Rook and Ronin Box Set: The Complete Alpha Billionaire Series (Books 1-5) Page 11

  Ronin is sitting on his couch watching sports when I come back out.

  "Feel better?"

  I nod. "Yeah, I do."

  He gets up, takes my hand, and then we walk down the hallway towards the stairs. It's so quiet compared to earlier I almost don't recognize the studio as we walk past and continue down the hall. Ronin punches in a code, opens the door and waves me in first.

  Antoine and Elise are nowhere to be found, so I take a moment to study the apartment. It's like stepping back into the Roaring Twenties. The whole inside looks like something off The Great Gatsby movie set, it's all curves and contrasts—art deco from top to bottom. The furniture is ultra-modern but old and stylish at the same time. The chairs and couches have high curved backs, and the black piping on the cushions perfectly sets off the white fabric.

  The far side of the room is one giant circular window that has pocket glass doors to allow access to the terrace. This is where the voices are coming from and Ronin leads me through the portal-like door. Exiting onto the terrace is like stepping into another world. There are twinkling white lights strung everywhere and the terrace itself is massive. Like bigger than the first floor of the house I lived in back in Chicago. It's furnished like the inside, except with weatherproof fabrics.

  Ronin calls out a, "Hey." And both Antoine and Elise pull apart from an embrace like two school kids caught necking in the hallways.

  Did I just use the word necking?

  The Gidget outfit is getting to me, I think.

  "I hope you like kebabs," Ronin says. "Antoine makes some of the best kebabs ever."

  "If it's meat, I'll eat it," I reply, my stomach growling like mad with the smell that wafts off the grill and teases my senses.

  "You wanna beer?"

  "Sure." This is already turning out to be way better than I imagined, so why not relax a little. In my head dinner with the Chaputs involved a white tablecloth, crystal glassware, and eating snails drowning in butter with tiny little forks.

  Ronin grabs a Corona from a box filled with ice and twists off the cap, then hands it to me and takes one for himself. He grabs two lime wedges from a little silver bucket in the ice, and shoves them down the neck of each beer. I enjoy the smell of a fizzy lime-infused beer and then take a long gulp.

  Elise walks over to us. "How old are you, Rook?"

  "Twenty-one."

  "Really?"

  "Shut up, Elise, like you waited until you were twenty-one to drink. Leave her alone, she's here to relax."

  Elise narrows her eyes at Ronin and then looks over to me. "I wasn't asking because of the beer, I just need to know for our contracts. Are you really twenty-one?"

  "No, I'm nineteen," I say, a little ashamed as I try and hand the beer back to Ronin. He shakes his head at me and I keep the beer.

  "I'm not interested in policing your alcohol habits, Rook. This is a working dinner, sweetie, and it involves contracts so I just want to make sure you are legal to sign them. We need to get some things straight and we need to know what you will and won't be doing for us while you're working here."

  I swallow. Boy, she really gets to the point.

  "Because while we feel what we do here is art, not everyone agrees and you need to know what it means for you to agree to model for us. OK?"

  I nod.

  "So Ronin, why don't you go keep Antoine company while Rook and I go over the particulars."

  "You OK with this, Rook?" he asks.

  "Yeah, sure. It's business."

  He smiles and walks over to Antoine, who has switched the conversation to French. I can hear Ronin say, "English, you ape," as he approaches.

  "Have a seat, Rook." I look back to Elise, who is all business right now. Gone is that little fairy woman who took pity on me as I cried on the stairs and I'm sorta sorry she got to see me in such a weak position, it puts me behind right now. Like she knows I'm not strong so she automatically gets the upper hand.

  I sit like I'm told and wait for it.

  "OK, I'm not going to sugarcoat it because I'm hungry and I try and treat everyone the same, and I don't sugarcoat it for any of the other models, so you are no different just because Ronin wants to keep you."

  "What?"

