The Redemption (15 page)

“You know I can’t resist you,” I say quietly. I pull out my checkbook. “Eighty it is. Payable to The Club?” I ask.

“We’ll fill in the payee name ourselves,” Max answers.

I fill out the check and hand it to Oksana. I look at Sarah. “It’s official. I own you. Twenty-four seven. You’re mine.”

Sarah’s eyes blaze. “For one month.”

“Again, sorry I co-opted Sarah against your rules. I just couldn’t resist her—no man could have resisted her after what she wrote to me in her email. And then when I found out about her jealous streak, too. Man, that was just too much.” I run my finger up Sarah’s arm. “She’s a handful, this one. A tasty little handful.”

Sarah smiles wickedly at me. “Thank you for your generosity, Jonas. I think generosity is such an attractive trait in a man. It turns me on.”

I turn to them. “This has been the best money I’ve spent in my life, hands down. I’m so glad I joined. In fact, I’ve been going on and on about how awesome The Club is to all my friends. I was just at an international finance convention with some heavy hitters, actually, and I must have told at least twenty guys all about it one night over Scotch—and they all want in, every last one of them. But these guys are all, you know, big-time VIPs—accustomed to highly specialized attention in all things.”

“We’ll be sure to give them a fantastic experience,” Oksana says.

“Some of these guys make me look like a pauper, seriously.” I chuckle. “Just obscene amounts of money. I told them I’d ask you to contact them personally, sort of like a VIP concierge type thing, to answer questions, get them signed up, tell them what they’ll be getting, assure them they’ll be treated like kings. They don’t want to sign up like everybody else—they want assurances they’ll get the best of the best. These guys don’t give a shit about romance, if you know what I mean, they just want premium
service
.”

Oksana looks at Max, clearly asking for permission.

“We’ll give them platinum service, I assure you,” Max says. “Just give them the link to our application portal and we’ll get the membership process going per our usual protocols.”

“Why don’t I just email you their contact info, and you can give them a quick call? I bet you could upsell each and every one of them to a VIP yearlong package for half a mil. Maybe more—maybe even create some sort of special VIP club within The Club, just for these guys? Seriously. Some of them make me look like a hobo.” I laugh. “If you give me my phone from the other room, I’ll pull up their contacts and send them to you in an email.”

“No,” Max says, his tone firm. “We don’t make telephone contact and we don’t solicit new members, ever. No exceptions. If they want to join, they’ll have to do it through the appropriate channels, same as everyone else. I designed the protocols myself. We do it this way to ensure maximum protection and confidentiality for everyone involved in the transaction. I’m sure they’ll understand that.”

Oh, so this fucker designed the site, did he? His mom supplies the girls and he supplies everything else?

“I’m not sure they’ll go for that,” I persist.

“Jonas, please,” Sarah says firmly. “Please respect what Max is telling you. Your friends can’t ask The Club to do anything that might compromise confidentiality in any way, regardless of how much money they have. Don’t forget, that confidentiality protects me as an employee as much as anyone.”

I stare at Sarah. That’s not part of the plan. What the fuck is she saying? The plan is for me to send them a fucking email about my rich friends who want to join. Why is she siding with Max?

“Can I be perfectly honest with you about something, Jonas?” Sarah says, but she’s looking at Max like they’re sharing an inside joke.

“Of course.” My heart is raging. What the fuck is she doing?

“If it gets out I’ve worked for The Club, I might not pass the ethics review for my law license. So it’s really important to me that we follow whatever protocols The Club has in place to protect itself—because those protocols protect me, too. I mean, how well do you know these guys? Can you be sure of their absolute discretion?”

I’m speechless.

Sarah looks at Max, unflinching. He smiles at her, heat rising in his eyes. It’s all I can do not to leap across the room and wring the fucker’s neck the way he’s looking at her right now.

“Sarah makes an excellent point,” Max says. “Thank you, Sarah.”

“Of course. Protecting The Club is in everyone’s interest. Especially mine.” She looks at me sweetly. “And so is protecting the privacy of members, too, of course.” She smiles broadly, full of charm.

What the fuck is she doing?
This is not the fucking plan.
 

“I agree,” Max says. “Mr. Faraday, why don’t you tell me the names of your friends so that when they contact us through appropriate channels, we’ll be ready for them.” He grabs a pad off Oksana’s desk. “I promise, we’ll make sure to show them the time of their lives.”

