Tramp (Hush Book 1)

by Mary Elizabeth

  I’m not being paid for my undivided attention, so I don’t bother to respond to Gary’s attempt to impress me. The paintings are extraordinary, but I don’t believe for one second he thought about me at all when choosing which pieces to feature tonight. This has to be what he says to anyone he wants to sway.

  Gary talks about the mood and visual characteristics of each piece, but my mind wanders to another name I saw on the contributors list. I hoped by leaving my post at the bar that I might catch a glimpse of my favorite Ridge, but I haven’t seen Talent, Wilder, or their father in attendance. They’ll be here. Ridge & Sons is one of the Carousel of Love Gala’s top donors.

  “There’s more on the second level. Care to join me?” Gary asks, walking me toward the elevators before I have a chance to consider.

  The elevator doors part on the second level of the warehouse. It’s a subdued, almost muted version of the party going on downstairs. Instead of indulging in Gary’s continued droning on of his art collection, I stride over to the rail overlooking the event below. It’s a bird’s-eye view of the entire gala. Camilla’s easy to spot right away, surrounded by interested suitors. But she’s not the only person I’m in search of.

  And then I see him.

  Like I knew where to look all along.

  Talent’s at the bar on the other side of the room from the one I spent my night at so far, and his dark gray eyes have found mine, too. Lifting my champagne glass to him, Talent returns the gesture with a glass of dark liquor.

  Should I? his eyes ask.

  I dare you, mine reply.

  He’s not as put together as the narcissists or closed off as the anxious guests. Talent Ridge lingers in the gray area between belonging and standing out. His suit is designer-fitted, but his tie is loose, and his blazer is unbuttoned and rolled to his elbows. He got a haircut, but he probably could have used a closer shave. Talent walks with natural swagger, but not with the arrogance of someone who believes this party is more than what it is: delusional.

  “Bored with me already?” Gary asks. He leans on the railing beside me.

  “Do you see the girl in the black gown?”

  Camilla isn’t the only woman dressed in black, but she is the only one who matters.

  “Friend of yours?” he asks, intrigued.

  “We work together.” Encouraging my clients to seek other women has the potential to ruin my career, but the notion of kneeling in Gary’s office again is inconceivable. Inez wants Camilla to follow in my footsteps. She can start with Gary. “Nothing changes but the woman. Same arrangement. Same terms and price.”

  Gary straightens his lapels and clears his throat. “Fascinating.”

  Talent arrives holding a glass of amber liquid around the rim, haloed by the light inside the elevator. Gary and Talent breeze past each other in passing, as one attempts to enter my life and the other leaves it for good. If looks could kill, then Gary wouldn’t have a pulse. The art dealer is oblivious, because sharing me has always been the deal.

  I finish my glass of champagne, relishing in the warmth cruising through my veins. I think about dropping my empty glass to watch it shatter on the ground below. The subsequent confusion it would cause is the entertainment I crave, but Talent slides his palm across my lower back. My body draws to him like gravity.

  “I hoped you’d be here,” he says with the romantic scent of whisky on his lips.

  There’s nothing I want more than to slip into his jacket and put my arms where his arms go, to press my chest flush against his, nestling into his body heat. But he’s Talent Ridge, and I’m a call girl.

  He decodes the look of uncertainty on my face, clenching his jaw at the idea that we have to postpone any of the precious moments we have together again. But I don’t have to look around to know we’re being scrutinized.

  “Where can we be alone?” I ask, breathing in the scent of his skin just in case there’s nowhere to go and we have to part.

  Talent surprises me and takes my hand, lacing our fingers together. For the sake of anonymity, I lower my head and let my hair curtain my face from inquisitive stares and nosy socialites.

  Talent throws back the last finger of his drink and leaves the empty glass in a standing ashtray. He tucks me under his arm, glaring at the onlookers with the know-how and ability to ruin their lives if they have the audacity to look too closely. The insignificant people—the plus ones and seat fillers—won’t know who I am, and they’ll gossip among each other trying to crack the code.

