A Debt Owed(41)

Jill is the only one I can talk to, but she’s not a friend even though I sometimes wish she could be. But with one foul look and a judging voice, I chased her away. Maybe I was too harsh on her. After all, she was only trying to help me.

But she also destroyed my only chance at escaping too.

I grab the pillow and hug it tight as the tears begin to roll down my cheeks again. Fuck. I never used to cry this much, but I can’t seem to stop. Not even as Jill comes back inside with a cup of steaming tea and places it on the nightstand beside my bed.

“Here, drink this. It’ll warm you up,” she says with a gentle smile. She seems genuinely worried about me, and the way she bites her lip when she looks my way tells me she’s conflicted. Just as I am.

“Thank you,” I mutter, smiling back.

I don’t know why I smile.

I know I’m not the only one who doubts her own decisions.

And that we can all use forgiveness every once in a while.



Easton



I spend the entire day pacing around my office, arranging to get rid of a dead body and one live one without too much notice. I didn’t expect to have to shoot one of my employees and have the other one taken away, but I also didn’t expect them to do something this heinous.

I should’ve done more thorough research into their backgrounds, should’ve done more to prevent what happened to Charlotte. They touched her; I just know it. Even though she says they didn’t, I could see it in her eyes, the pain seeping right through them. It made my heart bleed to see her like that, made me wish I could take the pain away.

But I can’t. Nothing I do will ever fix what I’ve broken or make this okay.

Enraged, I pick up a glass of rum and chuck it at the fire, roaring out loud.

“Sir, maybe you should rest a little,” Jill says as she comes into my room to clean up the mess.

I close my eyes and massage my forehead with my fingers. “I know. Thank you, Jill.”

“You don’t have to pretend to be kind to me,” she says as she picks up the shards and puts them in the trash. “I know you’re upset and rightfully so.”

“She almost escaped,” I say through gritted teeth. “And not only that but one of my own employees also tried to …” My throat jams up. I can’t even fucking think the words, let alone speak them, without bile rising. I slam my fist on the table. “Fuck!” Jill touches my arm, but I push her away. “Don’t touch me!”

She backs off and continues to clean my table and the glass off the floor. Her silence injects poison into my veins, filling me with that same guilt I thought I could temper when I first took Charlotte as my own.

The more I’m around Charlotte, the more I’m losing my hardened shell. It’s as though the icy barrier I built around my heart melts away as time passes. But why? None of this should affect me the way it does, yet when I look Charlotte in the eyes, all I want to do is protect her forever. Kiss her, hug her, hold her tight, and never let her go.

But she’s only a goddamn prize. A bodily exchange for money. Something I can use against my number one enemy to make him cry for mercy. These conflicting feelings make me do irrational things like throw glasses at the wall and yell at my assistant. Then again, she was the one who let Charlotte run in the first place.

“Could you have stopped her?” I ask Jill.

She gets up from the floor, and says, “No. She was already out the window when I found her.”

“How did she manage to open it?”

Jill bites her lip and fumbles in her pockets for a few seconds, but then she mutters, “I … don’t know.”

I frown, gazing at her as she pulls her hands from her pockets again and continues to tidy up after me even though she’s already picked up all the glass.

Something’s up. “Are you sure?”

“She must’ve found something to pry it open with,” Jill says, clearing her throat as she makes a neat stack of my papers and dusts down the chair.

“Right …” I narrow my eyes. “Make sure you remove anything from her room that shouldn’t be there especially things she can use to break out.”

“Of course, sir.” She nods, scrubbing everything in my study with a damp cloth, including my glass cabinets, as if she didn’t just do this yesterday. But I have no time or patience for her conscience to suddenly butt in. I’m much more worried about Charlotte right now. Maybe I should go see her.

I take a deep breath. “Do you think I should go to her?”

With the cloth still in her hand, she turns around. “That depends …”

“On what?”

She pauses and rubs her lips together. “Well, she was scared you might punish her.”

I redo the buttons at the top of my shirt and readjust my tie. “Nonsense.”

At first, when I found out she’d escaped, I wanted to. Desperately. I wanted to scold her, force her on her knees, and take her ass without mercy. I wanted her to beg for forgiveness.

Until I saw her face and the desperation that marred it … and then I realized all I wanted was to take the pain away.

“Apparently, she believes you will,” Jill says, and I can’t help but notice the patronizing tone.

“Careful there, Jill,” I retort. She may be my closest assistant, but she’s still only that … an assistant. She was hired to do whatever I wish. Nothing more, nothing less.