He was worried.
Worried about me.
I felt the fine hairs bristle on the back of my neck, knowing in that heartbeat that whatever messages Drake had conveyed to my young goof of a brother had hit home hard.
“I mean it,” he said. “He’ll take you down.”
“Relax,” I told him. “Drake is Drake. There’s too much cash coming in for him to tip the apple cart. He wants the money rolling, I’m giving him his sixty-day profit fest.”
He shook his head. “He’s seeing what I’m seeing, Bran. That you’re losing your shit over this one. That she’s different. That she’s sending you round the twist.”
I shook mine right back. “You should all be giving me more fucking credit for my control.”
“Accept the bids,” he said, and shunted his mobile handset closer to my chest. “Please, Bran, just accept the fucking bids and get things back in order.”
But I couldn’t.
I stared at that list, at the names of those with fresh new bids, filth on top of filth with crazy cash values, enough to make any man sweat at the thought, but I couldn’t bring myself to authorise a single one.
The list of approved bids above the new ones had been accepted on a whim, but the scheduling forms were still to be sent out to the bidders. There was nothing concrete in the Paige Emmerson purchase page, nothing confirmed and factored into a real life calendar. No virtual handshakes with any actual weight behind them other than an impulsive click of an accept button.
“I told you I’ll go through them in my own time,” I said. “I wasn’t lying.”
“Fine,” he snapped. “You do what you want. What do you want me to say to him if he calls back asking for an update?”
I hated my own stupid arrogance when it slipped from my mouth. “Tell him whatever you like. His opinion means fuck all to me.”
I lost Eric at that. He held out a hand for his handset and I returned it to his open palm with a slap. He didn’t hang around for another word, just retreated back along the landing like I’d kicked him hard in the ribs all over again.
Unfortunately for me, I felt unmistakeably like I’d been kicked in mine when I stepped back inside my bedroom.Chapter Twenty-ThreePaigeI hoped his return would see my pulse calm down to some kind of normality, but it didn’t. Brandon Grant didn’t look like the Brandon Grant I’d come to know so vividly over the course of our past few days together. He seemed different. Moved somehow.
His eyes were burning raw, raging but not cold as I’d come to know them.
“What is it?” I asked him when he stepped back into the room.
He shook his head, seemingly oblivious to my lack of sir as he paced across to the window. The winter sky was bright outside. I moved across to his side of the bed to get a clear view of his expression as he stared out at it.
“Is something wrong?” I asked. “Have I done something?”
He looked amused at my question. “Have you done something? Nothing to concern yourself with, sweetheart.”
But I was concerned.
It was a strange feeling, the concern biting deep. It wasn’t for me, or for Phoebe, or even for the money I was so desperate to earn through this whole crazy process. It was for him.
The man I barely knew but wanted to. The man who’d saved me from certain doom, only to act like he was the biggest monster to ever cross the path of a girl like me.
I shuffled further under the covers and took a breath, tension high in my chest. I wasn’t expecting him to speak again after giving me such a brush off of an answer. My eyes shot right back up in his direction when his voice came out strong.
“Business is a cunt to navigate when there is anything worth navigating.”
“Business like me being here?” I asked.
He paused before he spoke again, turning in my direction so his eyes slammed mine. “Tell me. It is worth it? All this? Giving up your very self for a truckload of cash at the end of sixty days here with me?”
I couldn’t meet his stare.
My belly churned along with the words in my throat.
I wanted to be confident in my conviction and common sense, and tell him it was worth it for Phoebe and that was all. That this meant nothing other than earning my way out of the desperation of having a sister who needed saving at any cost.
I didn’t want to let my heart cough the words up and tell him it was about more than that. About more than the money. About more than giving myself to him only to walk away at the end of my contracted time without looking back.
I couldn’t tell him how my body craved his with every breath of mine. How my heart was already panging at the thought of walking away from the man who’d captured my soul already along with my body. How I was petrified that Rebecca Lane’s desperate reaction to him on the pier would be nothing compared to mine at the end of sixty days at his side.