Page 19 of The King (Masterpiece Duet 1)
“He borrowed five grand. And the interest on that’s… not negligible.”
All the blood drains from my head. I’m dizzy with fury, impotence. Hopelessness. “Is that all?” I manage to choke out.
“No, he came back and borrowed another five.”
Ten thousand dollars. My throat feels thick. I can’t start crying in the middle of the diner. Ruth Mae would definitely dock my already-slim paycheck. I press my nails into my palm, counting slowly until the moment passes.
There’s a look of genuine sympathy on Damon’s stupidly handsome face, which makes everything worse. I want him to look smug and gloating. I want him to be easy to hate. “Penny,” he says, low and grave. “I’m trying to help you.”
I make a sharp motion with my hand. “If you really want to help me, stop loaning money to my dad. No matter what he wants, no matter what he promises. We’ll find a way to pay you back, and then we’re done.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Why?”
“Because your dad’s fucking desperate,” he says, speaking more rapidly. He runs a hand through his hair with what’s most likely frustration, but it only succeeds in making him look charming. Is this what my prince looks like? No, my prince was the wild boy through the trees. “He would have gone to my father next. He would have lost everything.”
“We haven’t already?” I ask, bitter with grief.
“I prefer to think not,” he says, his voice casual, but I’m not fooled. It matters to him what I think. It matters that I don’t see him as punishment.
Tiredness sweeps over me, the weight of a thousand anxious days and a thousand sleepless nights. “I’ll talk to my dad. We’ll figure something out.”
“It’s too late for that. He’ll never come up with that kind of money.”
“Then what do you suggest?” I snap, my voice wavering.
“You pay the debt.”
I hold up my hands, as if they can encompass the griminess of the diner, the sadness of the west side. The complete worthlessness of my person. “With what?”
“With yourself.”
His meaning comes to me like a cold, hard slap. With my body. Whether he’ll use me himself or put me in one of his strip clubs, the result is the same. I’ll be wrung out as surely as the girls on the street. “No,” I whisper.
“You have to,” he says, leaning closer.
“Or what?”
“How do you see this playing out, Penny? You work your ass off to make five hundred bucks, barely a dent in the debt. And meanwhile Daddy’s out borrowing more money, from men more dangerous than myself.”
“He won’t,” I whisper, but we both know he will.
“The city is dangerous.”
“A guy slammed someone’s head into the bathroom floor last Tuesday. I know it’s dangerous.”
His eyes turn quicksilver. “More than that. You’re a target, Penny.”
God. My voice comes out shaky. “Do you know what it cost me?”
A pause. “What?”
“To hide everything I’m interested in, everything I can do. Everything I am. It cost me everything. And now you want me to pay ten grand. Fine. But I’m not going to be your whore, Damon Scott. I’m keeping my dignity. That’s the one thing I won’t give up.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that.”
This is a man who loves slick packaging—his European suit and his fancy watch that glints in the dim light of the diner. Except I know what’s underneath, what it really boils down to, and it’s not pretty. “Will I be able to come and go as I please? Will you touch me? Kiss me?”
A weighted pause. “Eventually.”
“That’s my dignity,” I say, my voice sharp.
The corner of his mouth kicks up. “Not if I make you like it.”
I meet his eyes with a solemn vow, because this is the only part of me that’s left. I already gave up everything else for this dubious safety. “No,” I tell him. “Never.”
Frustration flits beneath his calm surface. Even a hint of vulnerability. How many people can see it? I know that not everyone sees the kind side of him. He has weapons and suits and a million kinds of armor, all designed to shield his humanity.
Assuming he has any left.
“I’ll give you a little time,” he says, his voice tight. “You can think it over. Weigh the lack of options. Come to terms with what you have to do. But I swear to God you’ll be mine.”
The words are a cold gust of wind, the tap of a branch on a window. The distant howl of a coyote at night. “No.”
He looks almost compassionate as he tells me, “You don’t have a choice.”
He moves forward, one millimeter, as if he might touch me. Then stops.
I freeze, every part of me still and waiting. Wanting things I shouldn’t. The only thing moving right now is my chest, the rise and fall so marked as we become statues.
