He didn’t need to get me anything. I was here because he purchased my body. I was supposed to be his fuck toy, nothing else… So why did it feel like so much more?

Why didn’t he feel like the Warren I’d known all those years before?

Was Warren ever truly a monster at all?

I was back in my favorite position, behind the little desk Warren had placed in his office for me. It was a workday for him.

Well, all days were workdays for him. Today just happened to be a busy workday. And that apparently meant visitors.

I didn’t get the scope of his work. Not truly. Even after working with him for a bit, the more I knew, the more complicated it seemed.

I had only really started to understand the sheer volume of what he was doing when Maxwell and the man in glasses came back for a meeting.

“No,” I gasped, my hand coming up to cover my gaping mouth. “Trafficking?”

“Right?” Maxwell said, a slight smile pulling at his lips. “You would think the owner of a herbal supplement company would do something a bit more…”

“Drug-based or something?” I finished for him.

Maxwell was a breath of fresh air. After the whole reveal of our almost marriage, I started to open up a bit more around him when he came over. Something he said back then struck me.

He and I are the same.

I almost felt… embarrassed that he was able to come to terms with his upbringing so easily while people pulled wool over my eyes. And I let them.

I felt like he understood.

He didn’t treat me like Warren’s thing. He treated me like the person I was.

And he was funny. Sparing nothing when it came to our gossip sessions.

“There are men like him around every corner, Addi. Sometimes they’re the people you least expected,” Warren said, his eyes shifting to mine. Even the smallest look had my insides twisting with need for him.

“Seems like you’ve met all of them,” I shot back. There was a bit more bitterness in my words than I meant, my mind automatically bringing up my dad, especially since there was still a lot I didn’t know.

I caught my dad before Warren did, Maxwell had said.

His jaw ticked.

“Addison, why did you think Warren was doing this?” the guy in glasses asked. He was questioning me so openly it had my heart racing.

Warren sent him a pointed look.

“This isn’t an interrogation,” he said.

Maxwell shot the man a look as well but said nothing. When he turned back to me, I could see that he was a bit curious about my answer too.