DEBT Read online

  Make yourself at home?

  Make yourself at home?

  I paused for all of three seconds to ponder how uncharacteristic that request sounded from his lips before I flew across the hall, kicking out of my shoes and making a bee-line for the bathroom. I had managed a quick pee break while fetching his coffee once that afternoon, but had been holding my bladder since then. I stripped out of the obnoxious, binding clothes and threw on my own normal, cute cotton panties, a pair of silk sleep shorts and an oversize navy long-sleeve Disney tee and stuck my head out into the hallway, listening for any sounds. Hearing nothing, I tiptoe-ran down the hallway, the stairs, and into the kitchen.

  The main floor I found completely abandoned, as if the other employees actually had some kind of schedule and weren't on call at all times as I was apparently. I could make out the guards out front when I passed the front doors, but, well, he was rich. That was to be expected. I quickly rummaged around the kitchen, making myself a sandwich and locating a box of granola bars in the kitchen, snagging two and a bottle of water. I figured I could, I dunno, stick a granola bar into my bra or skirt the next day in case of another full day without being given a food break.

  I was moving out into the hallway when I heard the click of heels on the floor, accompanied by the slap of bare feet and I slunk back into the kitchen, shamelessly eavesdropping.

  "Come on, Byron. Don't be such a dick," the woman said and I saluted her with my sandwich. She was right there; he was a dick alright.

  "One and done, Lyla," was Byron's typical douchbaggy response.

  One and done?

  Seriously... who said that to a woman?

  Even if it was true.

  Well, I guess you had to respect a man who was upfront about being an asshole and didn't do the 'I'll call' thing that you knew he didn't mean but waited for your cell to ring anyway.

  "It was good," Lyla insisted,pathetic pleading clear in her tone.

  "Not denying that."

  "And you still don't want a repeat..."

  "I think I've made myself clear. Have a nice night, Lyla," he said and I heard the door swing open. I shoved the last of my sandwich in my mouth, chewing as I listened to Lyla's heels drift off into the night and the door close and lock. "You can come out now, Miss. Marlow," his voice called, making my heart fly up into my throat, making the food I was swallowing feel chalky and gross as it slid down. I raised my water and took a swig, forcing myself to move out into the hallway. I'd be damned if I let him think I was too chickenshit to face him just because I was eavesdropping.

  As soon as I rounded the corner into the foyer, I saw him standing on the bottom stair, arm on the railing, obviously waiting for me to emerge. When I did, his gaze dipped, doing a slow inspection from my bare feet and all the way up to my head where I had piled my hair in a messy top-knot. His lips actually twitched for a second before they settled into their typical straight line as his eyes pinned mine. "Seriously? That's what you wear?"

  I felt the immediate urge to shrink away, to drop my shoulders, to somehow feel ashamed of myself. But I pushed that away and put my chin up. "I have no one to impress," I said pointedly, eyes daring him to say otherwise, to remind me that I was told that I was supposed to wear my uniform under my clothes even when off-duty, to, well, be the jackass I expected.

  But all I got was a shrug. "Fair enough. You'll be in my room at seven a.m., Miss. Marlow," he said, turning and moving up the stairs.

  I took a deep breath then followed up the stairs, making sure to keep more than half the staircase then half the hall between us at all times. I locked my door and set the alarm on the dresser before climbing into bed.

  I fell asleep wondering what the hell the next day would have in store for me.

  FOUR

  Prue

  The alarm startled me awake, making me shoot up in the unfamiliar bed in the unfamiliar room and it took my sleep-sated brain a long minute to realize where I was and what had woken me up. Alert, I scrambled off the bed and ran across the room to hit the snooze button before turning the alarm off. I stood there for a long minute, hand over my heart as I tried to settle my frazzled nerves.

  "Great way to start a shitty day," I told my reflection in the mirror over the dresser, taking in the pillow marks on my cheek and the sleep in my eyes. "Alright, you can do this," I told myself, going to the closet to grab another 'uniform' out of the box and heading into the bathroom for a quick shower. I climbed into my clothes, making sure I tucked in my shirt, raked a brush through my hair, and decided that was just going to have to do as I didn't have a blow dryer and I didn't have the time to let it air dry.

