The next morning, Paige was awoken by Harrison. He was pinching both her cheeks and stretching her mouth.
She knocked him off and choked, “What are you doing?”
He laughed and jumped away from her.
“Do you have any idea how much that hurts?” she whined.
“Uh-huh, and do you have any idea how insulting it is for a Rose Red to accuse her buyer of being a killer?”
Paige covered her face with her blanket. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”
“Apology… somewhat accepted. You know, before you were dropped off yesterday, I found myself inexplicably apprehensive. How was I going to treat you right? How was I going to make you happy? But ever since I found you rooting around in my trash, all my worries have melted away.”
Paige felt the previous night’s goosebumps turn into heat in her cheeks. Harrison wasn’t filthy this morning. He’d had a shower and smelled like spice and prairie breezes, but that didn’t exactly remove the sketchiness of his general appearance. His chin was stubbly and the bottoms of his jeans were frayed.
“I’m glad it was so freeing for you,” she mumbled.
“I realized that what you and I need is to establish a bond of trust between us. You need to learn what kind of a man I am and I need to show you what will be expected of you. That way, you and I can work together for a common goal. You and I turn all this into a profitable business and we become like one of those lame Sleeping Beauty Inc. success stories. You're sold to me for the rest of your life. You don't want to work for a loser, do you?”
“Of course not, but how are we going to do all that?”
“We start like this,” Harrison said, pulling a black handkerchief out of his back pocket.
Paige stared at him, one hundred percent puzzled. “Are you going to do a magic trick?”
Harrison gawked. “No.”
“Then what’s that for?”
“To blindfold you with, my dear.”
“What?” she squeaked.
He got up and held it out to her. “We need to establish trust. Now, will you trust me enough to put on this blindfold and come on a little trip with me?”
There wasn’t a bone in Paige’s body that wanted to do what he asked, but she didn’t have much choice. She reached out to take the handkerchief from him when he snapped it out of her grasp.
“I’ll do it,” he volunteered playfully. “Got to make sure it's tight.”
Paige felt like she was going to die as the black material came over her eyes. “If we’re going somewhere, shouldn’t I change first?”
“Nope. Nothing to worry about. Probably no one will notice that you’re wearing one of my old shirts and the same pants from yesterday. I’ll help you get your shoes on when we get downstairs.” With that, he took her hand in his and helped her to her feet.
Since Paige couldn’t see a thing, she was forced to use her other senses. Harrison’s hand was smoother than she thought it would be, and the fragrance of his cologne more pointed. She heard the sound of his voice as he counted down the steps so she wouldn’t trip. His voice sounded competent as he gave her instructions, almost like a doctor or a pilot. Once her shoes were on, he put a coat over her shoulders.
“Are we going outside?”
“Yes. I keep my secrets outside my house. In order to dissolve further suspicion that I’m a freelance hitman, I’m going to show you what I do for a living. You’re not afraid of wide-open spaces are you?”
“No.”
“Are you afraid of loud noises? Do you have sensitive ears?”
“No. I used to dance right next to the speakers.”
“Are you afraid of heights?”
“No.” She had to fight herself from asking snottily, ‘Why? Are you taking a survey?’ but she managed to keep quiet.
“Well, I guess nothing I do will scare you too much.”
The chilly air hit her as he brought her out of the house and under the stoop. A step later, she felt the crunchy frost-covered grass under her shoes as he led her around the house. Then he let go of her hand.
“Hey!” she yelped as he suddenly picked her up and set her down in a seat.
“Calm down. I’m just going to put your seatbelt on. Don’t be alarmed, but this is a four-point harness, so I’m not feeling around you to get my jollies, okay?”
“Okay,” Paige agreed breathlessly as he secured her. She was totally confused. What vehicle had a four-point harness?
He placed a pair of headphones over her ears and patted her head in a friendly way before she felt the door on her side close. Harrison got into the seat next to her and with him came a collection of clicking noises. “Now,” he said, and she heard his voice through the headphones on her ears, “Try not to scream. It’ll spoil my concentration and may make for a bumpy ride.”
“What’s going on?”
A deep hum started and then a muted chopping noise began. Paige was okay until she felt them lift off the ground. She bit down on her lip and put her hands between her knees. She wasn’t going to act scared, but even if she tried to hide it, there was still hot sweat collecting under her blindfold.
