The Debt 9 (Club Alpha) (6 page)

Other
than that it’s absolutely as good as new
, she thought with the sarcastic voice in her head.
 

Just then, another text came
through.
 

1
minute
, was all it said.

She had to laugh now.
 
This was just too much.

By the time she got out to the curb where
the limousine was waiting, her chest was heaving and she was sweating.

The driver got out, came around, tipped
his cap to her, and opened the door for her.
 
“Please, make yourself comfortable,” he
told her.

Faith peered inside and didn’t see
anything but a long seat stretching into infinity.
 
“Where’s Chase?” she asked.

“I’ve got orders to bring you to Mister
Winters,” the driver replied.

“Wait a minute.
 
He’s not even in the car?” she asked in
disbelief.

“Please, ma’am.
 
We’re on a very tight schedule.”

“We are?”

He nodded, his eyes unreadable.
 
“Yes.”

Faith texted Chase now, her fingers
flying as she angrily wrote to him.

Is
this some kind of sick joke u’r playing on me right now???
 
U aren’t even here?

“Ma’am,” the driver said again.

“Hold on,” she told him, and gave him a
look that said she meant business.

Chase replied
. Get in the limo. Don’t make any trouble
.

That was his response.
 
He sounded like a kidnapper.
 
She wanted to tell him to go fuck
himself, but of course, she wouldn’t ever do that.

She only had to picture his naked torso,
those muscles, the smooth skin rippling over abs that were like steel, and a
chance to perhaps touch those tattoos, kiss them, while he told her what each
one signified…

“I guess I’m going,” she announced,
trying to appear proud, but the driver couldn’t have cared less.

She got in and he shut the door softly
after her.

***

The limo ride was relatively uneventful,
given the fact that it was her first time ever in a limousine.
 
But she couldn’t enjoy it, not when she
was going god only knew where, to meet him.

To meet Chase Winters, the man whom
everyone was talking about.
 

And she didn’t at all feel up to the
task.

What
does he even want with me?
 
Does he
actually want to have sex with me?

She couldn’t believe that he would.
 
After all, he was a guy who could
literally sleep with almost any woman he wanted, just pick them off the
street—or more likely, the runway.

He was the kind of man who would and
should date models.

So
then why me?

She hadn’t the faintest idea.
 
But nothing her mind could conjure up
made her feel any more at ease, because there was simply no good scenario here.

And yet she couldn’t stop, couldn’t say
no, couldn’t turn away either.

Chase hadn’t continued texting her, so
there was truly no relief for her worried brain.
 
Her phone was menacingly silent now.

When the limo came to rest in front of a
large brownstone in Beacon Hill, Faith clutched her purse.
 
“Are we here?” she asked.

The driver answered by getting out,
coming around and opening her door again to let her out.
 
“It was a pleasure,” he lied.

She knew he was lying because she’d been
a pain in his ass in the beginning, after which she hadn’t said two words to
the man.
 
But she smiled and thanked
him for the ride just the same.

Faith stood in front of the
brownstone.
 
“Wait,” she called out
to the driver.

He stopped and looked at her.
 
“Yeah?”

“Which apartment is his?”

“The whole thing is his,” he yelled back,
and then laughing, got back in the limo.

The
whole thing is his
.
 
Faith stared at the magnificent
building, located in very expensive Beacon Hill neighborhood.
 
Something like this would go for
millions, she was sure.

Shaking, and not from the cold but from
nerves—of course, always nerves—she buzzed the buzzer.

A moment later, the door opened and there
he was, in the flesh.

He was wearing a blue silk button-down
shirt with the top few buttons unbuttoned.
 
As it was, the buttons seemed to strain to contain the mass of muscle
that was trying to burst out of the fabric.

“So you got here,” he said, cracking the
tiniest of smiles.
 
Maybe she was
even just imaging a smile, that’s how faint it was.
 
He turned and walked away as she came
inside the apartment.

“Wow,” she said, staring, marveling at
the gorgeous interiors.
 
It looked
like a spread out of Better Homes and Gardens or Architectural Digest.

Besides the blue shirt, Chase had on
tight dark jeans, and polished shoes.
 
He was very put together, which made her feel that much less put
together.

“The place is all right,” he said,
sounding bored.
 
“My agent got it
for me, had some famous interior designer do all this shit,” he continued,
waving at the extremely tasteful and expensive décor.

“You don’t like it?” she asked him.

“My job is to smash and be smashed by
three hundred pound maniacs most days of the week,” he said, running a hand across
the back of his neck.
 
“So I guess
this fancy stuff just seems dumb to me. I should probably just live in a cave
or something.”

Faith had to laugh, which was a
relief.
 
“I could totally see you
holding one of those big spiked clubs,” she said.

His eyes narrowed.
 
“You saying I’m like a cave man?”

“No, of course not,” she quickly back
peddled.
 
“I just meant—“

Suddenly he was grinning.
 
“I know what you meant, sweetheart.
 
And I’m just busting your chops.”

“Oh,” she relaxed, her cheeks flushing.

Chase’s dark eyes glanced toward her
hand, and she realized she was still clutching the broken cell.

