Under Contract Read online

  She gaped at him, flabbergasted that he’d come so close, and he gave her a wry look. “I deal in this kind of thing a lot. I couldn’t help doing the math as you described the various events.”

  “That’s unreal.”

  “I like to think of it as a gift.” He’d backed off the intensity, his teasing grin creating charming crinkles at the corners of his eyes. Surprisingly, it helped that he could say the numbers so matter-of-factly, as if he’d pulled the monster out of the closet and thrust it into the bright light of day, giving it a face.

  “It might be closer to nine—” she tried to match his tone “—less a pretty much irrelevant few thousand.”

  He nodded, looking up and calculating in his head. “So, unless you have amazing interest rates, which people in your situation never do, the interest on the debt is accruing at between 100 and 200K each year.”

  Glancing at her for affirmation, he continued. “Given your miserable severance, your salary wasn’t even enough to keep up with the interest, let alone allow you to cover expenses for you and two adolescent girls or make inroads on the debt principal.”

  “Your math is flawless. Which at least puts it all in black and white, but doesn’t make my options any more appealing.”

  “Yes. It’s not a pretty picture. Even if I could justify hiring you into some position not exactly suited for your qualifications, which would be problematic as I’m not the final word in such things even in my own companies, the salary wouldn’t be enough to dig yourself out of this hole.”

  A crater, she wanted to correct him. An ever-expanding crater of disaster sucking her into its maw, the edges crumbling under her shredded fingertips.

  “In your place I wouldn’t want to file for bankruptcy either. It would be like admitting defeat.”

  She watched a group of pretty young women stroll by, carrying shopping bags and giggling, envying their carefree lives. Ryan didn’t seem to notice them, keeping his unwavering, intent gaze on her. Looking away again, she picked up her purse. Like admitting defeat. Yes. “I’d better go and start working on solutions instead of dwelling on the problem. Thank you for talking me out of my tree.” If nothing else, it had helped to back away from the roiling emotional pit and share the worst of it with someone outside the situation.

  Well, to anyone at all. She hadn’t discussed every financial detail of the whole ugly mess with anyone.

  “Don’t go yet.” Black laid a hand over hers and gave her a long, somber look. “I’d like to propose an alternative.”

  Chapter Three

  Her liquid dark eyes narrowed with suspicion, for which he could hardly blame her. After all, even a part of himself stood back in shock at the audacity, the impropriety of the plan that had sprung full-blown into his mind. A stroke of inspiration, really. He’d never been the sort to let the implausibility of a new idea stop him. In fact, he credited much of his business success to the times he’d followed a path everyone else called insane.

  This would be one of those.

  Working Celestina around to seeing the logic of it would be the real challenge.

  His concept was fraught with social implications and went against all sorts of traditional values. As with presenting any unlikely prospect to a board of directors—in this case, a board of one with total veto power—he’d have to tread carefully. He’d laid the groundwork painstakingly. Though he’d walked through the math with her—always good to verify that you fully understand the details—he’d done it mostly for her sake. In acquiring financially flailing companies, part of the job involved making them face just how dire their situations had become. People had an infinite capacity for hope and denial. In his position, he often represented the hoped-for rescue. As such, it fell to him to first crush their denial so they’d accept the help they so desperately needed.

  Not that he intended to put it in those terms to Celestina.

  That aspect, acquiring Celestina on his terms, played into making his proposal a tricky one. Also exhilarating. Nothing like a risky, and risqué, offer to fire a man’s blood.

  “You already made it clear that hiring me is not a viable option—either as a landscape designer or outside my expertise in one of your firms.”

  “I’m thinking of something more like contract work. Something you’re uniquely qualified to do.”

  Cautious, nervous, she leaned away from him. She’d always been sensitive to nuance, her artist’s sensibilities attuned to the world around her. When they’d worked on the landscape design, she’d seemed to read his mind, pulling the vision from his head. She read him well. Something to both capitalize on and be wary of. “I—I’m not sure what that would be.”

  “I’m asking you to hear me out. That’s all.”

  “Fine. What is your proposal?” She held herself rigid, spine perfectly straight, clearly braced for it. She possessed a noble quality to her posture and he imagined Spanish queens in her ancestry, demanding an explanation in precisely that self-possessed tone.

  “I’ve made it clear that I’m interested in you. Have been since the first time we—”

  “Isn’t the concept of a kept mistress a bit archaic?” she interrupted, color rising though she still didn’t look at him, poised on the edge of her chair to flee.

  “Yes, which is why I’m not suggesting that.” The evenness of his reply calmed her slightly, though she didn’t exactly soften. He waited her out.

  Finally she lifted her fingers in an irritable gesture. “Whatever. Go on.”

  He suppressed a smile at the California girl burr in “whatever”—something she’d surely picked up from her nieces. So different than the accents of his youth. Time to pare down to the bones of the idea, before she could cut him off again.

