I punched numbers on my phone until I finally reached Alvin, my assistant.
“Where are you?” he questioned. “I’ve got the consultants from Senora Enterprises waiting, and I’m not sure how much longer I can hold them off with playful banter.”
“Cancel the meeting,” I said. “Tell them I was in a car accident, and I’m on my way to the hospital.”
“Jesus, Sawyer, are you serious?” I scowled at the paramedic trying to wrap one of those stupid blood-pressure cuffs over my arm. Did I look like I was injured? All I needed was for my face to be plastered all over the local paper…again. The one day I decided to shrug off reclusivity and come into town for this god-awful meeting I needed to attend, and I end up with a coffee plastered suit and a totaled Aston Martin.
Fuck.
“No, I feel like playing a practical joke,” I hissed into the phone, wanting to reach in and throttle him with my bare hands.
He sighed. “Are you okay?”
“Besides my car being totaled and my suit wrecked?” I twisted my neck, ignoring the pain when I moved, and my aching temples. “I’m fine.”
“I’ll be there within the hour,” he said.
“Don’t bother. Reschedule the meeting.” I ended the call and slammed my phone into my pocket. The young paramedic, a boy with hair cut so short he looked like he was prepared to enlist in the army, looked up at me with wide eyes.
“Just need to get your pulse, Mister Gryffin,” he said, putting two fingers on my wrist.
I merely stared, not deigning to dignify the aggravation with a response.
His eyebrows shot up, and he entered something into the tablet on his lap. “Your blood pressure is high, but all other vitals appear clear. You seem to be mostly unscathed, Mister Gryffin,” he said. “But we should double-check signs of concussion at the hospital.”
“Fine,” I growled, stone facing him into silence as he waved a light in my eyes, and without thinking, I swatted his hand away. Good. Nothing like a growl or show of temper to get people to shut the fuck up.
We pulled into the parking lot of the hospital, as I allowed them to take me into the ER, noting the ambulance carrying the girl and her mother pulled in right next to us.
I still could not believe she’d allow her mother to be driving unaccompanied. Her mother, clearly mentally unstable, was a menace to society.
As the doors to the hospital opened, they pushed me inside, followed by the girl and her mother. The girl wouldn’t make eye contact with me. Who could blame her? But as I did my best to make her squirm under my penetrating glare, I looked her over. She was a bit odd, but… beautiful. I began to think of a way I could make this all very much worth my while.
The night was growing dark now. I waited impatiently for my paperwork so I could be released, when a tentative knock came at the door.
“Come in,” I barked, expecting the third nurse to come in to take my blood pressure for the umpteenth time, but to my surprise, the small brunette who’d spilled coffee all over me stepped into the room. Her huge brown eyes were wide and fearful, which pleased me.
I liked people being afraid of me.
“What do you want?” I asked, my teeth clenching. I wanted to be home, not talking to the girl yet.
“I wanted to apologize,” she began, her hands clasped in front of her. She still wore her diner uniform and her nametag.
Annabelle.
“You ought to apologize,” I snapped. “First, for ruining a perfectly good suit and second, for allowing your mother to roam the streets unaccompanied. She could’ve hurt someone, or herself.”
“I know,” she began, her eyes pleading with me to understand.
Fuck understanding.
“But if you’d only listen to me. First, bumping into you this morning was an accident, and I already offered to pay —”
“If you were paying attention, you wouldn’t have bumped into me.”
Her eyes now flashed at me in anger. “I already apologized for that. Will you let me continue, or do you intend on interrupting me for the remainder of our conversation?”
I eyed her thoughtfully. She had spunk, this one. I was used to people cowering when I spoke to them, skirting away when I entered the room. Not this girl, however. And her formal trick of speech was oddly…attractive. I leaned against an examination table pushed up against the wall and crossed my arms.
“Go on, Annabelle,” I stated. “You have one minute.”
She started, and my eyes dipped to her name tag. She looked down and groaned, then took it off as she talked.
“My sister was supposed to be supervising my mother, who is not supposed to be driving, but she snuck the car keys and went out anyway.”
“Why shouldn’t she be driving?”
The bravado left her eyes, then, as she looked at me and her voice dropped. “She has early onset dementia. She forgets things, and frequently gets herself in trouble.”
I refused to pity her. I despised pity.
“I see. And she is safe where you have her?” I asked.
She crossed her arms on her chest. “Excuse me, but that’s none of your business.”
Anger coursed through me. This girl had a nerve. Did she not know who I was?
“None of my business?” I repeated, getting to my feet, enjoying how she shrank back when I towered above her. “It’s none of my business that your mother plowed into my car, totaling it? She could have killed me, herself, or any other innocent who happened to be in her path. And that car is an Aston Martin, little girl.”