  “Who’s the girl with Talent Ridge? What does their relationship mean?”

  He bursts through the double crash bar emergency exit doors and says, “I’m not letting you out of my sight again.”

  A wall of cool ocean air welcomes us outside. The metal door crashes shut with a clatter, leaving Talent and me alone on a fire escape balcony. A retractable ladder hangs off the side, and dim yellow emergency lights secured to the building cascade shadows across our faces. The hum of the ocean and the echo of a faraway ship’s horn are the only sounds besides the tempo of my heartbeat in my ears.

  The night is unmoving, special, and still like it’s stopped all commotion to give us uninterrupted time alone. The dark knows that it’s the only thing allowed to witness our joining. Anything else would exploit it.

  We stand face-to-face, fighting the invisible but powerful tether between us, just to study each other. Talent’s eyes look black in this light, and his long lashes brush against the top of his cheeks when he dares to blink. His lower lids are tinged with sleeplessness the color of a light bruise. And the hum of freckles across his nose and cheeks should be counted and kissed one by one.

  “Fuck it,” he whispers. “I’m done staying away from you.”

  Talent slides his hand around the back of my neck and pulls me forward. His fingers dig into my hair, and he tugs my head back. I gasp, securing a breath before his lips crash into mine—and who needs to breathe anymore, anyway?

  This should have been our first kiss.

  This should have been the only kiss of my life.

  He holds me as close as he can and urges my mouth open to rob whatever breath I may have left in my lungs. His top lip slides along mine, and his bottom presses against the curve between my chin and lip. A blast of warm effervescence detonates from deep within me and explodes, carrying away with it every feeling of betrayal, hurt, and loneliness I’ve ever faced in a cloud of debris that stretches for the atmosphere.

  I’m left bare until Talent’s kiss and fiery embrace pour into the lifelong-sized crater the eruption left behind, and for the first time in my life, I know what the privilege of belonging feels like.

  Circling my arms around his shoulders, I lift onto the tips of my toes and surrender to the flames, deepening the connection. Concentrating on the texture of his kiss, I’m amazed by how supple his lips are, the consoling scent of whisky on this breath, and heat of his tongue. Talent isn’t forceful, but caressing. Our tongues touch, but not in the vulgar way I’m used to.

  When my lungs feel like they might burst, I tilt my head back and inhale the salty air, but I don’t let go. Talent presses soothing kisses along the side of my face before resting his forehead against mine and smiling with his eyes closed.

  “I’ve thought about doing that for a while,” he says.

  “We’ve kissed before,” I correct him. I sweep my fingers through the short hair at the nape of his neck.

  “No, we haven’t. Not like that.” Talent shakes his head and opens his eyes. A chill drifts up my spine and I shiver, but it’s not from the outside temperature. Talent holds me at arm’s length and asks if I’m cold. Hesitantly, he asks, “Do you want to go back inside?”

  “No.” I’ll eventually return to my spot at the bar to watch over Camilla, but I can afford a few stolen minutes with Talent while I have him. Who knows when we’ll be this close again?

  Talent shrugs off his blazer and drapes it over my shoulders. I don’t correct his assumption that I’m cold
because his jacket is nearly as warm as his mouth, and I’d like to soak in every degree of warmth before the open air carries it away. To go home with traces of his cologne on my skin and in my hair will make the memory of our kiss better.

  “How did you know I was here?” I ask.

  “I saw the bleeding girl from the grocery store,” he says. “She’s the one in the black dress, right?”

  “That’s her,” I say with a short laugh. I’m not shocked he noticed her. To be seen is Camilla’s only job here tonight, and if she caught Talent’s eyes, I could only imagine what she’s doing to everyone else at the gala.

  Inez will be pleased.

  I step away from Talent to stand in front of the rail overlooking the rocky beach and ocean below. White-capped waves crash onto the shore, stretching for the sand beyond the rocks before it’s dragged back to do it all over again at the moon’s command.

  “Don’t disappear on me now, Lydia,” Talent says. He stands directly behind me as if to hold me back in case I run.

