The Billion Dollar Contract: The Executive Collection (52 page)

For the rest of her life she would remember this exact moment. Here, in the entryway of Jackson Lyle’s pristine and well-guarded mansion, where she knew one wrong step could mean the end of her life. It could have also meant her freedom, and that of Monica’s as well. As Jasmine approached the door, she felt Jackson’s eyes on her back, judging her, finding amusement in her actions as she squared her shoulders and swore to herself that if she went down like this, she at least went down asserting herself.

Shouts and threats of violence erupted on the other side of the door. Jasmine stepped back, her heart fluttering in her chest. At first she believed that this was one of Jackson’s doings, but the man in the white suit dropped his smile and walked forward.

After one loud shout, the double doors of Jackson Lyle’s mansion opened, admitting a bedraggled figure dressed in old jeans, a stained black sweatshirt with the hood raised, and wet, bloody fists that left two security guards rubbing their jaws before grabbing their radios.

“You fucking piece of shit,” Ethan growled, his legs buckling and threatening to plop him on the marble floor. His sneer was for Jackson, who stood up straight and tried to pretend that his business partner had not just punched out two security guards and forced his way inside. “You actually did it. You managed to be a bigger fuckhead than I ever took you for.”

“Now, Ethan…” Jackson held up his hands as if that was supposed to solve everything. “Let’s not be brash here. You explicitly told me that you were done with this young lady once and for all. Didn’t you?”

Jasmine looked to Ethan, her mind demanding an answer while her heart reached out to him for comfort – and to comfort him, based on how terrible he looked. “I can’t say I put it in those words, exactly.” He was not looking at her.

“So you can’t be angry if she has decided to move on with someone else. All is fair in love and… well, love!”

“The idea of loving you is about as appealing as sticking a rusty club up my ass.” Jasmine couldn’t contain her contempt behind shock anymore. “Go fuck yourself, kidnapper.”

Jasmine turned to leave again. When Jackson quickly advanced toward her, she saw Ethan swiftly move out of the corner of her eye. But it was Monica who eventually stopped him.

“No!” In one deft, well executed move, Monica lifted the skirt of her dress to reveal a pair of shorts beneath – and a gun within a holster. Jasmine yelped in surprise, jumping back and clasping her hand over her mouth as Monica brandished the gun and aimed it at Jackson.
She’s going to shoot him!
The gun remained steady in the air, ready to go, but undisturbed. “You don’t get to play the games anymore.”

Jasmine was not the only one shocked. Ethan stopped in his tracks halfway to Jackson and stared at Monica as if this were a new woman he had never met before. Jackson, on the other hand, concealed his shock by bristling under the gun’s heavy weight. “Now, my pet, that is a dangerous weapon you have there. You should put it down and give it to me.” He held out his hand, fully expecting his sub to obey him.

To Jasmine’s great delight, she didn’t. “Don’t you dare call me your pet ever again. You don’t deserve to call me that. You lost that privilege when you started hurting me.”

“Hurting you? What are you talking about?”

Monica’s lip trembled. The gun shook in her hand, threatening to go off. “I don’t have to tell you or anyone else here. You know damn well what you have done. I may be submissive, but I’m still a human being. I’m not sure about you anymore. I don’t think you’re human at all.”

“Monica.” Ethan eased toward her, holding out his arms in an effort to get her to put the gun down. “This isn’t necessary. Let’s go.”

That look in Monica’s eyes, however, said something very different. It
was
necessary. Whatever was going through her head at that moment, it was something that had been building up for months, possibly even years. How long had Jackson been hurting her? How long did it take for Monica to realize her paradise was nothing but a nightmare? What sorts of horrible things did Jackson have to do to her to make her break like this?
No, I don’t want to know.

Ethan managed to get the gun out of her hand by carefully touching her and saying more pleasant things. Yet her eyes never left Jackson’s visage, her defiant attitude the nail in his coffin.

Once it was in his possession, Ethan emptied the clip. It had been fully loaded.

“Come on, it’s time to go.” Ethan took both Jasmine and Monica by the wrists and was about to lead them out of there when Jackson finally spoke up again.

“You both will be nothing but whores for the rest of your lives. You may not be our whores, but girls like you can’t help themselves. You will always be somebody’s whore.”

Although disgusted, Jasmine was willing to still walk away, her head held high. So was Monica, although she continued to tremble and took Jasmine by the hand in search for strength and comfort. It was Ethan who was not going to let that go unchecked.

“You son of a fucking…” Ethan didn’t get to finish his phrase. His bloody knuckles met a new bloody nose as he punched Jackson in the face, sending him straight down to his floor.

Before the security backup could arrive, Ethan stormed out of the mansion with Jasmine and Monica both in his grasp. They entered the breadth of twilight, the darkness covering them as they stole into the nearby woods. Shouts and the clatter of radios erupted behind them, but the adrenaline was pumping, and the three of them made their quick escape to a clearing where Ethan had parked his Lamborghini.

“Get in!” He unlocked the doors and jumped into the driver seat. Jasmine rounded the hood and got in the passenger side. Monica, who struggled to keep up, pushed herself into the backseat and closed the door the minute Ethan pulled out of the woods.

Jasmine had no idea if anyone was chasing them, so she kept her head down and eyes pointed on the road in front of them. They didn’t head toward the gate. Ethan knew another way off the property, and drove his expensive car over a bumpy hill, the unbuckled trio bouncing back and forth in their seats.

Once they were safely back on the road, speeding near the meridian, Jasmine finally found her breath. “How did you know where to find me?” She asked.