  "He likes you, Rook, I think we can both agree that is true. So what I want you to know up front is that we are an erotic photography studio, we supply photos, tasteful photos," she enunciates, "to companies like publishers, producers, large marketing firms and the like. They typically come in an order that asks for something specific, but if we have images we can't use, leftovers and such, we sell them to stock art companies. Do you know what that is, Rook? Stock art?"

  I shake my head.

  "It's a database of photos on a large website that allows anyone to buy the images for a fee and use them as they see fit for projects, with certain restrictions regarding print production. So this means, should you sign our model release form, your body could end up pretty much anywhere. On the cover of a book, in an advertisement, a CD cover, things like that. Do you understand this?"

  "Yes, I understand."

  "Good. So here's the deal. You don't have to do nudes. We have some work for you that is straight portrait and fashion, a bit of glamour stuff every now and then like Clare does. You'll make twenty dollars an hour and that's it. You work by the hour and the work for these types of shots is not steady, but since Ronin seems compelled to take care of you, you hardly need the money."

  I'm not sure why, but I take offense to this statement.

  "Ronin would prefer this option, but you should know that if you get a private contract—for instance, if you agree to do the TRAGIC campaign we are setting up—you will make thousands of dollars. Many thousands of dollars. This contract has a budget of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and a portion of that is for the models. If you're chosen and you agree, you'll make a lot of money. This is what we do here. We make a lot of money, but there is a price to pay. Your images will be all over."

  "OK."

  "OK? That's it?"

  "What do you want me to say?"

  She takes a deep breath. "Let me give you some advice, Rook. Because if you like Ronin, and I know this from my own experience with Antoine, he will not want you to take those contracts. So if you do, you might pay that price too."

  I take a swig of my beer and look away for a moment, over at Ronin and Antoine as they fool with the grill and the food. I'm not sure why, but this whole thing with Ronin is bugging me. "Elise, I like your brother. He's one sexy man, pardon me for saying that as you're his sister. And he's a model, and he's got a lot of money, but I've known the guy for four days. I'm not ready to base a life-changing decision off a potential relationship with him. So if you have a contract I'd like to read it and then I'd like to think about it."

  Elise smiles, maybe for the first time since I got here. "Good girl. I was hoping you'd react like that. Ronin is my brother, but he's a twenty-two-year-old guy, you know? They are what they are, and something tells me you need stability right now, am I right?"

  I nod. "Yes, I'd very much like to be stable."

  "Well, twenty-two-year-old guys aren't known for their stability, if you get my meaning. Antoine was a lot older than me when we met and even then, it took me almost a year to trust him, so I get it." She lets out a deep breath and closes her eyes for an extended period of time. "It was very hard to trust that he would take care of me and to be perfectly honest, I still have panic attacks over it because we never married. So, think about it all very carefully." She pauses. "And if I could make one suggestion?"

  "Yeah, sure."

  "Be careful how much time you spend in Ronin's apartment. You have a place, I gave you that place, so use it. Please."

  I think about this for a moment and it's like she's reading my mind.

  "Yeah, OK."

  Her face lights up. "Yeah?"

  "I can see the wisdom in that. I crave some private space so bad, I can't even explain it."

  She leans
over and hugs me and then Ronin is up next to me. "What's going on? Girl hugs are a bad sign."

  Chapter Twenty-Four - Ronin

  Leave it to my sister to fuck everything up. Dammit. Rook is so skittish, she really is like a bird in that respect. Ready to take flight at the slightest hint that something is up. And I can’t blame her? If I had her past I'd be skittish too. Hell, I damn near did have her past and I am just barely recovered from it. It took Elise and me years to get over that shit.

  But I do not want her down in the studio apartment.

  We walk across the large lower terrace and I shake my head.

  "What?" she asks.

  "I just don't like the idea of you being down here alone. It's too far away, it's dark, it's creepy, it's—"

  "It's four stories up and there's a keypad on the studio door."

