Sapphire (Rare Gems Series) (8 page)

“You most certainly will.” His voice
thundered in the car, and she was a little afraid. But he was not going to
order her around. “You’ll do as I say on this. I’m willing to be a little less strict
on you about your job and things, but I will not have you living away from me
where I can’t keep an eye on you.”

“Keep an eye on me? What for? Do you
think I’m going to go out now and find another male to fuck me?” He flushed. “You
son of a bitch, you think that, don’t you?”

Sapphire rolled the window down between
her and the driver. She was sure he heard everything that had happened behind
him, but he only nodded at her when the divider was down. Blair didn’t say a
word to her, but glared.

“Could you please take me to the Grace
Hotel on Sales?” When Blair finally started to speak, she looked at him. “If
you say one word to me, one, I will shift and tear you apart. If you think I’m
kidding, then try it.”

She heard the driver swallow but never
took her eyes off Blair. She knew he was a tiger and would understand that he’d
be hurt, maybe killed, if she did what she promised. When Blair nodded, she sat
back against the opposite door from him and looked out the darkened window. She
wasn’t going to stay there. She was going home. And if he thought to make other
arrangements for her again, she’d fucking kill him.

The rest of her trip was made in
silence. When the limo stopped, she was out before the driver was and hurried into
the hotel to where she knew they’d been holding her bags. She stood at the desk
and waited until the car pulled away before she pulled out her cell phone.

“Diamond, I’m coming home. Could you
please…?” She had to take several deep breaths before she could continue.
“Could you please do me a favor and call a lawyer? I need someone who is savvy
in real-estate law.”

“What happened? You know I’ll do
anything for you, but you have to tell me what happened.” She couldn’t answer
her sister, and she seemed to understand. “Will you tell me before you make any
rash decisions?” Her sister touched her mind, and Sapphire closed the phone and
asked for her things when Diamond told her she loved her.

I have to leave. The house is paid for,
and you’ll be fine.
She sobbed slightly making the staff move away from her.
I’m his mate, but
he doesn’t trust me. He wants me to live with him in the apartment because…because
he thinks I’ll find another male to fuck me.

The management had been very nice to her,
and she felt the need to thank them but couldn’t stop crying. The manager came
out to help her load her things into her car and asked her several times if he
could help her.

“I’m fine, thank you,” she told him.
“Just lost something very important and now I’m going home.”

He was still standing there when she
pulled into traffic. Diamond called her back a few minutes later, and she
didn’t answer. She should have known that wouldn’t work. She and Diamond were
as close as sisters could be.

I’ve called for you and made an
appointment with this guy I met at the hospital this morning. I got the job, by
the way. I start Monday. Now tell me everything.

It took her nearly a box of tissues and
two hours of her four-hour trip to tell her everything. Sapphire had wanted to
leave out the part about the sex but wanted her to know that he’d not raped her
when she’d asked.

He was very gentle with me. I’m sure it
could have been a lot worse.
She flushed when she thought about
riding him and changed the subject.
He can find me now, can’t he?

Yes. You can him as well now that you’ve
exchanged…fluids. I would guess that as arrogant as he is, he more than likely
thinks you’re back at the hotel sobbing your eyes out. He’ll be just stupid
enough to think you’ll wait for him.
She snorted at her.
Sapphire, I swear
to you when I went to talk to him the other day, I never thought this would
happen.

Diamond had told her about the conversation
she’d had with Blair and that she’d thought he’d try. Well, he did, all right. Just
long enough for him to get what he wanted. And now…now she had no idea what to
do because she had a feeling that even though she’d threatened him, she really
couldn’t hurt him. Not physically anyway. A plan started to form in her mind,
and she smiled.

I know you didn’t, but what’s done is
done. But do you remember that guy we met when we first came up here to see the
house? The gay guy, the one who let us sleep in his bed when the bed and
breakfast was closed for the week?
She said she did.
You think he’d
play at being my date a few times?

I think you’ll get him killed if you do
that. That’s not very nice anyway. Why would you stoop to his level? Blair just
isn’t worth it.
Sapphire
agreed with her. She wasn’t going to get anyone hurt because she’d been broken.