Her eyes narrowed. “She did not hurt anyone,” she said hotly. “She merely hurt your car, and for that I apologize, but certainly a man like you can file a claim? I mean, if you could afford a pompous, showy car like that, surely you can afford insurance?”
I raised a brow at her. “You call that an apology?” I asked, angry now that she had the nerve to come in my room and toss pathetic excuses at me. My palms itched to spank that sass right out of her, to teach her to watch her mouth.
Her gaze flitted away from me for a moment. “It is an apology,” she insisted, as if she just realized the error of her ways.
“Is that right?” I growled, drawing closer to her, so close I could smell the faint citrusy scent that hung about her. “Then clearly you need a lesson in sincere apologies, and it would be my pleasure to teach it to you.” And just like that, the air in the room changed. Desire coiled low in my belly, and the girl looked up at me, an innocent who’d made her way into my lair.
Her hand went to her throat, and she swallowed, her gaze never leaving mine, but when she spoke her voice was husky. “Oh?”
She was fucking aroused.
Shit.
I took a step closer to her. “Oh.” We were now mere steps apart, so close I could see the little bridge on her nose wrinkle when she shivered, and the pulse beneath the thin skin at her temples. “Lessons in humility,” I said, not caring that I was living up to my reputation as a monster, a man bent on incurring the hatred of those around him with little concern for societal norms or expectations. “Lessons in safety,” I said, stepping even closer to her. “Lessons in obedience.”
She blinked. “I thought we were talking about my mother,” she whispered.
I narrowed my eyes. “And I thought we were talking about apologies.” I watched as her chest heaved up and down, and the pink-tipped edges of her fingers traced along the naked skin at her collarbone. Her shoulders were slight, but her body was all lush curves, from the swell of her breasts to the voluptuous rounded thighs. I enjoyed watching her fear, reveling in the knowledge that I was the one who’d brought this on.
I’d lived alone for a full decade, a bachelor and a recluse, bent on staying apart from others, and now here I was, the one day I ventured into town an absolute disaster. It seemed I’d go down in flames.
Annabelle stood with her back straight, her dark brown eyes trained on mine. “Then let’s stay on the topic at hand, Mister…” her voice trailed off.
“Gryffin,” I supplied, taking one step closer to her. “And yes, you may call me Mister Gryffin.” There would be no casual exchange between us. I would have the upper hand.
She swallowed. “Very well, Mister Gryffin. I wanted to ask how I can repay you.”
I crossed my arms on my chest and fixed her with a stern glare. “Annabelle, are you aware that the car your mother destroyed was worth over $200,000?”
Her jaw dropped open. “Two hundred thousand dollars?” she gasped.
“Yes,” I answered. “The suit you ruined alone cost three thousand.” Custom-made, shipped directly from Italy. I owned half a dozen just like it, but she didn’t need to know that.
She closed her eyes briefly. I could see it, then, her desperation, the hopelessness she wore like a second skin. If I were a good man, I’d have granted mercy. I’d have come up with a way for her to give what little she could, capitalize on my insurance payout and live happily ever after.
But I was not a good man.
I did not need the money. I needed her for a very specific purpose, but she’d learn about that on my terms.
“I’m a businessman, Annabelle. A man used to closing deals in his favor. Would you like to negotiate with me?”
I don’t know what came over me. I have no idea where the thought came from, but one thing I knew for sure. I had come to town hoping to maintain obscurity, and her foibles threatened to drag me out into the light of day.
I would hurt her for that.
“Your mother is the one that owes me, not you,” I explained, trying the sympathy tact so I could hedge my bets. “I could have her work for me to pay off her debt.”
Her eyes widened. “My mother cannot work for you!” she protested, which was exactly what I hoped she would say.
“I — I could work for you, Mister Gryffin,” she said, as if she were the one that had the thought, as if it hadn’t been my intention from the very beginning.
“You?” I asked, attempting to appear disbelieving.
“Yes,” she said, insistent now, emphatic. “I can work to pay off what we owe you.”
I pretended to think it over, when instead what I really did was hide my glee from having lured her straight into my trap. “Very well, Annabelle,” I said. “Why don’t you come to my house tonight at eight o’clock. I’ll take your cell phone number, and have my driver pick you up.”
I jotted down the number she gave me and slipped it into my pocket.
“And Annabelle? Don’t be late. If you are, I might have to give you your first lesson.”
She blinked hard, but nodded with a smile. “I am never late, Mister Gryffin.”
I smirked to myself. Really? We would see about that.