by Mel Teshco
Her chin tilted. “Why is it you prefer call girls instead of forming a relationship with one woman?”
He stiffened ever so slightly, but he didn’t gloss over the subject matter. “I’ve had plenty of relationships in the past. But it was with women who wanted more from me than what I was willing to give.”
She blinked. He didn’t do commitment. Just the same as her father.
His stare heated. “Women who weren’t you.”
Her breath caught. What was he saying? That he actually wanted commitment with her? Wanted something more permanent?
Treacherous yearning bloomed in her chest, even as she breathed, “You don’t mean that.”
“Why would I lie?”
Because that was what most men she knew did. They pretended they wanted to settle down and have a family, except they didn’t want the noose of children, a wife, and responsibilities. They wanted a no-strings-attached, beautiful woman in their bed. And most were willing to pay good money for that fantasy.
She felt lightheaded, balancing on a tightrope between desperate hope and disbelief. But she was saved from answering when Mackenzie’s phone abruptly rang out, loud and strident.
He grunted annoyance. “This conversation isn’t over.” He kissed her brow again and turned to reach for his phone on the side table. His hoarse voice filled the quiet. “Emma, what’s wrong?” He sat, his whole body taut, tense, while emotion she’d never heard before thickened his voice. “Christ, Em, how many times did I ask you to leave that sack of shit and move in with me?”
Scarlet’s throat dried, her pulse thudding and her whole body going still as she drank in his every word like the world’s greatest masochist.
He dragged a hand through his hair, his voice strained. “Yeah, well, I haven’t exactly hidden my feelings, have I?”
Scarlet squeezed her eyes closed. So much for her being the only woman for him. Evidently this Emma had a stranglehold on his heart. A woman he’d obviously assumed was out of his reach. She swallowed. It sure sounded like she was in his reach now.
She pushed away the deep ache in her chest. She’d experienced abandonment and knew better than to let her heart rule her head. Lesson learned. She should be happy for him. Hell, she was only his paid fuck. Happily ever afters might happen to women like Brandy—Kate—but they sure as hell didn’t happen to people like her.
He turned his back fully to her, the distance between them wider than a chasm. “Em, you have to leave him.” He sounded anguished, every molecule of his attention on the other woman. “Look, stay where you are, I’ll come get you.”
His knuckles whitened on the phone at whatever she said. He shook his head. “Just … let me look after you.”
Scarlet’s heart shrank even more. She’d been a fool to give Mackenzie access to a part of her she’d always kept off-limits. It was her own fault that hurt, pain and loss, now seeped through her. She should have known better. She’d gone against her instincts and broken too many rules for him. Told him too much about herself. Opened her heart and mind to a man who paid for nothing but sex.
How had she imagined things would be different with him? She blew out a stricken, but silent breath, then sat and swung her legs to the side of the bed. It was clearly past time to get dressed and pack her bag. The weekend with her client had just been cut short.
Fifteen minutes later she sat silent and subdued as he drove back the way they’d come, at a speed that might have frightened her under any other circumstances. Instead her emotions were a tangled, fractured mess, though she put on her best professional front. She could never let him see just how much she’d let him into her life.
She glanced at him. His face was taut, lips compressed, his mind clearly on the other woman. She ignored the ache that seemed to deepen with each mile closer to home. With each minute that Mackenzie sank deeper into his own thoughts about his lover and away from her.
She sighed. “She must be special.”
He glanced her way, his mind still far away as he focused on her words. He nodded absently. “She is. And deserves far better than the man she chose.”
So Emma had desired some other man over Mackenzie? The woman surely mustn’t be right in the head. She had a feeling Mackenzie would give his all to the right woman. But maybe now he had that chance with Emma. Maybe they’d find happiness.
She hoped so. He was a good man and deserved someone special. But though she wanted to congratulate him, the words turned to ashes on her tongue. She couldn’t pretend the idea of him with another woman didn’t burn her all the way to her marrow. Couldn’t pretend right then she didn’t wish she was Emma.