And she had been, too. Not just by Blair,
but by Jeffery and even Bruce. He’d called Blair and set her up. Jeffery had
simply betrayed her as her alpha, and Blair…Blair had crushed her. She was
pulling into the long drive of their home when she came to a decision. Diamond was
sitting on the porch with Grandmother when she got out of the car.

“I’m going to go into business for
myself. I’m going to call it Marketing Gems. And I’m going to knock Blair on
his ass with my business sense.” Her grandmother hugged her and told her “good
girl.”

“You think this is a good idea?” Diamond
asked her as she helped her bring her things up. “It’s like waving a red flag
in front of a raging bull.”

“I hope so. I certainly hope so.” She
took a long shower after her sister left for her room. No one but her and
Grandmother knew she was home, and she hoped to keep it that way for a little
while longer. She had things to do.

By midnight she was crawling into bed,
exhausted but happy with what she’d been able to begin. Her name was now hers
as she’d applied for a patent on it, business cards were designed, and she’d
take them to the printer tomorrow. And she had her first client. At least she
hoped that Opal would let her market her things for her.

Closing her eyes, Sapphire was quite
proud of herself. She’d only thought of Blair about fifty times in the six
hours she’d been working and had been able to ignore the fact that since he’d
mated with her, all her wounds were now healed. Finally a perk, she thought.

Chapter 8

Jeffery wasn’t going to forget this. He
looked at the pictures that he’d had an investigator take of Sapphire. The one
of her and Henson getting into the limo had him wanting to find them both and
make them suffer. Even a fool could see that they’d had sex, and they couldn’t
keep their hands off each other even then.

“When was this taken?” He looked up when
his enforcer, Harris, didn’t answer. “I asked you a question, and I expect an
answer. When the fuck were these taken?”

“Yesterday. Late evening. They were driven
around for a good hour before they were lost in the crowd at the gallery that
had opened. He lost which limo was theirs. He found it in front of the Royal
Hotel half an hour later, but they had both gone in by then.” Harris sat up in
the chair, seemingly almost relieved. “I’ll call him off and bring the others
in. I’m glad that this is over. You should have left them girls alone a long
time ago, and we both know it.”

“What’s over? I never said this was
finished. I want her more now than before. And that fucking prick Henson. They
think they can just pretend that I didn’t make a claim on her first and just
get away with it? Hardly.” He sat down behind his desk, still nursing his
wounds. “The trial, what do you know about it?”

Harris was his brother, and to a point
he could let him get by with some things, but huffing at him was not one of
them. Before he could think how much pain it would cause him, he leapt at him
and clawed at his face. He couldn’t fight back because of him being his alpha,
but that didn’t stop Jeffery from nearly killing him.

“Get out.” Harris shifted, and Jeffery
had a moment of panic before his brother turned and left the office. When he
was nearly out, he turned back to him and bared his teeth. The low growl made
his skin crawl, and he had a feeling that, brother or not, he’d just made an
enemy.

“Not the first and certainly not the
last one I’ll make,” Jeffery said as he sat down. He had things to do, and he
wanted them done yesterday if not before. If Harris didn’t want to work with
him, then he’d find someone who would. Traitors he didn’t need. He needed men
that wouldn’t ask him how they were supposed to do something assigned them but
come back with results. Besides, he’d be back. He always came back begging for
another chance.

It took him almost an hour to find
someone who could give him information on the trial with the Board of Weres, and
that person was less than helpful. A stupid woman who kept telling him that
there was no trial set up, and the date that he’d thought it was on was full of
other issues. He’d finally had to snarl at her to shut the fuck up and listen
to him.

“Give me your boss, you incompetent
idiot. Women like you give wolves a bad name.” She huffed, and he wanted to
hang up and go down there and beat the living shit out of her, but knew in his
current condition she’d hurt him more than he could her. When her boss, or what
she’d said was her boss, came on, Jeffery was in a vile mood.

“Are there any men working in that
office?” She, a Miss Hoover, didn’t answer. “You do know what a man is, don’t
you? Your superior in all ways. The one that signs your paycheck?”

He sat there for two minutes waiting for
someone else when his phone suddenly told him that if he wanted to make a call
to please hang up and dial again. He realized then that the fucking cunt had
hung up on him. He slammed the phone in the cradle only to snatch it up again
and snarl at the caller when it rang almost immediately. He was going to rip
the head off this person if it was the last thing he did.

