30DaystoSyn Read online

  30 Days to Syn

  Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  The ad reads: Young woman (American only) willing to engage in domination roleplay. No BDSM. Salary: $1,000,000 upon completion of contract. Length of employment: 30 consecutive nights.

  Drowning in debt, Melina Wynth is going under for the third time. With a dead-end job and a disabled brother dependent on her, the ad in the paper could be the lifeline to keep her from sinking. Reeling in her courage, she casts her line.

  Synjyn McGregor is a shark—a very wealthy shark from Down Under—and his bite could prove to be her undoing. But Lina is determined she isn’t going to allow him to get away. The length of employment might read thirty nights, but she suspects he is fishing for something more.

  Synjyn needs a woman who will love him—mentally and physically—as never before. A woman whose touch will not only put the billionaire in his place but keep him there…begging for more. He will quickly realize Lina is made for Syn.

  A Romantica® contemporary erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave

  30 Days to Syn

  Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  Dedication

  To my Tommy.

  I know you will be there when I take my final breath.

  The last word on my lips will be your name.

  Chapter One

  Melina Wynth flipped through the newspaper pages until she came to the Help Wanted section. She desperately needed a second job but so far she’d found nothing and she’d been searching for a month. Fast food restaurants? Sure but they paid next to nothing in wages. Mega-retail stores? The same. She didn’t want to consider the little boutique shops in the strip malls because the salaries would be even lower and she’d be expected to wear better clothes than what she had in her closet. If she couldn’t find something today, she’d pick one of the mega-retail stores and make do.

  Sighing, she reached for her coffee and took a sip. She frowned. The generic coffee was cold and the knock-off creamer coated the lining of her mouth like an oil spill. She set the mug on the table, picked up her ballpoint pen and put the tip on the first Help Wanted ad.

  “Nope,” she said, making a large red X across the ad.

  She went to the next ad. “Ditto.” Once more she crossed off an ad.

  After a dozen or more crisscrossed lines had laid waste to the newspaper page, she tossed the pen to the table and scooted her chair back. Grabbing her coffee mug, she went to the sink to pour the cold coffee down the drain. She turned on the water, rinsed the mug then turned it upside down in the plastic dish drainer. She stood with her hands gripping the edge where countertop and sink met and hung her head, staring at the mesh strainer covering the sink drain.

  Her thoughts jerked her back to the day before.

  “Due to your poor credit rating, we will need the full co-pay amount upfront, Miss Wynth,” the lady at Cedar Oaks had said in an arrogant tone. “I am sure you understand Cedar Oaks is not a charity institution.”

  “How am I supposed to come up with $3000 in less than a month to hold his place here?” she’d asked.

  “That’s not our problem, Miss Wynth,” the woman in charge of the institution’s financial assistance sniffed. Looking down her long, thin nose a smirk had passed over the woman’s almost nonexistent lips. “Since you do have a substantially low credit rating, I’m sure a bank loan is out of the question.” She leaned over her desk, eyes glittering hatefully. “Perhaps you have something you could sell?”

  Melina had left Cedar Oaks with hot tears scalding her cheeks. Not only had the woman repeatedly insulted her, she had driven home Lina’s dire circumstances: A poorly paying job, a house for which she was two months behind in rent, an overdue utility bill—among others—and a piece-of-crap car that was minutes away from being repossessed or giving up the ghost, and no resources to speak of.

  There was no one to whom she could turn for help. No relatives at all save her younger brother. No friends from whom she could borrow money and—as the odious woman at Cedar Oaks had pointed out—no bank would loan her a red cent.

  Since her parents’ deaths two years earlier, she and her brother Drew had been on their own. During that time Drew—who had been in the same car wreck with Lina and their parents—had spent the last two years of his life paralyzed from the waist down and unable to remember who she was. The charity-run hospital in which he was a patient was losing its funding and Drew would be discharged to a state-run facility in two months.

