Jared
The second I hear Marcy’s scream, I hurl myself through the townhouse’s front window. The glass shatters and shards cut my skin, but I don’t give a shit. My woman’s in danger and I need to save her.
Rolling on the ground, I immediately leap to my feet in a defensive position, ready to take all comers. To my horror, the scream wasn’t my imagination. Instead, I’m just in time to see a large oaf slap Marcy, snapping her head back. Then, my woman collapses with pain, her entire body dropping lifelessly to the floor.
The next second, I’m on top of the man. I punch him square in the nose, which sends him reeling backwards.
“What the fuck?” he screams, swiping at the blood gushing down his face. “I just got a nose job, you idiot! Who the fuck are you?” The asshole lunges at me, but I dodge and he stumbles before crashing into the corner like a drunken lout.
“We’re leaving. Now,” I rasp harshly, grabbing Marcy by the arm and pulling her to feet roughly. Then I hustle my woman to the door before yanking t open and stepping out into the cold air. What the fuck was that? Next to me, Marcy’s sobbing, her body shaking uncontrollably. But I don’t let her stop walking. Instead, I lead her around the corner to where I’ve parked my car as she stumbles along beside me.
“Shh, sweetheart,” I rasp. “It’s going to be fine.”
Quickly, I shove her into the passenger seat and then hurry to the driver’s side before locking the doors. Was that idiot dumb enough to follow us? I crane my head around, staring out the windows, but the coast is clear. Good. That loser’s learned his lesson, I hope.
Finally, I turn to my woman.
“Are you okay, sweetheart?” I ask in a low voice. “You’re going to have a bruise on your cheek for sure.” But before she can answer, the anger in my chest begins to rise. “What the hell were you doing there anyways?” I demand, trying to control my rage but failing utterly. “Is this how you spend your nights? By putting yourself in harm’s way?”
Marcy gasps, her brown eyes full of devastation.
“No! How can you even say that? It was just a regular babysitting assignment. Besides, how did you even know where I was?” her tone suspicious through her sniffles now. “It seems odd that you showed up at exactly the right time.”
I turn away, still simmering with rage.
“Because I followed you,” I say curtly. “I’ve been tracking your phone.” I’ve never been in so much emotional turmoil in my life, but I can’t let Marcy know that. Meanwhile, the woman gapes at me.
“What?” she blurts out. “But why? How often?”
I grip the steering wheel until my knuckles hurt. “It’s been going on a while now,” I admit, feeling like a fool. She stares at me again.
“But why?”
I look at the steering wheel, unable to meet her eyes while hating myself.
“I just hate that you’re out there, meeting strange men. I’ve asked you so many times to stop working. To relax, and to focus on us instead. Jesus, to just be with me. But you’re always off doing something with who knows whom, from chatting with seventy year old ladies at the Estee Lauder counter, to engaging with men who assault you. For Christ’s sake, why Marcy? I’ve literally given you tens of thousands of dollars because I want you to stop working. And yet, you refuse to listen. How much money is it going to take? How much before you quit one of these goddamn jobs and just focus on us?” I stare out of the windshield, fuming and hurt.
She looks shocked.
“I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” Marcy says softly.
“Oh really?” I say in a sarcastic tone before sweeping furious eyes at her. “I’ve deposited close to a hundred thousand dollars in your account now. How much do you want?” I rage. “A million before you quit babysitting? A billion before you quit Sanctum? HOW MUCH?!?!?”
Marcy lays a hand gently on my arm. “Jared,” she says my name softly. “Please, it’s not what you think.”
I finally turn my head, and I know that my expression must be filled with pain, because Marcy looks chastened.
“There’s been a misunderstanding,” she reiterates in a soft voice. “I really didn’t see it the way that you do. I figured that you pay for my company, and that was the deal.”
It’s my turn to be dumbstruck. “The deal, right,” I agree. “God, the stupid fucking deal. Of course I pay you! Because I want you to be happy and to relieve some of your stress! Not because I want you to throw yourself into a wolves’ dens only to be attacked. Who the fuck was that guy?”
Marcy looks pained. “It was just a regular babysitting job through Child Mine. Same as always. A new client whom I’d never met, but I had no reason to suspect that he was dangerous.”
