I tuck my phone back into my jeans without replying to Sloane. Regret is the least of my problems right now.
Chapter Three
Misha
“It’s done. Can I have my double pay check now?”
Bethany sounds as if she’s walking along the street, probably away from the university. Satisfaction washes over me but I keep my tone clipped as I say into the phone, “You can have it when I’ve given Miss Alders her first allowance. Now get back to the office.”
Bethany affects a pouty voice. “Oh daddy, I hope you’re going to be more generous with your little sugar baby.”
I twist my silver fountain pen in my fingers. “That’s the plan. Good job today.”
“Thank you. She’s a sweet one, daddy. Not like me. Porcelain doll-eyes and vulnerability. Needs a strong man like you to protect her from the big bad—”
I hang up on Bethany and think. Will Miss Alders take the bait? But what choice does she have? She has nothing and no one to help her. This is what pretty girls do when they fall on hard times, they leverage the most valuable commodity they have: their faces and bodies.
I bring the recording of the funeral up again. I must have watched the same five seconds twenty times over. Ciara Alders standing outside the church taking one long, slow, deep breath. She has nothing in the world but that small moment of peace, and even that is taken away from her when my brother appears.
I pause the video at the moment when she seems to be looking straight into the camera, though I know she can’t see it. A strange feeling spreads through my chest as I look at her. She almost looks peaceful. No mourners to greet. No Damir looming threateningly over her. I want…what? To give her something. Money, I suppose. That’s what women are after and while I’m interested in them they get it. Something is hovering at the edges of my consciousness but when I reach out it flits away like a frightened bird.
I close the video. Enough of this nonsense. There are a hundred other things I need to do rather than stare at a girl I don’t know.
But as I go about my work I feel a golden gleam of satisfaction. The trap has been set, and now all I have to do is sit back and wait for Miss Alders to fall into my lap.
Come to daddy.
Chapter Four
Ciara
“You’re not going to university, Ciara. Do you want to educate yourself out of a good marriage? No, you’re going to finishing school to learn how to be an asset to your future husband. As I did.”
I climb the stairs out of the Tube station, hearing my dead mother’s voice in my head. At the time I thought she was crazy—finishing school, in this day and age?—but now I wonder where I’d be if I’d taken her advice. Married to a rich man and cocooned from the world in Chanel, YSL and Gucci; a man who could pay off Mr. Ravnikar like it was nothing. But no, I had to go to university, didn’t I. I had to get an education. Better myself. Learn to be independent.
Like an idiot.
First, it was art history, not law. Art history was the most palatable degree I could choose as far as my mother was concerned and I did love it, even though it perhaps wasn’t as exciting as I wanted.
Then, at the end of my first year at university, I overheard that fight. What would my life look like now if I’d never found out what Dad was up to? I’d gone downstairs to get a bottle of water at one in the morning and heard them.
“Are you insane? You’re embezzling from a crook.” Mother was fisting her hands in her hair, looking more out of control than I’ve ever seen her in my life.
“Calm down. It’s nothing I haven’t done before. You like this house, don’t you? You want that jet.”
“Well, I…”
“Then leave everything to me. Trust me.”
For a moment I thought my mother would stand up to Dad and tell him that Alders aren’t crooks. Then she lowered her hands and pinned him with an angry gaze. “I wish I didn’t know. It’s so much easier when I don’t know anything.”
As I crept back to my room I couldn’t help but agree with her. It’s a terrible feeling, discovering that your parents aren’t anything to be proud of. That the standards they so arrogantly maintained through displays of wealth and etiquette were a sham.
I stood frozen in the middle of my bedroom. Dirty money had paid for this stately mansion with its triple garage, the Monet painting hanging in the entrance hall, the ballroom lit by a huge chandelier. My canopied bed and ensuite with a claw-foot tub were stolen goods, and so were the manicured gardens and the stable full of my mother’s horses. Alders aren’t better than other people. In fact, we’re worse than most, and I wanted no part of it anymore.
The next day I transferred to law and cut up my credit cards. By the end of the week I had moved into a share house closer to my university and got a part-time job in a coffee shop. I left all my designer shoes, clothes and jewelry behind and just took the basics, because I didn’t want anything from my old life.
Now, as I walk up the steps to my front door I regret not taking something with me, because if I do land a date with a rich man I’ll have nothing to wear. I laugh to myself as I insert the key into the lock. Mother, I’m doing what you wanted at last and trying to land a rich man. Are you proud?
There’s no one at home when I let myself in. The house is over a hundred years old and backs onto a train line so it’s noisy at all hours of the day and night. I have the box room right at the top. The ceiling slants so low I have to bend double to get into bed and in winter it’s freezing cold. It’s not much, but it’s mine. I couldn’t even go back home if I wanted to. All my parents’ properties are sold now, and the money is in the pocket of that creep Ravnikar.
I’ve got so much homework and reading I should be doing, but I reluctantly shelve it in my mind. I need to look into this sugar baby thing. I won’t do anything illegal to pay off a criminal because that means I’m no better than he is. If a man gives you money to have dinner and then sleep with him when you don’t want to—I wince just thinking about it—is that honest money? It’s not that I think I’m too good to be paid for sex or that this type of work is beneath me. I don’t think sex work itself is immoral or dirty. But I swore to myself long ago that I wouldn’t rely on my body or my charms to make my way in life, I’d use my brains. And yet, here I am.
I hole up in my room with a mug of instant hot chocolate and my laptop open and I read everything I can find online about sugar babies and sugar daddies. First I start with magazine articles, glossy pieces written by female journalists with thinly veiled contempt for a world they’re only a tourist in. I find myself rolling my eyes at their vanity, because most of them slip in that, surprise surprise, they are “hot enough” to be paid for sex—not that any of them would actually do that for a job. Haha. LOL. Men are so silly. And then they go back to their regular jobs without even acknowledging the fact that they’re privileged enough to have other options.
I find myself gnashing my teeth and move onto social media. There’s a lot of nonsense to sift through on Instagram, pictures of Chanel bags and underwear selfies and glasses of champagne against a backdrop of fur coats and seaside balcony views. I suppose this is the sugar baby aesthetic. I’m looking for the sugar baby reality.