Ethan kept his eyes on the road, his arms stiff and jaw set. “Monica called me.”

Jasmine looked into the backseat, where Monica held on to the headrests and peered between the seats. “I had to make sure you got out of there, didn’t I?”

The car sped down the road. Where they were going, Jasmine could only guess.

37

“There has to be something we can do!” Ethan was livid, his rage pulsing through the large living room of his mansion in the hills. Still dressed in jeans and a black sweatshirt, he hardly looked like he belonged in his own home. Especially when he was jabbing a finger in the direction of his lawyer, a tall, pristine man over fifty, who more than once told Ethan to calm the hell down. “That man is a kidnapper, and he was probably going to do other terrible things as well. We can’t let them get away with it.”

The lawyer urged his client to sit on his plush sofa next to Jasmine and Monica. Both women remained silent since arriving at Ethan’s house, perhaps afraid that the sounds of their own voices would arouse Jackson Lyle back where they left him. “This isn’t open and shut,” the lawyer said. “I don’t personally doubt the validity of the stories, but we would need more to go on. Unless there is video or audio proof that your business partner took Miss Bliss against her will, it will be a long, hard road that we probably won’t win.”

“How can you say that? Aren’t you the best in the business? What have I hired you for?”

Jasmine could hear that exasperated sigh from across the large room. “Yes, I am the best in my business, and surely his lawyer is the best in his business. If this were common crime from off the streets, then I wouldn’t hesitate to go forward with charges. But as it is, your business partner is also a wealthy, powerful man, who has just as much if not more sway than you in certain areas of the law. I’m hesitant to try anything unless we have damning proof.”

“But you
heard
what they said about him!”

“Yes, that’s all we have. Their words against his.” The lawyer straightened his tie. “You know I don’t want to say this, Ethan, but they aren’t exactly the most stellar witnesses. No jury will take them seriously. Especially after word has gone out about you and Miss Bliss.”

Jasmine shuddered.
Great, I fucked up my own chance of putting that man in prison.
All because she was angry and had something to prove. “I don’t want to press charges anyway,” she said from the couch. “I know it’s hopeless. He’s the kind of man to clean up all his tracks. He didn’t even touch me. Short of keeping me up in that room, I don’t even know what he did that we could get him on.” She shook her head. “Besides, even though he totally hired someone to kidnap me and keep me prisoner in his home, he will just find some way to destroy my character and probably pin something on me instead.”

“Yes.” The lawyer looked between her and Ethan. “Like prostitution.”

“That’s uncalled for.” Ethan did not break his gaze with his lawyer.

“Uncalled for, maybe, but the truth. As unfortunate as it is for Miss Bliss, I’m afraid there’s not much we can do, legally.”

Ethan argued with him for another half hour, neither of them breaking any ground. By the time the lawyer got up and left, nothing had been resolved. Jasmine knew that there was no evidence that Jackson had hired someone to kidnap her. Nor could she prove that she had been there against her will, even with Monica as a witness.

“I don’t care,” she finally said to no one in particular. “I just want to be safe.”

For the first time since arriving in his house, Ethan talked to her directly. “You will be safe. You can stay here for the night. Tomorrow, I’ll have someone escort you back to your apartment. You have somewhere you can go, right?”

Of course he’s not offering to let me stay here for longer.
Not after what Jasmine had done. “I guess I can go to my parents’ house. It should be far enough away. Although I don’t know what I’ll tell them…”

“Then go there.” Ethan turned, stomping toward his desk on the side of the room.

Impulse led to Jasmine leaping to her feet and rushing toward him. “Ethan, I… well, thank you.”

There was nothing romantic, loving, or even affectionate in the way he looked at her. He didn’t push her away with his hands, but Jasmine felt the force of his scorn from that look alone. “What, like I would leave you to that brute?”

Jasmine didn’t respond right away. For all he knew, that was exactly what she was thinking. “I only mean that you didn’t have to go there yourself. Especially after what I did to you the last time we saw each other.”

“I’m not going to waste my time asking why you did that. But I’m not going to just throw you out of here either. Like I said, you can stay the night, and you’ll be taken care of tomorrow. I suggest you get out of town as soon as you can. I’ll figure out what to do about Jackson.”

Jasmine knew that was her cue to leave the room. After sharing one last look with Ethan, she slowly turned away from him and left the large room. Out in the hallway, Harold waited for her, anxious to take her to a guest room where she would be safe for the first time in a while.

The last thing she saw was Ethan sitting on the couch next to Monica, embracing her, and not saying a word as she began to sob against his chest. Harold closed the living room door and motioned for Jasmine to follow him upstairs. She was no longer invited to take part in certain aspects of Ethan’s world.

After a long, sleepless night in one of Ethan’s guest bedrooms, Jasmine was escorted home by security guards given strict instructions to not let anyone from Jackson Lyle’s payroll near their charge. The ride home was long and quiet, and when Jasmine stepped through the front door, she encountered a cat who hadn’t been fed in about four days. He was not impressed.

As soon as Blackbeard was taken care of, Jasmine sat on her couch and looked at the security guard standing near her door. They were instructed to watch over her until she had packed a few things and was ready to leave. That morning, Ethan talked to her long enough to tell her that she was to come over to his office to collect the last of her things before being driven to the airport. He had offered to cover her plane ticket to her parents’ house.

First things were first. Since it was too last minute to take the cat with her, Jasmine went to Juan and Selena’s place to ask them to look after her things while she was gone for a while. They asked her what was going on, but she was not privy to tell them.