I started to shake my head as I backed out of my chair. “This is wrong, I can’t do this…”

“Goldie, I need to talk to you. Please don’t leave me until you give me that much.”

His charcoal eyes pleaded with me as my ass was almost out of my chair and walking out the door.

Fuck! I wanted to scream out of frustration and the turmoil that was running through my body. Why did I feel like I owed every man in my life something? I didn’t owe them anything, but the way Rex was looking at me, fucking pleading with me, I couldn’t leave. I had to listen to what he had to say, even though I knew I was just going to go back to the club.

I sat back down, scooted my chair in and waved my hand for him to proceed.

Rex blew out a breath of relief as he sat back in his chair. “I first want to apologize for not coming to you sooner, for pushing you to have to look somewhere else for help. That was never my intention. I was…tied up,” Rex said with a harshness to his voice. “My ex wasn’t taking very kindly to the divorce, so it took me longer than expected to extract myself from her.”

“I’m fine,” I said while shrugging my shoulders. “I found my way.”

“That’s what I don’t like. If only I was a week earlier, you wouldn’t have had to turn to that…oppressor. He does nothing but takes what he wants, when he wants it, and he doesn’t care who he hurts.”

Curiosity sparked my interest as I said, “You act like you have experience where this is concerned.”

Rex took a sip of his coffee and nodded. “I do when it comes to business and now when it comes to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Jett and I go way back, too far back. When we were young, it was always a competition. We fought for the position as starting pitcher, for the leader in the society club,” I quirked my eyebrow and he shrugged his shoulders, “Rich boy problems, I know. But it mattered to us at the time. Now that we are older, we fight over land, status…and women.”

“Women?” I asked.

“Yes, when we were younger, we both had our eyes on this girl—Natasha. We fought tooth and nail to win her affection, to show her who the better man was, and the better man prevailed—me,” Rex said with a smirk. “I won her heart fair and square and Jett didn’t take that lightly. From the moment Natasha chose me, he’s been out to get me and he would do anything to seek revenge, not caring who he hurts.”

“What happened with Natasha?” I asked, while leaning on the table, more intent on listening to his story.

“I was a fool and married her.”

“Your ex-wife?” I asked, needing the confirmation, even though it was an answer anyone with half a brain would know.

He nodded. “I want to say I married her out of love, out of a connection I thought we had, but now that I sit back and think about it…I think I married her for all the wrong reasons, which was stupid. Yes, I loved her at one point, but not that undying love you find once in a lifetime and I think that’s what tore us apart.”

“Why did you marry her?”

“Well, I did love her and, being a businessman, I needed an attentive wife on my arm for functions. I looked better to investors as a family man with my head on straight, but deep down, I think I married her because it meant that Jett couldn’t touch her.”

I nodded my head, knowing that was what he was going to say. Did I judge him for it? No, not at all because who the hell was I to judge? I sucked men’s dicks for cash and flaunted my tits for food when I was younger, so I had no room to judge anyone for what they did.

Rex continued, “After Natasha and I got married, I quit running into Jett; it was as if he dropped off the face of the earth. I would hear about him occasionally, lose a property to the bastard here and there and see him in the newspaper with his latest fling, but that was about it. He flew under my radar for the longest time…until now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I told Natasha there was another woman, which she wasn’t happy about, so I can only imagine she went running her mouth to everyone who wanted to listen and Jett has some of the biggest gossiping ears in the city. He made it his mission to find who the girl was and take her away from me, not even give me a chance to make her mine.”

A big gulp ran through my throat as I tried to take in everything Rex was saying to me. There was so much information thrown at me all at the same time that I was having a difficult time digesting it all. Rex considered me his other woman? Just not a whore he paid for a good time? That was news to me. I knew he wanted to make a change and that he was looking for me once I joined the Lafayette Club, but I didn’t think he was looking for me because I truly mattered to him.

I didn’t get a chance to speak because Rex leaned forward, grabbed my hand, and brought it up to his mouth to place a light kiss on the tips of my fingers.

“He took you from me, kitten. He took you before I could offer you even more than he could, a relationship, a warm bed, and a man that cares about you…wants to make you his.”

I didn’t know what to say, or how to react. A part of my heart was melting at the fact that Rex wanted me, actually wanted me. The fact that such a powerful man wanted me to be his was something I was unable to comprehend, but couldn’t help but smile about. The luck that I experienced in the past nine years was pretty much non-existent, until the day I was picked up by Jett.

Jett.

As I thought about him, I started to think about Rex’s story and the cogs in my head started to turn as I soaked everything in.

“Wait, so you’re saying Jett came after me to get back at you.”

“Why else would he?” Rex said, without a second thought.

Ouch, that one stung, but then again, if I was in his shoes, I would think the same thing. I was nothing but a whore when Rex first met me. I was lucky enough Rex wanted to go slumming, sniffing around my crotch. Why the hell would two wealthy and extremely powerful men turn to me? Yeah, I had a good rack and gave one hell of a blow job, but it wasn’t like I was winning the Pulitzer for best journalism on the proper way to lick a man’s cock.

The more I thought about it, the more I recognized bullshit coming from someone and Rex knew me first, so that meant Jett was not only a master manipulator, but a fucking liar as well.

Steam started to pour out of every orifice of my body as I recollected all the times Jett told me how beautiful I was, how he called me little one like I was his fucking pride and joy, how he made me fall for such a malicious bastard. He worked me and he worked me big time.

I was such a fool to believe that I was fucking Cinderella, being picked up from rags and instantly blessed with a charmed life. Naïve was a good way to describe me, but fucking moron was even better.

Fuck.

“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but also, I’m glad you came because I needed you to know before you became too invested. I would love for you to leave that overbearing, tyrannical club and come live with me, be pampered and to never have to work another day in your life, but I don’t want to force you into anything. I want you to make your own decisions.”

I looked Rex in the eyes for any kind of a tell that he was possibly lying, but all I saw was complete and utter honesty. The sincerity in his dark eyes nearly split me in two from what he was offering me. He was offering me the comfort and security I’d been looking for the past nine years, so why the hell was I being so hesitant? Why wasn’t I jumping at the opportunity to be with him?

One thing was, I didn’t know him that well. Yes, we practically fucked every inch of each other’s bodies, even ears, but that didn’t mean I knew him. I’d never spent a night with him, never been to his place, and never been on an actual date with him. Then again, I never did any of those things with Jett either, except for the date, which I now wish I never went on because that night kept clouding my thoughts. It was a brief moment in time where Jett was actually human, a man that I could see myself with and it was a side I never should have seen because he gave me a taste of what life could be like, but would never be.