Couldn’t pretend that Mackenzie’s attentions hadn’t broken down her defenses.
When she’d asked him why he chose call girls over a relationship, she never expected him to prove otherwise. Never expected him to be in love with someone unavailable.
Someone who was evidently now all too available.
Scarlet had nothing more to say, nothing that wouldn’t sound false, empty. Instead she distracted herself by retrieving her cell phone from her bag and putting through a quick call to Maisey, asking for the town car to be waiting at the pickup point.
Mackenzie had paid her to do a job and she’d see it through to the end, no matter if inside her heart was breaking.
She ignored the madam’s faintly accusatory tone. She already felt rejected and unwanted. She didn’t need to feel even worse. She disconnected the call and tossed it back into her bag.
“Scarlet, I’m sorry.”
She turned and faced Mackenzie, her professional mask in place. “Don’t be sorry.” That was the very last thing she wanted from him. “I earned a lot of money for doing very little. It’s nothing but a win for me.”
His jaw tightened. “Is that all you see in me—a bank balance?”
Her face burned. She refused to feel bad. “I’m not a call girl for the sheer love of sex alone.”
He stared straight ahead. “No. I guess you’re not.” He scraped a hand over his face. “I had hoped your feelings might have come into it though.”
She gritted her teeth. He wanted her heart even as he ran back to another woman. His arrogance was beyond astounding. But so many men paid to hear whatever boosted their ego, just the same as they paid to satisfy their sexual urges.
But she’d thought Mackenzie was different. Honorable. She pressed a splayed hand to her chest. Guess she should be glad he wasn’t one of her clients with a wife and children at home.
“I care about you,” she conceded softly, though the truth was like sawdust in her mouth. “You’re an amazing man, and a wonderful client.”
He turned to her. “I’d planned to step up our relationship this weekend.”
Until Emma had called and thrown a spanner in the works? Until Emma had reminded him just exactly who he wanted?
Certainly not an escort.
Men fucked call girls, not married them.
Why had it taken her so long to realize Mackenzie was just the same as every other man she’d known?
He pulled into the service station, his face relaxing just a little on seeing the town car that would safely take her home. She hid a sad smile. At least he hadn’t completely abandoned his integrity … completely abandoned her.
He climbed out and opened the passenger door, and held her hand as she alighted. His stare brushed over her face before he leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the lips. “I’ll be in touch soon, okay?”
She stared up at him, reading his expression that was torn between lingering with her and racing back to Emma. Sadness welled up inside her. She shook her head. “I won’t hold you to that.”
He frowned, his eyes darkening. “Scarlet—”
“Just go, Mackenzie.” She’d never call him Mack again. “Go to Emma.”
His frown deepened, even as he shut the passenger door and said, “You don’t get rid of me that easily.”
He didn’t leave until he’d escorted h
er to the town car and watched her climb into its back seat. She kept her head high, even when he gave her a nod then turned and strode back to his SUV, its tires squealing as he took off.
Only then did she lean her head against the back seat, weariness falling over her like a heavy blanket. Her heart ached, her head tight with tension. She closed her eyes. She’d walked away from Mackenzie the first time because her heart had been at risk. She’d been a fool to think the second time wouldn’t be any more painful.
A tear leaked out the corner of her eye, and she didn’t have the energy to wipe it away. She had to walk away from Mackenzie for good this time.
Or risk losing everything for him.
Chapter Seven
‡
Mackenzie arrived at his sister’s home in record time. Killing the SUV’s ignition, he was at the front door of the sprawling mansion not even a minute later. He didn’t knock; instead he thrust the door open and strode inside the cold, white, soul-sucking ambience of the house.
“Emma!”
His voice echoed eerily. He turned around, his heart thudding with adrenaline and squeezing with fear even as he was propelled back to the powerless little boy all those years ago.
*
“You ugly, spineless whore!”
