What He Believes (9 page)

“Yes.
 
I got an emergency injunction this
morning to get her arraigned and out on bail.
 
She had nowhere to go, so I was going to
put her up in a hotel.
 
But I left
her alone to get her some food and she took off.”

Lilah and Noah had
been alone?
 
In a
hotel room?
 

“Why didn’t you
tell me?” I asked.

“Tell you what?”

“That you were
planning on bailing her out.”
 
Had
he put up the money himself?
 
How
much would that have cost? I wondered.
 

“I didn’t even
know it was a possibility until this morning.
 
I was waiting until you were done with
your meeting.
 
I didn’t want to
upset you.”

I fought the wave
of annoyance that rose inside of me.
 
How could he say I was his business partner if he was always trying to
shield me from things?
 
If something
was going on with our case, I had a right to know.
 

“Can you get down
here?” he asked.
 
“To Loft 37?”

Loft 37.
 
Why did Lilah have to be put up at one
of the most exclusive hotels in the city? After jail, you would have thought a
Red Roof Inn would have been fine.

“Yes,” I
said.
 
“I’m heading back to the car
right now.”

“Good.”

I could still hear
a voice in the background.

“Who’s there?”

“Clementine,” he
said.
 
“I called her because of her
tracking skills.”

Great.
 
Now not only had Noah been in a hotel
room with Lilah Parks, now he was there with Clementine, his ex-submissive.

“I’ll be there
soon,” I said, and then I hung up.

When I got to the
car, I didn’t even have to tell Jared where to go.
 
He already knew, guiding the car
smoothly onto the highway.

I sat in the
backseat, my fingers tapping impatiently against the door handle as the car
inched its way slowly through the gridlocked Manhattan traffic.
 

I hated this.

Just when
everything felt good and right between Noah and I, it had been yanked out from
under me again, leaving me feeling insecure about our relationship.

I just wanted things
to calm down, for everything to be normal.

But how could that
ever happen with the kind of lives we led?

My phone buzzed,
and I looked down, hoping for a text from Noah.
 

But it wasn’t a
text.

It was en email
alert.

One
new email.

From Dr. Jason
Cartwright.

Wow.
 
He was nothing if not fast.

It was addressed
to my faculty advisor, Dr. Yessnow, and I was cc’d.

Dear Dr.
Yessnow,

I had the
opportunity to meet with Charlotte Holloway this morning, and have deemed her
fit to return to school effective immediately.
 
However, I am also recommending ten
counseling sessions with me, in my office, to be completed as part of the
conditions of her reenrollment.

She can
schedule them at her convenience, and I will reach out to Charlotte separately
to start that process.

Please let me
know if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jason
Cartwright

I blinked my eyes
in disbelief.

What the
hell?
 

Ten
counseling sessions?
 

Ten hours of
sitting there with Dr. Cartwright, talking about what?
 
I couldn’t tell him about anything that
was going on in my life! That was humiliating and totally invasive.

I closed my eyes
and leaned my head back against the seat.

“Is everything
okay, Miss?” Jared asked from the front of the car.
 
His eyes met mine in the rearview
mirror, his face kind and creased with concern.

“Yes,” I
said.
 
“Yes, Jared, everything’s
fine.
 
It’s just been one of those
days.”

Jared nodded, as
if he understood this.
 
“Would you
like to listen to some music?” he asked.

“That would be
wonderful.”

He hit a button
and the soft notes of a classical concerto wafted through the car, its tone
rich and melodious.
 

I knew nothing
about classical music, but I knew this was soothing.
 
“I like this,” I said.
 
“What is it?”

“Mendelssohn,”
Jared said.
 
“Violin Concerto in E
minor.”

“It’s beautiful,”
I said.
 
“Do you listen to a lot of
classical music, Jared?”

“Oh, yes,” Jared
said.
 
“I find it not only relaxing,
but interesting as well.
 
Every time
you listen to a brilliant classical piece, you pick up something different,
some new rhythm, new note, new instrument.”

“It’s like
discovering it all over again.
 
So
it never gets old.”

“Exactly,” Jared
said.
 
“Some people think classical
music is boring, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

I nodded.
 
“Who’s your favorite composer?”

“Oh, that would be
impossible,” he said.
 
“There is no…”
Suddenly, he trailed off, though, and I saw him sit up straighter in his seat.

“Jared?” I
asked.
 
“Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s
fine, miss,” he said.
 
But his eyes
were on the rearview mirror, his face hardening.
 

“Then why are you
sitting up straight and acting like something horrible is happening?”

Jared locked the
doors, the clicking sound echoing through the car.
 
Panic flooded me as I flashed back to
being in Professor Worthington’s car, the sound the locks had made as he’d
trapped me inside with him.

“I want you to
stay calm,” Jared said.
 
“And not
panic.”

It was
impossible.
 
I was already panicked.
“What’s going on?”

“We’re being
followed.”

“Followed?”

“Yes.”

“By who?”

“I don’t know,”
Jared said, and then he turned down a side street.
 
A black sedan followed us, and my heart
caught in my throat.
 
I gazed out
the back window, but I couldn’t see the driver.

“Hold on, miss,”
Jared said.