After a couple of minutes of movement and a sick feeling swirling in her stomach, Harrison said, “You can take your blindfold off.”
Cautiously, Paige reached up and pulled the fabric down. She saw blue sky, and then the cockpit of a helocarrier. The floor was clear and she could see farmland shooting under them in white and yellow streaks.
Harrison smiled under his aviator shades. “For the sake of clearing your mind of any weird ideas you have about me, I want to spell everything out. I own a charter helocarrier business. I need an assistant. I’ve tried to hire girls before, but my hangar is too far away from town for anyone to commute. More specifically, I tried to hire my girlfriend for the job. No such luck. Not even she wants to live out here.”
Paige swallowed the knot in her throat, but it just wouldn’t go down. She was relieved and yet terribly cross. Was everything a joke to this guy? Why couldn’t he have just told her bought her to help him with his chocker business immediately instead of letting her jump to wild conclusions?
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“You have a girlfriend?” Paige asked.
He shrugged his shoulders. “We’re on a break. I told her I was going to get some help if she didn’t agree to come out. She said that I should give up the business and move to town for her.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Town? Let me tell you how it works here. The town is tiny. It doesn’t even have a real name anymore. We call it Town. I have no way of making money there. She’s being unreasonable and when we get to town, you’ll see how impossible it really is. So, short answer—no girlfriend.”
Harrison's explanation of why he purchased her was interesting. Paige wished she knew what kind of life she had envisioned for herself when she signed up with Sleeping Beauty Inc. She knew many of the women were hired out as personal trainers and stylists. He wanted a personal assistant. That made sense. If there was no one else out here, then he needed someone on the other end of the transmitter as a safety precaution when he was flying.
The thing was that one of the selling points at Sleeping Beauty Inc. was the romantic angle of their services. They were open about the fact that their models were intended for additional services. The men who bought from Sleeping Beauty Inc. were tired of the drama involved with real women. Real women wanted marriage, commitment, children, and a life with the man they loved. The men who hired models from Sleeping Beauty Inc. did not have lives to share with anyone. They were workaholics who wanted the steady care of a woman who would put his needs first. Care, included anything a man might need, including an intimate, sexual relationship.
Glancing at Harrison, it was suddenly obvious that he did not purchase her with that in mind. Even with the handicap of living on the outskirts of civilization, he didn't have the slightest problem getting a woman.
He had bought her because she was the lowest price model they had, and he needed help.
Refusing to feel the rejection, she guessed she was happy he wouldn’t want anything more from her. It could have been worse. She could have ended up working at Sleeping Beauty Inc. until she paid them off, but once again, she asked herself why she signed herself up at Sleeping Beauty Inc.? Had she wanted to have a romantic entanglement like the one described by the company?
“Are you upset?” Harrison suddenly asked her over the chopping sound of the rotors.
She didn't answer him. She wasn't all right and she didn't know exactly what was wrong. There was a ball of panic in her chest, but what was causing it? Unable to compute her distress, her brain started coming up with answers.
He had no money.
He had a bad sense of humor.
He was making her live in the middle of nowhere.
He was going to make her work, and if it was going to be easy work, one of the girls he knew would have volunteered for it.
She couldn’t figure out what that guard at Sleeping Beauty Inc. had been talking about. He wasn’t hot. He was sketchy and shady and his nose had a funny twist in the middle. She looked at him again to make sure she wasn’t jumping to conclusions, but examining him was a slap in the face to her ego. She was accusing him of being lowbrow because of the state she’d found him in the night before with the garbage. Looking at him now, there was absolutely nothing wrong with him. He even looked cool. She bet he made most girls hyperventilate. Probably the only reason she wasn't swooning at his feet was that he wasn’t the man she loved.
“You look sick,” Harrison persisted. “You’re not going to throw up, are you?”
“No,” Paige said quickly. “I’m fine.”
“Good. We’ll be touching down soon. See that puny cluster of buildings over there? That’s where we’re going.”
Paige nodded.
Even though she had been borderline okay during lift-off and flight, her stomach took a turn for the worst when the helocarrier touched down. It felt like her stomach had somehow ended up in her cheeks, along with its contents.
She swallowed and unbuckled her harness. “What are we doing here?” Paige asked. There was nothing around but old grain elevators and empty-looking warehouses.
“I brought you here to go clothes shopping,” he said.
