Paid Companion

by Nia Forrester

Stephanie looked at her blankly, and in a way that made Lia think that she probably did. Three-hundred, and a lot more probably. Because Steph was the responsible one, the one who probably squirrelled away a Rainy-Day Fund in some account just because.

  “Lia … for real. I don’t even know how you make it through life sometimes. It’s just …” She broke off and shook her head. “How much can you take out?”

  “I dunno. Like maybe eighty bucks.”

  “So, take that out. And when you get to wherever you are, let me know and I’ll wire you some more. You need to have emergency money.”

  “Do people even take cash anymore? Like, I mean, it’s an Uber world, right? Everything is paid in like … virtual money,” she mumbled, half to herself, and half to Stephanie who had long learned not to attention to her idle, fanciful musings about the world and how it worked.

  Once they were parked, at Steph’s insistence, Lia posed in front of her car so she could take her picture. After a couple of silly faces, and Steph yelling at her to ‘quit playing around!’, they got the shot. Lia grabbed the phone to look at it. Not bad.

  She was wearing khakis and a white button-down with a dark-blue blazer and ballerina flats, a summer scarf jauntily tied about her neck. Her short hair, she’d pulled back into a tiny ponytail and out of the way, and the designer glasses on top of her head was a nice touch. The hair was going to be a problem though, because she generally did nothing with it. She would have to remember to grab a curling iron somewhere.

  But other than that, Lia was sure she was going to fit in just fine with the super-wealthy, fashionable Morgan clan. And depending on where they were, she might even find some time to sketch. At the bottom of her bag, was a small sketchbook, and beneath that, her charcoals in a Ziploc bag. If she had those items, she was sure never to be bored, not matter how stuffy the Morgan clan turned out to be.

  Before they headed for Terminal B, where she was supposed to meet Blake Morgan’s assistant, Stephanie hugged her and held her tight.

  So melodramatic, Lia thought, as she submitted to the embrace.

  They walked separately into the terminal as though they were strangers, consistent with Steph’s master plan that Blake Morgan’s alleged assistant not know he was being photographed. Lia couldn’t help but smile as she walked, imagining Steph several paces behind her, casing the joint. The airport was quiet. Though in the nation’s capital, DCA rarely bustled with activity like airports in other major cities.

  Her instructions were to meet the assistant at the entrance to Johnston & Murphy, and then he would take her to the private hangar (who even knew there were private hangars at National Airport?) where they would board the jet for Florida. The closer she got to the meeting spot, the more Lia’s heart-rate increased. Holy crap, she was really doing this!

  Debbie thought she was taking an unexpected vacation to see a sick family member, so she was going to be getting her regular paycheck while she was gone as well. That part felt more dishonest to Lia than stealing the booking from the dark list had. After all, she was being paid a thousand dollars a day for this gig and with her salary; that meant …

  Shit! Could that be …? No. Way.

  He said he would be wearing jeans and a white shirt, and this guy was definitely wearing jeans and a white shirt, but …

  Lia looked over her shoulder and caught Steph’s gaze, then inclined her head in the direction of the man who was standing at the entrance of Johnston & Murphy, look all kinds of delicious. He consulted his watch once, then fended off the attentions of a shop-girl who appeared to be asking him if he needed anything. And as he did, he smiled. Lia’s stomach did a weird dippy thing, like being on a roller-coaster and suddenly hitting the steep drop.

  That couldn’t be Kevin Taylor, could it? This guy couldn’t be Blake Morgan’s assistant. He didn’t look like the type to ‘assist’ anyone. He looked like the one who was in charge. Lia was glad he didn’t seem to have spotted her just yet, so she could take it all in—all six-foot three of him. He had broad, square shoulders and solid well-defined arms that were apparent, even with the long-sleeved white linen shirt he was wearing. The jeans, faded and well-worn, similarly did little to conceal his strong thighs. But the body was one thing, the face was another.

