What He Bargains (What He Wants, Book Nineteen) by Hannah Ford Page A

him.
    And that terrified her more than anything.
    She turned to the door of the limousine, panicking, tried to open it but it wouldn’t open. Then she began banging on the door, banging and yelling.
    “Let me out!” she screamed.
    Behind her, she heard Jake starting to laugh. “Poor little Raven—running away so soon after making her stand against the big bad fraud.”
    She wouldn’t say anything else, though, wouldn’t even dare look at him. If she did, she might fall to her knees and agree to anything and everything he wanted right then and there.
    Suddenly, the limousine door opened from the outside and the mountain-sized security guard poked his head in. “Everything okay in here?”
    “I need to go,” she said, pushing her way out, past the security guard.
    Raven got out and then the door was shut, sealing Jake Novak off from her and the outside world.
    The limo instantly pulled away and sped off, leaving nothing but dust in its wake.
    “You’d better go home,” the security guard told her. “And stay away from Jake from now on.”
    “Got it,” she replied dully, and started walking slowly back to the train.
    If there was one thing she didn’t need to be told twice, it was to stay away from Jake Novak.

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    T he rest of the day was strange for Raven. She went home to her apartment and hung out on the couch, watching reality TV and stuffing her face with bad food.
    She knew that she really needed to be searching for another job, because by the time she got hired and started making any money, her funds would be frighteningly low, even if she found something quickly.
    But her mind felt worn out, fried from the excitement and anxiety of everything that had gone on the last twenty-four hours.
    As she sat around half-watching television, she kept thinking back on the conversation in the limousine with Jake. She kept remembering that burning look in his eyes when she’d said those horrible things to him.
    Every time she remembered what it had felt like to call him a fraud, and the way he’d looked afterwards—she got a sensation in her stomach that was part dread and part anticipation.
    There had been something so chemically electric between them, like a force field, and it confused her. Jake Novak had acted like a total arrogant jerk, uncaring, scoffing at the problems he had created in her life. And yet, beneath that, she sensed that he was something else entirely—like he’d been misunderstood by everyone in the world who knew him or knew of him.
    Don’t be silly, Raven. Don’t go thinking that you have some super special relationship or understanding of Jake Novak. That’s delusional, it’s insane, and it’s going to lead you nowhere.
    But she couldn’t shake the feeling, couldn’t stop replaying those final moments with him and the panic that had overtaken her when she’d realized how easily he could’ve had his way with her if he’d tried even a little.
    This circular routine led her to just sit around and eat herself into a sugar coma, and by the time it was late enough for bed, she wasn’t sure if she even wanted to bother getting undressed or washing her face, brushing her teeth, anything.
    Maybe I’ll just fall asleep on the couch and wake up tomorrow with a kink in my neck. Who cares?
    You’re depressed. That’s what this is.
    It didn’t matter. She couldn’t seem to rouse herself to feel anything but lethargy. On television, one Kardashian was yelling at another Kardashian. They sisters all blurred together.
    And then she heard the buzzing of her cell phone from its place on the coffee table next to the empty bottle of Diet Coke.
    Raven grabbed for it and held it up, seeing a number that was unfamiliar, but it wasn’t blocked. Her mind worked through a dozen different possibilities of who this could be, and none of them were any good.
    Yet, for some unexplained reason, she decided to answer. Maybe it was because she’d done nothing since getting home but lie around and eat