The Submission of Alistair Ingram Read Online Free PDF Page B

act, my characters are mine. Don’t
mistake me for a man who can’t handle the dark, shitty reality of your life. I
get it, okay?”
    Bethany
jerked her arm out of his grasp and turned on him, barely able to control the
heated rage building in her chest. “Do you? You understand?” With one quick tug
over her head, her dress was off and she turned to her back on him. “Do you
understand this, Alistair?”
    She
heard his faint, sharp inhale of breath, then felt his fingertips,
feather-light, touching her lower back where old scars crisscrossed.
    Alistair
stepped closer. His other hand joined the first, touching and caressing gently.
“He did this to you?”
    She
spun around to face him and pulled her dress back over her head. “Yes. And I
left him. Until today, he hasn’t known where to find me.”
    Alistair
leaned against the wall, letting the back of his head bang against it. “Until
you were in the news because of me.”
    The
guilt on his face was too much for Bethany to handle. She cupped his cheek and
rubbed her thumb under his bottom lip. “It’s my fault, not yours. I didn’t play
by the rules, and this is the consequence.”
    She
watched her thumb trace back and forth, then raised her eyes to his and quickly
dropped her hand. Why was she feeling the need to touch him so intimately? They
weren’t in her lair, and this wasn’t part of her job. She shouldn’t be
consoling him. He had Heather Winston for that if it’s what he needed. One
apology and she’d be crawling back to him.
    Bethany
would never let a man hold that kind of power over her again.
    “But,
his ringtone…?” Alistair grasped her hand and held it.
    “I
put his number in my phone so I’d know if he ever called.”
    Mark
strolled down the hallway and stopped when he saw them. “No loitering, Ingram.
Paying customers back here only.” He chuckled, the only one of the three of
them amused. “Betty, you know the rules about personal calls to the house
phone. I had to give one of your boyfriends your cell number. You going to
break anymore rules today, or can we call this your limit?”
    “That’s
how he got my number,” Bethany murmured, dread setting in. “Did you tell him
anything else?”
    Mark
stuck his hands in his pockets and rolled up on the toes of his ugly brown
loafers. “He asked what nights you work, so I told him your schedule.”
    “Fuck,”
Alistair said, verbalizing exactly what she was thinking. “You’re an idiot,” he
told Mark. “That was her ex-husband.” He pushed off the wall and got in Mark’s
face. “If that asshole comes here and puts one finger on her, you’re done. I’ll
make sure of it.”
    Bethany
grabbed the back of Alistair’s shirt and tugged him back. “You’re not helping.
Losing my job is only going to make my life worse.”
    He
pivoted to face her and took her hands. “No. That’s exactly what you have to do.
You know the cover story? How you’re training me for the Hues of Black and
Blue role? It can be real. Come to LA with me. Your ex won’t be able to
touch you with my security team watching over you.”
    Bethany’s
brain could barely keep up. He wanted her to go to LA with him and pretend—no,
actually train him to be a Dom?
    “You
can’t take her away from here,” Mark said, coming to stand between them. “She’s
my best Dom.”
    Alistair
put a hand on Mark’s chest and pushed him back a step. “Find another. This
one’s mine now.”
    Bethany’s
mind raced. “Wait! This is my decision. I need to think about it.”
    Alistair
wrapped his arm around her and rubbed her lower back over her scars. “And what
if your ex comes looking for you before you decide?”
    She
couldn’t tear her eyes from his. Why was this man so concerned for her? They’d
met less than twenty-four hours ago. Did he really have some kind of hero
complex, always needing to be the one to save the girl? Was it some power trip?
Maybe his pretend life was getting—
    Her
phone rang. Master and