3 | IN WHICH SHE AGREED TO HIS PROPOSAL
Titan let go of her and Malora realized she was trembling.
She leaned against the desk, hating herself, but unable to stop—nothing was more important than the money—she asked, 'Did you. . .did you mean it about the money?'
'Yes.'
A sob of relief escaped her throat. Malora covered her mouth with both hands. 'Thank you.'
He looked at her with narrowed eyes, as if surprised by the intensity of her reaction, but he didn't offer any comment. 'Did you have a coat?'
Malora nodded, unable to speak.
'Give me the ticket. I'll get it.'
Malora rummaged through the purse hanging by her hips, her hands unsteady, and shook her head glumly. 'I think the guard gave it to Damian.'
'Let's go. I'll buy you another.'
'I can't leave without it. It's not mine,' she whispered.
He sighed. 'It's all right. I'll get it. Is the coat. . .er. . .orange?'
Malora looked at him carefully—there was an insult there, somewhere—but his face was blank. 'Yes.'
'Wait here. Don't go anywhere.'
Malora stood in the middle of the room feeling light-headed. She'd gotten the money and she didn't have to get raped for it.
Malora's hands found their way to her mouth. That kiss. The way it made her feel. Just thinking about it made her long for the feel of his solid body melded into hers.
The door opened, and oh shit—Damian walked in.
'You look frightened. Why? I do not wish you harm. In fact, I realize now that I am actually very interested in your offer. If I seemed unappreciative before please forgive me.'
'There is,' she said, shaking her head and taking a step backwards, 'nothing to forgive.'
'Is he really paying double?'
'I don't need more than what I asked you for.'
'Then why go to him? He is no different from me. He will drop you like a bad mortgage when he is finished with you too.'
Malora nodded. 'Of course he will, but like you said, I came with a price. You wanted to bargain and he was willing to pay it.' If only she could keep him talking until Titan returned.
'So am I, now.'
'Besides, you want fifty shades of grey and he just wants a woman.'
Damian laughed. He sounded like a braying donkey. 'You fool! You're sorely mistaken if you think what he wants you for is just to merely fuck you.'
He came closer.
'Titan has gone to get my coat and shoes. He'll be back any time.'
'Not without this he won't.' He held out her ticket.
He put out a hand suddenly. Malora tried to move back, but he grabbed her by the arm, his grip vice-like, his fingers digging painfully into her flesh. He hauled her closer.
'You're hurting me.'
'You'll be surprised how much pain the human body can take.'
'What do you want, Damian?'
'I feel aggrieved. Something I wanted and was promised to me has been stolen by another. I was given a taste of something, which I very much liked. You resist beautifully, Malora. Perhaps, you will do both of us. I will pay you too.'
Malora blinked.
She couldn't believe what she was hearing. If it wasn't so humiliating, it would be surreal. The surroundings she was in, the obviously powerful men who were suddenly apparently willing to pay huge sums to have sex with her.
'I wouldn't do that to Titan.'
Besides, he was the lesser of two evils, if anything.
'He'll never know and even if he does, he won't care. It's not like he wants to marry you. You're just a fuck, Malora,' he pronounced dismissively.
The door opened and Titan stood at the threshold with her orange coat folded over his arm and the shoes dangling from his fingers. His face was like a closed steel door. He came into the room and Damian let go of her arm and Malora immediately moved away from him, rubbing her stinging flesh. Already there were red marks on it. Titan eyed them silently, then helped Malora into her coat.
'Ready?' he asked.
Malora nodded.
He turned toward Damian and socked him hard on the chin. So hard the man fell to the floor with a grunt.
'She may be a cheap slut, but I'm paying what you baulked at, so she is my cheap slut now. You'd do well to remember that,' Titan threw casually over his shoulder.
Damian clutched his busted, bleeding lip and showed his fury to the only person he dared to. 'You're fired, McCarran. You hear me? You're fired,' he shouted impotently.
Titan took her arm and led her out of that place. There was not a single person at that club that didn't turn to watch them leave.
*
Titan's monster of a car, a gleaming black Bugatti La Voiture Nitori, was parked beside a lamppost. It was one of those old-fashioned wrought-iron ones with a fluted surface. Malora stood on the curb and looped her hand around its rough, cold metal.
'Get in,' he said.
'What if I'm sick in your car?'
