She cuts me off. “Show me you mean what you’ve offered. I need evidence.”
My brain speeds ahead, trying to figure out if I can have a contract drawn up tonight. I’d drive myself to New Jersey right now to have her sign it if she’d let me put my mouth on her. I’m as eager to taste her p**sy as I am to open my 2005 bottle of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti.
Fortunately, another part of my brain knows to put on the brakes. There’s no rush. I’m giving her this show, and she’ll have plenty of opportunities to thank me for it.
“If you need evidence, then fine. I’ll get you evidence. But I’m telling you now, Brystin—when I call, you answer. When I text, you respond. When I say show me your cunt, you show me your cunt. Plenty of projects get killed in the making. I can end things as easily as I start them. Are we clear?”
I swear her cheeks are flushed when she nods her head. “We’re clear,” she says breathily.
“Good. I’ll get back to you soon.” I hang up before she can say anything. Hang up and then toss my phone aside so I can pull my c**k out of my pants and r*b myself to the fastest orgasm of my life. With nothing but spit on my hand, that’s how worked up I am.
When I’m able to think straight again, I replay our conversation.
Then I laugh.
“Evidence?” I say to the empty room. She wants me to prove myself with some f**king evidence?
That girl has some nerve.
She’s going to be my biggest star.
Either that, or she’ll be my downfall. At least it will be fun trying to figure out which it is.
**********
Brystin POV
**********
Shiloh looks up from the nail she just painted. “And you haven’t heard from him since?”
“Not a peep.” I try not to sound disappointed about Hadrian’s lack of communication. It’s been six days since he called me over FaceTime. I should be relieved.
I wonder if Shiloh can tell that I’m not.
The benefit of having a best friend who professionally does personal cosmetic services means that we have a standing Saturday brunch appointment where she paints my nails and tweezes my eyebrows while we eat carb-heavy delivery food and catch up on our lives. She’s been here for over an hour, and all we’ve talked about is Hadrian.
I’ve been honest and forthcoming about most of what’s happened bet**en us, including the terms of the arrangement he proposed, but I haven’t included all of the ways Hadrian makes me feel. Mainly because it’s confusing. And a little bit embarrassing.
A whole lot embarrassing, and I can’t explain why, even to myself.
“But he’s for sure giving you a show?”
“Elvis’s been in the city all week almost every day in meetings with the SNC programming department. He’s there again today, even. They’re still negotiating details, but he assures me it’s happening, and that I’m still currently the headliner.”
She must hear the doubt in my voice. “You don’t believe it?”
“I don’t know.” I shake my pinky fi**ger where the coating has smeared to get her attention. Then I think more about her question as she fixes it. “It’s funny—if Hadrian had offered us the show that night, I would believe it was a done deal. I know that’s not how the business works. Lots of projects get killed in planning, but I would have believed it because I wanted to believe it so badly.”
“You still want it badly. I know you do.”
“I do. Maybe even more than before. But now I feel like I haven’t earned it yet.” I realize how backward it sounds, and yet there’s no other way to say it.
Shiloh stops painting, her nail brush suspended in midair so she can give me a severe look of disbelief and disappointment. “And you think spreading your legs is how you earn it?”
“I told you I said no to—”
“No penetration. I heard you. But it’s all the same. It’s sex. It’s a man valuing you for your body and not your mind. You get that, right?”
Her words make sense.
Still, I remember Hadrian fully aroused on his horse and what he said. It’s a woman’s brain that gets my c**k hard first.
When I don’t answer right away, she repeats herself. “You get that…right?”
“I do. I get it.” I slide my fi**gers under the drying lamp when she moves to my other hand. “I get it, but I think that’s oversimplifying.”
Her mouth gapes when she glances at me this time. “Oversimplifying? What the f**k, Bryst. He wants you to perform sexual favors in exchange for a contract. How can it be any more complicated than that?”
“It just is.” It’s not enough of an answer, so I scramble to give her more. “You wanted me to sleep with him, at first, remember?”
“Because I want you to get laid by someone other than that dirtbag husband of yours. Not because I wanted you to enter into a deal with a devil.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“Am I?”
“Barely anything has happened bet**en us, so yes. I haven’t had to do anything uncomfortable at all.”
“You shouldn’t have to do anything uncomfortable at all.” She finishes the coating and puts the brush back in the bottle while I change out which hand is under the lamp. “Look, when I suggested you sleep with him, I wanted it for you. For your sexual desires to be met. This is all about him. Then add that he’s requiring this from you in exchange for you getting a job that you deserve—”
“—but I don’t. I haven’t put in my time.”
“Bullshit. That’s him gaslighting you. Sure, it usually takes longer to get a deal like this, but sometimes it doesn’t. If you’re good enough to be considered, then it doesn’t matter how much time you’ve put in.”
I feel my l*ps turn down. I lower my head so she can’t see my thoughts on my exp**ssion. This was what was embarrassing about explaining my feelings. Because everything she says is right and true and accurate, and yet I feel like something else is happening bet**en me and Hadrian. Maybe he hasn’t given me sexual pleasure, but I’ve given it to myself. Every night this week, in fact. That’s how much of a turn-on the whole situation has been for me.
It’s why I’m practically aching for him to reach out again. Not because I want to know what he’s doing to get me the job but because I want him to flirt with me again. Want him to ask me to undress. Want to see him get worked up over our intense connection. Want to watch him explode.
I don’t know how to exp**ss that without sounding like I’m a brainwashed girl with a crush.
Shiloh knows me well enough to get some of that without me saying anything at all. “I just don’t want to see another Elvis situation,” she says, softly.
My head lifts sharply. “Hadrian is nothing like Elvis.”
“He’s not?” She pauses, letting me see the picture she sees. When it’s clear that I don’t, she continues. “A man in a powerful position gives you attention, and you turn it into something more.”
My eyes suddenly sting. I shake my head, refusing to let the hard words affect me. “I see how it sounds the same, but it’s not. I promise. I’m not in love with Hadrian.”
“Not yet.”
I ignore her comment. “I know what we are and that this is all transactional. I know it from the very beginning, which was not the case with Elvis. My eyes are open.”
She still looks skeptical.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.
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