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so fast or so hard. I didn’t do drugs, never had. Nevertheless, I imagined that Charli was like cocaine. One casual hit at a party—that was all I was after in Del Mar. One hit, one week. Since returning to New York, I’d tried to deny my addiction. Each day we were apart was another day clean , another day sober . I was able to detox because she was out of my life.
    That was then.
    This is now, and now she’s mine.
    Deloris said her name was Alexandria, or Alex, but that didn’t change anything. We’d confessed that our names were nicknames, and to me she’d always be my Charli. I just wasn’t ready to let her know that, not yet. For the time being, we’d stick with formality. From the moment Deloris showed me that envelope with her picture and told me that Charli had a profile, I’d been consumed, overpowered by the need to save and protect her from Infidelity as well as teach her a lesson.
    What she’d done—going to Infidelity and signing an agreement of intent—was stupid. It was dangerous. It was unacceptable. What would have happened if Deloris hadn’t discovered her profile?
    I knew what would have happened.
    She would have ended up in someone else’s bed. I believed her in Del Mar when she said she didn’t sleep around. What I needed to know was how the confident, intelligent, breathtaking woman I’d met in Del Mar was lured into the sordid world of Infidelity.
    I wasn’t sure why she wanted to reduce herself to a whore, but if that was what she wanted, I was her man. With me, she’d stay safe. The possibilities of what could have happened if she’d truly gone into Infidelity sickened and enraged me. I couldn’t move forward until I’d punished her for her poor decision-making.
    Now that was done, and the new rules could begin.
    The reality was too obvious to deny. I was an addict in need of one person—Charli.
    Now that I’d seen her, touched her, and heard her voice—and moans—I’d do anything within my power to have more. In the few short hours since Deloris’s bombshell, Charli had me acting out of character. Never did I leave the office in the middle of the day. Never did I cancel meetings for personal reasons. And never did I travel without Isaac.
    My driver-slash-bodyguard was with her, and that thought consumed me. I wanted—no, needed—to be the one with her. Making my way back toward my office because some things couldn’t wait, I rode in the back of a taxi, another thing I rarely did. Shaking my head, I stared down at my hand.
    My cheeks rose at the tingling in my palm. Closing my eyes, I sighed. Damn, I was still hard thinking about the way her tight round ass reddened and the way she grew wet. She said she didn’t like it, but her body told me another story. I could listen to her sensuous body tell me bedtime tales for eternity.
    From her reaction alone, it seems that Miss Alexandria Collins and I have not even begun to discover her limits. Ideas of possibilities added to my uncomfortable situation. I couldn’t dwell on those thoughts, or I’d never be able to walk from the taxi to the office. The anticipation of what I could do to her may be the death of me—death by blue balls.
    One year wouldn’t be enough.
    I was done with Infidelity. I didn’t care how financially beneficial it had become: Demetri Enterprises was walking away before Infidelity imploded. Once I was out and no longer associated with it, that was what I planned to have happen. The bigger it grew, the more of a risk it presented. Already poor decisions had resulted in issues. I wanted out.
    My thoughts went back to Charli. I wanted to believe that she was lured, tricked, or scammed into signing with the agency. I didn’t want to believe that she stooped to sell her greatest commodity—herself. The cold, hard reality was that she had. She’d signed the agreement of intent. She’d signed a one-year commitment. What she didn’t realize was that it no longer existed.
    I didn’t own her as she