  The thought of Drew languishing in a place where orderlies ignored their patients and nurses were indifferent to their suffering, made Lina’s heart ache. She’d sell a kidney if it would help keep Drew in a decent facility.

  And it might eventually come to that, she thought. If not a kidney, she could sell her eggs to an ASRM-affiliated egg donor program or IVF clinic. She’d read where she could make as much as five thousand dollars for her first donation, and up to ten thousand for subsequent donations. She was already selling her blood plasma every month just to put food—such as it was—on the table. She occasionally babysat on weeknights and on the weekends she tended bar for her friend Rachel’s father Ed Morrison. Neither paid much but the gigs gave her gas money.

  She could sell her hair but the long dark tresses that hung to her waist were her pride and joy. She’d never colored or bleached or permed the thick mass and never had any intention of doing so. It was her crowning glory as her mother had once said so she kept it silky and shiny. Yet if she needed to part with it to help Drew, she would although she’d make no more than a thousand dollars for it.

  Or she could become the gestational carrier of someone else’s baby…

  She shook her head as she slipped inside the heat and musty smell of her fifteen-year-old car. When she had a baby, it would be her own and she’d never give it up. The twenty thousand she could make from being a surrogate mother was tempting but she knew she couldn’t do it.

  She’d curled her fingers around the top of the steering wheel, lowered her forehead to her hands and given in to the racking sobs that pushed at her throat.

  Her grandmother’s words ran through her mind. “It’s always darkest before the dawn.”

  She saw no way it could get any darker. She was living off freeze-dried noodles and cans of store-brand tomato soup. Bread came from the day-old store. Vegetables and fruits from the overripe section of the supermarket were precious commodities to be savored with the occasional jug of one-percent milk and a splurge on out-of-date cheese. Tap water had become her beverage of choice and even that might not be an option any day now.

  Hopeless.

  Helpless.

  Alone.

  Scared.

  At the end of her rope.

  She used every spare bit of change she had to pay for things Drew needed. Though he had no idea who she was, she needed to do right by her little brother. He was, after all, her responsibility and in more ways than one.

  Her parents had died instantly in the fiery crash on I-10. Their mortal coil was over.

  Despite a broken arm, she had managed to pull her unconscious brother from the burning wreck. Drew was bleeding profusely from a nasty gash on his left temple. In the watery wash of the rain that was pounding the pavement around her, she had watched his blood soaking into her blouse as she held his head in her lap. When told her brother might have brain damage, she had confessed to her parish priest that she wished the two of them had perished along with their parents.

  “That is a sinful thing to say, Lina,” Father Bill had told her with a disapproving frown. “Life is precious. You should be grateful to God for giving you a second chance.”

  A second chance, she thought as she raised her tear-stained face from the steering wheel. She stared blindly across
the pristine parking lot of the Cedar Oaks Rehabilitation Center and wanted to scream. There would be no second chance for Drew and she was fairly sure there would not be one for her, either.

  The ringing of the phone made her sigh. That was another thing that would be cut off at the end of the month. She had twenty-nine days of service left before the three-month-old bill did her in. With no answering machine—and most certainly no voice mail—the ringing continued. With shoulders drooping, she turned and walked to the old-fashioned wall phone hanging beside the back door—expecting another officious, sarcastic bill collector on the other end.

  “Hello?” she said timidly.

  “Did you get the paper this morning?” The excited voice belonged to Lina’s best friend Rachel.

  “Yes, I did as instructed. That’s five packets of noodles I won’t be buying this week,” Lina replied to the girl she’d known since kindergarten. “So far I’ve found—”

  “Did you see the ad?” Rachel demanded.

  Lina put her free hand up to pinch the bridge of her nose between her thumb and index finger. She was getting another migraine and her friend’s loud voice wasn’t helping. “Which ad, Rach?”

  “The ad!” her friend all but shouted. “The one offering a mil for a thirty-day job!”

  “A mil?” Lina repeated. “As in a million dollars?”

