Her cheeks flushed deep red in response to the slightly crude words—mostly because, in some sense, they were true. She couldn’t believe how hard she’d come for him and how clearly he’d recognized her pleasure.

He’d gotten her to beg at the end, so he’d won their unspoken battle.

He must be so pleased with himself, the arrogant bastard.

But it needed to be this way, and his pleasure would only be temporary.

So she pulled herself together quickly and rolled over to give him an intentional glare. “No need to sound so smug. It was quite obvious you were into it too.”

He laughed as he took care of the condom. “I guess that means the thank-you is over.”

He was enjoying himself way too much, looking like the entire world was there to satisfy him, but Kelly swallowed over the resentment.

None of it mattered. All of it she could tolerate. All of it she could use.

There was nothing else he could take from her.

Caleb had already taken from Kelly the things that had mattered the most.

—

A couple of days later, in the middle of the night, Kelly’s phone buzzed with a text.

She was sleeping alone in her room, but she reached blindly for the phone, blinking down at the words until she could read them.

How does it go?

She didn’t recognize the number, and there was no name attached to the question, but Kelly knew exactly who it was.

Her mother.

She tapped out Fine.

Any progress on the project we discussed?

Yes. A beginning. It will be a while before I have anything ready to show you.

You know I’m on a tight timeline, right?

I can only work at a certain pace.

Let me know how it goes.

She was scowling when she placed her phone back on her nightstand. Damn her mom, anyway. Let her try to seduce a man to get close enough to find out incriminating information, and then see how easy it was. Did she expect Caleb to suddenly spill out all kinds of compromising secrets post-coitally?

If Kelly started to ask about anything specific, he would immediately get suspicious. There was only so much she could do here, and it was ripping her apart to even do that.

So her mom could just go fuck herself.

—

“We can’t allow that to happen.”

Kelly had been walking downstairs for dinner a couple of days later, but she stopped short at the words and the ice-cold tone.

She knew it was Caleb speaking. She’d recognize his voice anywhere. And he must be just around the corner from the stairs she was descending, because he was out of her sight. Since there wasn’t a second voice, she assumed he was talking on the phone.

She froze, listening until he started talking again.

“I don’t care. He must sign the contract. You need to find a way to make him do so.”

It was becoming clear what this conversation was about, and a chill ran from her neck to her fingertips as she processed the cold ruthlessness in his words.

He continued after another pause, “No. That won’t work. No use wasting your time with that. What do we know about his family?”

There was a much longer break as the person on the other end of the call evidently rehearsed information on the individual in question. “Wait,” Caleb said at last. “His daughter is at Eastlodge? How can he afford to send her there on his salary? Wait. What kind of scholarship?”

After the answer, his tone changed. “That’s it, then. Call the headmaster. Use my name. Make sure Johnson knows that his daughter will lose the scholarship unless he signs the contract tomorrow by noon.”

Kelly was so numb from overhearing this conversation that she literally couldn’t move. She’d known who Caleb was—on paper, anyway. She’d read all the evidence her mother put together on his callous treatment of others, his unethical business decisions.

But hearing it firsthand like this was something entirely different. This was the man who could have made a call to have her father killed. Maybe he’d even done it on his way to dinner.

Because she was so overwhelmed with shock, rage, and pain, she couldn’t do anything to hide the fact that she’d been eavesdropping when Caleb suddenly appeared around the corner.

He was sliding his phone in his pocket, and he glanced up to see her frozen on the third stair.

His eyes rested thoughtfully, observantly, on her face. “You heard?”

She nodded, since there was no way to hide the fact now.

“Did it upset you?” He didn’t look worried—just curious and a little wary.

This was important. She had to get her response right if she was going to stay in Caleb’s good graces. She also needed to be believable. She cleared her throat. “It sounded kind of—heartless.”

He gave a little shrug. “It was. It’s business.”

“Yeah, to you. But it’s not business to that poor girl who might lose her scholarship.”

“She won’t. I know how to read people. Her father will do the right thing.”

She let out her breath, forcing her body to react. She couldn’t let him see her real response to him at the moment. She absolutely couldn’t. She slanted a look up at him. “Are you sure?”

He smiled, as if pleased that she was falling in line with what he wanted her to feel about this. “I’m sure.”

“Okay. I guess that’s good. It still seems a little—ruthless.”

“Anyone you talk to will agree that’s a fair assessment of me.”

She smiled, as she was supposed to, and swayed a little closer to him. “So you’re ruthless, are you?”

“That’s what they say.” A sexy little smile tilted up the corners of his mouth. “Does this change anything?”

She shook her head and slid her hands up to span her fingers around the back of his neck. “I don’t think so. It’s not like I’m the most moral person who ever walked the earth, you know. And, to tell you the truth…”

She trailed off, and dropped her eyes.

He tilted her head back up. “To tell the truth, what?”

She let her eyes grow warm and languid. “I don’t want it to go to your head or anything, but I might actually find it a little—hot.”

And that was clearly the right thing to say.

—

A few days later, Kelly needed to talk to Jack Martin, the private investigator who was helping her and her mother.

It should have been easy enough to make a phone call, but she was constantly on guard. Caleb’s security staff were ubiquitous, and she kept noticing security cameras in unexpected places. She didn’t want to risk a dangerous phone call while she was on Caleb’s property.

She mentioned to Breah that she felt like shopping for clothes, and the next thing Kelly knew, she was being driven to a high-end shopping center. She was trailed by a bodyguard, but she’d expected that—since Caleb was still playing the protector—and she took her time, browsing in a few boutiques and buying a few pieces of sexy lingerie and a pair of shoes she couldn’t resist.

Finally, she got to a shop where the dressing cubicles were in a completely separate room from the main store. She grabbed a couple of outfits and went to try them on, making sure the bodyguard waited at the door and didn’t come into the dressing area with her.

She went to the farthest cubicle and hung the clothes up before she pulled her phone out and sat down.

If Jack didn’t answer—right now, the one chance she had to talk to him—then she was going to be highly annoyed.

After the third ring, a male voice came on the line. “Martin.”

She sighed in relief, recognizing the gruff tones from when she’d talked to him before she came to Caleb’s. “It’s Kelly.” She spoke softly, even though she was alone in the dressing room and the bodyguard was a room and a closed door away.

There was a slight pause. “So I guess that means he doesn’t have you tied up in his dungeon.”

It was so close to the language Caleb himself had used in his teasing, seductive way that Kelly felt the same jolt of erotic interest at the visual of Caleb’s tying her up. To hide it, she made sure her voice was very light. “I’ve looked and looked and looked, but I can’t seem to find a dungeon.”