  At five to seven, I walked into the hall and knocked on Byron's bedroom door, listening for a response. Hearing none, I paused, uncertain what the protocol was. I was pretty sure I wasn't supposed to just go into his room without permission, but he had said the night before that I was to be in his room at seven in the morning. With a shrug, I pulled the door open and stepped inside.

  "Mr. St. James?" I called as I walked in, taking in the mussed-up sheets.

  "In here," he called from the bathroom and I followed, rolling my eyes, wondering what menial task he had planned for me. Cutting his toenails perhaps? I stopped dead inside the door though, my entire body going ramrod straight.

  Shit.

  Okay.

  There was no way he meant for me to follow him into the bathroom.

  No.

  He was just telling me where he was.

  I wasn't supposed to come.

  I knew that because as I walked in, I saw him standing in his shower bay, under the steaming spray. Naked. Yes, naked. But more so than that, his hand was wrapped around his hard cock and he was stroking it.

  Jesus.

  Alright. I needed to quietly and slowly enough to not draw attention to the motion, back the hell right out of that room before he saw me.

  "Don't," his voice called as soon as I moved one foot backward. I froze, my pulse pounding hard in unusual places: wrists, throat, and, um... another place.

  "Sorry, I, ah .... I'll go," I said, dropping my head to look at the floor, squeezing my eyes so tight that it hurt.

  "Miss. Marlow," his voice called, a little rough, a little sex-raspy. And the sound had a physical effect. Crap. Crap crap crap. "Eyes up," he commanded and I felt my head shaking since, one, I didn't hear the water shut off so he was still under the spray, and two, I was pretty sure my cheeks were beet freaking red. "Eyes now, Miss. Marlow," he snapped in such a cruel tone that my head jerked up and my eyes opened. As I had expected, he was still in the shower, under the spray, naked, his hand still around his cock. The only difference was, his eyes were on me. They were heavier than usual but just as intense as ever. "Right there, like that. You move, you blink, and I am having one of my men go find your father."

  The deadness in his voice forced a cold sliver up into my heart and I knew, I just knew he meant that.

  If I didn't stand there and watch him jerk-off, he was going to round up my father and either hurt or kill him.

  It was the first time I felt real, genuine fear with regard to him since I moved into his house. Sure, he was an asshole one-hundred and ten percent of the time, but he hadn't out and out scared me like he had with the gun incident two days before. I had almost forgotten how dangerous he really was. But he was a man who was equally happy killing a man or taking his daughter as a... slave? Servant? Whatever I was. Normal, sane, safe people didn't do things like that. So that made him abnormal, crazy, and incredibly dangerous.

  It was right that second that I realized how jolly well fucked I was in the whole situation. I understood why my father wanted to run away, why he was so hellbent on getting me away.

  He knew what I was just finding out.

  He knew that I had just become property. That I belonged to Byron St. James.

  And if I didn't mind my p's and q's, there was no telling what could happen.
r />   I felt my lower lip tremble and I bit into it as I fought the sting of tears at the backs of my eyes.

  "Understood?" he barked and I jerked my head in a tight nod.

  He looked back at the shower wall, no doubt having no worry that I would disobey his command, and continued working his hand on himself, his rhythm getting faster, rougher, almost violent as his toned, perfect body went taut. His fist slammed hard into the wall, making me jump as I watched his body jerk as he came.

  He stood there for another minute, deep-breathing, then rinsing off before he shut off the water and wrapped a towel around his waist, not bothering to dry off and just dripping water all across his bathroom floor as he made his way toward me.

  I felt myself frozen in place, every inch of my body tight and ready to flinch away as if he might pounce. He came right up in front of me, his mostly-naked body radiating heat and it made me do a full-body shiver against the coolness I felt inside. His head tilted slightly, his hand raising. His thumb moved out, stroking across my cheek, catching a stray tear I hadn't realized slipped over. Then his hand dropped just as quickly and he moved away and into his bedroom.