  “What’s the point? It’s not like we’d ever work out, let alone be allowed to be together.” Like the ocean waves, I can’t make it over the rocks to the sand before I’m dragged back to the abyss where I belong.

  He leans back on the railing beside me. “What the fuck do you mean, we wouldn’t be allowed? Who’s going to stop us?”

  “Don’t be dense, Talent. There’s no point in trying,” I say, exasperated. He inhales a lungful of air, no doubt to force-feed me bullshit about making our own decisions. We’re adults, after all. But neither one of us belongs to ourselves. He’s a slave to the city, and I’m the property of a redheaded Italian woman who’s hard-pressed not to let me out of her sight.

  “Do I need to spell this out for you to understand? I’m a prostitute. I have sex with men for money. That man you walked past when you got off the elevator is only one of my regular clients. Another dozen are downstairs with their wives. I fuck a different man every single day of the week, and I’m booked for months. Does that sound like someone you want to spend any amount of time with?”

  The fall back to reality is agony, and my heart hangs in purgatory—trapped between a dream and the truth. I wipe the tear that falls from my eye away with the tips of my fingers and stare at it, amazed that they exist outside the confines of my bedroom. When is the last time someone saw me cry? When my mom died.

  Talent’s knuckles turn white as he grips the railing, and he swallows hard. The muscles in his jaw clench. “Do you think you’re the only one who sells themselves?”

  “No,” I say. “Inez’s operation has a wide reach. Camilla and I aren’t the only whores you’ve seen tonight.”

  He nods toward the fire escape doors. “Every person here is a slut. You sell your body; we sell our souls. At least you’re honest about it.”

  I sigh. “Talent…”

  “What you do is fucked-up. I don’t know how to ask you to stop or if you even can stop. All I know is that when you walked into my office that night, it was the first time I didn’t feel so fucking alone. People constantly surround me and they pull me in a hundred different directions, but none of it is genuine. But the moment I laid eyes on you, I knew it was different.”

  “It wasn’t different. I didn’t go to your office with good intentions. I had a motive.”

  He sweeps the next river of tears that fall from my eyes away with the pad of his thumb and sticks it into his mouth before he says, “You might have when you arrived, but I saw the look on your face before you left. Something changed.”

  Everything changed.

  I haven’t been the same since.

  “Yeah, well, fucking me on your desk or in a dark alleyway is different than bringing me home to your parents, Talent.”

  He drops his head and mumbles, “I only have one parent. My mom’s dead.”

  We linger in silence for one, two, three minutes, because to speak would mean to break down, and I don’t have it in me to pick up the pieces afterward. How do I tell him that I know his mom is gone and that I understand without turning myself inside out and baring my soul at the same time? That’s not an experience I’d come back from, and this isn’t the time or place.

  “It would only be a matter of time before your friends or colleagues recognize me.”

  “I don’t care,” he says. He brushes my hair away from my face.

  “You will.” I meet his stare and his eyes are so sincere, I almost believe he’s strong enough to endure the scrutiny that would hang over him like the sharp edge of a guillotine if he put his head on the line for me. That’s not what I want, and neither does he.

  We change at night. The moonless sky romanticizes the impractical and the poison is delicious. But the inevitable rises with the sun, and daylight serves as a reminder that we have too much to lose.

  “Give us a chance, Lydia,” Talent whispers. He captures my hips in his large hands and forces me to face him. He hides his face in the curve between my shoulder and my neck and inhales against my bare skin.

  I slide my hands up his arms. “Don’t waste your chances on me. I’m not worth it.”

  He laughs against my skin and says, “Of course you are.”

  Unexpectedly, the fire escape doors open, and Wilder Ridge emerges. He’s a silhouette outlined by the bright light from inside in contrast to our dark hideaway. I kind of want to scratch his eyes out for cutting my time with Talent short, but it’s a sobering example of what’s to come if Talent and I attempt a relationship.

