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  The man gives a charming laugh, picks at some imaginary lint on his leg, which is crossed in a dapper fashion over the other. "There is absolutely no money exchanged for sexual services. The Sugar Bowl does nothing more than charge a fee to our Sugar Daddies so they can join the website and make connections. None of the arrangements made thereafter are for sex; it's merely for companionship."

  "But sex does occur," the reporter says silkily.

  "Of course sex occurs," he admits with a languid smile. "People have sex. It makes the world go 'round."

  The camera fades to black and then rolls to footage of a beach. It looks tropical in nature, as the water is crystal clear with a tinge of pale blue, and the sand is pristine white. The reporter's voice comes over the shot and says, "Jonathon Townsend is never shy to talk about sex, and by the looks of things, he gets plenty from the abundant supply of Sugar Babies that flock to his company daily."

  The camera zooms in on a couple frolicking in the ocean. It's the man who was just being interviewed, wearing a pair of well-fit swim trunks on his muscular frame. A beautiful young woman with long blond hair wraps her arms around his neck as his hands go to her ass. As they kiss, the reporter's voice says, "It's rumored that Jonathon Townsend, or JT to his close personal friends, made an estimated eighteen million dollars last year in earnings from The Sugar Bowl, which certainly makes him more attractive than his already fine physique he recently showcased as he cavorted in the Maldives with his newest flame. With the service having over five million subscribers and still climbing at an astronomical rate, it's clear that JT's star is still on the rise."

  JT?

  My skin tightens and the hair on my arms stands on edge. The fingers on my right hand involuntarily seek my left wrist, rubbing lightly over the tiny, half-inch scar there that seems to throb in acknowledgment of something, but I'm not sure what.

  My eyes are glued to the TV as I watch the man and woman kissing passionately, clearly not worried that they are on public display. Then he releases his hold on her, turns toward the camera with a smile on his face, and I see his torso.

  Red bird.

  Phoenix with flames at the wings and tail.

  Stretched in flight up his left rib cage.

  A shudder seizes my body and a surge of nausea hits me hard. I swallow against it as I lurch off the couch, awkwardly stumbling around the coffee table toward the TV. The camera zooms in closer on the couple, and as if the man known as Jonathon Townsend knows he's being watched, he looks right into the lens and grins, close enough that I can see his brown eyes.

  Brown eyes. What I think might be filled with apology, but no...that's malice. Evil, taunting malice.

  "Damn, baby...sorry...looks like we left some spunk in your hair," he says with a jeering laugh.

  I cry out, stumble backward, and the coffee table catches the backs of my knees, causing me to fall down hard on it. My right hand grips my left wrist, the scar now shrieking in agony.

  "Sela...you okay?" Mark says, his voice sounding like it's stuffed into a drum and sealed tight because the blood is rushing through my head with such force it's blocking other noise.

  "Get out," I whisper, choking on the words because my throat is so dry.

  "What?" I hear him rise from the couch, see his legs rounding the coffee table in my periphery.

  I raise my head, look at him, and rasp, "Get out."

  "You want me to leave? Right now?"

  Red-hot rage swells up within me and I screech at him as I lunge upward from the table, my fists balled up in fury, "Get out. Get out. Get out."

  Mark jerks backward from me, his eyes round with surprise for just a moment before they harden. He reaches down, grabs his backpack off the floor, and mutters, "Crazy bitch."

  I don't even look at him again as he walks out of my small apartment.

  My hands come to my temples and pull at my hair, fisting hard and jerking. I pace back and forth in front of the TV, my eyes cutting to it periodically, but they've moved on to another juicy story.

  Vivid flashes of scenes spark in my brain. Scenarios I've seen before in nightmares but thought they were nothing but nightmares.

  My wrists pinned to the mattress.

  Searing pain as I'm fucked in the ass.

  Red phoenix on a wrist.

  "Think she'll suck my dick?"

  "Swallow it."

  "All of it."

  I bend over at the waist, my stomach cramping violently, then a flood of vomit shoots out of my mouth. I hurl loudly, groaning as wave after wave of nausea and pain are expelled from my body. Beer and the turkey sandwich I'd eaten twenty minutes ago splatter loudly on my worn brown carpet. Tears flood my vision, drip in rivers onto the pile of vomit as I start to dry heave.