'My secretary will have it valeted.'
Malora unhooked herself from the metal post.
Was life really this easy?
With those shoes and the drink in her it was impossible to get into the low-swung seat elegantly. Titan's eyes were on her long, fair legs. He was going to be seeing a lot more soon, so Malora swung the last one in and shut the door.
The interior of his car was plush and luxurious. It even smelled expensive. Malora had never been in such a car. The sound system was excellent and superb music filled the car.
'What is this music called?'
'Passenger's Let her go,' he said, and switched it off. He turned to her.
In the light of the street lamp he looked harsh and distant. In the softly lit darkness of his car there was still no softening to his face. Again the thought, a cold, cold man.
'I have to be in New York tomorrow, but my secretary will call you and make all the necessary arrangements.'
Malora nodded gratefully and looked away. It was as if she was in a dream.
'Where do you live?'
'Kilburn.'
'Got a postcode?' He sounded very American then.
Malora gave it to him and he set his GPS system.
They drove in silence, until Malora couldn't bear it no more. 'Don't you want to know how much?'
'Yeah, tell me.'
'Fifty thousand pounds,' Malora told him and his eyes left the road briefly to look at her.
'What made you think Damian was the man for the part?'
Malora shrugged in the dark. 'I work in his company as an accountant, and sometimes help him with his own personal account. He spends quiet alot on pricey hotel's and drinks.'
'I see,' he said quietly.
They came to a red light.
'Why me?' Malora asked.
His fingers tapped at the steering wheel. Long, strong fingers. Malora stared at them and thought of the way they'd moved on her body. He turned to her. His eyes were edgy and dangerous, filled with promises. 'Do you want it flowery or straight.'
Malora bit her lip. 'Straight.'
'I wanted to fuck you senseless from the moment our eyes met.'
'And the flowery version?'
'Now I think about it, there is no flowery version. It is what it is.'
Malora turned to look at his profile. It was very stern and still. Had she jumped from the frying pan into the fire? Were all rich people secretly deviant in their sexual desires? 'Does fucking me senseless involve any weird or kinky stuff?'
'Yes, pet. I simply want to tie you up, and fuck you hard. I want to be able to use you as often as I please in whatever manner I desire for as long as I choose.'
'Oh!' How strange, but his insulting words unleashed a lightning thrill of sexual excitement in her body. 'I. . . How long were you thinking?’
'I'll decide tomorrow. But I imagine one month should do it.'
'Do it?'
'Get me bored.'
'And you are willing to pay a hundred thousand pounds for that?' She did a perfect imitation of a gasping fish for a few minutes, then said, 'So let me get this straight. You want to fuck me silly until I'm out of your system and you can get on with your life?'
'Yes.' His lips twisted into a wry smile. 'When I made my offer I didn't realize you had valued yourself quite that highly, but I'm not displeased that you did. Despite all protestations to the contrary, nobody really wants a bargain. They settle for it because they can't afford better.' He glanced at her. 'Cheap usually means get your guard up, you are being offered something undesirable.'
Malora thought of her sister trawling the supermarket aisles looking for stuff that had been discounted because it was reaching the end of its sell by date. 'I will require the money up front. So, how will we do this?'
'My lawyer will draw up the appropriate contract for you to sign. Once you have done so the money will be in your account within minutes.'
'What sort of a contract?'
'A non-disclosure agreement and a contract.'
Malora nodded. 'I suppose rich people have to protect themselves.'
'Yes,' he replied shortly.
An awkward silence followed. He seemed preoccupied with his own thoughts.
Malora turned her head—it had begun to throb—and looked out of the window. He was a fast driver and they were already on Edgware Road.
'I'll send someone around tomorrow at noon to take you to your workplace so you can collect your personal belongings.'
'It's OK, I can go on my own.'
'I'd feel happier if you were accompanied. Indulge me.'
Malora thought for a moment. She didn't exactly relish the prospect of accidentally bumping into Damian either. 'Well, I only have an old pair of sneaker and some notebooks there. I won't bother to pick them up.'
'As you wish.'
They arrived at the block of council flats where Malora lived and he looked around him in surprise as if he'd had never been to such a poor area before. He probably hadn't.
'You live here?' He could not hide his distaste. Malora guessed to him it must be a horrible housing estate, what he would probably consider the underbelly of the city.
'Yes,' Malora said simply.