  If I questioned whether or not Wilder knows who I am before tonight, I’m a believer now. The extent of his disapproval swallows all the space on the balcony, pushing Talent and me into the corner. Big brother lets the doors slam behind him, and the yellow-orange light spits sinister shadows across his face.

  He’s not the villain in our story.

  But this is a harrowing foundation for what’s possible.

  If Grand Haven’s golden child gave his heart to trash like me, a mob of saviors would arrive to burn the witch at the stake and save him from wickedness.

  Wickedness some would gladly fuck for two-thousand dollars an hour before the slaying.

  And from the looks of it, Wilder leads the gang of would-be heroes.

  He’s a good old-fashioned saint.

  Talent doesn’t turn to face his brother. “I’ve been gone for fifteen minutes, Wild.”

  Wilder slides his hands into his pockets. “You didn’t slink out here unseen.”

  A smirk spreads across Talent’s gorgeous mouth, and he talks over his shoulder without turning away from me. “Which rat snitched and told you where I was?”

  Wilder’s eyes reach for the stars, and he exhales, annoyed. “Dad wants you on stage for the check ceremony. I can’t leave until that part’s done. Let’s get this shit over with, Talent, and you can do whatever or whomever you want.”

  Talent’s eyes fall closed and he mumbles, “Fuck.”

  “You need to go,” I whisper, resting my palms on his chest to push him away if he refuses.

  Nothing has more potential for scandal than the younger Ridge son’s absence during the giant check ceremony after rumors he escaped outside with a busty brunette gets around.

  “Do you want to go down with me? I won’t be long.”

  “No,” I say, faking a smile for his benefit. “I’m going to stay out here for a bit longer.”

  He tips my chin up and searches my eyes for untruth. He won’t find it. I’ve made an entire career from lies and secrets. My poker face is undefeated, even as the warmth he ignited inside of me with his kiss freezes over and my heart resumes its dulled pace.

  “We’re not done talking.” He lifts my knuckles to his mouth and kisses them. “Don’t disappear. I know where you live.”

  I need to find a new apartment, soon, I think to myself as I watch him disappear with his brother. I shake the retractable ladder secured to the side of the fire escape to test its strength. I need to lose the heels to climb
down without breaking my neck, but I don’t hate my chances of making it down in one piece. And if I do fall and break a bone, it might hurt less than going inside to see Talent.

  Broken bones mend.

  My heart hasn’t recovered from the heartbreak I suffered when I lost my mom. I can’t go through that again with Talent.

  The Christian Louboutins stay on my feet, and I return to the gala with my head held high and my stomach in knots. I’ve delivered Camilla to the wolves; I won’t let them eat her alive.

  I arrive in time to watch Talent, Wilder, and their father David under the spotlight to present their contribution to the Carousel of Love foundation. David Ridge is shorter than his sons and better at plastering a real enough grin on his face for the cameras. Wilder smiles, but I know he’s planning his exit as soon as his time on stage is over. Talent doesn’t bother with the theatrics. He didn’t straighten his tie before joining his family, and his eyes keep flickering toward the second level of the warehouse.

  The bartender places a napkin in front of me and asks if I’d like a drink once I’m back in my seat.

  “Just a club soda, please.” I’d like to order a whisky to mimic the taste of Talent’s mouth, but it’s almost time to go.

  Camilla and I make eye contact from across the room, and her expression visibly calms once she spots me. I shouldn’t have left her alone for so long, but any anxiety she may have suffered due to my disappearance didn’t get in the way of the progress she’s made in the room. The California state assembly speaker and co-founder of tonight’s charity guides Camilla toward a group close to the stage where the Ridges are making their exits. The music turns back up, and the lights dim to open the dance floor up for the remainder of the night. The money is collected, so now it’s time for the sinners to sin.

  Talent didn’t notice I’ve returned to my spot at the bar and hurries from the stage to the elevator. I second-guess that whisky and wonder if I can drink it, collect Camilla without making a scene, and get the fuck out of here in the time it takes Talent to realize I’m not waiting for him on the fire escape when I spot Wilder Ridge watching Camilla.