Raw, A Dark Romance by Tawny Taylor Read Free Book Online

his son set me free. Yet I have stayed. All this time, many years. Señor Ramos is a good man. He will not scar you. He will not break you if you don’t let him. You will go home whole.” She slid to her knees, positioning herself in front of me.
    I didn’t meet her gaze. I was too confused, too lost in emotion to look her in the eyes. But I appreciated what she was trying to do. She had confessed something very private. And she’d done it to show I could survive this.
    I swallowed the big sob clogging my throat. “I don’t know how to deal with this. I don’t know how this happened. There was a mistake. I thought I’d come here to go on a date with a billionaire. I didn’t know…”
    “See me.” The woman cupped my face in her hands and forced me to look her in the eye. “Do you see any pain in my eyes? Do you see any fear? Señor Ramos is a good man. You can believe me.”
    I dabbed at my soggy face again. “If he’s so good, why does he do this terrible thing? Why does he buy women?”
    “He has his reasons,” she answered, patting my knee. “It makes him no less honorable or respectable in my eyes.”
    “But it was a mistake. Shouldn’t he let me go?” I insisted.
    She gave me a friendly, reassuring smile and stood. “Just as he has his reasons for buying you in the first place, he has his reasons for keeping you. Trust him.”
    Trust him?
    Was she insane? I was supposed to trust a strange man who lived in a strange country, who supposedly bought women so he could beat and whip and rape them?
    Maybe this kind woman was wrong? Perhaps she was so broken she didn’t even realize it. And that was why she was willing to come to his defense.
    That had to be it. She was brainwashed. She’d lost touch with reality.
    I didn’t even know how to respond to her crazy suggestion. It was so out of touch with reality, I couldn’t do anything but shake my head.
    Trust him? She had to be joking. Clearly I couldn’t trust him, or her. Or probably anyone else in this house of horrors.
    Or that bitch, Fallon Franchot.
    When it came down to it, Fallon Franchot was responsible for my predicament. Clearly she’d made arrangements neither I nor Sidonie knew about. Sid couldn’t have not known what kind of man Señor Ramos was, and what kind of demands he would make.
    But Fallon Franchot did. The bitch.
    Blind date, my ass.
    Fallon Franchot was a madam. A pimp. No better. And as soon as I had feet back on U.S. soil, I was going to tell my bestie to quit that job and find something else, anything else. Flipping burgers at a fast food restaurant was a more respectable way to make a living than working for a women who sold innocent girls to psychos like Señor Ramos.
    My mouth tasted bitter with hatred. I ached to talk to someone who would understand, who would help me get the hell out of this nightmare. But the asshole had taken all my things. My phone was in his possession, not mine. And my credit cards and passport, too.
    Feeling unsettled, I ran to the bathroom and cranked on the water as hot as it would go. Then I stripped off the robe and shredded scraps of my clothes, tugged out the red ribbon Adela had tied in my hair and threw it on the countertop, and stood under the scalding stream until my skin was numb. While I stood there, I let all the pent up tears flow. And did they ever flow.
    I was terrified of the unknown. There were so many things I couldn’t be sure of. What if he didn’t let me go at the end of the week? What if I was kept a prisoner here forever? Or what if he sold me to someone else after he grew bored of me?
    And…ohmygod, what if Sid hadn’t been sick? What if she was poisoned by Fallon Franchot so she couldn’t interfere? What if I never saw or talked to her again?
    I didn’t feel much better by the time I finally cut off the water. Pruney, I toweled off and got dressed. After having been stripped of my clothes and my pride, I wanted to wear a lot of clothes, despite the warm sea-scented