Every single disgusting word crawls over my skin like a cockroach. I have never in my life felt simultaneously so invisible and so splayed open. I usually love him touching me, but every second that his hands are on my skin feels like a violation of the highest order. His touch has nothing on his words, though.

It’s obvious he’s drunk, but NDAs? He cooked up this entire plan, and I’d bet every fucking pound he’s paid me that it’s because he’s pissed off with me for taking leave. He’s admitted as much. So he’s expecting me to strip off and put out and behave like some party piece, to tolerate a mauling from him and his revolting, drunken, chauvinistic friends? He expects me to get on my knees and put on a show?

I’ve done a lot to save my daughter’s life. I’ve sold myself body and soul, to this man, I’ve jumped so far into the deep end I don’t know if I’ll ever find land again, and I’ve momentarily feared that I was gaining feelings. I’ve sunk to lows I could never have imagined, but these are depths I cannot plumb.

He’s paying me to fuck him. He’s paying me to relieve his stress and his boredom, to fulfil his fantasies. And I know he said he liked to watch, so maybe I should have seen it coming. But nothing is worth this level of shame and humiliation and invasion.

Nothing.

I think about my tiny, sick daughter. About our bags packed and ready. About the operation she’s going to endure. I think about the money, Brendan’s money, sitting in our bank account. We’re good to go for now. I don’t need to endure this. He may, in this moment, be trying to make me feel like I have no agency, but I do. I fucking do. I’ve done enough to save Tabs, but I bloody well won’t do this.

I summon every ounce of that fierce mama bear energy that I can draw on so readily when it’s Tabs I need to advocate for. I throw my notepad and pen on the table and reach behind myself, digging my nails into his wrist and pulling his hand out from between my legs.

‘Stop,’ I spit at him. My safeword. The word I haven’t even had in reserve for the past few weeks, except for one brief moment with Ethan Kingsley. I look down at his brattish, entitled face and feel only contempt. Disgust. ‘Stop, stop, stop. You can blow the birthday boy yourself for all I care, you sick fuck. I’m out.’

CHAPTER 39

Marlowe