Chapter 6 06 Where Am I? 3

Lyra

Silence returned to the penthouse. Damon immediately released me. He stepped away as if he had not just pulled my nearly naked body against his and kissed my neck. The warmth disappeared with him, leaving cold air against the damp spot his lips had created.

I stared at him. He adjusted one of his sleeves without the slightest sign of embarrassment. That was when I understood I had been nothing more than a tool. He saw me walk into the room wearing his shirt, noticed Vanessa’s reaction and decided to use me to make her jealous. He had not cared whether I wanted to participate or whether the woman might attack me. I was simply convenient. After what Tristan had done the previous day, being used by another ruling-class wolf felt particularly insulting.

“Where are my clothes?” I demanded.

Damon looked at me. “Good morning.”

His tone was so calm that it took me a second to understand his meaning. I had appeared in his living room and demanded answers without greeting him. A small amount of shame crept through my anger.

“Good morning,” I muttered. “Where are my clothes?”

“I instructed one of the staff to bring you aspirin when you woke,” Damon replied. “You drank far too much last night.”

He walked over to a plush three-seater couch and sat down as though we were discussing the weather. He picked up the remote, turned on the television and lowered the volume until the morning news played softly in the background. I remained in the middle of his living room wearing nothing but his T-shirt. He did not seem troubled by that at all.

“My clothes,” I repeated.

“I threw them away.”

My mouth fell open. “You did what?”

“You vomited all over them,” Damon explained, watching the news. “They couldn’t be saved.”

“You threw away my dress because I vomited on it?”

“That is generally what people do with ruined clothes.”

“No, it isn’t. They clean them.”

His gaze shifted briefly towards me. “That dress was beyond cleaning.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I saw it.”

“You are not a professional cleaner.”

“Neither are you.”

I wanted to grab the remote and throw it through his enormous windows. “That dress was expensive,” I told him.

“I doubt that.”

The words were careless. He was not even trying to insult me. That somehow made them worse.

Of course, the dress would not look expensive to him. Damon probably spent more on one shirt than I earned in a month. He came from one of Greyhaven’s ruling families and owned an organisation worth more money than I could imagine.

To him, my dress was cheap fabric covered in vomit. To me, it represented weeks of saving and calculating what I could live without. It represented standing outside a shop window and wondering whether spending that amount on one item made me irresponsible. It represented every dinner with Tristan’s friends when I felt their eyes move over my clothes and decide I did not belong among them.

Tristan often complained that I dressed cheaply. He would tell me I was underdressed and then act wounded when I reminded him that I could not afford the brands Chloe and the other women wore. I bought the blue dress because I wanted to prove I could look right beside him. Now Tristan was gone, and so was the dress. Perhaps both losses were signs that I needed to stop twisting myself into something acceptable for a man who had never valued me. Still, I wanted my dress back.

“You had no right to throw it away,” I argued.

“You were unconscious, and it smelled terrible.”

“I was unconscious?”

The words left me quietly. Damon finally gave me his full attention. “Sleeping,” he corrected. “You passed out shortly after leaving Eclipse.” I folded my arms over my chest, then quickly unfolded them when the movement caused the T-shirt to rise.

“Who changed me?”

His expression gave nothing away. “You were covered in vomit.”

“That was not my question.”

Before he could respond, a woman dressed in a neat dark uniform entered the living room carrying a tray. She was a middle-aged Beta with a calm expression and the professional restraint of someone who had worked around powerful wolves long enough to ignore unusual scenes. Her gaze touched me briefly but did not linger.

“Your aspirin, miss,” she announced.

“Thank you,” I replied, grateful she had not asked why I was standing in her employer’s living room without trousers.

She handed me a glass of water and two tablets. I swallowed them immediately and drank half the water in several desperate gulps. The relief was almost instant, although that was probably because my body finally received water rather than the medicine working that quickly. The woman turned towards Damon.

“Will there be anything else, Alpha Blackridge?” she asked.

“No,” Damon answered. “Thank you.”

She left without another glance at me. The quiet respect in her manner said enough about Damon’s position. She did not kneel or behave like someone from an outdated pack settlement. She was an employee inside a modern penthouse, but there was no mistaking who owned the home or whose authority controlled it. Damon returned his attention to the television.

“My driver will take you home,” he told me. “There’s no need for you to leave Mooncrest Towers dressed like that.”

I looked down at his shirt. For once, we agreed. Walking through one of Greyhaven’s most famous residential buildings without trousers would create the sort of story that reached social media before I reached the lobby. Someone would recognise Damon’s scent on me, and by afternoon, strangers would have decided I was his secret mistress.

