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Bought And Paid For (Part Two)
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Bought And Paid For (Part Two)
Paige North
Favor Ford Publishing
Copyright © 2019 by Favor Ford Publishing
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
Want To Be In The Know?
Bought And Paid For (Part Two) by Paige North
1. Grayson
2. Harlow
3. Grayson
4. Harlow
5. Grayson
6. Harlow
Want To Be In The Know?
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Bought And Paid For (Part Two) by Paige North
Grayson
If I hadn’t walked away from Harlow — even though my cock was ready to explode — I might’ve lost a piece of myself in her room tonight.
I don’t know what it is about her — I hardly even know her — but whenever she’s around, it feels as if I’m being taken apart, every ounce of control stripped away like malfunctioning gears. That’s never happened to me before. The women I date have always fit into my life perfectly — round pegs placed into round holes. I’ve never encountered a square peg who doesn’t easily work herself into my routines and my ambitions. I’ve never met anyone who makes me lose myself in the moment or screws me up so thoroughly.
I couldn’t resist my need for her, couldn’t resist those blue eyes or the way she looked in that damned white baby doll nightie. I wanted to drink her in because, dammit, she’s like sweet nectar. I’ve never tasted anyone so delicious or got so turned on by their scent.
Citrus. That’s how Harlow tastes and smells. Thick, wet, luscious fruit.
But, as I told her, it’s never going to happen again. And even though she made me as hard as fuck for her, I wouldn’t allow myself to come. I got her out of my system tonight, and now we can move forward with this whole bullshit mail-order bride thing.
That’s what my brain is telling me anyway, but my body? Hell, my body is still putting up an entirely different argument. My cock is still stiff and pulsating and my temples are pounding so hard that I can’t think straight. I’m still burning for her, and cooling off seems the smartest thing to do.
God knows I need to be smart when it comes to this woman.
I go down to the pool house and change into a pair of swim trunks. I’m ready to dive into my sleek, serene pool that glows blue in the dark of the night, but then a text comes through on my phone. When I look at the screen, I exhale.
No matter the inconvenient timing, I never ignore my family, much less my mother.
I ease into the pool to start cooling off as I read her text. Gray, I’m sorry I didn’t answer your text earlier! I was working in the gardens and lost track of time and... Never mind! You said that you had some news to tell us?
I mumble a curse under my breath as I run my fingers through my hair. It’s already messed up from Harlow tangling her own fingers through it, and a dangerous jolt flies through me at the memory, electrifying me from chest to cock.
Forget Harlow.
I text Mom back. I pay your gardeners for a reason.
Mom: I know — you don’t want me or anyone in the family to ever work again, but I enjoy this. Now what is the news?
Here we go with Project Mail-Order Bride Bullshit. You will be happy to know that I finally found someone special. I wanted to give you a heads up before the news goes public.
A few seconds pass, and I can just imagine my mother staring at the screen and blinking in utter shock. A huge smile is about to take over her face and—
Gray! she finally answers. How special IS she?
Special enough to tell u about…
I roll my eyes. With every text, I feel like I’m spinning more of a web, making it harder and harder to move freely. My family has always known exactly who I am — I’ve never lied to them about enjoying women and parties, and I know how much I have frustrated them because of all the trouble I have found along the way. I wish I didn’t have to lie to make them happy about my personal life.
Mom texts back. GRAY!! When do we get to meet her?
She is so excited, and I feel like even more of a piece of shit. Things are still new. And she is a little shy, so we are taking things slowly.
Hilarious. Tonight wasn’t slow. It was fast and hot when I was pleasuring Harlow with my mouth and making her groan and cry out as she climaxed for me, quaking and shuddering with her release. My gut clenches again with brutal urgency as I remember how her legs tightened around me and how she got so wet that I almost came too. But I didn’t. I put a stop to things before she got to me that completely.
Never again.
Mom: What is her name?
Harlow Turner.
Mom: Tell me all about her!
Nope. I’ve had enough for now. I will schedule a phone call with you and Dad soon, but I have still got a lot of work to accomplish tonight. I am on the verge of another breakthrough.
Mom: Of course you are! I am SO excited for you, Gray, and I can’t wait to hear all about her!!
Hell, at least this is over for the night.
After she texts a string heart emojis, I get out of the pool and toss the phone to a chaise lounge on the deck. Thank God I didn’t have to talk much about Harlow — yet. I am still hoping I can squeak by without getting to know her at all, even after what happened tonight. But the more I think about her in general, the tighter I get and the more heat washes through me and the more this brutal agony ties me in knots.
I go to the deep end of the pool and dive in, sluicing through the water. It should be enough to cool me off for good, but the heat inside of me just keeps steaming. So I fall into a smooth, strong swimming stroke, taking lap after lap. I don’t know how many times I cross the length of the pool, but it’s just not enough.
Finally, I stand in the shallow end, water trickling down my skin. My heart is beating so hard that I don’t know if it is ever going to get back into the comfortable rhythm it always had before.
