I’d been flattered, no mistake. I wasn’t completely naïve. Or so I thought. The guy was much older than me, but good-looking, rich, oozing with self-assurance. With entitlement, if I’d only recognised it earlier.
“He took me to dinner to discuss ‘strategy’, he helped me with study materials, revision courses. I was excited to have snagged so much of his attention. He wanted to groom me for eventual partnership, he said.”
Blake didn’t reply, but I knew he was listening closely.
“When he invited me to accompany him to a client meeting in a hotel, for the whole weekend, I couldn’t wait to pack.” It was painful to recall how much younger I’d been then, in age and experience. It was never love—I never have felt that—but there was no doubt I was besotted.
“You met his clients?”
I winced. “Funny, that. No client ever turned up. It was just his excuse.” An excuse for two days of fierce, possessive sex, where I was at his beck and call. We must have run through half his sexual fantasy list, and by the time I woke on the final day, my arse was almost too sore to sit on.
Blake had rolled to face me, his expression tight, his hand resting against my hip as if to keep some contact with me throughout.
“On Sunday afternoon, while he was in the shower, a woman called, to ask what time he’d be back from his meeting because she had some sudden crisis with the car. When I politely asked for her name, she laughed, and said she was his wife. Of course.”
“Shit,” Blake breathed out. “You had no idea he was married?”
“None. I pretended I was just there to clean the room. Said I’d pass on the message.”
“What happened afterwards?”
I sighed and sat up. It didn’t seem right to be so exposed, flat on my back, as I told of my disgrace. “Back in London, I cut him dead. Wanted nothing to do with him. But he wouldn’t let go. In the end, he had me fired over some mythical complaint.”
“What the hell? You should have reported him.”
“Sure. And you think my word as a young, gay, party-going man would have stood up against that of an apparently straight, highly senior partner? I would have stirred up a huge bunch of trouble for myself in a city institution not known for its sensitivity to diversity.”
“My God. Dante.”
I shrugged. “At first, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. They kept the disciplinary procedure in house. They gave me some severance pay. Agreed not to call in the police if I went quietly.”
“The police?”
“The complaint was one of theft. He said I stole client money.”
Blake sat bolt upright beside me now. “But that’s appalling!”
I watched him for a moment, looking for the suspicion, the disgust. It never came. He believed me because I told him so. That was amazing, considering I’d spent so long among people who believed I was a thief, because someone else told them so.
“What did you do about another job?”
“Yeah. About that. I soon discovered how far a reach he had, how much of an old boys’ club it was. My professional training stalled, with a year still to go, and suddenly there were no other contracts available to me. Every application I made for a part-qualified job got rejected. Whatever the partners said about keeping it quiet, he made sure I couldn’t work in the city, not in my chosen profession.”
Blake nodded: he was silent for a long moment. I’d never known a guy who could use quiet so well. It was like a vocabulary in itself.
“What did your family say? You have family?”
“Yes, I have family. My mother was upset, but my father was angry.”
“I’d imagine he was!”
“No, you misunderstand. He thought the accusation against me was true. His side of the family has effectively cut me off.” And my mother, always in awe of dad’s temper, had never found the nerve to keep regularly in touch with me.
“You were left on your own? It’s indefensible.” Blake pressed his lips to my shoulder. It felt shockingly intimate. “How long ago was this?”
“Three years or so.”
Blake sucked in a sympathetic breath. “Is that why you escort?”
“No. I’d done it many times before I even met that guy. But now it’s a job I trust. I can work temp office jobs to pay all my basic bills, then fit escorting around it. That money is for me, for what I choose to do with it.”
I may have been too sharp: Blake tensed against me. “Dante. You were betrayed, but not everyone’s like that. You got one rotten apple.”
Whatever. It had been enough to teach me the dangers of mixing with my betters, of letting myself be vulnerable to other men. “I don’t need your pity.”
“You’re not getting it,” Blake said fiercely. “Look at me.”
When I hesitated, he grabbed my chin and pulled my head around. “Dante? None of it was your fault. You’re not to blame for any problems you’re having getting work now. Let me help you.”
I felt ashamed I’d told him everything. I knew it was stupid, but I’d never shared the whole story before, not even with Arne. “You have a problem with me being an escort?”
He frowned. “Of course not. I’m glad that business is back to normal here. I’m glad Rick has found friends, and the set-up suits you all.”
“And you can have me when you want.”
I don’t know why I said it, but Blake recoiled as if he’d been slapped.
“Don’t give me that look,” I hurried on, feeling the end of things looming like the ceiling once had, over my head, “It’s just sex.”
Blake took a long, slow breath. “Yes. But, unfortunately, not to me.”
No. That couldn’t be. “I don’t have time for this,” I said, knowing I sounded bratty but apparently unable to stop it.
“Find time,” Blake snapped back. Whatever he thought about me and my arse, he wasn’t giving me an easy pass. “I want a proper relationship with you, Dante. Yes, I’ll go on paying for as long as I have to, I’ve got no problem with that. But at some stage, I want more of you than your body.”
“That’s all there is.”
“No, that’s not true. You’d realise it, too, if you let yourself.”
We sat for a long, horrible moment in silence. Then he bit back a sigh, picked up his clothes from the nearby chair and got dressed. I just sat there, watching him cover up that fabulous body, and then his emotions as well. Because when he nodded goodbye to me, he was the consummate businessman again. Not the man who’d groaned under me, or risen with triumph over me, eyes bright with naked desire.
I waited until his hand was on the doorknob. “Blake? I’ll do you for free. Any time.”
He glanced back. I was spread out naked on the bed in the shaft of streetlight that I loved, that I knew made my body look good. Even so, Blake’s smile was sad. “Thank you. But I’m not sure that’s enough anymore. What does that actually get us both?”
My mouth opened, closed again. Then opened. “I don’t know.”
And that was the honest truth.
TWELVE
It was less than a week to Christmas and official bookings at the Haven had been slow. Despite that, most of the escorts were in the building, and had been milling around most of the day. As the afternoon wore on, and as the sky outside grew dusky and the December air chilled, I sat in the bar, working through a New Year’s room schedule for Rick. I was trying to balance the empty days with the days when the escorts had to take two or three guys a night. We had enough regulars by now that we should be able to ease the monthly income to match the expenditure.