by Julia James
‘Take a good hard look at yourself when you get home—a good hard look, Sophie—and think about whether you like what you see. Ask yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing.’
Anger filled her. What did he know?
Well, she knew! She knew, all right! She could hate it all she liked, but nothing would let her off the hook—nothing could spare her.
Ahead of her another day loomed, another struggle.
And no end in sight.
And Nikos Kazandros, and all her memories of him, could take their sneers and contempt and drain away, back into the poisoned, bitter past where they belonged. And go to hell!
Nikos sat motionless in the leather chair at the head of an oval table around which half a dozen men were seated. They were discussing a forthcoming property deal, but Nikos wasn’t paying attention. He had two people of his own in the discussion, whose judgement he trusted, and his presence was only as a figurehead for Kazandros Corp. Since his father had retired, two years previously, Nikos now had the entire running of the company to himself. After leaving London four years ago, he’d immersed himself without pause in learning every string there was to the business, cutting more and more deals on his own account until he’d earned his father’s complete trust. He’d come a long way in four years…
And he’d never looked back. Not once. He had not permitted himself to do so. He had pushed Sophie Granton out of his head, never to return.
But return she had.
Damn her!
In the darkness of the night he’d been determined to push her back out of his head again. But this morning, with the bright sunshine streaming into the meeting room of his UK lawyers, she had come invading again.
He kept seeing her everywhere, all the time.
But not the way she’d been, draped on Cosmo Dimistris’s arm. And not the way he’d known her four bitter years ago. Neither of those images burned in his skull.
It was the last image of her, when she’d sat hunched in the taxi, shivering, bedraggled, sodden.
Something moved in him—something he did not want to feel. He resented it. Why should he feel it? Sophie Granton was nothing to him! He knew what she was—what she was prepared to do to get what she wanted. If she’d got herself into a mess, it was none of his making! If she’d thought the world owed her an easy living and was now finding it did not, that was not his problem! It hadn’t been four years ago, and it damn well wasn’t now!
Deliberately, he pushed the image out of his head again. Pulled another one into its place. The one of her in the tarty evening gown, selling her company to Cosmo.
And who else…?
His eyes darkened suddenly. She’d got a scare last night, and he hadn’t minced his words in laying it on the line for her just exactly what she was doing, but did that mean she was going to mend her ways? Or did she still think that she could get away with it? Getting men to pay for her company and nothing more?
And what if they didn’t like her saying no to them…? What if next time she wasn’t able to get out and get away? A man like Cosmo Dimistris wouldn’t have any qualms about helping himself, and there were plenty of slimeballs in the world with the same views about women! She’d got lucky last night because Cosmo had simply helped himself to one of the other, more willing girls at the party. But another time she might not be so lucky. Another time she might find herself in serious danger…
Beneath his breath, an expletive formed. Damn the girl! Damn her!
Abruptly, he straightened in his seat. He got to his feet.
‘Gentlemen, my apologies. Please conclude without me.’ He nodded at his team, then turned and walked out of the room.
He needed to make a phone call.
‘I’ll just go and check if we have that in your size, madam,’ Sophie said, keeping her voice rigorously polite, even though the woman she was serving had not thought it necessary to speak to her with even the minimum of courtesy. But difficult and demanding customers were something Sophie had had to learn how to handle, however obnoxious they were. Or however tired or dispirited she was.
Or desperate.
Because desperate was what she was. Eating like acid into her brain, the words of the letter kept going round and round in her head…
Unless the fees are paid in full…
She wanted to laugh hysterically. Scream. Dig her nails into her palms until they drew blood. Fighting down her panic, she found the shoe box and hefted it down. Then, surreptitiously looking around her, because the shop manageress was draconian about personal calls for staff, she slipped her mobile out of her pocket and checked for messages.
Yes! There was one! Fumblingly, she clicked it open and read, and as she did so her stomach plunged in a churning mix of emotions. It was another booking from the agency. The escort agency.
