“It doesn’t matter. This is over.”
“What’s over?”
“This. Our arrangement.” He took my hand and led me back out through the curtain, through the club and into the hallway of back offices.
He pulled me into the room I’d been in earlier, the room where I’d done my audition. As soon as I saw it – the pole in the middle, the big chairs set up – it came back to me. How close Colt and I had come to kissing, his lips inches from mine, his hands on my body, guiding my hips, instructing me to undress.
“Sit down,” Colt demanded.
I sat down in one of the big leather chairs, sinking back into the supple fabric.
He crossed the room to a small refrigerator in a corner, pulled out a bottle of water and handed it to me. “Drink,” he instructed.
“I’m not thirsty.”
“Drink.”
I took a sip.
A second later, he took off the black sweater he was wearing and draped it over my shoulders. “We’re done,” he said. “We’re not doing this anymore.”
“What?”
“We’re not doing this anymore. The deal is off.”
“The deal is off because some guys grabbed at my ass?” I shook my head. “Wow, Colt, I didn’t peg you for a quitter.”
“A quitter?” he raged. “Are you insane? This isn’t about quitting, Olivia, this is about making sure you stay safe.”
“I am safe!”
“You’re not.”
“Yeah, well, I was until Jessa decided to send me back to the wolves,” I muttered, taking another sip of my water. A rage was building up inside of me, the kind of rage that made me want to run out there and slap her in the face. It wasn’t fair. She hated me because she had a thing with Colt, and she was ruining my chance to find Declan.
Colt shook his head. “Jessa wouldn’t have done that,” he said.
“Whatever.”
“We’re going home.”
“What?”
“We’re leaving. Me and you. I’m taking you home.”
He left the room and returned a few moments later with my clothes and my bag. I was angry. Angry at Jessa, angry at Colt, angry at myself for thinking that maybe something was going to go my way for once, that maybe someone was going to help me.
“No,” I said, acting like a baby and not caring. I sunk down in the chair and crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Yes, you are. Come on.”
“You can’t make me.” It was maybe the most ridiculous thing I’d said in my life, but I didn’t care.
“Actually, I can,” he said. “I own this club and if you don’t get the hell out of it, I’ll call the cops and have you arrested for trespassing.”
“Perfect,” I said. “That’s actually great, because I want to talk to the cops. I want to tell them about the girl that was here earlier, the one with a jacked up face and a chunk of her hair cut off. The one everyone is just pretending doesn’t exist, even though I saw her. And then I’ll mention the track marks on Jessa’s arms. I’m sure they’ll be interested in figuring out how she got them.”
“Wow,” he said, shaking his head. “You are something else, you know that? Here I am, trying to be a nice guy by offering to find some asshole for you, a guy who doesn’t even give enough of a shit about you to bother giving you a phone number or an email or a fucking address before he just takes off, and now you’re giving me shit because I’m trying to keep you safe.”
“Oh, please!” I said. “You aren’t trying to keep me safe! You’re trying to keep your club protected. And you weren’t being nice by giving me a job, you wanted something out of it. Which you still won’t tell me! So if anyone was being nice to anyone, it was me being nice to you.”
“Please,” Colt said. “I was doing you a favor and you know it. That audition you gave me earlier? It was pathetic.”
“And yet you still wanted to fuck me,” I said.
He looked taken aback for a moment, as if he couldn’t believe those words were coming out of my mouth. I could barely believe it.
“Listen, Princess,” he said. “If I wanted to fuck you, I could have fucked you.”
“Yeah?” I said. “Try it.”
I was blazing mad now, so mad that I felt like there was a fireball inside of me, just waiting to explode.
Colt crossed the room in two long strides, pushed the chair I was on back into a reclining position and