Bound (Forbidden Series - Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

it.”
                  “Then why the public display of your ladies sitting on clients’ laps?” he asked with a mocking smile.
                  “Most of our clients are repeats. They like knowing they can come in here and be seduced. They like mocking society, flouting its rules — what others think of as wrong. We’ve never had any gossip or so-called scandal leaked from our premises and we never will, because no one comes through these doors who doesn’t guarantee discretion. Furthermore, our women aren’t for sale until they are ready.”
                  “And how do you deem them ready?” he asked.
                  “Through a lot of training. Many of the women who start here don’t last. They never see a client. They are put through many tests, and if they fail any of them, we fire them immediately.”
                  “And where do you find these women?” he asked as a woman made eye contact with him, and he turned away. Like the others, she did nothing for him.
                  “We donate a lot to the local shelters. Many women there have had hard times in their lives, and this is a great improvement for them. It gives them confidence and the ability to live a lifestyle they never before could have imagined. We don’t advertise. I handpick all of our women. Not one of them passes without my approval.”
                  “You call it improvement ? They’re selling themselves,” Blake told her.
                  “We all fall on hard times, Mr. Knight. That doesn’t define who we are. How we choose to pick up the pieces of our lives defines us. Remember that we all sell ourselves in one way or another.”
                  Blake knew there was a story behind her words, and he found himself curious to discover what it was. But only for a moment. He shook his head, and the feeling passed. He wasn’t remotely interested in McKenzie Beaumont. Yes, she was young, and yes, she was beautiful and composed, but nothing about her stirred his blood. Blake doubted anyone in this place would have that effect on him.
                  He was a hardened man. Or was he? He felt himself almost uncomfortable in this woman’s presence. She had no qualms about her source of income — she seemed quite proud of it, in fact. Did she know what Blake had planned for one of her girls? Did she know it pleased him to make a woman weak, to break her very spirit?
                  Yes, he was sure that she did know, and that she even found some sort of sick pleasure in that knowledge. What should he think about that? He had reasons for doing what he did — reasons that he, at least, found valid. He knew it wasn’t what the world deemed right, but he survived each new day by doing what he had to. His mother had done this to him, as had his pathetic excuse for a father.
                  The woman who’d given birth to him had been cheating on his father, her husband, and that’s what had led to their death. Blake’s father had been a weak man, and it was something that Blake was determined never to be. He wasn’t the sort of man a woman brought home to her parents. And he felt no regret about that.
                  Blake was paying little attention to the tour of the agency’s surprisingly extensive facilities. McKenzie had taken him to the spa room, where he could see a few women getting beauty treatments, their bare bodies laid out on tables, their eyes connecting with his as he walked past, no shame in their expressions.
                  He nearly greeted the looks they sent him with an open sneer. None of them offered him any challenge. He could walk from this place with any woman there, and she’d be more than happy to be on his arm, no matter what ensued. But would that be so bad? Maybe this was what he needed. He would suffer no feelings of guilt when he broke