That’s what it is—to me! I won’t let it be anything else, I won’t! It’s just an escort agency…
She felt a spurt of anger. Nikos had mocked her for calling it an introduction service—but that was exactly what it called itself, she argued defensively. Its upmarket website proclaimed ‘elite introductions for elite businessmen seeking elite companions’. She’d taken that at face value—but was she being pathetically naïve, blinding herself deliberately to what was beneath the respectable veneer? Well, it wouldn’t be the first time she’d been fooled by a respectable-sounding organisation…
The familiar flush of shame and bitterness flared through her. Dear God, where did naïvety end and criminal stupidity begin?
The hollow inside her hardened, and she lifted her chin. Tough. Tough. No point whatsoever in repining the past and the appalling, criminally stupid mistakes she’d made! Because it was too late—she’d made them. And now she had to take the consequences. And the consequences were that she had no choice—no choice but to do what she was doing now.
Whatever it takes, however sordid the job, I have to do it. I have to make whatever money I can, however I can—I just have to.
And if that meant doing what was loathsome to her, if that meant reading this text message from the agency and being grateful—dear God, grateful!—for the fact that she was being booked again for tonight, then that was what she had to be. Inside her head, a nugget of fear reared its head. What if the man she was to meet tonight was just the same as Cosmo Dimistris? What if he thought he was booking a lot more than a companion for the evening? With an effort that cost her, she forced down the fear, the incipient panic. Well, she would just have to deal with it if it happened. Just as she’d had to deal with everything that had happened since her world had fallen apart…
‘Your customer’s getting shirty—better hurry up.’
The voice of one of the other sales assistants roused Sophie from her troubled thoughts. Hastily, she grabbed the requisite shoe box and hurried out. She could feel her stomach rumble, but ignored it. She never ate lunch any more, it was a waste of money. Every penny she could save went to a far, far better cause than herself. She never spent money on anything other than the barest minimum. She ate as little as possible, as cheaply as possible, endured a freezing cold bedsit to avoid heating costs, walked everywhere she possibly could.
As for clothes—apart from the repellent outfit she’d had to buy for her escort work, which she’d got in a charity shop anyway, she’d bought nothing for longer than she could remember.
For a moment—brief, poignant—a memory flashed in her head, vivid and piercing.
The evening dress I wore to the Covent Garden gala that first, magical night with Nikos! That beautiful, beautiful dress…
Her mouth thinned. Well, that was gone—along with every other designer dress she’d owned.
Along with everything else. Including the life she had once lived.
She swallowed. Sentiment was pointless. Worse than pointless. Unaffordable.
‘You took your time!’ The petulant tones of her customer penetrated.
‘I’m so sorry…’
Forcing an apologetic smile to her lips
, Sophie got on with her job.
Nikos sat at a table in the bar of the West End hotel, one he never frequented himself. His expression was grim. It had been ever since he’d phoned the escort agency Cosmo had booked Sophie through. Getting the number had meant an unpleasant phone conversation with Cosmo, who had not missed the opportunity both to complain about Sophie running out on him and to jibe at Nikos’s sudden interest in girls of her kind.
But his expression had got even grimmer after he’d phoned the agency, and now, as he glanced at his watch impatiently, it was black. His eyes flicked to the hotel entrance again. She should be here any minute.
And then she was there, walking into the bar, her gait stiff, her posture tense. Nikos felt emotion kick in him, intense, hard.
It should have been anger. Anger that despite all his dire warnings to her about the true nature of what she was doing she had clearly ignored him. But, though anger was there, it was not the predominant emotion.
What emotion it was precisely he didn’t know, didn’t care. Knew only that it came with a leap in his veins that was like a tongue of scorching wind on a forest fire. Her presence instantly, immediately filled the space—filled his consciousness.