  I smile as I take her hand. She's brave. "I know, but it's far."

  "Far from where?"

  "Far from me, you little shit." She squeezes my hand and I feel a little better because she's still sending some token I-like-you signals.

  I open the door and find the light switch on the side of the wall, not ready to leave her yet.

  "So what should I expect tomorrow?"

  "Well," I say, trying my best not to ravish her mouth as I watch her chew on her lip. "If you sign the contract then we'll do a practice shoot, in private, well, semi-private. All the technicians will be there and probably two or three photographers."

  "Why so many?"

  "Antoine likes to get a bunch of angles, and he can only work one camera at a time, so he makes the other guys come in sometimes. Since we're planning on using you for TRAGIC, he'll want as many views as he can get."

  "Will you be there with me? Or will I be alone?"

  "I'll definitely be there, Gidget. We're submitting the two of us together for the contract."

  "So I'll be naked with you?"

  I tread carefully. "That's not quite how it works. It's all about the mood of the models."

  She walks back to the bedroom and starts fixing the covers on the bed.

  "Does that bother you?" I ask. "If I see your body?"

  "I'm nervous," she confesses. "I've never done anything like this before, I'm not sure what to expect."

  "Well, after tomorrow you'll know exactly what to expect. I won't let anything happen to you, OK?"

  "OK," she says. "Thanks for walking me home and—" She stops abruptly. "Well, thanks for everything really."

  I back away before I tackle her and rip that adorable little Gidget outfit right off her body. She catches me staring and smiles. "I'm on to you, Larue."

  "Yeah," I say, closing the distance between us despite my inner warnings. I wrap both hands around her hips and pull her a little closer. "I don't see how you're on to me when I'm innocent, I have nothing to hide."

  "Well, I appreciate the Gidget outfit anyway. It's very cute. And I really expected you to come back with the blue nightie, so it was a huge step up in my mind."

  I grin like an idiot picturing me dressing her up in that nightie and then taking her to dinner.

  "Ah, I see your mind spinning with that thought. So, I appreciate your self-control in that area."

  I back away again, because I see the stop sign she's getting ready to put up. "Tomorrow we'll do the cherry tree shoot. It will be completely different than what you experienced today, OK?"

  "Well, that's if I sign the contract, right? I have to sign that first."

  My eyes dart to the papers she set down in the nightstand and I have a moment of hope that she'll wake up in the morning and say screw this contract. But that will never happen, so I just exhale a long breath and force myself to smile. "Yeah, but I think you'll sign it, don't you?"

  She studies me for a moment and her brows crease a little in thought. "I need the money," she says almost apologetically.

  "Yeah, I get it."

  "Well—"

  "OK, goodnight, Rook." I turn and walk out of the garden apartment and make my way back upstairs. Maybe she will walk away from that contract tomorrow, who knows? I wish she would, because the minute she signs it I have to treat her like all the other models and I have a feeling she's not going to like that one bit.

  Chapter Twenty-Five - Rook

  After Ronin leaves I change into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and slip into a long peaceful sleep. In fact, when I wake up in the morning I feel rested and at peace with my situation for the first time in like… forever. Even going all the way back to my childhood, before my mom overdosed and I went into foster care. She was a mess. Your typical teen mom. Broke, craving attention, no clue how to take care of a kid.

  And my life was never peaceful. It was nothing but chaos. In fact, now that I think about it, my life has been one long chaotic episode after another.

  When I first decided to put some thought into getting the hell away from my ex, Jon, I would go to the library and use their computer so I didn't have to worry about my browsing history being detected. I could never trust that anything I looked at on our home computer wasn't being traced because that was Jon's job. Computer forensics. He wasn't a cop but he worked with them all the time.

  Scary shit if you're his ex-girlfriend trying to make a clean getaway.