  “That’s the one!” Rachel said with a giggle. “Did you see it?”

  Lina released a long sigh. “No, sweetie, I haven’t and I’m sure I wouldn’t qualify for any job that pays—”

  “You’ve still got your cherry, you’ve got long brown hair and green eyes, and you’re no heavier than a buck ten so you qualify!” There was another prolonged giggle. “And you fit the age requirement of twenty-two to twenty-eight.”

  “Rachel, what are you talking about?” Lina asked.

  “Read the damn ad then call me back! Page nine,” she said. “Small ad. Very discreet. Call me back!” Rachel hung up.

  Annoyed, her headache worsening, Lina knew if she didn’t search out the ad, read it then return Rachel’s call, her friend would keep hounding her until she did. She went to the table where the newspaper was spread out. She had been looking at the jobs on page seven. She flipped the sheet and the ad practically jumped out at her.

  “Discreet my ass. It might as well have a blinking neon sign around it,” she scoffed. She read the first sentence in the ad, stopped, read it again then slowly took a seat.

  Wanted: Young woman (American only) willing to engage in domination role play. No BDSM. Salary: $1,000,000 upon completion of contract. Length of employment: 30 consecutive nights. Qualifications: must be between the ages of 22-28, beautiful with long naturally brown hair and green eyes (no glasses or contact lenses); cannot weigh more than 110 pounds; no tattoos or body piercing (earlobes only okay) no scars or physical imperfections; must be both physically and mentally fit (extensive examinations by accredited physician and psychologist to ascertain physical and mental health will be conducted); Must be a college-educated virgin. Only women who meet all criteria need apply. Send photo and email to [email protected].

  She read the ad three times then sat back in her chair, staring at the bordered box, her lips parted in disbelief.

  “You have got to be kidding,” she whispered.

  Once more the phone rang. It had to be Rachel, she thought. The woman was the least patient person she’d ever known. She pushed up from the table and plucked the receiver from the wall.

  “Did you read it?” Rachel demanded with excitement. “Do you believe someone would put an ad like that in the newspaper?”

  “It has to be a joke,” Lina said. “Someone’s idea of a cruel prank. I’d be willing to bet it’s a grad student doing a paper. Most likely someone from Tech.”

  “What if it isn’t?” Rachel asked. “What if it’s for real? One million dollars, Lina! One million dollars for thirty days of work. That’s over thirty-thousand bucks a fucking night! One night is more than you make in a year!”

  “It’s a joke, Rachel,” Lina said with exasperation. “No one in their right mind is going to pay that kind of money for a month of whatever.”

  “What if he’s richer than King Midas?” Rachel argued. “What if he’s like that hero in that book everybody’s talking about? What if—”

  “What if he’s a serial killer?” Lina queried and heard her friend snort.

  “Serial killers don’t advertise in the newspaper, stupid,” Rachel told her.

  “Hello? Helmuth Schmidt?”

  “The West German chancellor?” Rachel questioned. “Who the hell did he kill?”

  “No, no, no, no, no! That’s Helmut Schmidt.”

  “Isn’t that who you just said?”

  “Helmuth! There’s an h on the end of the killer’s name. AKA the American Bluebeard? Remember him from psych class?” Lina reminded. “He placed ads in the lonely hearts columns and was suspected of killing over thirty women.”

  “Did he offer to pay them a cool mil to fuck him?” Rachel pressed. “I don’t think so!”

  Lina shook her head, making the budding migraine worse. “It’s a practical joke, Rach, or a grad student’s beer-and-weed-induced, not-so-bright idea for a paper.”

  “What if it’s not?” Rachel pressed. “What if it’s on the up and up and there’s a gorgeous, rich hunka-hunka burning love out there who’s looking for a playmate?”

  “How many gorgeous, rich hunka-hunka burning love men do you know who would need to advertise for a playmate? Don’t you think women would be falling into the lap of a man like that?”

