A little under an hour later, she returned to the lobby to wait for Bradley. It had cleared out a bit, with many of the other occupants either going out to area clubs or back to their rooms. She sat down at a table and began flipping through a magazine someone had left behind, nervously passing through pages that she wasn’t really even seeing until she heard the same deep voice from the earlier phone call say her name.
“Kay?”
Kay looked up and her heart lurched. Ordinarily, the gorgeous creature standing in front of her would put her libido in hyper drive, but, under the circumstances, she would have preferred someone she didn’t want to molest where he stood.
After a moment, she managed to acknowledge that she was the one he was looking for, fighting to keep herself from staring hungrily into the deep brown eyes framed by a tanned face and closely cropped black curls.
“Yes. I’m Kay.”
“Fantastic. Shall we go then?”
“Of course,” she said, retrieving her handbag and walking across the room to join him.
The two of them exited the front doors, where she was surprised to find an old pickup truck awaiting them at the curb.
“I hope this is okay. My Mercedes is in the shop,” he told her.
“Oh. This is fine,” she replied, wondering how someone who drove this hunk of garbage could afford to pay her the fee she had been quoted.
They made small talk as they drove away from the hostel. Kay had no idea where they were going, but she tried to tell herself it didn’t matter. Unless he turned out to be some sort of lunatic or as broke as this truck made him appear, she didn’t think she would mind spending the next half-year or so with him. She had to admit, it had been on her mind that he was probably paying someone to pose as his wife because he was ugly. Now, she wondered why he didn’t just charm some woman into helping him out for free (or at least in exchange for having him in their bed).
Thirty minutes later, they were pulling up to a large rancher in the middle of nowhere. It was surrounded by fields, livestock and several barns or sheds from what she could make out in the darkness. This couldn’t be it. Though she had not been given much information about him beyond his payment and location, she had just assumed that someone who could pay out the sort of money he was planning on paying her was well off. Though she had seen worse houses, she’d also seen a good sight better.
“Sorry to bring you straight to the house, but I don’t want us to be overheard talking about certain things in public. Word travels pretty quickly around here. Shall we go in and chat?”
“Sure,” Kay replied, still unconvinced she wasn’t about to end up in a snuff film, but unwilling to just walk away from money she desperately needed for a fresh start.
He jogged around and opened the door for her, leading her to the front door. She waited while he unlocked it and stood back, waving her inside ahead of him. Kay looked around. It was considerably nicer on the inside, but very much a guy’s place, with very minimal decor and walls empty of anything decorative. It would be a long six months here.CHAPTER FOUR“Drink?”
“Yes, just some water would be nice,” she replied.
“Are you sure? I have a pretty substantial bar, plus juice, soda, anything really.”
“Yes, just water. I’m pretty parched.”
The truth was, she wasn’t about to drink here alone in his house with him before she got to know a bit about him. She watched as he retrieved a bottle of water from the fridge and brought down a glass from his cabinet, handing her both. No doubt, his instincts told him the real reason she didn’t want anything stronger to drink.
“Water it is then,” he said, turning back toward the fridge and pouring himself a large glass of orange juice.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I’m sorry. I’m not used to having guests. Please, let’s have a seat in the den and we’ll talk over things.”
Kay followed him to the large open den and had a seat in an overstuffed chair adjacent to the sofa. Bradley took his seat on one end of that and turned slightly in her direction to speak. She found that she was more nervous than ever now that they were getting down to brass tacks.
“So, this is your only house then?” she asked.
“Yes. I take it you were expecting more, considering the situation.”
Kay blushed, realizing she sounded a bit high maintenance. Nothing was further from the truth. She had worked hard all her life and came from a middle-income family. Nothing had ever been handed to her. Probably, the only thing exceptional about her life, compared to that of others, was the fact that she was an omega shifter.