  Dropping to my knees, I heave and gag, my hands coming to rest at the sides of the gelatinous pile of grief soaking into my carpet. My nose starts running freely now, snot adding to the vile mixture.

  I suck in air, deep into my lungs, and will my heart to stop its mad beating of terror. The urge to slice into my healed scar overwhelms me, terrifies me so badly I start sobbing. That is something I cannot do again. Those days are over.

  Minutes pass by as I stay on my hands and knees, hunched over the sickness on my floor. My breathing starts to calm down, my heart rate slowly falls back into the range of normal. I lift a hand, drag it over the back of it over my snotty nose, then wipe it on my jeans. Clumsily, I push myself up off the floor and consider the ramifications of what I just saw.

  Of what I just remembered.

  My rapist. One of them at least.

  Good-looking golden boy sitting on some type of empire and vacationing in the Maldives.

  Does he even remember what he did to me?

  "Swallow it. All of it."

  A flash of furious indignation boils my blood and I go dizzy for a moment, realizing that while my life fell apart following that night, his only got better and better. He walked on my back...a straight path to success. Took my innocence in more ways than one, and told me he made all my fantasies come true.

  Something black and oily starts to fill my chest. Permeates my entire being. A dark shadowing so viscous, it starts to cloud my vision and I think momentarily I might be going blind.

  Hatred. White hot and boiling my insides painfully.

  A sickly pervasive need to cut myself, which causes more shame and humiliation.

  "...looks like we left some spunk in your hair."

  I swallow against the vomit rising up within me again. I had thought I was past all this shit. Figured I'd finally gotten my life together, and while I may not have made ultimate peace with what happened, because apparently I just can't forgive myself for my part in all of it, I was moving on. I was learning to get through the nightmares and, even though I abhor intimacy, I was at least giving sex a try so I could feel somewhat normal.

  And that fucker...he's taken all of that away from me. All my little baby steps of progress and the slight amount of strength I've been able to muster to continue living life to some extent. All within the blink of an eye, Jonathon Townsend has taken that all away from me, and while my wrist may not be bleeding at this very moment, I feel like I'm back at square one.

  How can I possibly overcome this?

  What could I possibly do to make this better for me?

  How in the fuck do I stop hurting?

  And then it comes to me immediately.

  Almost too easy.

  Just one word, very simple and yet so very right.

  Murder.

  It flashes over and over again; sharp electrical pulses burning themselves into my brain. I know, without a doubt, there's only one thing that will make this right for me.

  I'm going to make Jonathon Townsend pay for what he did to me.

  Chapter 2

  Beck

  I flip from screen to screen, navigating the new beta site for The Sugar Bowl. My programmers have been working nonstop for the last six months to roll out this n
ew platform that provides a better search engine, a more robust communication interface, and the ability to video chat between the Sugar Daddies and Sugar Babies. Of course, we also had to program in some type of quality assurance on the video plug-in to assure that the chats are clean and nonpornographic.

  That's the problem when you own a company that pairs men and women for a relationship that's not supposed to be based on sex but most assuredly is. Sure...there are some Sugar Daddies who are probably too old to get it up but still want the pretty girl on their arm, and I'm sure in those few circumstances, it's purely platonic.

  But for the most part, Sugar Daddies not only want the pretty girl on their arm, they want them flat on their back in their bed, or hunched over their lap in the back of their limousines sucking on their cock.

  That's really what the Sugar Daddies pay for.

  I know it.

  JT knows it.

  The world knows it.

  We just ensure no money changes hands for the expectation of sex, and we avert any trouble with the law. This was something we spent months having a legal team analyze before we even put the venture capital to use in building the business. No way was JT about to sink millions into an enterprise that could collapse with criminal indictments.

  The phone on my desk chimes and my secretary's voice comes over the speaker. "Beck...there's a young lady here to see you. She doesn't have an appointment."

  "What's she want?" I ask as I pull up the beta chat screen and type a test message to one of my programmers.

