Page 67 of Auctioned to the Billionaire Bodyguard

I nodded.

“That why you got that boyfriend with a patch over his eye?”

I could almost imagine Reynolds’ laughter if he was listening right now. “Yeah. It’s pretty hot.”

“I could’ve done that, Jess. Worn a patch, I mean. If that’s what it would’ve taken to keep you.”

I sighed. I hated it when he said sweet-ish things. It used to give me this sense of hope, thinking that he was really a great guy deep down. He wasn’t. He would say those sweet things and then kill a guy, or fuck a sweetbutt right where I could see, or sell some poor woman into trafficking.

He couldn’t fool me any longer. I knewexactlywho he was. But I had to pretend that I didn’t. It could save my life.

“That would’ve been cool.”

“Yeah?”

I nodded. “I, um, like pirates a lot.” I didn’t. All I could picture was some old fat guy with a grizzled beard, gold teeth, and a wooden leg.

No, that didn’t do it for me.

“Maybe you should go look for that gold,” I suggested. “I could help.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Why do you want the gold?”

“To help my mom. And it would be really freaking cool, don’t you think? To find pirate gold?” Maybe I could push him onto some sharp rocks or something if we walked around the cave entrances.

“Nah.” He got a strange look on his face. “We don’t need gold anyway.”

A cold feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. “What do you mean?”

“We won’t be here to cash it in or anything.”

Shit. Shit. Shit. “Why not? Where will we be? California? You always said you wanted to go there, and…”

He threw a flashlight at me. It crashed into the cave wall right beside my head before falling to the ground in pieces. “Shut up! Quit trying to act like you want to be with me.”

I shut my eyes and tried not to shake. He was getting violent. I’d seen him like this so many times. The memories of what he’d do to the men and women around him were too horrifying to think about.

He’d never hurt me badly before, but there was a first time for everything.

“But I do want to be with you! Those people kidnapped me and made me go with them. I was trying to get away from them to find my way back to you.”

“Bullshit!” he screamed, standing up. His face was getting red. “I saw the way you looked at that guy all the time. You never once looked at me like that. God! Don’t you see what you’re doing? You’re making me all mad, Jess! You know that’s bad, so stop it.”

“Sorry.” I cringed. Too late, I remembered he also hated people who were meek and apologized for everything. I was always walking on eggshells around this man. I couldn’t believe I’d survived five years in his presence.

“Don’t fucking say you’re sorry! You don’t even mean it,” he strode over and jerked me up off the bench-like outcropping. “You were happy with that guy. I saw you. I’ve been watching you everywhere you went. He kept a good eye on you, like a bodyguard.” He studied my face as he held me tightly by my upper arms, my feet dangling off the floor. He was more than a foot taller than I was and so strong it was scary. “That what he is?”

“He, um, works in security,” I barely managed to get the words out before he threw me on the floor. I crashed back against the hard rock wall of the cave, my head thudding hard before stars exploded in front of my eyes.

That’s the last thing I saw.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Byron

I knew things had gone very wrong when I heard the screams. I had just put the beautifully wrapped box from the jewelry store in my pocket when they started.

“Fuck.” My training immediately kicked in, and I sprinted to the spa. I barely slowed to evade cars as I crossed the street. I knew Reynolds was behind me because I could hear the car horns blaring. I reached for the door and swung it open without breaking stride.