“Are there clothing stores hidden in the hay?”
He laughed. “No. We’ll have to walk a bit. This is the only place I can set down within the town boundaries.”
Paige waited for him to open the door for her. She felt rather touched. This was nice. He brought her out to buy clothes. That sounded like the sort of thing a purchaser should do. Day one: shopping spree! She smiled and hopped down.
However, he wasn’t kidding when he said they’d have to walk a bit. They walked past silos and old colonial mansions.
“They used to be ranches,” Harrison explained. “Before it became illegal to eat beef.”
“They look expensive.”
“They were. They’re like my house—old tech. Some of them have automation systems installed. The best I’ve got is a doorbell.”
Paige didn’t know how to reply. He and his house sounded positively archaic. Well, when she got her run of his house, they’d get automated… but not before they got a garbage disposal system.
Once in town, Harrison took her down the main street to a tiny café.
“Is this where your girlfriend works?”
He rolled his eyes. “I said she’s not my girlfriend at the moment, but there’s nowhere else to eat, so get in and don’t say anything that might embarrass me.”
“Like what?”
“Don’t say I bought you.”
Paige gawked and clattered her bracelet at him. “They’re gonna know.”
Harrison untied the blindfold from around Paige’s neck and tied it around her wrist. “There. Satisfied? We’re not going to spend that much time in town anyway. There’d be no end of the harassment from the locals if they knew I bought you. Come on,” he said, grabbing her hand.
Inside the café was a lot like the inside of a waiting room of a mechanic’s garage, except you couldn’t pour yourself a coffee. At least, that was what Paige thought as she scooted her butt onto a bar stool. The floor needed to be retiled, the wall needed to be repapered, and the girl working behind the counter needed to be made over… badly.
“Morning, Keziah,” Harrison said pleasantly as he took a seat next to Paige.
She grunted a good morning before setting out a coffee cup for him and Paige, but Paige refused. “No. I’d like unsweetened orange juice. No coffee.”
“I don’t have unsweetened orange juice,” Keziah responded, flicking her dyed-too-many-times ponytail. “Do you see unsweetened orange juice on the menu?”
Paige glanced at the wall behind the girl’s head. “Well, do you have oranges? I’m sure it wouldn’t be that much trouble to squeeze them.”
“No. I don’t have fresh-squeezed orange juice on the menu either,” Keziah snapped. “Or oranges.”
Harrison was laughing between his fingers. “Just bring her the closest thing.”
Keziah disappeared into the kitchen and a minute later a glass with a sloshing orange-colored liquid was placed in front of Paige. She took a sip and gasped. “Are you trying to poison me?”
“What?” Keziah burst—outraged.
“What’s wrong with it?” Harrison asked levelly.
“I don’t know. It tastes like she put something in it. Something toxic.”
“Did you spit in it?” he asked Keziah.
“No!” the girl defended.
“Okay.” Harrison took the glass and tasted it. “That’s how it normally tastes.”
Paige frowned in dismay. “Yuck,” she said sadly.
“Keziah, just bring her a glass of water,” Harrison said reasonably.
“Like hell, I will,” Keziah said as she stormed into the kitchen.
Harrison hopped off his stool and chased after her. “Don’t be like that, honey,” he said as he ducked under the counter and followed her in.
If Paige had any hopes of being shielded from their conversation, they were soon dashed to pieces. She could hear everything and so could the two baseball-capped farmers who sat at the other end of the bar.
“Who is she?” Keziah hissed.
“What do you mean, ‘who is she?’” Harrison’s voice tumbled after hers. “We already talked about this. We’ve been talking about it for the last four months. I asked you to come work with me and you said no. Then you broke up with me. I warned you—repeatedly—if you wouldn’t help me, I would find someone who would. We’re done talking.”
“That brat?”
“That brat,” Harrison said evenly.
“She’s wearing your shirt!” Keziah wailed.
“So? You’ve worn my shirts dozens of times and what has that meant? Not much.”
“Well…” Keziah stuttered.
“Well, nothing. I’d go to a different café if there was one. Now, I know you need the business, so just be a good girl and bring us both a couple of pancakes. Can you do that, honey?”
“Stop calling me honey!”
“Get over yourself. I call everyone honey.”
“Even her?”
Harrison came out of the kitchen and held the door open as he threw his last words over his shoulder, “No. I call her Rose Red.”