  “Here’s what I’m suggesting. I’d like to have a sexual affair with you.” He put a hand over hers again, pressing a little to keep her from standing. “Don’t run yet. Hear me out. We’d have very defined boundaries. A contract, as it were. I have certain interests that make it difficult to find willing partners with the right frame of mind and patience to explore them fully with me. You would have absolute power to choose what we engaged in together and I would compensate you accordingly.”

  She yanked her hand away and spun on him—not incidentally putting more space between them with a grate of iron on concrete—eyes black with sparking fury. “We’ve gone from archaic to the oldest profession. I can’t imagine what about me ever made you think I’d prostitute myself.”

  “You’re resorting to labels to make this black and white and it’s not. You have something I need. I have something you need. This is a way for us meet in a mutually beneficial relationship.” Keep it in the realm of reason, not emotion.

  “Oh my God.” She pressed her fingers to her temples and they trembled visibly. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”

  “Stop reacting and take a moment to assimilate without the knee-jerk responses. Forget what other people would call it. This would be a private agreement between us that would allow me to help you financially in a way that your pride can bear.”

  “I think I’d rather file for bankruptcy,” she said to the air, sounding faint and horrified. “It’s execrable that you’d attempt to take advantage of my desperate circumstances this way. I never suspected you would be so base and vile.”

  “Am I really?” he pressed, ignoring the stab of annoyance at the accusation. Base. If she only knew. Still, her reaction was predictable, not founded on any understanding of his history, and needed to be worked through. Much as he wanted to attack in return, he’d refuse to rise to the bait. A hard-won lesson from years past. “I’m willing to give you the money to get yourself out of a very deep hole with no strings attached. I’m also offering you a personal contract whereby you could earn that money—a great deal in a very short time, more than you could any other way
—in scenarios that you choose to agree to or not.”

  “By doing something so wicked any decent person would be horrified to learn of it.”

  “Sometimes being wicked, going against social norms, is reason enough to do something. It’s liberating.”

  “You make it sound so logical.” Her full lips tightened and she leveled a betrayed look at him. “What does a good whore earn these days—fifty dollars for a blow job?”

  “Quite a bit more,” he replied, holding her gaze, “for the high-end call girls.”

  “Of course you’d know.”

  “Paying for sex is far less fraught than dealing with relationships. If I’d followed my first plan, I’d have enticed you into having lunch with me, and then worked my way around to sex, either quickly or slowly depending on how much seduction you needed. At that point, with trust sufficiently established, I’d have tested the waters for kinkier possibilities, all the while investing in the possibility of getting the kind of sex with you I’d most like to have. What I’m suggesting here gets me exactly what I want much faster, with greater certainty and less emotional entanglement, with the added benefit of saving your financial ass.”

  “You’re a cold bastard, aren’t you? You seem so charming on the surface, but this...”

  She had no idea. He absorbed the insult and let it pass through. He’d rattled her, which gave him the advantage. One he pursued with all his cold and ruthless skills. “Let’s say you’re right about that. You’re a beautiful, intelligent woman, Celestina, and I’ve long imagined you have the kind of passion I most enjoy in a lover. I wanted that with you when we met years ago and you weren’t available. I didn’t make any overtures to you then because of that. I think it’s fair to say you never suspected my attraction.”

  “You’re right. It never crossed my mind.” She hurled it at him like an insult, but she couldn’t know that it didn’t surprise him in the least. Most women weren’t attracted to him until he coaxed or lured them in that direction. Another lesson learned long ago.

  “My point is, I hardly spent the last four years pining for you. If we part in the next few minutes and never see each other again, I won’t suffer unrequited affection. Maybe that makes me cold, but you and I have had only a business relationship and are barely more than casual acquaintances. Neither of us owes the other anything. In my mind, I’m not taking advantage of you but rather offering you help that you obviously need.”

  “In return for sex.”

  “In a nutshell.”

  “Kinky sex.”

  “The kinkier, the more valuable to me. Supply and demand.”

  “And you would decide what I’m worth to you.” She sounded mean as she said it, but his business instincts tingled with the certainty that they’d moved into negotiating. Though she might not realize it, she’d stopped rejecting the concept as a whole and had begun picking apart the details. Which meant that, on some level, she was considering at least aspects of the proposal.

  Time to move delicately so as not to crash the deal before they hammered out an agreement. Controlling the zing of triumph at the prospect of both having her at his mercy and at winning such an audacious move, he kept his voice gentle and reasonable.

  “I’m prepared to be generous as this would be a rare opportunity for me. What I have in mind is a living contract, whereby I would suggest the value to me of various sexual acts and scenarios. You could then sort through and choose what you’d be willing to try, according to your personal tolerance compared to the potential rewards—both financial and pleasurable, I should specify—and your sense of adventure.”

  “Adventure?” She cocked her head, startled out of her train of thought by that. Good.

  “Yes.” He let himself lean in a little, looked at her lush mouth and thought of what he’d like her to do with it, willing her to feel his interest. “It would be a kind of game.”

  “A game,” she echoed. Another excellent sign that they’d synchronized, falling into a harmony of understanding. His cock hardened at the prospect that she might actually agree to this.