She’s really getting to you, I think. And no one gets to you. Women never bust up your life and fuck up your freedom, so do something about this.
As the words hammer through me, I feel a tickle on the back of my neck. I glance over my shoulder, and when I see the curtains of Harlow’s bedroom window drift closed, my breath snags in my chest.
Was she watching me?
An idiotic thrill twists through me, just like I’m a kid and it’s the first time the sight of a pretty a girl gave me some wood. But I’m not the boy who busted his ass to deliver papers just to put food on the table for my family. I’m the guy who’s going to get his life back just as soon as Harlow is out of it.
I dive back into the water, submerging myself in the silence.
Losing myself in a bubble where the only thing that exists is the cool, calm isolation I have always lived with.
Harlow
The next morning over breakfast, Jayne goes into high gear with my lessons. She puts me through a crash course in how to act like the perfect lady at fancy dinners and how to talk “smart” to the intellectual elites in Grayson’s industry. I’m a Business Economics major at Barton University, a small college in Missouri, so I’ve been around brains before. But I know I’m about to enter a next-level different world, so I soak in everything she tells me. Since Grayson is goin
g to be keeping track of every move I make and every word I utter tonight at dinner with Dr. Vangelis, I can’t afford to ignore any advice.
Jayne also takes me shopping again. Abiding by Grayson’s wishes, we return the gowns and outfits from yesterday, although Jayne has already tucked away the lingerie in my closet with another saucy wink at me. In the end, we buy a bunch of new, very conservative ensembles that are sure to please the jerk.
Throughout the day, I’m dying to confess to Jayne what happened last night with Grayson. The girly girl in me wants to share notes about what it’s like to be with a man, but I don’t say a word about how excited I got when Grayson kissed me, caressed me, did things to my body that made me moan and explode with wet ecstasy. I don’t tell her how I was aching so badly for him afterward that I yearningly watched him swimming in the pool. Even now my pulse ricochets around me as I think about how the muscles in his back worked with every swim stroke, how he stood up in the shallow end to his powerful height and water trickled down the smooth skin and streamlined muscles of his broad shoulders and ridged abs. I especially don’t confess how all I wanted to do was go down to the pool and dive in, swimming over to him and pressing myself against his body, feeling all the wonderful sensations he brought out in me last night.
But I keep everything inside, even as Jayne dresses me in a vintage Chanel beaded black silk evening dress with strappy black heels, then turns me toward the full-length beveled mirror. An unfamiliar girl stares back at me. My blond hair is swept up into a gleaming bunch of beautiful curls, some of which softly trail down my neck. Diamond drop earrings sparkle and frame my face, where Jayne has applied soft makeup with a light touch — pink lipstick, a hint of mascara, and a wisp of eye shadow.
Jayne steps back and adjusts her glasses while wiping a finger beneath them as if a tear has slipped out. “Not to toot my own horn at my styling skills, but toot toot!” She holds a hand over her heart. “Oh, just look at you!”
I run my hands down the sides of my gown, feeling the curves of my hips below the lace and silk and wondering what Grayson will say when he sees me. “Do you think he’ll like it?”
“I don’t think like is a word that covers what Mr. Royal will feel when he sees you.”
“I doubt that, Jayne. Remember how, last night, Grayson said no to the outfits we purchased the first time? Nothing was good enough for him.”
Until I flagrantly came out in that nightie and he pounced on me.
But if I think about that, my nerves are going to burn me alive.
“Give him another chance, Harlow.” Jayne seems so confident about my appearance that I can’t help feeling the same confidence myself. “Just look into his eyes when you walk into the room, and then tell me if he’s disappointed. I don’t think any man on earth could be.”
I take one last glance at myself. The clock has struck the magic hour for me to be downstairs, and Dr. Vangelis should be here by now. I know from the schedule that Grayson gave Jayne — a schedule that he expects us to follow to the second — that he and his mentor will already be in the study, having pre-dinner cocktails, awaiting my arrival.
As a last touch, Jayne clasps a diamond necklace around my neck. It sparkles, and I think it’s even making my eyes sparkle too.
Then she leads me down the stairs.
It’s like my heart is running around inside of me, bouncing off the walls of my chest, leaving a shivery trail of nerves. Before I know it, Jayne and I arrive at the closed door of the study.
“Okay, baby cakes,” she whispers. “This is where I have to leave you. You’re going to blow them away!”
Before my heart can explode with anxiety, she opens the study door. Then she puts her hand on my shoulder, gives me a squeeze, and lets go.
I try not to stumble like an idiot into the room, and much to my amazement, I manage a rather graceful entrance — so graceful that when Dr. Vangelis looks up from his brandy snifter at me, I actually feel like I’m walking on a cloud. The older man stands up, revealing how tall and thin he is in his beige suit. His light brown eyes are kind, and they crinkle at the corners as he smiles at me.
“Harlow?”
I smile at him as if I was born to this role of bride to the rich and infamous. I’m just about to walk over to greet him when I see Grayson out of the corner of my eye.