  He was the color of milk chocolate, and clean-shaven. Lia generally didn’t like a man with no facial hair, but this guy pulled it off. His lips were thick, and set in a manly, scowling pucker like he was about to tell someone off. And the eyes, hooded by heavy brows, deep-set and very dark; the nose, with a high-bridge and slightly flaring nostrils. His face—eyes, nose, mouth and strong, square jaw had perfect balance. She was going to try to pass herself off as a model to someone who looked like one himself.

  “The divine proportion,” Lia whispered to herself.

  The divine proportion was a mathematical formula used by Leonardo da Vinci to achieve balance and harmony in some of his art, and was believed to contain the mystical key to beauty. Scientists had studied it in modern times and found that it recurred mysteriously in nature, in objects and even in people’s faces. And what did those things, those people have in common? They were almost universally considered beautiful. Lia had learned about what Da Vinci called sectio aurea when she was in art school, and occasionally tried to apply it to her sketches, or to assess them after the fact based on the formula, and damn if it didn’t work—images, no matter what it was, the more closely it adhered to the divine proportion, the more beautiful it appeared to be, and the more people responded to it.

  As she drew closer, Lia was vaguely aware that Steph had pulled back, or stopped walking altogether. She was probably setting up her surreptitious shot. When Lia was about a dozen feet away from him, he finally looked up. One corner of his mouth twitched as if in the beginnings of a smile, and then his eyes flickered with something that in any other setting, Lia might have interpreted immediately as appreciation or physical attraction.

  When she was closer yet, he stepped forward, hand outstretched.

  “Lia?” he said. “I’m Kevin. Kevin Taylor.”

  Oh Christ. A perfect voice, too?

  ~2~

  Washington, DC, Sunday, 4:47p.m.

  Nicki had chosen well.

  Kevin watched Lia Hill out of the corner of his eye as she settled into her seat and arranged her legs demurely to one side as she strapped in. They were going to leave late, because Blake and Nicki were late, as usual. The plan had been for them to have gotten to the airport early, and been waiting on the plane by the time Kevin arrived with the model. But Blake had been partying the night before and overslept, and Nicki had been completely MIA until about an hour ago.

  So now Kevin was sitting on the plane alone with the model, waiting in this awkward silence. He wondered what she was thinking, whether she thought they were a bunch of degenerates who had hired a woman for a week to do all kinds of debaucherous things to her. The agency said she was twenty-nine, but she looked younger. And though very attractive, she didn’t look like a model. For one thing, she was too short. She couldn’t be more than five-four, or five-five. And she had hips, and boobs and a heart-shaped rather than angular face.

  Kevin noticed these kinds of things because when he was into natural light photography, he’d grown accustomed to assessing people and objects according to how the light hit them, and became adept at telling how they would photograph. Lia Hill was very pretty, but in her pictures, she would appear heavier than she was, which Kevin estimated was no more than about a hundred and twenty-five pounds soaking wet.

  “What time do we take off?”

  She looked up unexpectedly, and Kevin once again was struck by her eyes. They were cat-shaped and large, dominating her cute, pixie-like features—small pert nose and bee-stung, bow-shaped lips. Something about her face made him want to stare, and take in each feature one at a time, surveying them separately before putting them together again and appreciating the whole.

  “Whenever Blake and Nicki get here. Wh
ich should have been …” He glanced at his watch. “About an hour and a half ago.”

  “Blake Morgan is on this flight with us?” she asked.

  At that, Kevin did smile. The way she called Blake by his full name was funny. “Yeah. If he makes it by six. Otherwise we’ll leave without him and he’ll have to fly commercial and meet us down there.”

  “You could just … leave him?” Her eyebrows lifted.

  Kevin grinned. “Yeah. If he’s late, damn right his ass is getting left. I’m not trying to sit in this hangar all day. You?”

  Lia shrugged and then shook her head. “I guess not. But if you’re his assistant, I guess I thought you’d have to wait no matter how …”

  “His assistant?” Kevin echoed. “Where’d you get the idea I was his …?”

  “What’s up, fam?”

  Kevin turned at the sound of Blake’s voice, and rolled his eyes to see that he was just barely dressed—in cargo shorts and a ratty t-shirt, a small duffle bag over his shoulder that Kevin would bet good money, carried only more of the same. The old man was bound to love this—seeing his first-born pictured in the Miami Times looking like a Gulf Coast fisherman.