  “A private one.” He spoke softly so she had to shift closer to hear. “To all appearances, we would be simply dating, as people do. Exclusively. We’d spend time together, with your nieces, if you like. All very aboveboard. You would be able to spend time with them, as I’m sure girls that age need, and you would be able to do what you liked—go back to school. Develop a new expertise. Write that novel you’ve always wanted to.” She didn’t smile at the joke, but she had definitely relaxed somewhat from her rigidly offended posture. “Meanwhile, you would be bringing in the money you need to extract yourself from this financial hell not of your own making, with everything totally under your control. You would decide what you will and will not do. You can choose only what you enjoy.”

  “What if I agreed to something, get into it and don’t enjoy it?”

  Did she realize she’d begun to seriously consider the proposal enough to be adding her own points of negotiation? “We would agree on a code where you could immediately stop something like that,” he answered carefully. No sense triggering her with lingo.

  “Like a safeword.” Ah, but she went there herself. Promising.

  “If you like,” he agreed softly, deliberately caressing her with his voice and gaze. All part of the necessary seduction. “You can trust me to always treat you with great care. I would never want you to feel that you’re in the position of doing something that makes you uncomfortable.”

  “Though I might—if the price tag were high enough.”

  “I think you’re made of sterner stuff than that. But we could put in the contract that it’s null and void at any time either of us wishes it to be and you can either accept a loan from me instead for whatever debt you have left or you can simply walk away, no harm, no foul.”

  “But we’d have penetrative sex.”

  “It would be on the menu, as it were, but you wouldn’t have to agree to it. There’s plenty else I’d love to explore with you without going there. Particularly to begin with. We could work our way up to it.”

  “It would be worth more.”

  “It would depend.” The conversation alone was the most interesting one he’d had with a woman in months. Years. Maybe ever. A kind of sexual intercourse in its own way. “Very kinky non-penetration could be much higher on my list than vanilla penetration. Some things I’d price highly wouldn’t even involve you taking off your clothes.”

  Her eyes flickered. “Like what?” she asked, reluctantly curious.

  “Ropes bind a woman over her clothes just as effectively as with her naked.”

  She processed that, her sensual lips pursed against whatever she wanted to say, an aroused glint in her dark gaze. There she lurked, the passionate woman he’d glimpsed all those years ago, before grief and despair got their hooks into her. Scenting victory, he risked pressing just a bit more.

  “You’d have fun, Celestina. When was the last time you had fun?”

  She flinched, yanking herself back. Too much. Or an unexpected trigger. A risk and he’d nearly blown the deal. Not completely though. She hadn’t walked away from the table.

  Chapter Four

  When was the last time you had fun?

  When was the last time you did something nice, just for you?

  She’d given up thinking the day couldn’t get any worse, and settled on the decided possibility that it would go down in her personal history as, if not the most awful, then certainly the strangest day of her life. God only knew what the universe was trying to tell her with all this. But when she’d dropped the girls off at school this morning, she’d had no idea that, only hours later, she’d be unemployed and sitting with Ryan Black, semi-seriously considering the outlandish and outrageous possibility of having deviant sex with him for money.

  Bec
ause that’s what it came down to, right? He could dress it up in whatever phrasing he liked—because, no doubt he excelled at making the most appalling suggestions sound reasonable—but she’d be trading sex for profit and there were words for that.

  Ugly words.

  He regarded her steadily, gray eyes alert, though his stocky body assumed a relaxed, even indolent pose as he nearly slouched in his chair, hands folded on one knee. He didn’t fool her for a moment. Lions looked lazy, too, until they sprang on the gazelle and gutted it with one swipe. He exuded sensuality the same way a predator communicated menace in the intensity of its gaze. Impossible that she’d totally missed this aspect of him before, as if he’d been undercover somehow, this savage sexuality cloaked under the casual charm of impeccable manners.

  If she were honest with herself, she’d have to admit that this ghastly suggestion tempted her beyond the promise of money, piquing her prurient interest, too. What would be so very outré that he’d pay top dollar for? She’d question why he’d want to bind her with ropes even dressed, but the image of herself trussed like that had gone straight to her gut—but with warming fire instead of the anxiety that had plagued her. So surreal that she’d sat there and discussed penetrative sex with him when she hadn’t had any since Noah and only with one other guy besides him. The wages of marrying young.

  You’d have fun, Celestina.

  Some part of her roused to it. A mischievous, vital part she thought had died with Ara. The young woman she’d been back before they each married, when they’d spent their time on the dance team, gossiping about cute boys and dreaming of their future. Naïve fantasies where they’d marry wealthy, handsome men and their lives would be full of travel, romance and tropical nights of breathtaking pleasure.

  This was how the devil tempted you, with seduction and lies, right? He offers the answer to your prayers and darker desires, then consumes your immortal soul. They’d gradually stopped going to Mass after she and Ara were confirmed. Mostly they’d wanted the dresses and the party and she didn’t really believe in a lot of the Church’s policy, especially toward women. But those old lessons lingered in her mind, whispered in the dry, disapproving voices of the stern-faced nuns.