The Debt 10 (Club Alpha) (7 page)

But although the temptation was great,
Faith understood that the money was dirty.
 
It amounted to accepting cash for sleeping with Chase, and she couldn’t
do that, even if Chase himself approved of it.

In fact, thinking about Chase intentionally
steering her into this contract and deal with Club Alpha made her sick.
 
He knew that sleeping with her was a
business transaction, and he liked it that way.

What kind of a person did that kind of
thing?

Faith knew the answer: a bad one.
 
A very, very bad one.

Chase had warned her as much but she
hadn’t wanted to listen, hadn’t wanted to believe it about him.
 
She’d been taken in by his sexy bad boy
charm, the glamor of his occupation, and his manipulation of her physical and
emotional attraction.

She’d been an easy mark, but no more.

No more.

She was putting herself on a Chase
Winters fast—which meant no more listening to sports radio, no more
watching ESPN, no more reading Sports Illustrated or the sports section of the
Herald, The Globe, or having Chase’s name as a Google Alert on her laptop.

All of that was over with.
 
From this day forward, she would pretend
that she’d never met the man.

And Club Alpha?

What about them?

She knew that they’d tried to twist her
arm a little with the scary phone call, slapping Greg around, and the
check.
 

But Faith believed that they were full of
hot air.
 
Once Chase Winters moved
on to a new girl, they would forget about her.
 
Especially if she never cashed that
check, never took any of their money.

If she used their money she would be in
their debt, she would owe them.
 
It would
imply her agreement to that contact she’d stupidly signed.
 

But she wouldn’t ever cash that check.

Why
don’t you just rip it up then?

The question hung in her mind, and she
didn’t even want to think about the answer.
 
She didn’t want to consider her reasons
for placing the check in that magazine, within reach, just sitting in wait for
her to grow weak and pull it out again.

No, she was simply going to ignore the
check, and ignore Club Alpha until they left her alone—and the same with
Chase Winters.
 
Although it would be
difficult, Faith intended to stick to it at all costs.

It wasn’t just about her pride
anymore.
 
As she drifted off to a
restless sleep that night, she kept thinking that this had become about her
very soul, her own belief that she was worth more than this.

The hard truth was that she wanted to
take that money, and she wanted to spend it on things she needed.
 

And beyond that, she wanted to fuck Chase
Winters, she wanted his mouth on her, sucking her pussy, tasting her, and then
his cock inside her, burying himself deep between her aching thighs.

Yes, she wanted all of those things, and
that was why it had become so vital to resist all of it.

Chase Winters was going to destroy her life
if she wasn’t careful.

Please,
she thought.
 
Please someone make me
stronger than I am.
 
Because I don’t
know if I can do this.

***

Life was getting very, very weird.
 
Even weirder than before, if such a
thing was possible.

Going back to work was strange, because
suddenly she’d been promoted.
 
Greg
handed her the paperwork the moment he saw her coming into the office the next
morning.

“Congratulations,” he said, as he passed
her the thick ream of contracts, forms and booklets.
 
“You’re no longer a temp,” he said.
 
“You’re fulltime with us.”
 
His smile was not even remotely genuine,
and he looked tired and haggard, as if he’d slept even worse than she had.

“Thanks, Greg,” Faith replied, and he
gestured for her to follow him down the hallway, where he opened the door and
hit the lights.
 
They flickered on,
illuminating a tidy, neat office with a window that looked out on the back
parking lot.

“This is your new home,” he said,
scratching his head.
 
“You like?”

“I do,” she smiled, taking a deep breath
and letting it out.
 
“It’s a lot to
take in, but it’s very nice.”

“Cool,” Greg said, and then his voice
lowered.
 
“Maybe you
could…y’know…mention that to Chase or Max next time you talk to them.”

“Wait.
 
What?” she asked, her heart fluttering
at the mention of their names.

Greg cleared his throat.
 
“I’m just saying—I want to make
sure you’re really well taken care of here, Faith.
 
And if you are, it would be cool if you
let them know.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,”
she told him, her voice cold even as her insides quaked.

“No offense,” he said, backing out.
 
“Just…just take your time with filling
that stuff out, Faith.
 
No
rush.
 
I’ll see you later, okay?”

She didn’t even bother answering
him.
 
He had basically fled the
scene and now the hallway outside her door was empty.

Faith sat down heavily in her new office
chair, staring at nothing, seeing nothing.
 
Her mind was going a thousand miles a second.
 

You
got this promotion because of them.
 
How can you think that they’re not going to expect something in
return?
 
Do you really believe
anything’s over, Faith?

She could hardly stand to look at the
binder with all the materials in it, welcoming her to fulltime employment.
 
And to think, Faith had been wishing so
long for a more stable job environment, with better pay, full benefits, and a
boss who didn’t hate her guts or give her a hard time constantly.

Now she’d somehow gotten everything she
wanted, and it didn’t mean anything.
 
In fact, it disgusted her.

You
got in bed with the devil, Faith.

The thoughts made her squirm, especially
since she immediately pictured Chase’s eyes, that cocky grin, and she instantly
felt desire rise up and nearly overwhelm her.