“You called here and needed information
on a trial,” the person started on the other end without much in the way of
introductions. “Well, you want it, then you do what everyone else does, come
down here and fill out the paperwork. We’ll try our best to get it back to you
within twenty-four to forty-eight hours.” The man at the other end was short
and pissed. Jeffery took a deep breath before he answered the man.

“I was only upset because she didn’t
have the information I needed. This trial was about one of my pack members attacking
me, and she didn’t have a clue what I wanted or anything on that date. I just
want this finished because Sapphire is an alpha in her own right, though I have
no idea how true this is because she is only a female, but the injuries she
gave me are not healing. I’m sorry for my short fuse, but I do hurt a great
deal.” He could hear papers shuffling on his end and smiled. “Please tell Miss Hoover
that I’m not usually so mean to the working woman.”

No, he was usually meaner if he noticed
them at all. When he heard the man mumble something about answering the phone
and dealing with idiots, Jeffery had to bite his tongue. Didn’t these people
know who he was? Apparently not.

“The trial has been cancelled. Due to
her finding another alpha and being claimed by him. The paperwork filed an hour
ago claims that Sapphire Erickson and Blair Henson, Alpha have mated and bonded
so she is now your equal and no longer the subject of any investigation.” The
man laughed. “I guess you’re just shit out of luck today.”

“That’s not right. She wasn’t my equal
when she hurt me.” He tried to think of dates of anything that would help him.
“She can’t have been claimed by Henson anyway. I want her for my own bitch.”

“You’ll have to take that up with her
mate then. But you yourself said she was an alpha and would have been long before
she mated to Blair. You, as her first alpha, should have recognized that and
made arrangements to have her removed before you and she tangled.” The man
laughed again. “You must be more stupid than anyone here thinks you are.”

The line went dead, and he was left with
nothing. Damn it all to hell, this wasn’t right and it wasn’t going his way.
Nothing was it seemed, and he was fucking sick of it. When the phone rang again,
he was still trying to think what to do when he simply picked it up without
checking to see who it was. It was the man from the Were offices again.

“It would seem that we have a trial for
you, after all.” Relieved, he sat back as the man continued. “The date is set
for June the twenty-first at 7:45 in the morning. Can you be there?”

“I will. What do I need to bring for
proof of what happened?” Jeffery picked up a pen and topped the sheet of paper
with
“Cunts trial”
and put down the numbers one through ten. “I’ve
pictures if you want them.”

“That won’t be necessary. We have all
the pictures we need. We took these ourselves.” Jeffery frowned. “And a
statement. You might want to have one as well. It would expedite things if you
did.”

“All right, I can do that. But how did
you get pictures? I’ve never…I don’t believe there were any photos taken at the
clinic where I was first treated. Unless, of course, you mean her pictures. I
can assure you that all her wounds are nothing compared to the ones—”

“Her? There was a woman involved? Hang
on.” He seemed to be gone forever, and when he came back, he was laughing. “I’m
sorry to inform you, Mr. Benetton, this has nothing to do with Mrs. Henson.
This is a complaint filed by one Harris Benetton. I believe he’s your brother
as well as your one time enforcer. He said you tried to kill him this morning
when he was in your office.” The laughter is what snapped his temper. The man
had no right to—Jeffery had to get this straightened out immediately. This was ridiculous.

“Let me talk to him,” he snapped at the
man. “I’ll talk some sense into him, and this will be over. Of all the
stupid…where is he? I want to speak to the moron. He can’t file a complaint
against his own alpha. Put him on the line.” Laughter again, then the man had
the nerve to have a sharp edge to his voice.

“I’m sorry, but I won’t do that. I could
really, we don’t want to have this sort of thing putting the courts further
behind, but after the abuse two of my employees had to suffer at your verbal
attack this morning, I’m going to agree to this one. No reason for you to get
by with too much, and frankly, I don’t like you very much. You, sir, are a
horrible man and should be put down.”