  I swallowed hard, collapsing back against the wall, bringing a hand up to my slamming heart and trying to take a few deep breaths and remind myself that Byron, for all his faults, had made a promise to my father and me.

  He wasn't going to hurt me... like that.

  He wasn't going to put his hands on me.

  He wasn't going to force himself on me.

  But I was just starting to realize that there was something to be said for emotional and psychological abuse being just as bad as physical.

  Because the only thing I had that mattered in my boring, sometimes shitty life... was my father.

  And he literally held his life in his hands.

  And he wouldn't stop using that fact against me, to get me to heel, to keep me submissive.

  There was nothing I could do about it either.

  I closed my eyes tight, feeling another couple tears slip out as Byron's voice barked, "Sheets, Miss. Marlow. Then coffee." In the bathroom, I nodded a little frantically even though I knew he couldn't see me. "Understood?"

  I swallowed hard, not wanting him to hear the tears in my voice. "Yes," I called back, but even to my own ears, it sounded wobbly.

  There was a pause before he moved away, closing the bedroom door with a quiet click.

  I straightened, wiping my cheeks, then moving over to the sink, splashing cold water on my face.

  It was okay.

  I could cry. I could purge it out. I was going to allow that so I didn't implode.

  But I was going to keep my big-girl panties on and do that shit at night, after my shift ended, in the privacy of my own bathroom. Then, like any self-respecting woman, I was going to put a cold compress on my eyes to erase all traces of it, then move the fuck on with my life.

  I was not going to break down in front of Byron St. James again.

  I was not going to be a meek, shrinking violet.

  I was going to put my chin up, throw my shoulders back, do my job, and not let him break me.

  With that, I went into his bedroom and reached for the sheets, grabbing them at the very ends and folding them in toward the center. I knew what happened on them the night before, ya know, seeing as I heard it and all. And, well, I wasn't touching Byron's or Lyla's dried bodily fluids. Nope. No way. With that, I gathered the pile, as well as the clothes in the laundry basket in the bathroom, and the towel he had carelessly thrown on the floor, and headed down the stairs to find someone who could tell me where the laundry room was. You know, like one of the three maids he employed to do things like the laundry.

  "What the fuck are you wearing?" I heard said from behind me as I rounded out of the kitchen where the cook told me to go out, take a right, and go into the next room on the left.

  I turned with a sigh at being interrupted, knowing Byron was going to give me one of those looks when I showed up with his coffee. Like I was late. Even though he didn't exactly give me a set coffee-drinking schedule. The question came from, what I imagined, was one of Byron's men. He was in his late twenties or early thirties with dark hair and eyes, dressed in the requisite suit all his men seemed to wear, his in gray and it was tailored perfectly over his fit, though somewhat slim, body.

  "My uniform," I snapped, turning away from him and making my way to the door the cook, Ella, had directed me to.

  I had just pulled the lid open on the washing machine when I saw the same man move in beside me, head tilted, looking me up and down. "Your uniform?" he repeated, dubiously.

  "Yes. If you have a problem with it, please bring it up to your employer. My objections obviously fell on deaf and very stubborn ears."

  "Byron is making you dress like a high-class hooker?"

  "I guess it's better than a streetwalker," I mused, reaching for the detergent and pouring it into the filling machine. I turned over my shoulder to see him still watching me, brows pulled together. "Is this really surprising? He's an asshole."

  "You think he's an asshole?"

  "You don't?" I asked, turning fully to him, shaking my head.

  "He's one of the nicest men I know," the guy said with a shrug.

  Nice?

  Nice?

  "Last night he made me listen to him have sex with a woman who he told directly after sex that he was a 'one and done' guy."

  "Hey, at least he's honest. Have you talked to his other employees? I'm pretty sure they'd only have kind words to say."