  Fuck, but I miss doing the actual programming. This is my original baby before my eyes. Sure, it's morphed to become better and better, but it's all my vision. While my fingers may not actually be punching in the coding sequences anymore, I'm still actively involved in the design, theory, and testing. It's just that now, one floor down in our San Francisco offices, that's done by a team of fresh young programmers straight out of Stanford, MIT, or other equally prestigious schools.

  "It's a Baby," Linda says quietly, her voice full of grandmotherly affection. She calls all the Sugar Babies just Baby. "I think you need to meet with her."

  Christ. I don't need this shit again. I hear it in Linda's voice. I know exactly why there's a Baby here and I don't even need to talk to her to know that I'll be paying a very angry visit to JT soon.

  "Send her in," I say as I log out of the beta program and stand up from my desk.

  The door to my office opens and Linda escorts a young woman in. Exactly JT's type. Blond, built, and innocent-looking. While all of our Sugar Babies are eighteen or older, this girl looks like she could pass for fifteen, which is another thing that JT looks for in his acquisitions.

  I step forward, hold out my hand. "I'm Beckett North, but everyone just calls me Beck."

  Her eyes are frightened and I can see the hint of a bruise at the base of her throat. My stomach recoils as I accept her hand. It's soft, delicate, and weak in my grip. She's subservient, just the way JT likes them.

  "Jenny Warlick," she says softly. My eyes cut past the girl to Linda, who gives me a sad smile, backs out of my office, and closes the door.

  I release her hand and wave to the couch. My office is so large it affords ample space for my U-shaped work desk that holds four computer monitors, a small round table with four chairs, and a seating area that boasts a couch and two sumptuous chairs. A liquor bar is built into one wall, but I don't offer her a drink other than water or soda. She declines.

  Jenny takes a seat on the couch and I sit in one of the chairs opposite with a low coffee table in between us.

  "So tell me what's wrong," I say after we get settled in.

  --

  I'm so fucking pissed at JT my hands are shaking. I make my way down the long hallway that separates our corner offices and practically bark at his secretary when I reach her desk. "Is he in?"

  "Yes, but he doesn't want to be dist--"

  I ignore her, throw open JT's office door so hard it bangs against the interior wall like a thunderclap. I find him hunched over his desk, snorting a line of coke.

  "Fucking typical," I growl as I slam the door closed behind me, which probably only ensures his secretary now has her ear pressed against the door.

  His head raises up slowly and he takes a deep sniff, his eyes bloodshot and watery.

  Pupils dilated to pinpricks.

  "You fucking asshole," I grit out as I stalk up to his desk. "You're fucking doing blow in your office now?"

  "Relax," he says with a grin, running a finger under his nose to wipe the residue away. "It's just a pick-me-up. I had a late night last night."

  "With Jenny Warlick," I snarl. "She just left my office."

  "Who?" he asks dumbly, and I have to physically restrain myself from punching him.

  "The girl you fucked last night. Tied to your bed. There's fucking bruises on her neck, you asshole, and she's scared."

  JT shrugs and says, "Huh. Don't really remember."

  "Because you were probably high," I shoot back.

  "Probably," he says with carefree aplomb. "But relax...I'll drop some money in her account. That's all these girls want."

  "You cannot give her money for sex, you idiot." My fingers curl into fists and I can feel my blood hammering so hard the pulse in my neck is thumping. "And you're lucky she's not crying rape."

  "She wasn't raped," JT says as he leans back in his chair and puts his hands behind his head. "She willingly let me tie her up. Hell, she came on to me. They all want a piece of the king Daddy."

  "Thought you didn't remember," I grit out, but it's futile.

  He remembers enough, probably more so because last night was his normal modus operandi. And I came on strong throwing out the rape word to JT, but I wanted to try to scare him. Jenny never even implied that to me, and even confirmed what he just said. She let him tie her up, but she was scared because he got rougher than what she had expected. He told Jenny last night he wanted to see her again, but she wants no part of that and came to me because she's worried it's going to hurt her status as a Sugar Baby with the company. I, of course, assured her it would not and that JT wouldn't expect anything further from her.