For the third time already that day, he
was hung up on.

~~~

Blair hung up his phone as gently as he
could. He’d already broken one this morning, and if he threw this one across
the room, Justine said she would quit. He didn’t want her to do that, so he was
trying his best to behave himself.

“No one at the house is answering the
phone,” Justine said. “I’ve called three times in the past hour. They don’t
even have voicemail set up or an answering machine.” Justine eyed the phone as
she continued. “Do you have any other number we can call?”

He didn’t, not even a cell phone number.
“I’ve got someone looking into seeing if she has a contract with anyone, but no
luck so far. I tried the number that Bruce gave me as well, and she’s not
answering it, either.”

“I know you think you didn’t do anything
wrong, but think. What did you say or do that has her running again? Because
this is just what she’s doing, running from you.” He leaned back in his chair
as he thought of what had happened yesterday and could now see he had fucked
up. Again.

“I told her she was moving in with me,
and she objected. Loudly.” He looked at Justine when she laughed. “I can’t
control her. She won’t let me.”

“Well, of course you can’t, and why
would you want to? My god, Blair, she’s a grown woman. Why do you think she
needs controlling?” He didn’t want to have to explain again how he couldn’t protect
her if she wasn’t near him when Justine latched onto it anyway. “You think
she’s not going to be able to protect herself against Jeffery? Or you for that
matter? The woman is an alpha. You said so yourself. What the hell were you
thinking of doing, keeping her on a leash for the rest of her life so you could
jerk her back if she strayed too far away from big, bad Blair Henson?”

“You make me sound like a Neanderthal.
I’m more evolved than that.” She snorted. “I have run a very successful business
for a number of years. I’m not stupid, you know.”

“Then act like it.” She stood up. “Has
your father spoken to you yet? I’ve been trying to reach him, too, since he
stormed out of here yesterday. I think he’s pissed at you too.”

He was. His dad had been thrilled to
death when he’d come into the office yesterday. He could smell her on him, he’d
told Blair. When he asked where she was so he could hug her too, Blair had been
too pissed off to try and smooth over what had happened so his dad wouldn’t be
mad too.

“She’s left me. Just packed up her shit
and left me hanging. We were going to go into business together. Bruce and our lawyer
had worked all night on a contract that would benefit him and me, and when she
was called to come and look it over before she signed it, we were told she was
gone.” He waited for his dad to agree with him, but he shook his head before
saying anything.

“This contract, it was written by you
and Bruce’s lawyers, so how much input did she have in it?” He didn’t get the
chance to answer before his dad went on. “And as much as I hate to ask you this,
because as surely as I’m sitting here, I’m hoping the answer is better than I
think. Where did you mate with that poor girl at?”

“She was just as needy as I was.” He’d
felt stupid at his outburst and still did. “We were in the back of the limo
when it happened. I had planned to make it up to her when she went back to the
hotel with me.”

“Your hotel, no doubt.” He nodded, not
liking how his dad was making him look. “And was there going to be flowers? Music?
Maybe a bottle of champagne to make this up to her?”

His dad stood up and left his office
without even waiting for an answer. Not that he had one to give him. Blair
hadn’t thought of those things. She’d been…she was his, and he’d taken her like
a horny school kid and had pissed her off. And now his dad was, too.

“I have to fix this.” Justine nodded and
moved toward her desk. “Will you help me?”

“No. You’re on your own now.” She was
putting on her jacket and picking up her purse when she looked at him. “You
want this woman? Then I’d suggest you figure this out on your own. I’m finished
trying to teach you how to be a good man. If you don’t want her, and I mean the
forever kind of want her, then I suggest you leave her alone. She can fend for
herself, and I’m pretty sure she can kick your ass while she’s at it.”

He sat there for an hour, trying to
think. He knew that he could be overbearing and bossy, but that was who he was.
Why did everyone expect him to change and not her? He’d been…he’d been an ass,
and he knew it, but she was pretty unbending, too. He stood up and decided to
go to her house. She’d either let him in or not, but he had to try and fix
this. If for no other reason than to make good with his dad.

The drive to her house didn’t improve
his mood much. He’d tried several times to call her but still got no answer. He
was pulling in the driveway when it occurred to him that this was a done deal
and he was going to be fucked if he didn’t fix this. Actually, he should have
known that sooner, he thought, but he was a slow learner when it came to women.
Damn it all to hell, this was going to kill him, if she didn’t first.