He stopped the car outside a two-story block of flats. 'Which one is yours?'
She pointed to the last flat on the first floor, and said, 'That's me.'
He didn't switch off the engine but turned to me. 'Give me your phone.'
Malora handed it to him.
He punched in some numbers and waited. When his phone rang, he ended the call. 'I've got your number and you've got mine,' he said and handed her phone back to her.
'Thank you.'
'Take a couple of aspirins and go to bed. Keep yourself free tomorrow. The entire day.'
'OK.'
'I'll be in touch tomorrow evening.' Instead of driving off he sat in his car and watched Malora totter and wobble in her ridiculously high shoes over to the cemented verge, gain the cracked concrete concourse, and go up an outer staircase while holding onto the metal railings. At the entrance to her home Malora turned back and flicked her wrist to indicate that she was safely home and that he needed wait no more. He didn't respond. Simply sat there. Watching her.
'Fine. Whatever,' Malora huffed to herself. Sitting on the front step, she took off her shoes. With them in her hand Malora put her key in the door and turned it.
It was only after she closed her front door and heard the powerful engine take off that she realized neither man had wanted to know why she needed the money.
The flat was lit only by the lights from the street lamps. Malora walked barefoot into the kitchen and fumbled around in the darkness. Finally, she found a tab of paracetamols, punched two out and sat with a glass of water at the kitchen table in a stunned daze. What a night it had been. She'd set out with an absurd idea and. . .
'I've done it,' Malora whispered to the familiar shadows, and grinned.
She thought of the stone-like biceps and the hard slab of his stomach that her hands and body encountered and she touched her mouth. Malora could still feel his lips, his hands. She remembered how she lost control and totally forgot herself. And the unfamiliar too damn good sensation he caused in her body, between her legs. Was it too dreamlike to be true?
This could not be just her life.
Don't be too happy yet, Mal. He could still change his mind.
Malora swallowed the paracetamols and avoiding all the creaky areas on the stairs, tiptoed upstairs. The light was off in her sister's room, so she quietly opened the door to look in on her sleeping form. But her sister was sitting on a chair by the window. She must have seen Malora come in.
'What are you doing?' Malora asked. 'Is Louis asleep?'
'I heard you come in,' she said softly. 'Yes, he is. After a little difficulty.'
'Could you not sleep?'
'No. Louis starts his chemo next week. Just enjoying the calm before the storm, I guess.'
Malora crossed the room and knelt beside her sister. The light blue eyes that mirrored Malora's, looked so dull and lifeless. Lines marred the sides her face and lips, and a deep hollow appeared around her collarbones. It made Malora sad.
'I've got good news for you, Rena. Remember that clinic in America that I was telling you about.'
She frowned. She was only thirty but the worry and pain made her appear haggard. 'The one we can't afford.'
'Well, it's not a hundred percent yet, but I think I've managed to raise the money.'
'How? How did you do that?' Lorena's voice was suspicious and frightened.
'I met a guy. A rich guy who just wants to help.'
'A rich man who wants to help?' Her tone was frankly disbelieving.
'Rena, please don't be like that. It's not anything like you are thinking.'
'Oh no? What is it like then?'
'He's just a nice guy who likes me.'
'I wasn't born yesterday, Malora.' Lorena's fingers grip Malora's hands. 'You haven't done anything you'll regret, have you?'
'I promise I haven't. I just drank too much champagne,' Malora put her fingertips to her temples, 'and my head's pounding. I promise, I'll tell you everything tomorrow when I've had some sleep.'
The last time Malora remembered lying to her sister was when she was twelve and she had pretended she had brushed her teeth. Guilty and terrified of being discovered Malora had raced up the stairs to wet her toothbrush. Lorena did not return her smile. Instead she gazed at Malora sadly.
'Goodnight, Rena. I really love you and Louis.'
'I love you too.'
Making a note to check on the baby tomorrow, Malora stumbled down the short corridor to her room, and making it to the edge of her bed, dropped the shoes clutched in her hands. Then, like a tree that had been felled Malora fell onto the top of her bed and was almost instantly inside a deep, dreamless sleep.
Dedicated to: NeishaHernandez1
A/N:
Now that you know what she needs the money for, what do you think?
How sick is baby Louis, and what's he down with?
Do you think Lorena would let Malora go through with the contract?
Would Titan keep his words?
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