She barely moved a muscle as the hours went by and the darkness outside began to glow with the first hints of a new day. Her arms were snaked around mine, holding tight, breaths deep and steady. Her knees were up high, putting her in a foetal position curved towards me, so vulnerable.
It made me shiver at the thought of what lay ahead for us both in this place, with the sinister business partner and his selection of sixty-day bidders vying for another shot.
It was obvious why they’d want another shot with her though, high priced or not. Even battered and exhausted, Rebecca Lane was absolutely beautiful. Even with her tired eyes and messy hair, she was the very pinup of gorgeousness.
I guess that’s one of the renewed observations that made my heart sink even further when my mind moved back to Brandon Grant.
I felt stupid. Stupid for believing we could have ever had something between us.
He’d had sixty full days with Rebecca Lane and so many beautiful girls before her. Every chance to push them past their limits, and still find them giving and willing.
Why would a man like him fall in love with a girl like me, after all of the girls who’d been before? The girls with so much sass and beauty? The girls with everything on a platter to give him and more?
It was obvious when I really thought about it in this place. The reality of the situation was too clear to argue.
I’d given Brandon Grant nothing but stress in the grand scheme of things. Nothing but crap about my sister. Nothing but a few days of being a weak little girl needing so much from a man like him.
I mean, sure, I’d felt so much… felt it… whatever it was. Whatever I wanted to feel it was. I’d seen the looks, felt the looks, felt the touches… but it couldn’t be… couldn’t mean anything… not anything real…
So many stupid doubts in my head made me feel like an idiot on top of being an idiot. So many stupid doubts were just another reason on top of fear for not getting a scrap of decent sleep as the morning came through. Eventually I gave up completely. I was careful as I disentangled myself from Rebecca, shifting along the mattress before rising to my knees and looking at the world through the window. It was good to observe it like that. It felt safer somehow, a regular landscape of bricks and trees and clouds above. We were caged in pretty well as far as privacy went. There were outbuildings close outside, enough to mask any seriously direct views of us. I could see above some of them and there was the promise of heavy trees, maybe woodland on the outskirts, but I couldn’t really be sure.
The only thing I could be sure of was the beautiful sunlight raining down on a frosty landscape, and that in light of the outside chill, Brandon Grant’s business partner was very generous with his heating. Even naked, staring out onto a cold morning, I was warm enough to feel toasty. Thank heaven for small mercies and opulence at its finest.
I was still propped at the window with my elbows on the sill when I felt Rebecca stir. She flinched as she fully came to her senses, scrabbling up to the top of the mattress before she registered I was still there.
“It’s alright,” I told her. “Nobody’s been near. It’s just us, you and me.”
She checked out the sun through the window before she spoke, eyes blinking before landing on mine. “Sure, yeah. But they’ll come. Believe me, they’ll come soon enough.”
I didn’t have any words for that. I didn’t doubt they’d come. Didn’t doubt they’d demand and push and force us to earn whatever we were capable of.
I kept my eyes on the sky, wondering where my sister was and if Brandon really had taken her into some kind of drug rehab. Wondering if she was staring up at the same sky, trying her hardest to shake off her addictions and aim for a whole new life.
Rebecca sighed as she shuffled herself and joined me at the window.
“What are you thinking?” she asked, but I shrugged without words. She pressed her shoulder to mine and took a breath. “If it’s about him, you really do wanna let it go. Forget him. Believe me, you’ll want to.”
I shot her a glance, but she was looking up at the sky.
“I mean it,” she continued. “He’s easy to get caught up in. Gorgeous, powerful, strong… it’s so easy to think you’re falling in love with a guy like him… like I said, I did…”
She sounded more like her regular self in the cold light of morning, even if she was scared shitless and naked.