do.
He looks up from his paperwork and if I thought his dark eyes were captivating and terrifying in the moonlight—Jesus. That was nothing compared to the glow of the fire. “You’re early,” he comments.
“I missed you.” I pretend my knees aren’t quaking and go to sit down at one of the chairs by his desk and run my fingers over the elegant curve of the arms. Another surprise—it’s not a hellishly uncomfortable seat. Or at least it wouldn’t be, if I didn’t have to sit up so straight, and on the very edge. “We were having an interesting conversation.”
Amusement lights his eyes, but the laugh he lets out is harsh. “Yes. It’s always entertaining to watch Constantines squirm.”
My face goes hot. “I love my dad. That’s why I’m here.”
He gives a dismissive wave of his pen. “No need for theatrics, Haley. Tell me what you’re offering so we can get on with this.”
“Name your price.” My pulse is too big for my body, my breath too shallow. “I’ll do what it takes to get him out of that contract.”
Leo scoffs. “You’ll do what it takes? I don’t think you can, sweetheart. I stand to make a fortune off your father and humiliate the entire Constantine line. That’s a win-win situation for me.” He tosses the pen down, bored. “And I can have any woman. You’re not the worst I’ve come across, but special? No.” His eyes follow the neckline of the dress. “You’ve got decent tits. A nice size. Big enough to tit fuck, but I’ve seen better. You have pretty thighs, at least from what I can see in that dress, but nothing to write home about.”
I want to burst into a cloud of ash and disappear into the fire. “I’ll do anything.”
He narrows his eyes and points at his cell phone, perched there on the desk. “There are a hundred women who’d get on their knees and suck my cock if I called them right now. I’m Leo fucking Morelli. Who are you?”
Compared to him? Nothing. I don’t have anything to give him except myself. But if I let myself shrink, if I let myself cower, then I lose. I lift my chin. “Is that what you want? For me to suck your cock? For me to get on my knees?”
Forget college. Forget exams. This is the real test, and I’m going to pass it by surviving this moment, this awful, tense moment. Leo Morelli could demand that I get down on my knees on his plush carpet and let him fuck my mouth. He could, and I would do it, and the possibility is worse than the demanding.
Waiting is a knife to soft skin, and he knows it.
That’s why he lets that smile slip slowly over his face so I can see his perfect teeth. Leo Morelli knows that he is devastating to look at, so beautiful it hurts, and he also knows that I can’t stop looking at him or he will have won everything.
“No, darling. For what you’re asking, it’s going to cost a lot more than a blowjob. You, in my bed. For a month. That’s the deal.”
Relief twists itself up with fresh embarrassment. Thirty days of Leo Morelli is a lifetime. An eternity of his voice, confirming my worst fears—that I’m nothing to write home about and never will be. That I’ll always be on the outside of my own family. That I’ll always be marked by this deal with him, forever and ever, even if I can convince him to keep it a secret.
I don’t let the tears show. I don’t let my chin quiver. I grit my teeth to keep myself steady and upright. “I’ll stay with you a month, and you’ll let my father go?”
His cruel eyes test me again, lingering on my face, on my chest, on my throat. A new terror pulls goose bumps from my skin. He could still decide not to go through with it. Send me out of here with a single word to the men outside. Dismiss me, and hurt my father, and ruin everything.
“God as my witness,” he says, the words deliberate. “I’ll let him go.”
7
Haley
“Then we have a deal.” My voice shakes a little, but I pretend it didn’t. I pretend I’m a businesswoman making a business deal and I am not afraid at all of what it means to be in Leo Morelli’s bed for a month. “Is there something for me to sign?”
Leo’s mouth curves upward in a slash of