  “Blake, this is …”

  “My girlfriend for the week, huh?”

  Blake collapsed into the seat directly across from Lia’s and looked her over, shamelessly taking in every little detail while the poor woman blushed and shrank back under his gaze. When she looked up again, it was shyly, and like most women meeting Blake for the first time, reluctant to look him directly in the eye.

  Blake turned on his hundred-watt smile. “You’re beautiful,” he said. Then he extended his hand, which she took, attempting a smile back. “I’m Blake.”

  “Lia,” she returned, taking his hand briefly.

  “Lia, I don’t know if Kev told you. It’s going to be family, mostly. My parents, a couple cousins, a few friends here and there. Formal dinner every night, a couple day-trips … and the sex, we’re willing to pay extra for.”

  At Lia’s wide-open eyes, Blake laughed and lightly slapped her on the knee, while Kevin shook his head and looked. “I’m jus’ messin’ with you! Damn!”

  Then Blake was leaning back in his seat and looked around the cabin fully for the first time.

  “Nice choice, Kev. Didn’t like that rinky-dink plane you got last time. This joint is nice.”

  “Glad you like it,” Kevin said dryly.

  “This isn’t … your plane?” Lia asked.

  Blake and Kevin looked at her and then at each other, smiling. People always overestimated the Morgan family’s wealth. They were rich, but not so rich that the old man would do something like buy a private jet just to sit around generating expenses. They chartered, they leased but it was not an item he would buy. Not unless, as he liked to put it, he was planning on “selling out his great grandkids’ tomorrows to live in lap of luxury today.”

  “Nah, we rented it for the ride,” Blake answered. “Much as I would love to own one of these babies.”

  “I’m glad you remembered that,” Kevin said. “That it’s a rental. And you know how that works, right? By the hour. So your late ass just cost the old man about three thousand dollars. And where the hell is Nicki?”

  Blake shrugged. “Who the hell knows? Off on one of her mystery missions. Sometimes I wonder whether I’m not the only one pulling the wool over on …”

  Kevin shot him a look to remind him they weren’t alone and Blake promptly shut up, turning to give Lia another of his dazzling smiles. Those smiles had gotten Blake out of many a fix, and helped people look past what Kevin thought was pretty damn obvious at this point. But hell, he was part of the conspiracy; and though she didn’t know it, so was Lia.

  “So, tell us about yourself, Lia,” Blake said leaning forward, and giving her his ‘you’re-the-most-important-thing-in-the-world-right-now’ look.

  It was that look which everyone thought would help catapult Blake into certain success in politics. The machinery was already in motion to make it happen when he announced to the entire family that he had no intention of taking that path, and then privately to Kevin and Nicki explained why. So, never one to let a delay turn into a bonafide setback, Edward Morgan had moved on to Plan B for Blake’s success—his son was to assume a leadership role in the family business, and become its face. And so far, so good. Blake was a natural at glad-handing people, be they society doyennes who wanted him as a husband for their daughters, or businessmen from all around the world who wanted in on the company’s lucrative defense contract.

  “So, you’re a model, but what else …?”

  “I’m actually not a model,” Lia said.

  Kevin looked up, surprised.

  “I mean, I am,” she amended quickly. “But not like, as a real profession. I don’t have the look to do most of the work that the agency gets, so I’m actually … I do art.”

  “So does Kev,” Blake said, making Kevin want to kick him in the teeth. “Or at least he used to until he let my father eat his soul.”

  It was Lia’s turn to look surprised. She spun in her seat and looked at him then, training those large eyes directly at his, making Kevin want to squirm in his seat.

  “What’s your medium?” she asked.

  At that, he couldn’t help but smile. That was a question he hadn’t heard since … forever.

  “Film,” he said. “Still photography.”

  Lia nodded. “Awesome sauce,” she said quietly.

  Awesome sauce? Kevin smiled again, and his eyes held Lia’s large brown ones for a long time, neither of them apparently able to look away.

