Forever After All(15)

“Why don’t you tell me exactly what’s going on with you?”

I shake my head. “It seems like you already know more than I would’ve told you.”

I’m not stupid. I know how the Kennedys operate. I know he’d have done a background check on me the moment he realized who I am, and I’m not comfortable with how much that would have revealed about me. About the way I’ve been living my life, and how far I’ve strayed from the girl he used to know.

Alexander’s expression softens and he smiles at me pleadingly. “I’d still like to hear it from you,” he says, his voice soft.

I hesitate. There’s nothing I can say that he doesn’t already know, and at least this way he’ll hear my version of the story. So I tell him. I tell him about my father and stepmother, about their refusal to pay for my mom’s bills, my stepsister’s schemes, and my difficulties paying my own bills. Alexander just listens to me patiently, nodding every once in a while to encourage me to keep talking.

“I see,” he says when I finish telling him my story. No questions, no judgement. Just simple understanding. It feels like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Other than telling Lucian about the basics in the car, I haven’t told anyone the full story, and it feels nice to get it off my chest.

“What are you going to do now? Even if you did attempt to sell your body at Vaughn’s club, you’d at most make 20k a month, and that’s at most . That likely won’t even be enough to cover your mother’s bills on most months, let alone your own expenses on top of that.”

I shake my head. “Honestly, I don’t know. I have another week until my mother’s current bill is due, or they’ll take her off life support. I figured I’d go to Vaughn’s and then take it from there. It’s not like I have any other options. I’ve asked my dad for help countless times and he’s always refused. I’m not in touch with any of my old friends either, not since I left home.”

Just the thought of my mother being taken off life support sends shivers down my spine. I’m terrified, and I hate feeling this helpless. Alexander looks at me and then looks away.

“I can give you the money. Under one condition.”

I sit up straight, filled with hope. “I’ll do it. Whatever it is, I’ll do it,” I say, involuntarily revealing my desperation.

I notice the brief look of anger in Alexander’s eyes and I know he’s reminded of what I was about to do at Vaughn’s, but I simply do not have the luxury of retaining my dignity right now.

“You don’t even know what I’ll ask of you, Elena. But then again, there’s nothing you wouldn’t do, is there?” he sneers. His hands move to his belt and his fingers twitch as he touches the clasp.

“If I ask you to get on your knees right now and suck my dick for 10k, would you do it?”

I bite down on my lip, unsure of what to say. I know this is exactly what I’d signed up for at Vaughn’s, but when it’s Alexander asking me, I suddenly feel ashamed of myself. Of my choices. I hadn’t given much thought to what it’d be like to do stuff like this, but I thought I’d figure that out when it came to it.

“How about 20k? You know, I’ve been fantasizing about those lips of yours since that night at Inferno,” he says.

He undoes his belt and zipper, and reaches into his suit pants. My heart is beating a mile a minute, and I can’t tell if I’m terrified or excited.





Chapter 12





A lexander



“Come here,” I say, my voice harsh.

Elena obeys. She gets up and slowly walks toward me until she’s standing between my spread legs. She’s got that infuriating defiant look on her face, and I almost failed to notice the way her hands tremble slightly.

I pull on her hand, and she falls to her knees on my hard marble floor, her face precariously close to my dick. Her mere proximity has me rock hard.

“You were willing to do this for John at Vaughn’s, weren’t you? Had I not entered the room when I did, would you have dropped to your knees for him?” I raise my hand to her face, my thumb tracing over her lip. “Would you have opened your pretty little mouth for him?”

Her eyes flash with disgust at the scenario I’m confronting her with. The real thing would be far worse—she has no idea how much worse. “Men from your father’s circle frequent Vaughn’s. Do you know how many men that you know you’d have to fuck? Do you understand that they’d humiliate you? Any anger that they might have toward your father, they’d take out on you.”

Fear melts away her previously confident expression and she looks away. She and I both know that men in our circle don’t get where we are without getting our hands dirty. It’s clear she hasn’t actually considered anything beyond her mother.

She doesn’t even realize that she walked right into a trap. Vaughn told me someone called to say that Matthew Rousseau’s sister was going to drop by. He was going to allow her to offer her body to avenge me for all the shit Matthew has put me through, and Elena has no idea. She has no idea how bad things would have gotten for her.

She looks up at me, frustration bringing tears to her eyes. “What is it you’re offering me, Alexander?” she asks. “You want me to suck you off? I will. If it helps save my mother’s life, there’s nothing I won’t do. If our roles were reversed and it was your mother’s life on the line, can you honestly tell me you wouldn’t go to hell and back to save her?”