I said, “How’d you do that? With the hostess, I mean. I heard a couple back there say they’d been waiting for two hours, and you just walked right up and asked to be seated.”
He nodded and took a sip of his water. “It’s a lot easier when you own the restaurant.”
“You own it?” That certainly answered my question.
“Yep. I love the food here and got sick of waiting like all those snotty pricks up at the door. They think that just because they have a couple extra zeroes in the bank account, they’re supposed to be treated differently. That whole sense of entitlement makes me want to vomit.”
I giggled, and it helped. My emotions were wobbling back and forth like a metronome, and then something occurred to me: Eric had already paid for my time, so I thought why not accept it, get out without too much emotional damage, and have fun while I was doing it?
We only get one reality, one chance, so embracing it and molding it to our advantage is much better than hiding behind regret and disgrace. I was doing what I had to do because I had to do it. That’s honorable, in a way. I unfolded my napkin, placed it in my lap, and then leaned up on my elbows. I didn’t care about etiquette or being proper. Or even being too nice.
I said, “Is that so? Make sure you get back to me when it registers that you’re actually a billionaire.”
“I don’t think it’ll happen. I grew up broke and hungry in a tin can mobile home down south. Old habits die hard. I mean, yeah, I can make one phone call and be on a private jet to Belize in an hour, but check my bathrooms at home and you’ll find single-ply toilet paper.”
Again, I laughed—I was having fun.
And then things went wrong. How quickly situations can change within a matter of a few words.
“Eric, come on now. Life’s too short for that.”
“That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s not too far from the truth. Here’s to the good life on a budget.” He lifted his water glass to toast.
“And to soft toilet paper,” I said, clinking mine against his. At that point, what little conversation we’d had was going so well, I figured why not get everything out in the open? Get it out there, get it over with, and move on so we could enjoy ourselves. “So, should we talk about why we’re both here?”
“Yeah, about that.” He blushed and fiddled with his butter knife.
Something dawned on me—a thought that took away most of my embarrassment about my situation; I was there as an escort, but Eric had been searching for company provided by an escort service. Which one of us was more desperate? A subtle, but proactive attempt at taking control was enough to soothe my conscience. “I’m not judging you,” I said, reaching across the table and patting his hand, “but why are you paying money for a woman’s time?”
He fired right back, but I was prepared for it. There wasn’t a trace of bitterness, just good-natured ribbing. “And I’m not judging you, but what’s one of the brightest business minds I’ve ever seen doing taking money for her time?”
Quoting Roman, I said, “It pays better.”
“Oh, I doubt that.” He readjusted himself in his chair and cleared his throat. “And it leads me to this…there’s something I need to tell you, and it’s part of why I’m here. It’s…God…it’s about money. I don’t know how to say this, so I’ll just be blunt. I saw that you were working for an escort service and I felt responsible, I guess, because if you’d gotten your spot as a VP of my company like you were supposed to, you would’ve walked away with about twenty-five million dollars like the rest of them did in the buyout.”
Speechless, I almost knocked over an empty wine glass because my hands immediately lost all feeling. A knot the size of a grapefruit welled up inside my throat. Why would he tell me something like that? That’s certainly the kind of thing I could lived the rest of my life without knowing.
“And that’s the reason I’m here, Kim. Because of the guilt.”
“What guilt?” I spat. I couldn’t help it; I couldn’t keep the anger out of my voice.
Eric shook his head and sighed. “It’s my fault that you didn’t get the job with us. I pulled for you. Really, I did—I angled hard, but there was one guy on the board that wouldn’t budge, and it was someone I should’ve gotten rid of long before you showed up. My…negligence, or procrastination, whatever, it cost you twenty-five million dollars. I understand that we can’t see the future and all of this is a huge, retroactive what-if, but once I saw your picture in the lineup…”
“You felt sorry for me.”
“Yes and no.”
“‘Look at poor little Kim, she’s a prostitute now.’ Was that it?”
