“You think forgiveness is what I want?” I wanted to taste submission on her lips again. The way she whisperedSir,the way she bloomed under my control—it fucking undid me, but I couldn’t ask for that. Not yet.
“I don’t want your money,” she snapped. “You blackmailed me into sucking your cock so I could get a job. And then, when you found out why I was so desperate, instead of trying to help, you acted like I was in the wrong! The three of you!”
I gripped her hand, refusing to let her go. “What do you need help with?”
Eva smoothed her hands over her dress then lifted her chin. “I want to take down Jed Carter so he can’t hurt anyone else ever again.”
I’d been expecting this. I’d known from the moment she’d shown up in that heart-stopping dress that she wasn’t here because she wantedme.
“Dmitri Lebedev is your cousin,” she said quietly.
I waited in silence.
“You’re the only coach in the sports program—the onlypersonwho’s ever successfully stood up to him,” she continued, and then her eyes flashed to mine, bright and green and full of fire. “How can you let him continue to hurt people? To hurt Cole?”
To hurt me,she didn’t say, but I heard it anyway.
“No,” I said. “And you’ll stay out of it.”
She yanked her hand away from mine to pull a beat-up phone out of her bag and throw it on the table. “I can’t,” she snapped. “Carter’s made it clear that I do what he wants, or my father dies, and I can’t let him hurt anyone else.”
The words hung between us, heavy and final.
I stared at the phone and then at her face—pale, determined, terrified. She intended to go to war against one of the most powerful men on the East Coast, a man who’d already threatened her life and her father. He’d threatenedthe team if I didn’t make them lose, and while the team was delivering on that without any help from me, I knew I’d eventually pay the price of my refusal.
“No,” I repeated. “It’s too dangerous.”
She straightened her spine and lifted her chin. Then, she leaned forward, and the neckline of her dress shifted, revealing the tops of her full, freckled breasts.
My cock hardened instantly, even as my heart broke.
“Please, Alek,” she said, her voice dropping to a breathy register. “I need your help. I’ll do—” She swallowed and blinked back glassiness. “I’ll do whatever you want, whatever it takes, just please?—”
“Stop.” The word came out harsh and ugly.
Eva froze, hurt flashing across her face before she could hide it.
“Don’t,” I said more gently. “Don’t offer me your body like it’s the only thing you have of value.”
“It worked before,” she said bitterly.
She was right. I’d made her body the price of a job, or my affection, and I’d taught her that her body was all she had to bargain with.
Eva’s hands shook as she tried to adjust her dress, to cover herself, but the wrap had shifted, and she couldn’t quite?—
I reached over and tugged, fixing it for her, careful not to let my fingers linger on her skin, even though every instinct screamed to touch her, claim her, keep her.
She took a shuddering breath then swallowed hard.
“I can’t help you go after Carter,” I said quietly. “It’s too dangerous. He’ll destroy you.”
“He’s already destroying me!” Her voice broke. “Every fucking day I don’t give him what he wants, he gets closer to killing my father. And every time I do give him what hewants, I betray people I—” She stopped. “I betray people who trusted me. I can’t win, Alek. I have to stop him.”
Her chin trembled for a second, the movement so unlike her, it snapped me out of my fury.
Eva was terrified.
Not of me.