“What happened to your phone?” he asked,
looking oddly concerned.

“Oh, this,” she laughed, feeling stupid
and clumsy.
 
“I, uh…I kind of
dropped it when I was running out of my apartment tonight.”

“Let me see it,” Chase replied, holding
his hand toward her.

“You can’t fix it,” she told him.
 
“It’s smashed.”

“I didn’t say I could fix it,” he told
her.
 
“Now let me see the
thing.”
 

As if she was powerless to refuse him,
Faith slowly handed her phone over to him, and he took it and stared down at it,
nodding.
 
Then he took out his own
phone and made a call, turning away from her slightly.
 
“Rick? Hey, it’s Chase, buddy.
 
I need a favor from you.
 
My friend’s cell phone just broke and I
need you to get her a new one immediately….yeah, it’s an iPhone, but not the
newest model.
 
Get her the newest
model, okay?”
 
He paused,
nodding.
 
“Cool, bud.”
 

Chase hung up from the call and slid the
phone back in his pocket, then gave Faith her cell back.

“You can’t just do that,” she said, taken
aback as she stared down at her hideously wounded device.

“Why not?” Chase asked, laughing a
little.

“Because,” she said.
 
But then she realized she wasn’t sure
why it felt wrong.
 
“I mean, how can
he just get me a brand new phone?
 
Those things are expensive.”

“Don’t worry, Rick will take care of you,
that’s what he’s paid to do,” Chase said.
 
His intense eyes looked unblinkingly into hers and she felt
uncomfortable.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” he told
her, shaking his head.
 
“It’s really
not a big deal.”

“Well, thank you,” she said, her voice
barely a whisper.

It got quiet again, as Chase moved to a
large, gorgeous table in what must have served as the dining area.
 
Clearly, it hadn’t been used much, but
there was a stack of papers on it, and Chase put his hand on the papers and
slid them towards her.
 
“You should
sign these,” he said.

“Sign what?” she asked, hesitantly coming
forward.

“Just some legal stuff that says you
won’t go running off and blabbing to TMZ or Entertainment Tonight about what
goes on between me and you.”
 
He
looked at her with those devilish eyes.

Faith swallowed, her throat dry.
 
“I don’t get it.”
 
She picked up the top piece of
paper.
 
It said Non-Disclosure
Agreement in black bold type.
 
But
everything after that was legal gibberish to her.
 

“It’s nothing,” he said, “just a
formality.”

She looked up at him, as he stood close
to her.
 
“What would I blab about?”

He smiled at her, and suddenly she could
feel his body heat like a blast from a furnace, and she could see parts of the
tattoos on his chest through the gaps in between the buttons of his shirt.
 
“If you want to know what’s going to
happen between us, you better sign those forms, girl.”

“There’s too many.
 
I can’t read all of that right now.”

“Sign it or leave.
 
It’s simple.”
 
He stopped smiling, and now he’d picked
up the papers and was holding them in his enormous hand, as if she’d lost the
right to even look them over.

Faith stared at that hand, those fingers,
imagined what they would feel like brushing against her skin, holding her.
 
She would feel so small, so vulnerable
in his arms.

She’d only gone all the way with one boy
in her whole life.
 
There had been
other boys that she’d fooled around with, but only one real boyfriend.
 
His name was Felix—a horrible name
for a somewhat horrible person.
 
Well, he hadn’t started off horrible.
 
They’d dated through most of high school
and he’d taken her virginity her senior year.
 
They’d slept together on numerous
occasions, but it hadn’t been anything to write home about.

Felix was skinny, taller than her but not
very muscular, and his lovemaking had been somehow tepid.
 
Not that she knew exactly what good
lovemaking would be, but she’d seen enough movies, read enough books, heard
enough girl-talk to know that it could be better than Felix’s three minutes of
pumping and then falling on top of her, breathing hotly on her mouth as he
climaxed.

Somehow, remembering Felix, a puzzle
piece in her head felt as though it had clicked in.
 
Just recalling the way he’d dumped her
unceremoniously one day by Facebook message.
 

He’d been a terrible lay and a boring
boyfriend, and yet she’d stayed with him for years.

Now, here she was in the presence of
greatness, standing near a gorgeous hunk with sex appeal for days, and she was
second-guessing it.

Why?
 
How many better offers did she have at the moment?

None, that was how many.

“Okay,” she sighed, resolved to give
Chase what he wanted—anything he wanted.
 
“I’ll sign.”

Chase’s jaw shifted from side-to-side, as
he looked her over, measuring her.
 
“Don’t make me sorry I did this,” he told her, handing the papers back
to her.

It was funny, Faith thought as she took
the pages and laid them on the table and began signing them.
 
She was the one who would most likely be
sorry for having done it, and yet Chase was acting as though he was the person
taking all the risk.

She didn’t understand any of it, and she
certainly didn’t grasp the legal mumbo jumbo that her eyes glazed over as she
tried to get a sense of what she was even signing.

In the end, Faith simply signed her life
away, knowing that there never had been any choice for her.
 
Sometimes you just wanted something or
someone badly enough that you’d be reckless and crazy in order to have
it—or him.