  “Maybe he’s so busy he doesn’t have time to go looking,” Rachel snapped.

  “What if he’s in his eighties, toothless, hairless, and has an STD?” Lina countered.

  “What if you were the lucky submissive who—”

  “The what?”

  “Submissive!” Rachel said with annoyance. “In a Dom/sub relationship, the sub is the receiving partner of the dominant. She—or it could be a he—is a sexual slave to the Dom and must do everything the Dom says.”

  “Lovely,” Lina mumbled. “A large helping of humiliation and degradation with a bowl of bondage on the side. Just what every woman wants fed in a relationship.”

  “It said no BDSM,” Rachel told her.

  “I don’t know what that is,” Lina said and when Rachel would have explained, she cut her off. “Rach, look, I’ve got one of my headaches coming on. I’ve got to find a job this week or I’m going to lose my house. At the very least my lights will be cut off, I’ll have no water, no phone, and Drew will be kicked to the curb and put in some state-run horror of a hospital.”

  “Think about this,” Rachel said. “What if this is a real opportunity? What if you could make a million dollars to let some old fart bust your cherry? What good is it doing you anyway? You aren’t using it.”

  “Rachel—”

  “You don’t even own a vibrator.”

  “Yes, I do,” Lina said, blushing.

  “One you can poke yourself with?” Rachel asked. When Lina didn’t answer, her friend laughed. “I didn’t think so! It’s probably just a clit flick. You might tap your—”

  “Rachel, please,” Lina cut her off. She could feel the heat burning her cheeks at such talk.

  “Hell, even if you lasted just one night, I’ll bet he’d give you the thirty grand! Think of what you could do with that kind of money until you found a decent paying job. As hard as you pinch a penny, you could make that thirty grand last you and Drew for years.”

  “I’m hanging up now,” Lina said.

  “At least think about it! Think what you could do with a cool mil. Think about Drew and what that kind of money could do for him!”

  “Goodbye, Rachel.”

  Lina hung up the receiver with more force than she meant to. She turned away from the phone and went to the sink. She needed a cup of coffee. Badly.

  Taking her mug from the drainer, she filled
it with water then stepped over to the one-cup coffee maker that Rachel had given her for her birthday.

  “I’d have bought you a regular-size coffeemaker but I knew you’d only make a single cup every morning anyway,” Rach had told her. “Waste not, want not and all that shit.”

  “Too much caffeine isn’t good for you,” she mumbled as she opened the top of the little coffeemaker and poured the water into the reservoir. She reached for the cheap powdered creamer and dropped a tablespoon of the bargain-brand French vanilla flavoring into her mug. She set the mug on the warming tray under the spout. After dropping two sugar cubes and a quarter cup of French roast coffee into the little basket, she started the machine.

  A flicker across her line of vision made her glance at the window over the sink. As the coffee brewed she sidestepped to the window and looked out. The sight that greeted her was disheartening—sparse plots of grass growing like dry archipelagos in the red Georgia clay, a scruffy pin oak shedding leaves and dropping acorns, a lone pine that dripped tar down its trunk, and a dilapidated wooden privacy fence surrounding the postage stamp-sized space. The little islands of wilted grass broke her heart. She didn’t have the money for fertilizer or grass seeds and her landlord couldn’t care less what the yard looked like.

  The flicker returned and she smiled as she saw a cardinal. Its bright-red feathers were the only pretty things she had ever seen from her window. She watched it soar across her yard from the pine to the pin oak where an empty bird feeder swung gently. It lowered its head and pecked at the birdfeeder tray.

  “Sorry, sweetie,” she said softly. “I didn’t have an extra few dollars for birdseed this month.”

  As though it had heard her, the bird took to flight, abandoning her.

  “Fair-feather friend,” she whispered then chuckled at her rearrangement of the term. She turned away from the window. Her eyes went to the newspaper.

  “Think of what you could do with that kind of money until you found a decent paying job.”