1
Anita
It feels like there’s a scarlet letter stitched into my skin.
I have pretty dresses at home. Little black dresses.
None of them the glittering dress that looks like gold poured onto my body.
It shimmers every time I move, every time I breathe. Everyone in the hotel bar must know why I’m here. The short hemline and plunging neckline advertise my position clearly enough. Though the most daring part of the ensemble is the back, which exposes so much skin there was no way to wear a bra.
My nails are painted gold to match. They flicker beneath the low lighting as I fidget, restless, nervous—unable to sit still. Tonight will be the first time in every sense of the word. My first time having sex.
And my first time being a call girl.
The text came even before my pictures went onto the website. Madam Durand said she had a client who would love my look. There’s some irony since I’m normally kind of a goth girl. Black. Velvet. Lace. That’s what I would consider glamorous.
But now I’m golden. Raoul Midas paid an ungodly sum for a single evening with me.
He gets to choose what I wear. The dress and shoes showed up a week ago, along with an appointment card for a luxury spa, where they primped and waxed me to within an inch of my life.
A red, fruity drink appears on the bar in front of me. The bartender nods toward the other end of the gleaming surface. “Sent from a gentleman over there.”
“Oh.” I glance down to see a middle-aged man with thinning brown hair in a suit. His smile looks nervous, his brown eyes kind. Is that Raoul Midas? God, what a relief. He looks serious but unassuming. The kind of man I’d be comfortable escorting for the evening. “Please tell him thank you.”
I reach for the drink to take a sip before I make my way over, but someone blocks me. A large hand pushes the drink back to the bartender. “I buy her drinks tonight,” says a low voice.
The bartender’s eyes widen briefly before he takes back the drink.
There’s heat against my arm. A hand brushes my lower back, my bare skin. So much contact before I even turn to face him. Whiskey eyes that look like they’d burn all the way down. A suit that’s cut so perfectly that every fold and crease must be planned, as if the fabric wouldn’t dare contradict him. He brushes a light kiss to my cheek, and I scent man and musk.
“Good evening, Anita.”
“You must be Raoul Midas.” My voice comes out breathy, damn him.
He smiles, but there’s no warmth whatsoever. Only white teeth and a glimmer of danger in those amber eyes. “Please, call me Raoul. For this evening.”
I wonder what I should call him after this evening. Mr. Midas? Sir? Of course that’s silly. We’ll never meet after tonight. He’s a reclusive billionaire, and I’m a broke college student.
He glances at the bar, eyeing the reflective bottles of liquor with disinterest. “Do you want anything to drink? There’s champagne in the back of the limo.”
“Champagne would be lovely… Raoul,” I say, feeling shy.
His lips quirk as if he knows some private joke. Then he’s escorting me through the hotel lobby, where a single night costs as much as my entire month’s rent. The limo waits for us in the drive, blocking cars that seem to know better than to honk.
The whole world waits for Raoul Midas, but he pauses to open the door for me.
Then we’re being whisked out of the city, gliding between skyscrapers in the dwindling light like fish through the tall, watery weeds. Though if I’m a fish, Raoul is a shark. He’s staring at me across the limo like he wants to devour me. And he has every right to do so.
He already paid for the right.
Instead of taking what I owe him, he leans over to a built-in ice bucket and opens a small bottle of champagne. Gold liquid shimmers in slender flutes. I accept the one he offers me and take a fortifying drink. The bubbles burn down my throat and tickle my nose. I cough, and he’s there at my side, rubbing my back. “Take it slow,” he says, this man for whom everything comes fast.
“Sorry,” I say with a frog-croak voice.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says with another quirk of his lips.
“I’ve never had champagne before,” I say, nerves making the words tumble from my lips. “Beer. Some cheap wine. A shot of tequila, but only once.”
“What do you think of it?” He sounds genuinely curious, and thankfully, not horrified by my sad recital of the alcohol I’ve tried in my lifetime.
“It’s dry, somehow. Like I’m thirstier after drinking it.”
“What’s your major, Anita?” I must give him a questioning look in the pause that follows, because he adds, “So that we can appear a couple this evening. I should know about you.”
Oh. My cheeks flame. Of course Raoul Midas isn’t actually interested in me, Anita Washington. That invisible scarlet letter burns on my skin. I’m not in a bar full of people, now. There’s no one here to judge me… except me. I’m a fallen woman now. A prostitute.
“Computer engineering.”
His eyebrows go up. “An interesting choice.”
I wait for some further comment about my gender. Despite the supposed steps forward in equality, women only account for twenty percent of engineering graduates. When he doesn’t say more, I hesitantly share, “I’ve always loved computers. My dad encouraged me. He would let me take apart the computers at home, even though I could have broken them.”
“You didn’t, though.”
“No, I put them back together. But better than before.”
A low laugh fills the space of the limo, making hair rise on my arms. “I like you, Anita.”
“Thanks. I like you too.” Then I realize I’m a call girl. I’m supposed to flatter him, to please him. I’m supposed to make him satisfied in every way. I like you too, is hardly the stuff of seduction. “I mean, I really like you. You look so handsome. And I appreciate the dress.”
He frowns. “You don’t have to fake things with me.”
Weirdly enough, I’m not sure I was faking it. I do like him, in a terrified kind of way. And he’s ridiculously handsome, in an intimidating kind of way. “I do love the dress.”
“The dress wasn’t for you.”
“It wasn’t?”
That amber gaze heats as he takes it in, from the spaghetti straps to my waist to the hem above my crossed legs. His head shakes slowly. “No, Anita. It was for me, so I could enjoy watching you all evening. And I will enjoy it.”
Unease skates through my body, along with something else. Something warm and alluring. The sense that I could let myself go in his arms. He knows what he’s doing, and I… don’t. “Where are we going, anyway? The agency only told me it was a black-tie affair.”
“It’s for the birthday of a young woman, the daughter of a business partner.”
“Oh, a birthday party!”
“Yes,” he says, his voice dry. “A three-hundred-thousand-dollar birthday party.”
I can’t help the gasp that fills the dark space. “Three hundred thousand dollars? I mean, wow. That can buy a lot of balloons.”
“I’m going to enjoy having you on my arm all evening, listening to your commentary about our little circle. But there’s some business we need to deal with first.”