Ruby couldn’t believe her current predicament. More like she couldn’t believe how Kim could be so shameless. She had thought that the worst Kim could do had passed after she had blackmailed her for money by using the contract. But who knew Kim was just getting started and that she planned to milk Ruby and the situation dry with the damned contract.
Ruby cursed the day she had left the contract in that house. She didn’t even know why she had not gotten rid of hers. She knew Jaxon must have destroyed his, more so when they decided to stay together which rendered the contract useless.
Ruby glanced at her phone and nearly groaned out loud as she looked at the multiple missed calls Kim had given her because of money. She hadn’t even given Kim money long ago, so she wondered how she could have gone through it so fast.
She had given her a hefty sum too, so unless Kim was living like a millionaire wherever she was, it wasn’t possible for her to run through the money that fast. Or was she saving the money? Ruby shook her head the next moment because she found it odd to associate Kim with saving in the same sentence. It was clear as day Kim loved to live large and she would do anything to finance the lifestyle she wanted, as Ruby had seen since Kim was currently blackmailing her.
Ruby was worried as she thought of how she could shake Kim off because Kim had started to act like an annoying mosquito that was always buzzing in her ear. And she had to do it without Jaxon knowing because she didn’t want to trouble him. She had gone through a bit of effort to keep him from finding out about what was happening, and it seemed to be working.
“… Are you okay Gem?” Jaxon’s voice broke through her thoughts as she turned to him with wide eyes. She hadn’t even known he was speaking to her.
“Hmmm, sorry, I didn’t catch what you said. Could you repeat it, please?” She asked as she gave him an apologetic smile. She hoped and prayed that he would just answer her question and ignore the fact that she had been distracted.
“I was asking what you were thinking about. You looked really worried and you were so, so deep in thought that you didn’t hear me.” It would never be that easy, huh? She let out a sigh, which thankfully he didn’t comment on though his eyes flashed but before she could get a read on the emotion that appeared, he had schooled his features.
“It’s nothing, really; I was just lost in thought.” She told him and hoped he would end it there.
“Just lost in thought?… I called you three times Ruby, and you were just staring into God knows where.” Jaxon said frustrated as he gestured into the open space where she had been staring at.
She didn’t want to appear shocked, though her eyes widened when he told her he tried to get her attention. Three whole times at that. Was it really that bad? This just cemented the fact that she needed to find a solution to Kim’s problem as fast as possible because it was making her lie to Jaxon a lot, and she didn’t want to do that.
“Really,… I don’t know what to say,” she let out and stared at him with wide eyes. Jaxon let out a sigh of his own and she knew he was caving.
“It’s fine,” he told her. He placed a hand on her cheek and then said, “But promise you’ll let me know if anything is bothering you, okay?” Her eyes shone and she hoped she wouldn’t break down in tears right there.
“Okay, I promise.” She told him, and her heart broke at the fact she was already breaking that promise.
“Good.” He affirmed, then he dragged her closer and wrapped his arms around her. She wrapped her arms around him as her head settled under the crook of his neck. She relished in his warmth and tried to move closer to get more of his body heat. He didn’t say anything and just patted her back gently, in soothing even strokes.
Lord knows she needed the comfort because Kim and her pestering for money had really made her tense. After all, she didn’t know exactly what to do. She knew that Kim would continue to ask her for money for as long as she could leverage the contract against her, so she needed a way to get the contract away from Kim. Or find a way to make the contract not matter to the press because if the contract fell into worse hands, she knew there would be dire consequences.
Jaxon pulled away from her and left her alone, but not before pressing a tender kiss on her forehead that made her heart flip. She fell right back into her thoughts but then got interrupted by a ping from her phone. With a sigh, she flicked open her phone, prepared to delete a spam email or something of that nature, but instead, she was met with a message from Kim.
No surprise, she was demanding more money, and she had attached an address to the message. It was some hotel she couldn’t recall if she had seen but she had already made up her mind to go there and give Kim the money so she would leave her alone. At least for now.
Without wasting time, Ruby got dressed and slipped out of the house to get to the hotel. She had sold another piece of jewelry to get the money in the bag she was carrying, and she wondered how long she could keep it up without being discovered. It felt awkward, just like the first time, to be carrying around such a large sum of money in a bag and just walking casually. But she chucked it up to nerves.
She got to the room where Kim had put in the message, but Kim hadn’t shown up, and she was getting impatient.
“Where is she?” Ruby muttered, then brought out her phone and called Kim in annoyance. She yelled for her to hurry up and hung up abruptly because she had nothing else to say to her.
A few minutes later, she heard the door open and she turned around expecting to see Kim, but it was a man that entered.
Warning bells rang in her head as she tried to run away but the man grabbed her and pressed a handkerchief over her nose. He must have put something on it as Ruby found herself losing consciousness. Her last thought was of Jaxon before everything went black.