“Sure thing,” I say, thoroughly relieved. Looks like there was a method to Sarah’s madness, after all—she was just gaining this fucker’s trust. Good thinking. “Yeah, okay, the names are on my phone. Give me my phone and I’ll email you the names.”

“No, just tell me the names now, verbally.” He positions his pen on the pad.

“Jonas, you can give the list to me later, and I’ll make sure they get the names,” Sarah says.

I’m speechless again. What the fuck is she doing?
This isn’t the fucking plan.
 

“Perfect,” Max says. “Thank you, Sarah.”

Sarah looks at me. “Hey, Jonas, would you mind giving me five minutes to speak to Max and Oksana in private?”

What the fuck? We both agreed I wouldn’t leave her alone with these fuckers for a nanosecond. What the fuck is she doing?

“Just for five minutes,” she says breezily. “I have some information about a member I need to give them—about the last application I processed—and the information’s confidential, of course. This will be my last work-related task for a whole month, I promise. When we walk out that door, no more work.” She winks.

I can’t speak. This is insanity. No fucking way.

“Just five minutes, sweetheart,” she says.

I don’t move. No fucking way.
No fucking way.
 

“Mr. Faraday, will you be so kind?” Max says, getting up and motioning to the door. “Just for a moment. Nina will get you some coffee.” He opens the door leading out to the reception area.

I stare at Sarah. Fuck me. This is not happening. No fucking way.

“Thanks, Jonas,” Sarah says. “It’ll just take a minute. I promise.”

I force my body to stand. I look at my watch. “Five minutes.” My eyes are granite. “I’m timing you.”

“Great, thanks. I’ll be right out.”

Sarah
 

The minute the door closes behind Jonas, I whip around to face Oksana and Max, my eyes as hard as steel. “Fifty-fifty or I walk,” I say evenly, clenching my jaw. “I’ve got this guy in the palm of my hand, as you can plainly see. He can’t get enough of me. He’s
addicted.
And now that I’ve given him my sob story about my mom having cancer and my dad losing his job—he’s ready to throw money at me hand over fist. Fifty-fifty or I’m out of here.”

Max snickers.

“Sixty-forty,” Oksana says. “That’s my final offer.”

I sit back in my chair and cross my arms. “He’s in the palm of my hand, I’m telling you.”

Oksana’s face has turned to stone. “Sixty-forty,” she says. “Take it or leave it.”

I wonder what she’d do to me if I leave it? “Fifty-fifty with this guy, and sixty-forty on future guys,” I say. “I don’t even need you anymore on Faraday—I could keep all this guy’s money and you’d never even know it—but I’m keeping you in the loop because I want to work with you on future guys, too.”

Oksana and Max look at each other.

“You could keep all this guy’s money and we’d never know it?” Max says, chuckling to himself. “You think it’d be that simple?” His voice is pure menace.

“Shh, Maksim.
Dobre,
” Oksana says. “Fine, Sarah. You’ve obviously done a lot of work on Faraday already—so we’ll do fifty-fifty on him and sixty-forty on everyone else.”

“All right,” I say. “Good. Now that we’ve got that settled—you’ll be happy to know he gave me another check this morning. This time for a hundred thousand.”

“That’s all?” Max says.

I roll my eyes. “It was just ‘fun money’ to
gamble
with while we’re here.” I laugh. “I’m telling you, he’s in the palm of my hand.”

Oksana looks duly impressed. “Do you have the check with you?”

“Yeah, it’s in my purse.” I motion to the outside room.

Oksana motions to Max and he gets up to retrieve it.

“I’ll squeeze everything I can out of Faraday for the next month, but after that I want more clients,” I say to Oksana when Max is gone. “I’m actually enjoying this.”

“Ah, you’ve discovered the power.” Oksana laughs. “I always say, as long as a woman’s got a pussy and a mouth, it’s her own damned fault if she can’t get whatever the hell she wants.”

I smile through my sudden nausea. “Ain’t that the truth. You’d think the man’s never had sex before, the way he reacts to me.”

“The power of the pussy,” Oksana says with mock reverence.

We share a raucous laugh, though I’m seriously trying not to hurl. What a bitch.

Max comes back into the office with my purse, but as he tries to close the door behind him, I hear Jonas’ anxious voice on the other side of the door.

