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Whom I was going to see.
Shame washed through me. I wasn’t proud of the fact that I’d been willing to sell my body for money. To do so to get away from him.
The SUV was driven by someone I didn’t recognize, and it didn’t take us the opposite direction toward the house. It kept going, deeper into the city. The ride was eerily silent, but I could feel the rage rolling off Romero in palpable waves.
My mouth opened to speak several times. But I had no idea what to say, and I knew he didn’t want to hear anything from me right now. Not in this car. Drops of rain began to fall from the sky like silent tears I wouldn’t shed.
The vehicle finally stopped in front of a massively tall building, and Romero opened the door, pulling me unceremoniously from the backseat. I scuffed my toes several times trying to keep up with his obnoxious pace.
If I’d thought anyone we passed would have shown even a modicum of concern for the girl being dragged by the viciously angry man, I was sorely mistaken. They kept their heads down, gazes averted in some act of submission that I didn’t understand.
He stopped in front of the elevator and jammed the button that called the elevator down to the ground floor. His grip on me was so tight, I lost feeling in my fingers. I squirmed in vain, only managing to make it worse.
When the silver door slid wide open, we stepped into the elevator, and at last he released me when the doors shut. I was trapped in a tiny space, alone with Romero, who looked like a bomb with a lit fuse. It was only a matter of when he’d detonate—and what would become of us both when he did. I watched the light flicker from floor to floor going up to the top, and my brows furrowed. Is this where he works?
Too soon, we reached the top floor. The doors opened to reveal a wide space. A desk sat right in front, a beautiful woman rising from behind it to look at us. Romero didn’t acknowledge her; he grabbed my wrist again, pulling me toward another door.
“I can walk just fine on my own,” I snapped, though I knew I shouldn’t have.
He shot me a look that would have made grown men cower, but I refused to be afraid of him.
A key card was swiped through the slot on the right, and the door beeped with a tiny green light above the handle. He turned it, thrusting me inside first, and I stumbled.
My fear gave way to awe at the massive office in front of me. Beyond a long table, a window gave the perfect view of the city below. Rolling hills bordered the town in the background. The sun painted the shallow peaks in swaths of gold and orange light—the start of its descent into night.
“Put your hands on the desk,” Romero ordered from behind me. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
I glanced at him over my shoulder, just as he began to undo his belt.
“Um, what the fuck are you doing?” I asked, incredulous.
His dark eyes whipped up to meet mine. “Put your hands on the desk, Julietta.” He slid the belt free, folding it over in his hand.
I hesitated. Swallowing hard, I walked over to the expansive, wooden desk and placed my palms flat on the cool surface.
My heart beat furiously. Without hearing him move, I suddenly felt his hot breath on my bare shoulder. “How much did he offer you to leave me?” His voice was gravelly and so low I almost mistook his words.
I tried to turn, but his hand gripped the back of my neck, hard. My breaths came out harder, as though I had to fight for air.
“He wasn’t paying me to leave you,” I said.
His nose brushed the shell of my ear. “Don’t fucking lie to me.”
I licked my lips and sucked in a lungful of air. “Twelve million. But I only accepted because you took the five hundred thousand from me.”
The sound of the belt crashing against the solid wood made me jump, but his hand held me in place.
“I didn’t take it away from you. I put it in an account that will allow you access once you’ve finished school and you have a better idea of what the hell you want to do with your life.”
I couldn’t help it. I wriggled, trying to twist free, but his fingers tightened their hold. “I know what I want to do,” I snapped. “I want to move the fuck out of your house and get myself a car with money that I rightfully earned.”
Romero barked a harsh laugh. “You think sucking a fucking slab of silicone earns you half a million dollars, Julietta? Do you know what you’d have to do in the real world to earn that?”
I gritted my teeth. “Yes, I do.”
His nose nuzzled through my curtain of hair until he brushed against the column of my neck, just above his fingers. His hand nearly covered it all, save for a sliver. “You have no fucking clue, niña.” He straightened, his tone changed into something harder. “Keep your hands on the desk and don’t move them until I tell you to.”
“If you think you can spank me for disobeying you then it’s you that has no fucking clue—”