And then he hit
the gas as the car lurched forward down the back streets of New York, the black
sedan hot on our trail.
 

Jared did his best
to lose the tail, turning this way and that, but eventually, we got caught up
at a red light.

As soon as we
rolled to a stop, the man in the car behind us stepped onto the street and
began walking toward us.
 
There was
nowhere to go—we were on a one-way street, boxed in by cars in both the
front and the back.

The man tapped on
my window, motioning for me to roll it down.
 
He didn’t look dangerous – he was
physically intimidating, probably six foot three or so, with shaggy brown hair
and full lips.
 
But his shoulders sagged
and his facial expression had a certain softness to it that made me sure he
didn’t mean any harm.

“Do not roll down
the window, Charlotte,” Jared said as he began to call 911.

“I’m sorry, “ the
man said, struggling to be heard through the glass.
   
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to
scare you.”

The voice was
familiar, but it took me a second to place it.

The
man on the phone yesterday.

“Please,” he
said.
 
“You have to help me find
Mikayla.
 
I think I know where she
is.”

I hesitated,
remembering Noah’s warning about all the crazy people in New York who would
come out of the woodwork and try to hurt me.

But then I
remembered Mikayla, her eyes so haunted, her situation so desperate.

I hesitated for
one more second.

And then I rolled
down the window and waited for the man to speak.

End of Book Sixteen – Look For Book Seventeen,
Coming Soon

Need
more Hannah Ford?
 
Click
here to read the first book in her scorching new series, BECAUSE HE OWNS ME,
available now.
 
Or check out the
excerpt below!

BECAUSE HE OWNS ME (Because He Owns Me, Book
One)

by
Hannah Ford

Copyright 2015, Hannah Ford, all rights
reserved.
 
This book is a work of
fiction, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

CALLUM

I was about to leave when I caught sight of
her.

She was sitting at the bar alone, her hands
clutched nervously in her lap.

Long blonde hair hung straight down her back,
and she was dressed in tight jeans that hugged the curve of her ass and a snug
black t-shirt with a line of tiny white buttons down the front.
 
The shirt clung to a pair of full, pert
breasts.
 
It was cold in the club,
and her nipples were prominent through the cheap material.

It probably tore easy, I thought, imagining
what it would feel like to rip the buttons off one by one until her swollen
nipples came into view.
 
I wondered
what those high breasts would look like covered in ropes of
my
cum
.
 

My cock twitched.

A pair of black high-heeled sandals encased her
feet, and her toenails were painted a deep pink.
 
I’d never had a foot fetish, but the
color was undeniably sexy.

She had full pouty lips and a wide face, her
skin porcelain and smooth. She’d obviously never been here before.
 
I could tell by the way she’d laid her
phone on the bar, keeping it close in case she needed to call someone.
 

A first-timer.

My cock twitched again, more insistent this
time, as I thought about pulling on that long blonde hair, tangling it in my
fingers, her back arched and my dick nestled between her ass cheeks as she
moaned in ecstasy.
 
I imagined tying
her up in one of those back rooms, pushing her to her knees, her full lips
stretching out around my dick.

One night only.

It was my rule.

I was never with a woman for more than one
night.

It was a rule that could never be broken.

No exceptions.

Ever.

I had my reasons.

But was she the type that would go for an
arrangement like that?
 

I took another sip of my drink, letting the
beat of the music wash over me.

The girl at the bar looked around nervously, and
as she did, she met my gaze.

Her eyes were clear blue.
 
I thought about how she’d look down on
her knees, her hands tied behind her with a rope, those big wide eyes looking
up at me as I fucked her mouth.

You can’t do that to her, Callum,
I thought.
 
You could have any woman in this
club.
 
Find a different one.
 
She’s too pure.

But her pureness was what drew me to her.

Was she even from New York?
 
Everyone who came to Manhattan was
looking for something.
 
What was she
looking for?
 
A quick little tryst before
she went back to East Bumfuck or wherever it was innocence like hers came from?

She turned to look at me, and our eyes
locked.
 
Something rushed through
me, an overwhelming feeling unlike anything I’d ever felt before.
 
It was as if the wind had been knocked
out of me.

I recovered quickly and smirked at her, and she
flushed and turned away.

I was about to get up and go get her when she
dipped her hand into her purse.

Then, ever so slowly, I saw her remove a small
white pill from a pink shell case.
 

Well.

That settled it.

I had two rules.

The first was one night only.
 
Never any more.

And the other was no
drugs
.

Ever.

I turned away, the disappointment that rolled
through me out of proportion to the situation.

Five more minutes.

Then I was getting out of here.

ADRIANA

I’d been stood up.

It was my own fault, really.
 
I’d known meeting a guy on a dating app
was not the best idea.
 
But Nathan
had seemed nice enough – he’d gone to Stanford, he was at NYU business
school getting his MBA, he had a nice smile and sandy blonde hair.
 
Nothing about him screamed raging
asshole or serial killer.
 
Of
course, I’d been a tiny bit suspicious when he’d insisted on meeting for a drink
and not dinner or a movie, but he’d sounded nice enough on the phone, and if I
was being honest, I knew little about the New York dating scene.