  "Then brainwashing must have been part of their training," I grumbled, closing the machine and moving toward the door. "If you'll excuse me, I have to get his coffee. Apparently his legs would fall off if he had to go get his own."

  "Sweetheart," the man called and I stopped, turning with a brow raise. "I'm his meeting. Figure I'll save you the extra trip. I'll take mine with cream, no sugar."

  "Right," I said, nodding and going into the kitchen. He really would save me a trip. I was sure Byron had purposely left out that he had a meeting just so he could force me to go get him coffee again.

  Two minutes later, I let myself in the slightly ajar office door, handing the coffee with cream to Byron's guest and then making a big show of placing down Byron's mug carefully as not to spill a single drop. When I looked at his face, if I wasn't completely mistaken, there was a hint of humor in his eyes and around his mouth.

  "I didn't catch your name, sweetheart," the man said in a strange tone I couldn't decipher as I moved to go back around the desk toward the door.

  "Prudence," Byron barked as I opened my mouth to respond.

  "Prue," I corrected, giving him a soft smile.

  "Aaron Day," he said, extending his free hand toward me and I reached for it a little awkwardly, absolutely certain Byron was watching the whole interaction and looking for something to use against me at a later time. "I run the security at Mandy's."

  "Mandy's?" I repeated, smiling a little.

  "Byron's casino," he supplied and I felt the smile fall as I let go of Aaron's hand.

  Byron's casino?

  His... casino?

  He was a loan shark who owned a casino?

  What a freaking asshole.

  I turned to look at Byron's face which was a cool mask again, his eyes daring me to say something.

  "Have you ever been?" Aaron asked in that strange tone, drawing my attention back to him.

  Had I ever been to Mandy's? Oh, only about a couple hundred times whenever I tracked my father down there over the years. It was his favorite casino. He liked the atmosphere and the selection of games. It was a massive, gorgeous building on the main strip in A.C. There wasn't too much to write home about on the outside, nothing flashy, nothing eye-grabbing. The inside, though, was where it was at. Whereas many of the casinos had gone through a ton of upgrades over the years, recently leaning toward minimalist and streamlined, a little cold, M
andy's was like stepping back in time. It was a place you half-expected to see Sinatra and Crosby hanging out, smoking cigars, sipping gin, and playing craps, gorgeous women at their sides to blow on their dice.

  The interior was low-lit with dark woods, deep reds, and lush creams. Each time I had been there, it had been immaculate and full of men in suits and women in dresses and heels. No lowlife, down-on-their-luck gamblers in sight.

  Save for my father.

  But he never looked the part.

  He was always in a suit as well. He always fit in with the men with deep pockets.

  I guessed that was why he was always getting into such huge sums of debt.

  "I don't gamble," I answered honestly, avoiding the question and directing my answer at Byron.

  "Never?" Aaron asked, sounding shocked. We did, after all, live in one of the gambling capitals of the States.

  "Not even a scratch-off or guessing how many jelly beans in a jar at a county fair," I told Aaron, giving him a smile that I knew came off a little sad. "Have a good meeting," I told Aaron and excused myself from the room.

  I walked back to the laundry room to wait for the cycle to finish, munching on the granola bar I had tucked into my skirt, and thinking over what I had just learned.

  Byron St. James owned Mandy's.

  That was how he knew my father.

  That was why my father seemed to know him so well.

  And the bastard to rule all bastards preyed on the gamblers in his casino who were down on their luck.

  Like my father.

  So, yeah, technically, he had loaned my dad over a quarter million. But I was sure my dad sank it right back into Mandy's and, therefore, Byron's pockets.

  That was just lovely.

  FIVE

  Byron

  The first time I had seen Prudence Marlow, I was twenty-seven years old, the same age she was as she stomped around my house in the heels she made it perfectly clear she hated. She had been sixteen and trying to get into Mandy's with a fake ID At the time, my uncle was still around and running the casino, doing so with an iron fist and all-seeing eye. So when the ID got scanned and came up fake, though it would have passed a visual inspection in a heartbeat it was so well done, Uncle John was made aware.