“Partly, yeah.”
“There’s no partly about it,” I said, throwing my napkin on the table. “That’s exactly what it was. I don’t need your pity, Eric. I’ve made my choices and I’m fine.”
“Please don’t be that way. Listen, all I wanted was to talk to you so I could apologize.”
“And you had to order me off a menu to do it? Why didn’t you just look me up in the phone book? Or track me down on Facebook?” The window of realization opened a little more. “Oh my God, this is charity, isn’t it? You’re paying for my time just so I’ll get paid. It’s all because you feel guilty, and don’t you even try to deny it.”
“That wasn’t my intent. Honestly, I—”
“I should go.”
I moved to get up from the table at the same time a waitress finally arrived at our table and apologized profusely to “Mr. Landers,” as Eric ordered a bottle of Cabernet. “It’s okay, Sandy. Bring it fast, though, because I think we’re going to need it.” To me, he added, “Don’t be upset, please? Let’s talk…we’ll have a nice meal. All I wanted was to make sure you were okay.”
Gritting my teeth, almost hissing, I said, “Your guilt is not my problem.”
“I understand that.”
Some of the nearby diners had begun to give us furtive glances as they tried to eavesdrop on our heated conversation. Well, my end was heated, and Eric wasn’t doing a very good job at damage control.
“This is so stupid,” I said. “I’m doing this because I don’t have any other options, at least none that I’m willing to accept. I’m providing for my son, damn it, and there’s no shame in that.” I didn’t want to talk about myself anymore. “And you never answered my question—what were you doing looking for an easy lay, huh? Huh, Mr. Billionaire? Why go through Roman when all you have to do is flash your wallet and you’ll have women throwing themselves at you? Why?”
“I—”
“Answer me.”
“Let me finish, okay? I’m trying to tell you.” Eric sighed, glanced around the dining area, and noticed the waitress arriving with the wine. He waited until Sandy poured our glasses and scuttled away before continuing. Leaning across the table, lowering his voice, he said, “I wasn’t the one looking. Not technically. My partner…Robert…his brother just got divorced and he wanted to do something for him. He’d planned this ridiculous ‘Naughty or Nice’ party and we were looking for…entertainment.”
“So, just a couple of dudes scratching their balls and strolling down the hooker aisle. That seems like such a weird thing to do with your business partner.”
“Kim, honey…no. My partner partner.” He held up his ring finger and pointed, though there was no jewelry signifying anything.
“Oh…ooooh.” I don’t know why, because his sexuality shouldn’t have mattered—he was still offering me something resembling charity—but the fact that he wasn’t a sleazeball, looking for a good time, softened my chagrin. Just a little, just enough to ease me back down to an acceptable level of mental stability.
Eric went on. “When I saw your picture, I knew what I had to do, and Robert, he actually encouraged me when I explained our history. I paid Roman for your time, because I knew if I showed up at your house offering a consolation prize, you would’ve told me to go to hell.”
“I’m pretty close now.” I wasn’t,
but he didn’t need to know that. Not yet anyway. My pride had been damaged. I was wounded emotionally. Yet I began to see that he was trying to offer a kind gesture of help, not some let’s-throw-the-poor-girl-a-bone donation.
It’s all in how you look at it, I suppose. I couldn’t deny the fact that I needed the money, and he needed to absolve himself of his regret.
“And you have every right to.” Eric drained his wine glass and poured himself another. “I’m sorry. All I can do is apologize—I mean, I realize now that I could’ve approached things differently. I’ve never had the best foresight, and Robert told me this wasn’t the best way to go about it, but I assumed you could use the money.”
“Eric?”
“Yes?”
“You have about thirty seconds to turn this around, or I’m getting up and I’m walking out that door,” I said, pointing toward the entrance. “I don’t need your charity. And I was fine, perfectly okay, with how things had turned out for me,”—a white lie, but I had a point to make—“at least until you felt it necessary to tell me that I missed out on twenty-five million dollars. God. Did you actually think that telling me that would somehow make it better?”
