Escorting the Billionaire - Part 2

My mother had all the nerve. “Do you understand that I’m on a job? I’m working. I can’t have people from my outside life dropping in on me. I could get fired. If Elena gets wind of this, I will be fired.”

“I don’t really think you need to worry about that. Do you?” She looked at me slyly.

“What the f**k are you talking about, Ma? Are you drunker than usual?”

“I am not drunk. But I had a visit from your friend yesterday. He’s bossy, but he’s generous. I think he likes you.”

“Just shut up. Please.”

She shook her head, that smug look intact. “He gave me money, Audrey. Lots of money. Just so I’d leave you alone. So you could be happy. That’s what he said!” She chuckled at this. The fact that someone wanted me to be happy was amusing to her.

“How much,” I said flatly.

“Twenty thousand dollars!” she said. She clapped her hands together in glee. “I needed a break so bad. And he gave it to me like it was nothing. It was chump change to him, Audrey. There’s a lot more where that came from.” She licked her lips, and I felt nauseous. I almost threw up right there, in the back of James’s hired Mercedes.

“Please stop,” I said.

“Oh honey—I’m just getting started.”

I looked up at her, sick with dread. “You can’t do this to me.” I felt as if I were under water, my words coming out muffled and strange. The world was crashing around me like tumultuous waves, the undercurrent fierce and scary. My mother was dragging me down again.

“All I’m gonna do is ask him for a little more money,” she said.

“He already gave you money. To be kind, Ma. Do you even understand what that means?”

“He’s got more to give. He didn’t even blink.” She paused for a second, her beady eyes studying me. “I bet he’d give you a lot more than that.”

“He’s already paying me. Through the service.”

“He’d give you more. I know he would.”

“I don’t want more. I don’t deserve more—and I don’t make it a habit of trying to suck the people around me dry.”

She smiled again, triumphant and absolutely petrifying in her dull cunning. “But you’ve been sucking him dry. That’s what you do. I bet those fancy people back there don’t know he’s paying you to do it, either.” She took in my lavender dress, my flawless makeup, and the designer bag Elena had lent me. “I bet they don’t know you’re a hooker. I bet he doesn’t want them to know.”

“I f**king hate you.” I stared at her brazenly. I’d thought it a thousand times, but I’d never said it out loud before.

She didn’t even wince. “You owe me. I brought you and Tommy into this world. Your father left me because of you kids. And now I have nothing.”

“You disgust me,” I said, my chest heaving in anger. If I hadn't had to go pretend to be a real person at a very fancy rehearsal dinner in approximately two minutes, I would have thrown myself at her and scratched her face. I was beside myself with fury.

Underneath that, her threat was like an undertow, threatening to drag me out to sea. I couldn’t let her do this to James.

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.”