Mackenzie pressed his hands even tighter to his ears, but nothing could block out his father’s yelling, and his mother’s terrified whimpering, just as nothing would convince him that his father was right.
His mother was beautiful, and her only weakness was his big, mean father.
He’d do whatever he had to so that his mother wouldn’t get hurt again.
His heart hammered even before he pushed his bedroom door open fully and stepped into the family room. “Leave her alone.”
His father shoved his mother to the floor, before turning his furious, drunken stare his way. “What did you say, boy?”
Mackenzie trembled inside, but he did his best to hide his fear when he said even louder, “Leave her alone!”
His dad’s red eyes glinted with equal parts respect and betrayal. The latter won out. “You little piece of shit, you’re telling me what to do in my own house, with my own wife?”
Mackenzie’s hands fisted, though he was as good as useless against his towering, enraged father. “If you don’t want us in the house, then we’ll leave.”
He thought he could hear his sister’s whimpering sobs from her bedroom next to his own. He quivered. Emma was afraid for him, and that made him even more scared.
“No-one leaves this house, leaves me, without my saying so.” His father staggered toward him, forearms bunched and hands clenched. Mackenzie stood his ground, even when his father’s fist lifted. He wouldn’t show him fear, wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
The blow knocked him off his feet and into the air, before blackness fell over him like a curtain.
*
“Mack, I’m here.”
His focus came back to the present, his heart rate immediately settling back into rhythm on seeing Emma paused halfway down the stairs. He dragged a hand over his face, for just a moment blocking the visual of his sister’s condition. It didn’t stop sorrow from filling him to the brim.
One of her eyes was bruised and swollen half-shut. Both eyes were red-rimmed and shadowed with fatigue, not to mention dull and empty. Her once beautiful golden hair was lank and knotted, her skin pale and her body fragile. She looked as if she’d fall over in a breeze.
“What did that bastard do to you this time?” he snarled.
She shook her head. “It wasn’t his fault. I shouldn’t have argued—”
“Listen to yourself,” he gritted out. He refused to shout at her, to make her fear him as much as her evil, politician husband. “You’re making the same damn excuses our mother used to make for our father … before he hit her one too many times.”
As much as it half-killed them both to think back on those times, Emma needed to hear the truth. She needed to break the chain of domestic violence that bound her like manacles to her husband, Stewart.
“Stop!” she hissed, arms folding like hovering birds in front of her. “Stewart is nothing like our dad.”
Mackenzie took the stairs, and then stilled in front of her. “Isn’t he?”
She dropped her eyes. “I love him.”
He exhaled heavily. How had his sister come to this fucked up point in her life? She deserved so much better. Deserved a normal life. Deserved a man who loved her. “Emma, we both know you’d be better off broke and on the streets than living with the monster that is your husband.”
She shook her head. “The elections are coming up next month—”
“Screw the elections!” he gritted. Reining back his emotions, he gently clasped her elbow and guided her back upstairs. “Pack your bags. If you really must live with someone successful and rich, then you’ll live with me.”
Emma cried then, tears falling down her bruised and swollen face, her split lip. Her terror at even considering his proposal rolled off her in waves as she said shakily, “Stewart will find me!”
Mackenzie felt bile rise from his belly. How could his sister be so goddamn blind? Had she forgotten the memories that still haunted him every single day? Or was she living the only way she knew how?
One thing was for sure. She was fearful of her husband’s retribution for leaving him. She was fearful for her life.
A vein throbbed to life in his jaw. Stewart wouldn’t get anywhere near Emma. “I’ll hire round-the-clock guards and beef up security. You’ll never have to worry about him again.”
She looked up at him and shook her head. “I don’t want anyone else to protect me but you, Mack. I don’t feel safe with any other man.”
He nodded. Of course she had major trust issues with men. Hell, she had even before their father had been dragged away from their dead mother by the authorities.