Eric sighed and shook his head. “You know—I just—I really screwed this up, didn’t I? It didn’t turn out at all like I’d expected and Robert…he told me not to mention the money. He specifically said, ‘It’ll break her heart, don’t do it,’ but did I listen? No. Giving you a reason to regret your past was never my intent.”
“And what was your intent, Eric?”
“To show you how much of a mistake I had made, that’s all. There were never any malicious intentions.” He held up a hand to stop my rebuttal. “I know, I know, my guilt isn’t your problem. But, can I make it up to you somehow?”
I scoffed. Before I could respond, Sandy arrived to take our meal orders. I hesitated because I wasn’t sure I’d be there long enough to see it delivered.
“Peppercorn steak, medium-well,” I spat, a little more venomous than necessary. Sandy wasn’t the target, after all. “And so help me, I don’t care about offending the chef—I say medium-well, I mean medium-well. A little pink is fine, but if it’s bleeding, I’ll come back into the kitchen personally and show him how I want it done. Bring us another bottle of this, too.”
I’d never been such an ass to a server. I didn’t like it, yet I hadn’t been able to contain myself. Missing out on twenty-five million dollars, and being on the verge of prostitution, well, they can do that to a girl.
Sandy stammered and took notes. I’d frightened the poor thing so much, she could barely ask Eric what he wanted.
“I’ll have the same,” he said, handing over our menus. “I understand you’re angry,” he added, once she’d scampered away.
I took a deep breath. This was going nowhere. We could go round after round of him apologizing, me insisting I was fine, and blah blah blah, but it still wouldn’t change the fact that I was hurt and embarrassed. A little remorseful, too, but whatever the past may have been like—there were no guarantees—I didn’t regret a single moment with the light of my life, my little buddy.
I had an idea. A small, directionless one, more about possibilities than plans, and I had nothing to lose. “You want to make it up to me, here’s how…I don’t have anything in mind right now, but I will, one of these days. I don’t want your charity, and I don’t need your charity, okay?”
Eric nodded.
I continued. “What I want is this: If, or should I say when, I come up with my own billion-dollar idea, I want you to be my backer. Your pockets are deep enough now. Maybe a couple years down the road, or a couple months, whenever, I’ll come knocking on your door. Have your checkbook ready, got me?”
Eric smiled and winked. “There’s the ballbuster I wish I could’ve hired.”
“Deal?”
“Shake on it,” he said, reaching across the table.
I took his hand, squeezed hard, and the rest of the evening went about as well as you could expect.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“You son of a bitch,” I said, throwing myself into the chair across from Roman’s desk. “Did you know that I had a history with Eric Landers?”
Roman wore a slate gray suit and a matching tie. The handkerchief poking out of his breast pocket was a deep purple. The light from his desk lamp reflected in his eyes, giving them a reptilian glimmer. The snake chuckled at me. “You handled yourself well, from what I heard.”
“The history, Roman. Did you know?”
“Obviously not until he told me.”
“You knew what kind of effect it would have. What were you doing, huh? Trying to put me in my place?”
“Not necessarily.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means not necessarily. Remember, I have to see how you perform under pressure before I set you up with my most important clients. This isn’t a game, Kim. It’s real life. Tens of thousands of dollars change hands, based on whether or not you can keep up your end of the deal. Mr. Landers, he was a slow-pitch softball, an easy one to knock out of the park.”
“And you extorted the extra money out of him because of that, right?”
Roman rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair. “I saw an opportunity. He was so…so…adamant about meeting you. How could I let that go without, you know, without earning a little extra?”
“How? Common decency, for one.” I crossed my legs, bouncing my foot up and down. I was a testy cat, swishing her tail, waiting to bring out the claws.