“Then why do it?” I scream, making her wince and cover her ears. “Why are you doing this to yourself? Why are you doing this to me? I’ve become an insane person, tracking you on your phone and worrying about your safety 24/7. Do you realize that you’ve made me crazy? I love you so much that it hurts, and now I’ve become an insane person!”
She gasps, a tiny but powerful sound. “What?” Marcy stammers. “You love me?”
“Yes!” I practically howl now. “I’m fucking in love with you, and I’m the biggest idiot of all time because look what this has come down to! I literally just broke into some chump’s townhouse to rescue you from his unwanted advances. What the fucking fuck!”
Marcy begins crying then, and the pain in my heart is so great that I almost keel over in the driver’s seat. Finally, my woman sniffles and swipes at her cheeks.
“I… Jared, I was too scared to quit my jobs,” Marcy finally offers. “The money was having a different effect than you think.”
“What?” I ask, baffled by this information. “A different effect? The whole point was to relieve the burden on your shoulders. I wanted to make your life better by depositing cash in your account.”
She nods slowly.
“Yes, but we never really talked about our relationship, and what it meant to either one of us. I mean, when we first met, you kept going about how you just wanted to have fun. ‘No strings attached,’ I think was the term you used. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s stayed with me in the back of my mind.”
I wince, but don’t say anything, and she continues.
“So yes, NSA right? I was already having feelings for you at that point, but I had to tamp down on them. I didn’t want you to feel like I was going to pressure you into something you weren’t ready for. And then the money seemed like an easy way to keep our relationship transactional.”
“So basically you felt like a whore,” I state in a flat tone. “That’s what getting paid meant to you.”
She thinks for a moment, those pretty features grave.
“Not exactly a whore, but I definitely wasn’t sure that we were going to last. The money made it seem like I was still a girl you’d bought and paid for. So days turned to weeks and weeks to a few months, and the feeling between us began to change, but I didn’t know how to talk to you about it,” she admits in a soft voice. “Thinking back, I should have just brought it up instead of working myself into the ground.”
“You should have,” I state flatly.
She hiccups a little.
“It was hard,” Marcy acknowledges. “But I was afraid to let go of my jobs just in case this whole thing ended in a poof. There were no promises from you, and who knows? Maybe I really was just another girl from Sanctum to be enjoyed for a little while, and then traded in after things got old.”
I stare at her.
“You were never that,” I growl.
She nods.
“I know that now, but up until fifteen minutes ago, I had no idea, Jared. You see, I love you, too, Jared,” she tells me in a breathless rush. “I’ve been in love with you for a long time now, but I couldn’t and I wouldn’t say it out loud. But I’m saying it now.”
I stare into those big brown eyes, a lump in my throat. This young woman is so earnest, beautiful, and tender at once. And to think we were almost done in by the root of all evils: money. God, if I could only re-do that part of our relationship all over again.
With a low growl, I pull the curvy woman towards me and kiss her, fully, passionately, and achingly. Marcy’s lips in return are tender, loving, and promising, and when we finally pull away from each other, we’re both breathless.
“I can’t believe I was such a fool about trying to pay you,” I rasp. “All I wanted to do was take care of you, sweetheart. I never thought how it would look from a different point of view.”
Marcy merely strokes my strong jaw and stares into my eyes.
“I know. It’s silly how if we’d both just taken a moment to talk, we would have realized we were on the same page much sooner and skipped all this hullabaloo.”
I nod.
“But I’m serious baby,” I rasp. “You don’t have to worry about finances ever again, sweetheart. I’m taking care of you because you belong to me. You’re mine.”
To my surprise, Marcy looks into my eyes, that chocolate gaze soft, and nods.
“I’m yours, Jared. Always.”
And with full hearts, we begin the next chapter of our lives together because this is how things were meant to be. Our stars were crossed at first because of diverging viewpoints on how she was being treated. But all along, I’ve only wanted to care for the curvy girl, and now that she understands my true motivations, we’ve worked it out. After all, a good woman is worth her weight in gold, and Marcy is much more than that. Maybe in the beginning she was bought and paid for, but as the man who adores her, I’ve always been more than happy to pay the price.