She was tempted, and not for the first
time or even the hundredth time, to just call him and tell him how hurt and
frightened she was about Club Alpha and what he’d done to her.
 

But Faith knew she couldn’t do it.
 
If she folded now, she’d lose all of her
willpower, her ability to resist him was already so fragile.
 
The thought of his body, his lips, his
tongue, his cock—it was worse than a drug.

Not only that, but Faith missed his
personality, his mind, his smile and those eyes that seemed to look into her,
through to her very soul.

That he was bad news only seemed to make
it harder, not easier to stay away.

After some time, the frantic urge to
contact Chase Winters passed, and she was left with nothing but a dull ache of
need that Faith simply accepted as a new part of her existence.

That dull ache was not going anywhere.

That dull ache was just the price she had
to pay for doing the right thing—it was the reminder that she still had
morals, a conscience, and integrity.
 
And it reminded her that having those things hurt.

So Faith went back to work, and went
about her day, knowing that she simply had to put her head down and tread
forward, inch by painful inch.

Days passed, each one seemingly slower
than the last.

Faith didn’t know how she was getting
through the hours, but somehow, she managed.

Greg mostly avoided her at work now,
which was something of a relief.
 
Occasionally she’d come out of the women’s room or turn a corner and see
him darting in the opposite direction, acting as though he hadn’t noticed her,
even though it was clear he had.

On those occasions she tended to smile,
enjoying it even though she hated knowing why he was now afraid of her.
 
But if Club Alpha had bothered or
contacted Greg again, he wasn’t telling her about it.

By the time Friday rolled around, Faith
was ready to be done with work and to not see the inside of the office for a while.

But when she returned home to her dingy,
lonely apartment and realized that she had no plans and nothing to do all
weekend except to try and avoid watching ESPN and listening to the sports radio
shows she was dying to hear—Faith’s mood took an abrupt nosedive.

She sat down on the couch and started to
cry.
 
The sobs were faint, whiny,
without the power that her tears had had days ago.
 

I
think I might be all cried out.

Sniffling, she wiped her nose with a
tissue from her purse and sat there, wondering what came next and when this
sadness and grief would end.
 

I
really miss him.
 
I miss Chase.

That was the truth, wasn’t it?
 
The truth that she’d been running from
as she pursued the boring office job as though she actually wanted to be there,
when in reality, nothing could have been further from reality.

And that made her consider the unasked
for advice that Chase himself had offered her not long ago.
 
He’d told her that taking the easy road
was never worth it in the end.
 
He’d
told her that she was taking the easy road by staying at her temp job, and
she’d gotten angry with him because she’d known he was right.

Faith hated Chase Winters for
manipulating her into the contract with Club Alpha, and for making her want
him.
 
But even more, she hated him
for the potential she’d seen within him—and the potential she’d honestly
felt between them.

I
know we could’ve been something, but you ruined it.

She wanted to just text him those words,
but reminded herself that it could never happen.
 
Opening herself up to any kind of
exchange with Chase was like an alcoholic taking that first sip of vodka.

Speaking of which…her phone buzzed with a
text from Haley, one of her closest friends in Newburg, or “The ‘Burg,” as they
often referred to it.
 
Some people
went so far as to call it “Turdburg” but Faith didn’t go that far, even when
she felt disdain for the place she’d been born and raised.

Picking up her cell, she looked at
Haley’s text.

We
miss u!!!
 
Come out with us tonite
Faith! What do I need to do to convince u to spend an hour with me?

It brought a smile to her face as Faith
considered the fact that while Newburg was a town she often felt dragged down
by, Haley had never been anything other than a good friend to her.
 
And they didn’t see each other very often
these days, but Haley had never seemed to hold it against Faith.

Faith answered back quickly.

Where
are u going and who is going with u?

 
Haley responded so fast that Faith almost
wondered if she’d even had time to read what Faith wrote, but that was just
like Haley.
 
Everything she did was
full speed straight ahead and no regrets.

Me
and Jena r going to Sports Nation for $2 draft nite

Faith’s stomach fluttered at the
suggestion of Sports Nation, which was a sports bar that was popular amongst
the Newburg faithful.
 
It wasn’t
really a bad place to go and have a few drinks, especially if you were
interested in meeting up with a single boy or two.

Faith was nervous for different reasons,
however.
 
She knew that if she went
to the bar with her two friends, she would be confronted with pictures and
images of Chase Winters.
 
He would
be on Sports Center highlight clips on the million TV’s around the pub, and on
posters hanging on the walls, and perhaps even being discussed by the locals
sipping their beers and chatting sports.

And what was worse—Faith knew that
she wanted to go there precisely for that reason.
 

Her resistance was crumbling and within
seconds, it was a pile of rubble at her feet, as she texted Haley that she was
happy to meet them at Sports Nation later on that evening.

Haley was overjoyed of course, and showed
it through liberal texting of emoticons.
 
And a minute or two later, Jena texted a few happy faces and said she
couldn’t wait to see Faith and catch up.