She was wearing the same outfit she’d worn the evening before, advertising her wares to the whole world. Yet she seemed oblivious to the fact. She was walking blindly, tautly, across the empty space from the hotel foyer into the bar. He watched her walking, waiting for the moment when she realised just who she was walking towards.
He saw when it happened. Saw her eyes widen abruptly, starkly, her face bleach, her stride falter. Saw the blankness in her face shatter like broken glass. As if she herself were shattering…
Then it was gone. The blankness was back. A rigid, frozen mask immobilising her face. He got up from his chair, confronting her. Her eyes darted sideways, searching past him. Nikos’s mouth pulled into a caustic line. She was looking urgently for someone else. Anyone else. Just not him.
‘Wrong call, Sophie,’ he told her, and there was an edge in his voice like a blade. Her eyes whipped back to him, stared. Disbelieving. And somewhere deep in her eyes he saw something that he could not fail to recognise.
Panic. Dismay.
But beneath them was something else. Something that made the emotion slicing through him quicken, though he fought against it.
She was staring at him. The shock—disbelief—flaring in her eyes. No, this couldn’t be. No. Not him. Not him. Not Nikos…
The denial was flighting through her, urgent, vehement. Oh, God, how could this be? How could it be? She fought for coherence, comprehension.
This can’t be happening. It can’t, it can’t!
She couldn’t be seeing Nikos again, not after it had taken all her strength to cope with what had happened the night before. How could she endure seeing him again? Denial screamed in her mind, but it was like a bird smashing itself against an iron cage. It was Nikos—there, waiting for her. Taunting her. Mocking her.
She summoned the only weapon she could, crushing down every other emotion. Her face hardened. ‘What’s this farce all about, Nikos?’ she demanded, every muscle in her body like steel under impossible tension. Her voice was as hard as her expression.
So was his. ‘Sit down.’ He pulled out a facing chair, holding it for her.
He saw her balking, and lifted one eyebrow sardonically. ‘I said, sit down, Sophie. I’ve engaged your services this evening, so start earning your money.’
Sophie sat, her legs suddenly soggy. Numbly, she watched Nikos fold his long, lean body, clad in a superb hand-made suit, into the opposite chair, every centimetre of him assured, sleek, powerful.
Devastating.
She felt the hollow gape in her stomach, felt emotions rush into the space, churning and convulsing. Overpowering.
Nikos, so close she could see every line and plane of his face! So close she could reach out and touch him!
No! Desperately she fought against the rush of blood as her gaze clung to the man opposite her. No! That was all—the only word she must keep in her head. No! No to everything that made her want to go to him, that made the pulse quicken in her veins, the breath tighten in her lungs.
She opened her mouth to speak, to voice her protest at what was happening, but he was there before her.
‘I’ve booked you for tonight, Sophie, for one reason and one reason only,’ he said, and his voice was steely.
His face was shuttered, jaw set. His eyes bored into her, pinioning her. She could not move, could only endure—frozen, immobile.
‘Didn’t I tell you last night what a dangerous game you were playing?’ he iced out. ‘You’re standing at the gutter’s edge, Sophie, and it will take only a single step to be in it! You can think yourself unsullied because you call it escorting, but that’s not what others will think, believe me!’
His hard eyes excoriated her. ‘I thought I’d got the message home to you last night, but I haven’t, have I? You’re still on the agency’s books, and your presence here right now is proof you haven’t wised up yet. Or won’t!’ He took a sharp intake of breath. ‘You got lucky last night, Sophie! That jerk Cosmo had other girls to help himself to, so he didn’t turn nasty on you! That won’t happen every time! And a man like that, who thinks he’s paying for a woman for the night, won’t take kindly to being told, sorry, but you’ll go home to your virtuous single bed at midnight!’
Her face was closed, shutting him out, rejecting what he was saying. ‘I can handle myself,’ she retorted, quelling the churning inside her. She wanted to leap to her feet, run, but she couldn’t move, could hardly get words out while he laid into her.
