Beautifully Cruel

Chapter 13

JENNIE

After three hours and two-thirds of a bottle of chardonnay, the answer is: nothing.

Google helpfully provided 174,000,000 results for a search on his name. From there, I drilled down to images, social networks, and his cell phone number. I tried cross-referencing his name with the Boston PD. I tried his name plus the word "enforcement." I tried variations on the spelling of his name, I searched Irish genealogy sites and US government databases, I even paid thirty bucks for one of those background reports claiming to guarantee results.

Basically, I twisted my brain into a pretzel to find any crumb of information, but nothing worked.

Kim Taehyung is either a ghost or a pseudonym.

I fall back onto the bed and think for a long time, following the cracks in the ceiling with my eyes and debating the situation.

Ultimately, it comes down to logic versus hormones.

I want him. That's an undeniable fact. Also undeniable is that our chemistry is explosive, and I'm dying of curiosity about everything to do with him. And, based on the kiss alone, I have no doubt our sex would be mind-blowing.

But.

He's dangerous. And not drives-after-a-few-drinks dangerous. He's lethal, and I'd be totally vulnerable living with him at his home.

The home I don't even know the location of.

What if he decided at the end of twenty-eight days he wasn't going to let me go? He said he didn't want a slave, but isn't that exactly what you'd say if you were trying to convince someone you didn't want a slave, but you really did?

What if I wound up chained to the floor in a cage in his basement?

"Safeguards," I say to myself. "Someone has to know where I am and when I'm supposed to be coming back."

Okay. That's doable. I could make it a condition of my agreement.

But still. This is not normal. This request of his isn't real life. And let's not forget to consider the opposite scenario of him keeping me in a cage: what if he let me go without a fuss?

How would I feel at the end of twenty-eight days when he happily sent me on my way, never to see me again?

Most likely...disposable.

Forgettable.

Used.

With an aggravated grumble, I scrub my hands over my face, then spend a while longer pondering the problem.

Finally, I decide the only way to get some of my questions answered is to go directly to the source. So I send Taehyung a text, asking him to call me when he gets a chance.

My phone rings less than sixty seconds later.

Before I can even say hello, he demands, "Tell me it's a yes."

I curl up onto my side on the bed with the phone to my ear, close my eyes, and sigh.

"That doesn't sound like a yes."

"Can you appreciate at all how strange this is for me?"

After a beat, he answers, his voice an octave lower. "Aye, lass. I can. It's strange for me, too."

"How is it strange for you? This is your rodeo."

He growls, "Because I've never been obsessed with a woman the way I am with you."

The raw honesty in his voice stops me short. I whisper, "Really?"

"Aye. I feel like a filthy fucking addict."

I sit with that for a moment, enjoying it.

He says, "You're worried. You don't need to be. You have my word I'll take care of you."

I hear voices in the background. Male voices, several of them, all angry. It sounds like an argument...and it's in Gaelic.

"I have to go. I won't be able to answer the phone again for a while." His voice turns hard. "Say yes, Jen. And say it now."

I open my mouth to obey him, but something stops me.

But from one heartbeat to the next, I'm certain that agreeing to this outlandish proposal would be a mistake.

One I might never recover from.

"I'm sorry, Tae," I say quietly. "But I'm going to listen to your advice and say no."

A moment of blistering silence follows. "I see."

I exhale a pent-up breath, my heart pounding though I don't know why.

Then he adds darkly, "Let's hope I can honor that decision."

The line goes dead in my hand.