Escorting the Billionaire - Part 1

“I’m sorry tonight turned out like this,” he said, his jaw clenched.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I just need to be alone.”

“I need your number,” James said. I recited it to him and watched him tap it into his fancy phone, wondering when, and if, he was ever going to call me. I wasn’t sure what our separation meant. This was supposed to be our first night together, and I was going home to sleep alone. Would I still have him as an as**signment? Would he phone Elena and tell her I was too much trouble? Would he decide that I was a pain in the as**s, and I’d never see him again?

A lump formed in my throat, but I smiled at him when he was done. “Thanks for the ride,” I said. “And the drinks.”

“Anytime,” he said and unceremoniously got back in the car.

My heart dropped at his curt departure. But I made myself head home with my chin up, taking long, confident strides. As if I knew I was making the right choice by walking away from him.

Plus, I didn’t want him to see my hot, confused tears.

My apartment seemed even more disgusting than it had this morning, and that was saying something. I was acutely aware of the contrast to James’s multi-million-dollar condominium. Good thing I’m here alone, I thought, but it didn’t feel good.

I made myself some tea and went and sat on my windowsill. James Preston. His big-shouldered, suit-clad image filled my head, crowding out all coherent thought. I would have Googled him, but I had no Internet access, no smartphone. It was better that way. I didn’t want to see the society pictures that Elena had mentioned, of him with other women. Real women, real dates.

I decided to worry about Elena instead. If he let me go, she would, too. She would be absolutely furious with me. And then I’d be back to turning tricks on the street, trying to make rent and keep my brother in his residence home. Except that I’d never make enough money.

I thought about getting a legitimate job for approximately one second. The idea made me laugh—the only other thing I’d ever done was waitress, and I could make more money in an hour turning tricks than I could in a whole shift waiting tables. I had my brother to think about.

My body was just my body. When I was with a John, I could distance myself from what was happening, almost as if it was happening to someone else. I could do at least that for my brother. I was all he had, and he was all I had, and I had to protect him using any means necessary. My body and my pride were a small price to pay for his well-being.

Any dreams or hopes for myself that I’d had were a small sacrifice, too.

I thought about James again, unable to block him out. I thought about how he’d held my hand earlier tonight, and how warm and comforted it made me feel. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had held my hand like that—maybe never. I pictured him smiling at me, and my chest got tight. He’d left me on the street just now so easily, it was like I was nothing to him.

That’s because you are nothing to him, I thought.

I knew that was true, but the tightness in my chest persisted. I realized it was the sensation of common sense strangling the hope that was living there, inside my heart.

It hurt. It really, really hurt.

James

“I’m sort of surprised you’re calling me, James, after your little hissy fit earlier,” Cole was saying. I could hear people laughing in the background. Cole was probably still at the party, or at some other party, picking out a woman to go home with.

“I just dropped Audrey off. She was upset,” I said.

“Because I asked her to come home with me and I offered to pay her? She is a hooker, right? Because I really wasn’t trying to offend her,” Cole said.

He was an as**shole, but he was also my best friend. On top of that, Cole was brutally honest. He wouldn’t steal a date from me, not a real date I’d gotten to first. But someone who was for hire, who I wasn’t planning on f**king because I wanted to keep my boundaries intact?

He’d do it just so he could tell me everything I was missing.

“I’m not sure why she’s upset. Maybe because I told you she was an escort,” I mumbled.

“Well, she’s right about that,” Cole said loftily. “You probably shouldn’t have said anything. She was pretending to be your girlfriend and doing a pretty good job of it. You threw her under the bus with that one.”

“Thanks a lot,” I mumbled.

“So she’s gone? Did you fire her? Or did she quit?” Cole asked.

“Neither,” I said.

“So why’d she go home? I thought she was with you for the next two weeks?”

I didn’t say anything for a moment. “I think she just needed to be alone.”