‘Like hell!’ he shot back dismissively. ‘Last night you saw the kind of scene that the men who’ll hire you like to enjoy! All it will take is a spiked drink, or worse, and a little exercise of masculine strength. And you don’t think anyone at a place like that is going to believe your protests, do you? Do you want to end up drugged and raped?’
Her face was white under the make-up. ‘It won’t happen! I’ll be careful! I’ll stick to public places, like this.’
Nikos’s voice was scathing. ‘And then what, Sophie? Have you thought that through? Because I have, believe me! And it’s the reason you’re sitting here right now. Let me spell it out for you.’ He took another scissored breath. ‘You may not give a cent for your reputation, you may not care if the whole world knows your line of work, but spare a thought, if you please—’ his voice was edged with scathing sarcasm ‘—for others. Whether you get into serious trouble with a demanding client or not, you’ll cause trouble for others. Think of your father, Sophie. Whatever his business problems, he wasn’t responsible for the way you behaved four years ago. His fault was in indulging you, making you think you could have everything you wanted, the easy way. But he wouldn’t want this for you now, what you’re doing—what father would?’
A steel band had started to tighten around her skull, digging into her skin. ‘He won’t know.’ It was all she could get out and it cost her, even to say that.
Nikos’s eyes hardened. ‘You think? By swanning around in public places people will see you—people who know you. After all…’ he paused ‘…I did.’ He paused again, his eyes boring into her like drills. ‘And I won’t be the only one to make the conclusion I did about you last night. Do you think anyone is actually going to believe your claim that you only sell your company—not your body?’ His voice was harsh, pitiless. ‘They’ll call you a hooker, a whore, a call-girl—whether you like it or not!’
The unbearable lecture went on, and she wanted to scream and yell, but she couldn’t—she couldn’t. She had to sit there and take it, endure it.
‘And then, Sophie, what about when the tabloids cotton on to what you’re doing? Someone will spot you and tip them off. And it doesn’t matter that Granton plc is no more, they’ll dredge it back up and they’ll have a field day exposing how a millionaire’s daughter has ended up on the game now Dad
dy’s run out of his millions. They’ll revel in it, Sophie! You can protest your innocence all you like, but they’ll still put “escort agency” in quotes, and everyone will know it’s just a euphemism, whether you like it or not. Then some kindly soul will put the tabloid rag in front of your father, with a sympathetic look on their face, and your father will know just how far his precious darling daughter has fallen…’
The band was red-hot now—red-hot against her forehead. If only he would stop, just stop…
She could feel her nails almost piercing her palms, feel the pain spiking up her arms. And still he went on, hectoring and lecturing.
‘It’s a sleazy, sordid world you’re moving in, and you can give it all the prettied-up anodyne names you like, dress it up however you please, but that doesn’t hide the truth of it! So face up to it.’
She wanted to laugh—harsh, bitter—in his damn face. Face up to it? Dear God, wasn’t that what she was doing? What she had no choice but to do? Facing up to the fact that she had to find money—any amount, by any means—because to fail…to fail…
No—failure wasn’t an option. She had to find the money. And if that meant looking at herself in the mirror and hating what she saw, being repulsed by what she saw, then so be it She could not afford pride, self-respect or self-loathing to get in her way.
She took a cold, icy breath, freezing her lungs, her voice. ‘Don’t lecture me, Nikos! I told you, I am not doing this from choice! I need the money!’
‘How much?’
She stared.
He gave a rasp of irritation. ‘I said, how much?’
Her chin lifted. ‘What’s it to you?’
Anger, controlled but visible, flashed in his eyes. ‘Just answer me.’
He wanted to know? She told him, nails digging into her palms. ‘Five thousand pounds.’
That was what she had to have—enough to see her clear, at least for the next couple of months. After that—well, time enough to worry then…
As it always did when she had to think about the endless requirement for money, her mind cut out. To do anything else was far, far too frightening.