.

My thoughts go haywire. He won’t be gentle, but I’m not sure I want him to be. That moment between us shouldn’t be sweet. He’ll make it hurt. I might cry from the sheer relief at having the moment finally arrive. The anticipation is its own kind of pain.

“What’s going to happen next?” My voice comes out shaky. “Are we going to—”

“Are we going to fuck? Say it out loud. I want to hear the word.”

Heat courses through me. It’s both desire and humiliation. They’re tangled up together, cross stitched in my body. I can’t tell them apart anymore. “Are we going to fuck?”

That laugh again. “You would like that too much. No, we’re going to do something more painful.” A considering look. “Then again, you might get off on the pain.”

Mason’s hands go to his belt. He doesn’t scold me when I look. It’s just how I imagined. His hands, so confident on the buckle and the leather. One quick tug and it’s free of his pants. He holds the belt by the buckle and the end, forming a loop.

“Give me your hands,” he says.