  Anyway, the library had all kinds of material on domestic abuse. It took me several visits to finally accept that was the situation I was in. Domestic abuse just sounded so clinical. I just knew he hit me, mostly for no reason, but sometimes I defied him on purpose just to make him do it and get it over with.

  It turns out that men who abuse their partners go through a cycle—it starts out fine, then the tension builds and builds, he snaps and gets violent, and then the make-up stage is the only time he's reasonable.

  So even though I didn't really understand this before reading that pamphlet, I could feel these phase changes. I could feel the anger and the tension building to a peak. And it drove me insane, how I had to just wait for him to release it. On me, of course. So sometimes I'd do something on purpose just to get to the make-up stage where I could relax for a few weeks.

  Except there's just one problem with that rationale. After a period of time the abuse gets worse and worse and the make-up stage gets shorter and shorter until it fades away entirely. Then there's only tension and violence.

  That's the stage Jon and I were in.

  Twenty-four-hour tension and violence. If he wasn't hitting me he was yelling at me or calling me names. He especially liked 'whore,' even though he knew damn well he was the only man I'd ever been with. And the last time was the end of the line for me.

  After that I knew he was going to kill me next time. Of course I could've called the police and stayed in Chicago, letting the system work it out. But the statistics were not in my favor. Most women went back and even if they did get a restraining order, the guys almost never respected it. There was even a pamphlet on the different methods the men would use to get the women back after incarceration or legal action.

  I might still be pretty weak right now, but I am a hundred times stronger than I was back then. I know for sure—I'd have been one of those dumb girls who went back. I would've. So the only way out for me was escape to somewhere else.

  I sigh and let all this bad stuff out with the air.

  It's over now, so I can let it go. It's been months, he gave up, he's moved on and found someone else to beat, or maybe he got himself thrown in jail for hitting the wrong person. Whatever happened after I left, it didn't happen to me.

  I smile at this even though I sorta feel guilty that I didn't put him away so he couldn't hurt anyone else. I am only one girl. And even now I'm not strong—just stronger—back then it was incomprehensible that I could do anything to stop him. Maybe someday I'll have it in me to fight back like that if it ever happens again, but right now I'm fragile.

  But I'll take fragile. It's a hell of a lot better than broken.

  And that's what I was back in Chicago. A mess of shattered emotio
ns and irrational feelings that had no hope of understanding that what he did to me was not love.

  That's the one thing I accepted pretty quick when I started to realize what was happening to me internally—the way I justified his acts and allowed him to keep me there in the house after his abuse. I was just as sick as him, but in a different way. I had a psychological disorder that grew over the years until I was incapable of understanding what a healthy relationship was.

  I was sick. The abuse had conditioned me into some strange state of acceptance and I can remember every detail of the day it all became clear. I was sitting at a computer in the library and I suddenly looked around.

  And asked myself an honest question.

  Is this all there is for me?

  I mean, I was a kid once. I had dreams. I had plans. But there I was. In a public library looking up facts about domestic violence when I had a state-of-the-art computer at home in my living room that I was afraid to use.

  I was broken, beaten, and scared of pretty much everything.

  And it hit me.

  If I wanted to change my life then I'd have to do it myself. Because no one was coming to protect me, or save me, or heal me.

  There was just me.

  There is no such thing as heroes, no such thing as being rescued, and if I had a domestic violence problem, then I better be able to figure it out myself because if I didn't, I was going to end up dead.

  And while Ronin seems like a good guy, he has triggered a lot of red flags that keep me guessing. And guessing about my safety isn't something I can afford to do right now. Because in the end there is still only me.

  I need to keep this in mind as I make choices about what I will and won't do while I'm here living in Antoine Chaput's erotic photography studio.

  Because if I'm not careful, the tide of abuse will wash over me again, and this time I might sink instead of swim.

  Chapter Twenty-Six - Rook

  Elise's knock disrupts my reality check and I smile at her face peeking in through the window next to the door. I trot over and let her in.