“Yes,” I replied. “Please have him take me home.”

Damon nodded. “Do you accept transfers, cheques or cash?” I stared at him.

“What?”

He did not look away from the television. “Transfer, cheque or cash?”

My aching mind searched for an explanation. Perhaps he intended to pay for the dress he had thrown away. That would be fair, although I doubted Damon Blackridge had any idea what it cost. He might transfer enough to buy ten dresses without noticing the difference.

“A transfer for what?” I asked.

At that moment, the news presenter began discussing a government investigation into one of Greyhaven’s transport corporations. Damon increased the volume slightly, as though that was more worthy of his attention than the confused, half-naked woman in his living room. I waited. He said nothing.

“Alpha Blackridge, what exactly are you trying to pay me for?” I demanded.

He exhaled impatiently and muted the television. “I never asked Lucien to arrange an escort for me,” Damon explained. “Bringing you was his idea.”

For several seconds, the words refused to make sense. Escort. Lucien had brought Sienna. Sienna had brought me. Sienna was an escort, although she did not need the money and never hid what she did. Damon assumed I was one too. Before I could correct him, he continued.

“I didn’t sleep with you.”

Relief moved through me so suddenly that my knees almost weakened. Nothing had happened. I had not had sex with a stranger while too intoxicated to remember. Whatever else went wrong, I had not crossed that line without knowing it. Damon’s next words ruined the relief.

“You would know if I had.”

He said it with absolute certainty and enough arrogance to fill the penthouse. I stared at him while my mind decided which part of the conversation offended me most. His assumption that I was an escort? His attempt to pay me despite claiming he had not slept with me? Or the smug certainty that sleeping with him would leave evidence no woman could possibly overlook? My wolf, who had been too hungover to care about most of the morning, became considerably more interested in my anger.

“I am not an escort,” I told him clearly.

Damon gave a quiet chuckle. The sound was attractive, which only irritated me more. “I only went to Eclipse because Sienna asked me to accompany her,” I continued. “Lucien told her to bring a friend. That friend was me.” Damon leaned back against the couch.

“Not everyone is proud of their work.”

“I just told you it isn’t my work.”

“I’m not judging you.”

“You are refusing to believe me.”

“You have no reason to lie to me.”

“I’m not lying!”

His expression remained annoyingly calm. My raised voice did not affect his Alpha composure at all.

“I understand there is still stigma attached to the profession,” Damon replied. “What you do with your body is your business.”

My fingers tightened around the glass of water. “I do not sell my body.”

“I did not say you did.”

“You called me an escort.”

“That is what an escort does, isn’t it?”

I could not believe this man. Perhaps he was deliberately trying to make me angry. No one could be this insulting by accident. Damon glanced towards the side table where his phone rested.

“Transfer, cheque or cash?” he asked again. “Choose one so we can settle this.”

“Settle what?” I demanded. “You said you did not sleep with me.”

“I took responsibility for you after Lucien left. You still spent the night here.”

“You want to pay me for sleeping unconscious in your bed?”

“You vomited in my car, ruined your clothes and occupied my bedroom. If anything, I should send you an invoice, but Lucien will insist you were my guest.”

My mouth opened and closed. The arrogance surrounding him was almost impressive. He had thrown away my dress, used my body to make Vanessa jealous, decided I was an escort and now wanted me to select a payment method so he could dismiss me with a clear conscience.

I had spent years being treated as less important because I was a Zeta. Wealthy wolves assumed women like me should accept whatever attention they offered and remain grateful. Tristan had proven that belief only hours ago when he acted as though eighteen months with him should compensate for the way he discarded me.

Now Damon Blackridge looked at my rank, my lack of a famous surname and my friendship with Sienna, then decided I must be available for purchase. The fact that he was an Alpha did not give him the right to insult me. His money did not make his assumptions true. And his dominance, however powerful, was not going to frighten me into accepting it. I searched for something to throw at him. The glass was a bad idea. I might be angry, but I had no interest in being arrested for damaging an Alpha CEO’s face inside Mooncrest Towers. My gaze landed on a cream throw pillow at the other end of the couch. Perfect. I marched towards him, grabbed the pillow and threw it directly at his head. Damon caught it a second too late to hide his surprise.

“You bastard!” I shouted. “You threw away my expensive dress, dragged me into whatever miserable mess you have with that woman, then called me an escort because you think every low-ranking woman near you must be for sale.”

Damon lowered the pillow slowly.

“I did not...”

“Have your driver take me home,” I snapped. “I cannot deal with you. I don’t want your money, your cheque or your bloody transfer. I want to leave.” How dare he say such a thing about me?