  “He’s good, too,” Blake said, digging into his bag for something, and finally pulling out his phone. “Went to Haiti after the earthquake and took some shots that’d make you bawl like a baby. Check this out …” He fidgeted with his phone and handed it to Lia who looked at the screen and began swiping through pictures. “That’s some good shit, right? I told him he needed to …”

  “Blake …” Kevin began, feeling his face grow warm from all the praise. He didn’t like talking about photography. That was part of his fanciful youth, and well in the past at this point in his life.

  “Sorry, everybody! I’m so sorry, y’all. I was all the way out in Reston and I swear to God, I thought we were leaving from Dulles. And then …”

  Everyone looked up as Nicki came sweeping in, her long dark hair swirling around her bare shoulders. She at least was dressed in a way that would pass muster, wearing a white maxi tank-dress and bold turquoise statement jewelry. Her caramel-colored face was clean of makeup and a little flushed. She quickly kissed Kevin on the cheek and then Blake as well, falling into the seat directly opposite him before exchanging a smile with Kevin.

  “So, Lia and you connected okay, I see,” she said.

  “We did,” Lia said. “Blake was just showing me …”

  Nicki glanced over. “The Haiti shots. Yes. Amazing, right? Too bad Kev insists on having them all hidden away in his basement.”

  “Can we not talk about that?” Kevin said, speaking over her before Lia had a chance to respond. “Instead can we just get going, and maybe talk about Hell Week?”

  Nicki laughed, and scooped up her hair, twisting it and then fastening it. “Lia, don’t listen to them. It’s just a family reunion. Every year around this time, my father likes to get as much of the family together on this little island in the Florida Keys … just to reconnect and decompress. It’s really laid-back and fun, cookouts every day, time on the beach, hikes, and a formal dinner every night. But occasionally he gives us a hard time about our personal lives. Blake most especially as the eldest. So that’s why you’re here. You’re the new girlfriend and you’re going to take heat off Blakey, that’s all.”

  “Take the heat off you two, as well because when he’s focused on me, you get a free pass,” Blake said pointedly. “And don’t call me Blakey. You know I hate that.”

  “Blakey, Blakey, Blakey,” Nicki sang, st
icking her tongue out at him.

  “Guys!” Kevin said. “Can we focus for a minute? You know I don’t like lying to them, so we need to make sure we prepare Lia for what might come up. I’m not getting called out for some shit I didn’t even want no parts of in the first place.”

  “Like what do we need to prepare her for?” Blake scoffed. “It’s not like our father knows anything about me his damn self, so she could just make up details on the fly and he’d be none the wiser.”

  “Yeah, but still. A lot could go wrong in …”

  “I told Daddy Lia was a brand-new girlfriend,” Nicki said. “So, he won’t expect her to know much about anything. Just …” Nicki looked at Lia, “don’t let him corner you. Our father is very good at that.”

  “Yup,” Blake chimed in. “You’d be like a mouse in a trap. Or a sitting duck. Or …”

  “Shut up, Blake,” Kevin said.

  “We about to take off or what, man? It’s getting hot in here.”

  “You got some nerve talkin’ ‘bout how hot it is when your ass showed up over an hour late. Lemme let the crew know we’re all set whenever they are,” Kevin said getting up and heading toward the front of the plane.

  “Why you gotta single me out? I ain’t the only one who showed up like it wasn’t no thing to be …”

  “You heard Kevin,” Nicki said airily. “Shut up, Blakey.”

  ~3~

  Somewhere over the Georgia coast, Sunday, 7:17 p.m.

  Who were these people anyway? Where did they get … made?

  They were all so intimidatingly good-looking, and rich, too? But whoever said life was fair? And Lia had to admit, they were much more down-to-earth than she would have expected for a bunch of rich folks. Especially Blake who seemed to be light-years away from the person he was portrayed as in the papers. Right now, he was sleeping opposite her, his head lolling to one side and his mouth open, a sliver of drool escaping one corner of his perfect mouth.

  Lia smiled, then wondered why—when he was practically a perfect specimen of the male species—she didn’t feel drawn to him at all. He was like a picture in a museum—beautiful to look at, but sexual interest … nada.