But even if he worked from the office in his penthouse, he couldn’t stay right by her side twenty-four-seven. He’d have no choice but to station bodyguards around the hotel and outside his penthouse elevator. And if the lowlife scum that was Emma’s husband somehow found a way to his penthouse … well, Mackenzie wouldn’t repress an inner violence just waiting to escape.
His lips thinned. Perhaps the apple didn’t fall far from the tree after all.
It wasn’t until after he’d helped Emma pack and carried her bags out to his SUV, that he wondered what Scarlet had thought about the weekend that’d been cut so short. He sighed. He’d had such big plans. But she’d understand his sister’s safety and wellbeing was a priority.
He only wished he’d told Scarlet even a little so that she better understood the situation. Instead he’d been too wired up worrying about Emma. And possibly too used to shielding the truth because of Stewart’s damn public image. Not that he gave a shit about Stewart. He only cared what the negative publicity would do to his sister.
But Scarlet had overheard at least some of his phone conversation. She’d undoubtedly put two and two together. The moment Emma had settled in and his doctor had visited to give her a thorough check-up, he’d see Scarlet again and explain some things.
His hands tightened on the steering wheel as he negotiated the city traffic. If he wanted Scarlet’s trust he needed to be more open with her. She’d given him some insight into her own life, something that he knew was forbidden in her line of work. The least he could do was return the favor.
He only hoped his unintentional neglect hadn’t pushed Scarlet away from him for good this time.
*
Claire pushed aside her salad and instead took a big gulp of her wine. It was a mistake coming here. She should have stayed home and wallowed in her misery, not met up with her friends for a late lunch.
Although she tried to enjoy the usual banter going on around her with her friends, Eloise, Natalie and Anna—otherwise known as Savannah, Tiffany and Candy—her heart wasn’t in it. Not with her thoughts constantly straying to Mackenzie.
/>
Had he and Emma made up yet? Had they made love?
She didn’t realize she’d gasped until a soft hand landed on hers and three sets of eyes stared her way.
“Are you okay?” asked Anna gently, her hand tightening reassuringly and her hazel stare as gentle as a doe’s. Claire blinked, all too aware Anna was still the angelic goddess she’d always been and somehow untarnished by the sex industry.
Claire cleared her throat and nodded, before glancing down at Anna’s petite hand. Just how old was Anna anyway? She looked back up and managed a smile. “I’m okay, thanks.”
Eloise snorted and flicked back a wedge of her gorgeous, inky-black hair. “Anna, you won’t get anything personal from Claire. Her emotions are locked up tighter than a chastity belt. Even on her worst days she’s Miss Cool, Calm and Collected.”
If only they knew. She’d been nothing but an open book for Mackenzie, her heart worn on her sleeve. She’d ignored her better judgment and followed her heart instead of her head. She was only lucky she hadn’t jumped headfirst into the deep end, or she’d be drowning even further in her own misery.
Natalie’s considering, icy-blue stare lingered on her. Then she grinned and said, “I think this calls for a round of tequila shots!”
Eloise cheered, her free-spirited nature coming to the fore. “Let’s get this party started!”
*
Claire walked into her house with a dozen shopping bags full of the sexy clothes she needed as a call girl. Lacy, barely there bras and thongs, corsets in cream and black, plunging dresses in various lengths, as well as strappy designer heels and thigh-high boots. None of it brought her any real joy. But what it did buy was her sisters’ educations.
She dumped the bags on her table and pressed a hand to her roiling belly. She’d had one too many shots with the girls. They’d somehow interspersed their clothes shopping with drinking sessions, going into whatever bar they walked past.
There’d been a lot of bars. And a lot of shots.
She headed to the bathroom and peeled off her summery, floral print dress that cost an arm and a leg. Elegant and classy, she reminded herself. She couldn’t go out in just any old T-shirt and jeans. She had a public image to uphold. Had to look good with the chance she might run into a past, present or future client. Those odds were greatly increased when she and her call girl friends got together.