His Reason, Her Choice Read Online Free PDF Page A

not saying anything about the job situation and hinting that he knew what would make her feel better.
    She pushed a hand to her mouth and shut her eyes. Then she remembered the text, and she picked up her phone. Russ didn’t know the hell she went through with Isaac. She still hadn’t told him about that, but she had confessed last night while Isaac was sleep about her options.
    “Is she that bad?” Russ had texted.
    “Worse. I’ll tell you a story.”
    She had shared how her mother degraded her and made her feel worthless. Fear that the woman would do the same to Denita and Nicolette opened her up to let him call. She still hadn’t let herself cry while he was on the phone, but Russ had heard the bitterness.
    “She’s not going to screw up my daughters. I’ll live on the street before that happens.”
    “Joy, you can’t do that.”
    “I know. I’m just being dramatic. I just need some damn time, and I don’t have it here.”
    “I can give you some money. I have savings.”
    “Hell, no.” She’d said no again, but she was wavering bad. Something told her in the end, she would break down, but it meant staying in the situation with Isaac.”
    “So you’re actually thinking of leaving him?”
    Joy heard a funny sound in his voice, and she recalled Russ’s crush. At least he could always make her smile. “Yeah, we haven’t been working out for a long time now.”
    She left it at that.
    “Then there’s something else I’ve been thinking about.”
    “What?”
    “I don’t know if I should say it. Joy, you know I’m your friend before anything else.”
    “If you’re about to tell me I should go into stripping or selling my body on the street, don’t.”
    His nervous laugh made her stomach muscles tighten. “Not that bad.”
    “What the heck do you mean?”
    “Strip if you want to, or don’t.” His voice had gone oddly deeper. “But you would give your body to one man only. That’s not so bad.”
    At that point, she had frozen, refusing to believe she understood him right. Russ couldn’t be offering her the same situation she was in right now. He couldn’t! He wouldn’t , would he?
    She had told him she had to go, and she had ignored subsequent texts since last night. Now as she stood in the bathroom, she picked up her phone and read what he wrote. Joy expected groveling. She expected multiple explanations and apologies. None of his words even remotely pointed to him saying he was sorry. He wasn’t. He didn’t withdraw his offer.
    “I want you to move in with me. You and the girls. You can work if you want, or not, but I want you in my bed and only mine.”
    She shook her head in disbelief, thinking she had never known Russ in all these years.
    “I will never be cruel or unkind to you or your daughters. I want you. That’s all.”
    “That’s all?” she almost shouted to the empty room. “You want me to replace Isaac with you, but that’s fucking all!”
    She raged and paced in the small bathroom space until Isaac banged on the door. “Hey, what are you doing in there?”
    “Buzz off,” she shouted, and got what sounded like a kick against the door. Joy sat on the toilet and leaned back to stare at the ceiling. As her nerves began to settle, she wondered. Would it be so bad?
    She thought of Russ and his body, his hands, his face, and his lips. He wasn’t bad-looking. In fact, she had already thought he was cute with his brown eyes. Russ had the boy next door thing going with the eyes and the wild, dark hair. If anyone had told her he would make her a sexual proposition, she would have called him or her a liar.
    He had promised not to hurt her, and had added in a later text she could call off the arrangement and go her merry way whenever she liked. Joy thought long and hard about it. What would letting him touch her— enter her —be like? Would she throw up the same, worse, or not at all?
    Joy couldn’t imagine she would like it, but there was the smallest chance Russ