Oh, crap. Will I be good enough? Will he send me back upstairs with another no?
Will he resent me even more for what we did last night?
He stands slowly, and when I meet his blue-gray gaze, something jolts deep inside of me, shaking me to my core.
Look into his eyes, Jayne said.
As I do, a violent frisson of desire tears down the center of me. A damp blast in my pussy nearly makes me puddle to the floor. Grayson is looking at me the way he did before he kissed me, tore off my nightie, made me come with his mouth. He covets me, and the sight of it is raw and miraculous.
I don’t think it’s just the dress, either.
Is something else going on here?
I hear a murmur around us, and as the seconds pass, I realize it’s not just my blood rushing through my veins with white heat — it’s Dr. Vangelis’s voice.
“I’d venture to say that Jake Foreman is going to be very impressed.”
As I rip my gaze away from Grayson’s, I flush madly. I fix my eyes on Dr. Vangelis as he proudly adjusts his necktie.
“Can I pick a mail order bride or can I pick a mail order bride?” he asks. “Harlow, you’re everything I hoped you would be.”
At the reminder of who I am and what I am to Grayson, the room’s temperature seems to lower about ten degrees.
“Dinner should be ready by now,” he says levelly. “Shall we go to the dining room?”
Dr. Vangelis smiles grandly and comes over to me, extending his arm. I slip my arm through his.
“I am truly pleased to meet you, Harlow,” he says.
Thank God he’s so courteous and able to put me at ease. “Pleased to meet you too, sir.”
“Call me Rick. You’re my business partner’s significant other, so we should be on familiar terms.”
“Yes...Rick.”
I look over my shoulder at Grayson, whose jaw is so tight that I fear it might crack. Is he that on edge? Or is he...?
He can’t be territorial. Then again, I’m not sure. I might not know a lot about guys, but I’m still a woman with instincts, and every one of them is shouting that he gives more of a damn than he lets on.
He was just as into what happened last night as I was.
But I have to be misreading him, and when we’re seated next to each other at the long table in the dining room, he doesn’t look at me again — not even when the catering company he employs for parties and events serves Caviar Tartare with a Cabernet Sauvignon. I’m still as nervous as all get out, absolutely aware this is a high-stakes dinner. This is my test, and if I don’t pass it, Grayson is going to kick me out and I’ll be short the $50,000 I need to start saving Mom.
I’m going to do this.
When Dr. Vangelis engages me in gentle conversation about Colossus Pharma while we eat the appetizers and salad, I actually think I’m really doing great here. But then we get into the entrée course of Crab-Filled Calamari, and things get real.
Dr. Vangelis starts eyeing the space Grayson and I constantly keep between us, and I can tell he isn’t happy that we never touch like a serious boyfriend and girlfriend would be doing. I’m sure he even senses the high tension between us.
Dr. Vangelis dabs his lips with his linen napkin and then sits back in his chair. “So far, Harlow, you’ve been absolutely wonderful.”
“Thank you.”
A muscle ticks in Grayson’s jaw as he narrows his eyes at his mentor in obvious suspicion.
“But,” Dr. Vangelis says, “it’s time to act as if Jake Foreman is present at this dinner. He’s going to want to know how you two met.”
Grayson dives right in. “I was on a business trip in LA
when I saw this beautiful woman walk into a bar. It was love at first sight.”
I smile pleasantly in agreement. I might’ve picked a more romantic story, but I’m going to follow Grayson’s lead.
Dr. Vangelis frowns. “A bar isn’t very wholesome. Remember that entire image overhaul thing, Grayson?”
Grayson and I just sit there staring at him.
“How about this, instead,” the doctor says. “Harlow already told her loved ones that she needed to be gone for a month because she had an opportunity to work with a charity organization here in Boston. Our PR team has taken pains to back that story up by making it seem as if Harlow is involved with a charity Colossus supports. So I think it would be prudent to say that you, Grayson, attended one of the functions Harlow was at. You met her there, and you haven’t been away from each other since.”
“Suits me.” Then Grayson sends me a look that I guess is supposed to be fond. Faker.
I send him the same “adoring” look right back. Then we return our gazes to Dr. Vangelis at the same time.
Dr. Vangelis is giving us a lowered gaze. “Now let’s talk about what you have in common. Favorite foods, for instance?”
Silence.
Dr. Vangelis rolls his eyes. “Surely, you two have eaten together at some point.”
Grayson sighs roughly. “I always allow Harlow to speak for herself. Darling? Favorite foods?”
Things have clearly taken a turn for the worse.
Dr. Vangelis wipes a hand over his face. “Let’s try this again, but with a different topic. What do you two like to do on the weekends?”
Grayson and I slide a look to each other and then speak in stereo.
“Netflix,” Grayson says.
“Polo matches?” I say.
Dr. Vangelis tosses his napkin onto the table. “And how about your goals? Do you have any idea what each other’s basic ambitions are, or will that be like pulling teeth too?”