Free Red Collar by Clarissa Cartharn

some fine prints to discuss with you. Now, shall I come over to your place or should I take it to the media, as you first suggested?”
    “You wouldn’t dare,” Kate said, shakily, her mind racing over the shocking reactions of her family and friends. “That would only mar your own reputation. You wouldn’t risk it.”
    “My dear, Kate, there are many ways of disclosing the details of this affair without risking my own good name.”
    Kate paled. Ther e was a higher probability that she would be seen as the vamp in this story. The tart for hire, the gold-digger seeking to abuse and malign the status of a wealthy man. If anything, she would be inclined to lose more than he. With all his wealth and power, it would be simply a passing news, while she would be left to face the consequences for a lifetime. Her mind re-collected Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton. Except Monica Lewinsky didn’t have four dependent under-aged siblings, living in squalor with a cirrhosis afflicted dying mother.
    “ Kate, do you want me to come over to your place or you , mine?” he repeated, frustratingly. “I need an answer now.”
    “No,” she spat out quickly.
    “No?”  he asked, unsurely. “Don’t make this hard, Kate. It’s not hard to find out where you live. I can always ask Bob Whitton to look up the details of your first contract.”
    “No, don’t do that,” she said. She couldn’t bear him discovering the manner in which she lived. If there was anything she could do, she was at least determined to retain her pride and her ego. “I’ll come over to your place,” she said, slowly.
    “In an hour,” he demanded.
    “I can’t come in an hour,” she retorted, incredulously.
    “And why not!”
    She took in a sharp breath. This man was so frustratingly annoying, she found Libby milder to her temper. “I’ll be there tonight at seven.”
    “I won’t wait until seven in the evening to discuss the details of your predicament!”
    “Well, you have to!” she screamed back. “I’ve got a life other than the one that unfortunately includes you. And if you dare as come looking for me before seven, the hell with the entire deal. Media or court, whatever!”
    She turned off her phone before he could answer her. She wished it was one of those old phones where she could take her anger out on by banging its handset repeatedly.
    She threw her cell on to her bed and looked furiously at it, her mind reeling over the details of their conversation. What fine prints? What could be worse than being the mistress of the despicable Clayton Reid?

Chapter 6
     
    It was very rarely that Clayton was defied and least of all by a woman. He clenched his teeth, his fists in a tight grip.
    He had thought she would have come running to him after threatening her. Instead she had smugly told him to wait until the evening.
    He paced his bedroom furiously like a spoil t child. He had gotten his way for so long that her defiance enraged him.
    He called his personal assistant for his appointments in an effort to deviate his anger.
    “ And then there is Maxwell Haase’s launch party on his new fashion line at eight-thirty tonight,” trailed Evan Spann.
    “Cancel it,” Clayton sulked into his phone. “Cancel anything and everything after six and clear my day tomorrow.”
    “Yes…of course, Clayton,” the surprise clearly noted in his assistant’s voice.
    Clayton had tirelessly worked every day of the week in the last ten years, managing to keep appointments and networking through social events. He had come to understand the power of networking very early on in his career, building his business and raising it to an insurmountable height that surprised even his father.
    It was expected that he would branch away from his father, preferring to stand alone in the matters of running his company. His father had foreseen that his stubbornness would stand in the way of teaching Clayton anything in addition to the continual rift that floated between them