Escorting the Billionaire (The Escort Collection 1)

I no longer cared what she did to me.

I had to protect him.

“Ma.” I made myself calm down. “I can give you more money. A lot more.” She watched me, saying nothing. “I just can’t do it now. After next week,” I said, nodding. I would give half to Tommy and half to my mom. I didn’t even care anymore. I would do anything to get her to leave us alone.

“What if I don’t want to wait? What if I think my daughter’s tricking me? And no way you’ll be able to give me as much as Mr. Fancy Pants will.” She jutted her chin out at me. “He’s filthy rich. Him and his family. I can just imagine how much they’d give me to keep quiet. To not tell the papers that you’re a hooker.”

I swallowed hard. “How did you find us tonight, anyway?”

“It was in the gossip column at The Tribune.” She shrugged.

“Just fancy rich people, flauntin’ their money, is all. While the rest of us starve.”

I looked at her barrel chest, thinking of all the cartons of cigarettes she’d inhaled into it over her lifetime at fifty dollars a pop. “You’re hardly starving. And the last time I checked, no one owed you anything.”

She jutted her chin out at me. “I don’t like your holier-than-thou attitude, girl. Never have.”

“Just put it on the long list of things you don’t like about me,” I said, my eyes narrowing. “But I’ll give you all the money you want. I mean it. It’s a lot.”

Kai pulled back up in front of the restaurant. I could see James waiting for me on the sidewalk, his hands stuffed into his pockets. “Kai, please take my mother home.” I turned to her. “If you leave us alone, I’ll give you almost all of it,” I said in a small voice. “Some of it has to go to Tommy, though.”

She nodded. She’d already stolen close to six thousand dollars from New Horizons this morning, so maybe that curbed her attitude. A little. “I’ll think about it.”

“You do that.” I looked at her, and suddenly I didn’t want to get out of the car. I wanted to go back to East Boston with her. Back to her desolate apartment where I’d been raised. That was where I belonged. When I was younger I couldn’t wait to leave that place, to be on my own. To try to do better. But I didn’t belong to better. The filth kept coming back up to claim me. I should just give in to it, let it drag me back down, where the people I cared for couldn’t be tainted by me.

“Your boyfriend’s waiting for you,” my mother said, motioning toward the car door. James was right outside, looking antsy.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I whispered, still sick.

“You might want to tell him that. You better go.”

James

“What did she say?” We were standing on the sidewalk near the restaurant, looking out at the view of the harbor. Audrey was tense beside me, her face pale and resigned. I rubbed her back, trying to make her feel better.

“She just wanted to… check in.”

“Is everything okay?”

“No. Nothing’s ever okay when it comes to my mother. But it will be fine.”

I pulled her against me. “She wants more money.” Audrey nodded stiffly. “How did she know we were here?”

“The Tribune.”

“How much does she want?”

Audrey shook her head again. “She wants whatever she can get her hands on. Don’t worry about it—I took care of it.”

“I was pretty generous with her yesterday,” I said, watching the boats go by. “That was probably a mistake. I didn’t take into consideration… how far she might go.” I laced my fingers through Audrey’s, feeling sad and angry on her behalf. Even though I should know better from personal experience, I was still surprised that a mother could be so indifferent to her child.

Or maybe it was just because it was Audrey, and I couldn't understand how anyone would want to treat her that way.

“You mean you didn’t take into consideration that she would throw me under a bus? That she would jeopardize my job? Then you underestimated her. Or maybe you overestimated her,” she said. “She doesn’t care about me. Look what she did to Tommy this morning. She doesn’t care about anybody but herself.”

I pulled her to me. “Your mother is almost making my mother look half-decent.”

We both laughed. “They’re quite a pair,” Audrey said. She sighed and looked up at me. “James… my mother might try to pull something. She threatened to.”