“I’ve paid for her time,” I hear Jonas say. “I’m coming back in.”

“Just give us five minutes,” Max says curtly. He slams the door and locks it and strides across the room, rummaging through my purse as he goes. He pulls out the check and holds it up for Oksana to see.

“Nice work,” Oksana says.

“Next week, my mom’s health will take a turn for the worse,” I say. “And my dad will be in danger of losing his house—to the tune of five hundred thousand.”

Oksana nods enthusiastically. “Good.”

Max takes the seat vacated by Jonas and leans into my face, placing his hand firmly on my thigh.

I recoil under his touch.

“So did Faraday fix your little problem?”

I don’t respond.

Max leans even closer and whispers. “Did he fix the little problem you wrote about in your email to him—your ‘Mount Everest’ problem, I think you called it?” He licks his lips. “Because if not, I’m sure I can solve your problem in about five minutes.”

I lean sharply away from Max’s face. “I told the guy what he wanted to hear, that’s all—the one thing I knew he couldn’t resist.”

Max chuckles. His face tells me he doesn’t believe me. “You were very, very convincing.”

“Maksim,
nemaye
,” Oksana says. “Very clever, Sarah.”

I grimace. I’ve only got one thing on my mind right now—getting Oksana to open an email, come hell or high water.

“So let’s cut the crap,” I say. “I’m willing to forgive our ‘unfortunate miscommunication.’ But I want to get paid within twenty-four hours, every time, or else I walk—and, believe me, I’ll take you down when I go.”

“You won’t take us down,” Max says.

I smash my mouth into a hard line.

“You just said so yourself—you won’t pass the ethics review for your law license if it gets out you worked for us. You won’t risk that.”

I scowl like I’m pissed at myself for revealing my big secret to him. “Maybe I don’t care about my law license,” I say, trying my damnedest to sound like a terrible liar.

Max grins. “Oh yes you do. I’ve done my research on you. I’m quite confident you care more than anything about your law license—and that you therefore won’t tell anyone about us.”

I grit my teeth.

“But that’s exactly why we can trust you, Miss Cruz. Our interests are obviously aligned. And that’s good.”

“If you piss me off enough, I’ll send out that report, regardless of what might happen to my law career.”

He smiles at me, not buying it.

“Fine,” I huff, conceding his point. I cross my arms. “But if you send the Ukrainian John Travolta to hurt me again, all bets are off.”

“The ‘Ukrainian John Travolta’?” He bursts out laughing.

“Yeah. Like John Travolta in
Pulp Fiction—
only Ukrainian.”

Max is highly amused. “I’ll have to tell Yuri you said that.” He says something to his mother in Ukrainian and she laughs. Max waves the air. “We’re not going to harm you, Sarah. You’ve proved your value. You say you’re not ‘fucking stupid’? Well, neither are we.”

I squint at him.

“You’re an entertaining writer, by the way. A spitfire, just like your asshole boyfriend said.”

“How do I know I can trust you? How do I know you won’t send your hitman after me again?”

His eyes harden. “Because if I say you’re safe, you’re safe. And if I want you dead, you’re dead.”

A shiver runs up my spine—I’m six inches away from the man who personally ordered me dead.

“But the good news is I don’t want you dead.” He touches my arm and I shudder. “I do hope you weren’t too inconvenienced by our unfortunate miscommunication.”

“Oh no, not at all. I didn’t need all that blood inside my body, anyway,” I scoff.

“How bad are the scars?” Oksana asks. “I can’t put you on the circuit if you’re too scarred.” Her tone is pure business.

There’s a loud knock at the door. “Time’s up,” Jonas says loudly. He shakes the door, but it’s locked. “Sarah? Time’s up. Right now.”

Max motions to the door. “Talk to him.”

I walk to the door and open it. Jonas looks panicked. Or is that enraged?

“Everything’s great, sweetheart,” I say cheerily, poking my head out. “We’re almost done talking business. We need just five more minutes and then we’ll be all done—and I’ll be all yours for a whole month.”

He’s bursting out of his skin.

“Come here,” I say brightly.

He leans an inch from my face to whisper something to me, but I kiss him.

“Sarah,” he whispers, pulling away, his eyes frantic. “Get out of there right now.”

“Yeah, just a couple more minutes,” I say at full voice. “And after that, I’m at your service, sweetheart.”