Roman tried to lighten the mood. “In any case, you did fantastic, that’s all I have to say—”
“Don’t change the subject, Roman. You screwed over a friend of mine, and I want you to refund what you made him overpay.”
His forehead crinkled. Eyebrows dipping inward, jamming a finger at me, he said, “He paid what he wanted to pay, Kim, and do I need to remind you that his money is covering the ten grand you owe me? Do I? Let’s get something straight, I don’t know who you think you are, coming in here all high and mighty like you have some sort of control over me, or that you get to tell me how to run my business, because you don’t. You do what I say or you’re gone, you hear me? I gave you the advance, and I gave you the forty percent because you’re worth it, but goddamn it, you are an asset, and nothing more, little girl.”
I stiffened, felt my cheeks go red. “Little girl?” The words tasted like burnt coffee on my tongue.
“You heard me.”
I nudged up to the edge of the chair, so angry that my skin was burning. “I am nobody’s little girl, do you understand me? I am a grown woman. I could’ve been the vice president of a major company. I could be having sleazy bastards like you licking my heels, begging me for a chance at this,” I said, pointing at myself.
“But you’re not,” Roman said, quietly. “You’re just a little girl that lost her way before she even knew which direction she was going.”
I don’t know why I chose to do what I did. It wasn’t rational. It wasn’t like me at all. I knew better. I was smarter, and more collected, than that. Disagreements certainly weren’t solved that way in the boardroom of a major corporation.
Lust, attraction, and an aching desire to prove to him, and myself, that I was no longer a girl took over. Absurd, yes, but I had no power to stop it. Some dark, salacious part of my brain had clicked on like a single bulb in a basement, casting new light on hidden longings, burying old prudence in shadows.
I sprang up from my chair, climbed onto his desk, shoving the neatly arranged contents out of the way, and then threw myself into his lap. “Is this what a little girl looks like?” I lifted my sundress over my head, leaving my breasts free and exposed.
“Kim—” Roman protested with his mouth, but the growing bulge below spoke differently.
“Shut up,” I said, putting my finger to his lips. “I’m going to show you what a woman can do.” I rocked back and forth, grinding against him, pulling my panties to th
e side, guiding his hand down there as I unzipped his slacks and shoved my hand inside.
He moaned, eyes turned up toward the ceiling, caressing me.
“Feel that?” I asked. “So smooth and soft. Do your clients really like that, Roman, or is it you? Is that what you want?”
“Me. God yes, me.” His mouth went to a nipple, sucking, licking, nibbling, and flicking it with his tongue.
I pulled him free, squeezed the shaft, and then guided him inside.
We were in perfect unison, thrusting and grinding, hitting all the right spots. Our rhythm made music as we let our passion take over. My anger, his frustration, they blended into a heated sense of urgency. I bit his bottom lip, almost too hard, then leaned away and pulled his mouth to my nipples again. His hands cupped my ass, squeezing and kneading, fingernails digging in. He spanked me and I felt a tingle race across my skin, around my waist and down between my thighs.
“Do it again,” I commanded. “Harder. Punish me for ordering you around. You know you want to.”
Roman slapped my ass again, and I thought the orgasm would never end.
***
Moments later, breathless, spent, and coated in a thin layer of sweat, I pushed myself away from Roman and stood over him, watching as he used a different handkerchief to clean himself off and tuck himself inside his trousers. “You’re on the pill, right?”
I hadn’t been expecting romance, but the question caught me by surprise. It was so cold and calculating. Emotionless. I had proved myself a woman; I know I had. And yet, he was more concerned about the possibility of getting me pregnant. That’s when I realized it’d been a childish thing to do, trying to prove myself to him by using my body.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I could’ve done it with my mind. Should have.
Maybe I was young and naïve. Maybe I had no business being confident—with him, or in a boardroom full of rich old men.
No. No, it wasn’t true. I was perfectly capable of holding my own. Roman—damn him—he knew exactly what buttons to push to weaken my resolve.
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