  Fuck, but he's gotten so out of control these last few months since the news outlets started reporting on our business. He loves the limelight and the stardom. Loves the endless stream of pussy in his bed and people bowing down to his greatness.

  Always seeking the next big rush. The thrill that will make that last orgasm pale in comparison. He's using drugs and making stupid business decisions, and Jenny isn't the first one to come to me that has been roughed up by JT. My respect for him is all but destroyed and I just don't have it in me to continue on like this, despite my tie to him.

  "I want to buy you out," I tell him in a calm, level voice.

  That gets his attention and the smug smile slides from his face. He sniffs deeply and leans forward in his chair. "Absolutely not."

  "This isn't working," I tell him. "We've diverged on how we want to run this business."

  "My business," he says flatly.

  "No...it's our business. It's fifty-fifty."

  "I provided the start-up and capital--"

  "I provided the product. Without my skills, The Sugar Bowl wouldn't have even come into existence. And I'm not arguing with your coked-out ass. We have the partnership papers to prove my worth, so I repeat...I want to buy you out. We can get a trio of appraisers to value The Sugar Bowl. You choose one, I'll choose one, and they'll choose an independent. Come up with a fair price, and I'll pay you the money. You can walk and go start up some other business if you want."

  Or just live on the interest earnings and fuck your way through the free world, I think to myself, because JT's done. My friend, through childhood and beyond, is but a pale shadow. My tie to him runs deeper than anyone can begin to imagine. Deeper than JT could even imagine, and yet I feel it all slipping away. The suave and intelligent businessman I knew and partnered up with three years ago is gone. Not a
shred left of the man I'd respected, although never really admired. He was often sort of a douche.

  "Not doing it," he says adamantly, and I sigh in frustration.

  "I can force a buyout," I threaten.

  "Go ahead," he says, calling my bluff. "You know our agreement's loaded with protective clauses for me. You'll never get the company, but tell you what...you want out, I'll buy you out. Programmers like you are a dime a dozen."

  I grit my teeth so violently, I'm afraid the enamel will crack. JT turns his chair back to his desk and proceeds to cut another line. I've been dismissed.

  "What happened to you, man?" I ask softly, searching for a hint of the good I know is inside of him.

  His head snaps up and he blinks those bloodshot eyes. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean what in the fuck happened to you? You were a brilliant businessman, the world was your oyster. Now you're partying with a terrible crowd, scaring women, and you're making some piss-poor financial decisions. You're on a spiral, JT, and you're bringing everything down with you."

  He stares at me a moment, taking in the hard set to my jaw, the worry in my eyes...the defeat in my shoulders. His own eyes soften, relaxing the fine lines and giving him a more youthful look. Almost like the JT of old.

  "Listen," he says in a conciliatory tone as he stands from his desk. He walks around it, throws an arm over my shoulder. "We're like brothers. Buds for life and then after. I appreciate your concern, but I've got things under control. I swear it."

  Truth and lies.

  Yes, we're like brothers and actually are fraternity brothers. We were friends even before that, having attended the same prep school. Our families are intertwined through money and social status. As far as being buds for life, not sure about that one. It's a lie he's got things under control, but I hold my peace. It won't do any good to argue with him.

  No, I think my next conversation needs to be with an attorney to figure out if there's a way for me to get out of this clusterfuck and cut JT cleanly out of my life. I think it's time to let him go.

  With The Sugar Bowl firmly in my sole possession.

  Chapter 3

  Sela

  I look in the mirror, still shocked with my new appearance.

  Six months ago, I ditched every bit of metal in my face and ears except a hole in each lobe that now sports tiny gold hoops. I'm lucky everything closed up nicely with barely perceptible scarring. I cut friendship ties with Mark and the handful of others, making my life more solitary than normal. I joined a gym, spent my precious money on a trainer, and got rid of twenty pounds that were seemingly welded onto my lower stomach, ass, and hips. I spent even more precious money by coloring my golden blond hair a rich, chocolate brown--eyebrows too--and now my blue eyes sizzle like electric orbs. The dusting of freckles across my nose and cheeks also stands out against the dark hair, and I find I like the look. I'm like a slightly younger version of Jennifer Garner but without the bangs.