CHAPTER 6

The teenage dreamer lingering inside me kind of wished we had snuck out for a make-out session. She remembered all too well the consuming feeling of George’s lips on mine.

I did too. It was hard to forget something that made you feel so alive.

“Do you think anyone else will bother us?”

George turned his face back to me. “Of course they will.”

Nope. I was done being bothered tonight. A tiny, crazy part of me wanted to savor these moments we have together, because I knew reality will intrude once more tomorrow.

I curved my body into his. I slid my hands up his chest, feeling the solid muscle beneath, and curled my fingers around the lapels of his suit. He pressed me into him even farther until I was flush against him and lowered his mouth to my ear.

“What are you doing?” His lips brushed over my earlobe as he spoke. The strangely intimate touch ignited a spark of lust in the pit of my belly. It felt foreign and unwelcome, the desire bubbling in my lower stomach stronger than I’d felt in a long time.

I tilted my face into his, feeling the slight scratch of the stubble coating his jaw against my cheek. “My job title might be escort, but I spend half my life as an actress. If the women in this room want to believe we’re reconnecting romantically, then they can for tonight.”

“oooh, I see.” He slid his hand down my back and ran it over the curve of my ass. It settled on my hip as the other snaked upward and into my hair. “Don’t you think this is a little rude?”

“Says the man running his hands over my body and whispering in my ear.”

I felt his smile against the side of my head. “Touché, Miss McCartney. Touché.”

“Anyway, this is exactly what you’re paying me for. Keeping the vultures away.”

“I’m an idiot for not paying for you all night, the vultures be damned.”

I raised my eyebrows. “If you’d known it was me, would you have even attempted it?”

His face turned to mine, the tip of his nose brushing across my cheek. “If I’d have known it was you, I would have paid triple for all night.”

A knot formex in my throat and I swallowed it down. Where the fuck was Christy when I needed her? Oh yeah—the bitch up and left the second she looked into George Stone's blue eyes.

Even in my job, sometimes pretending is just too much of a stretch.

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“George Stone? The guy you met in Paris?”

“Know any other George, Aunt Leila?”

“Of course I do, Gina. I know several of every man.” She snorted and sat opposite me. “What you gonna do, girl?”

“Same thing I do every day. My job.”

She snorted again.

“Seriously. I mean it. Running into him was a shock, but it was a one-night job.”

I was still reeling from that shock. I barely slept that night after leaving the hotel. My mind was full of Paris seven years ago as I remembered the hopes of a naïve seventeen-year-old girl. As I remembered the feeling of falling in love for the first time.

And the memories were full of his piercing blue eyes, looking at me with amusement, tenderness, and heat. They were full of his fingers trailing across my body, touching deep enough that they seeped into my bones despite barely skimming my skin. They were full of promises and believing… And an inevitable goodbye.

“Gina!” Aunt Leila snapped.

I dragged my gaze from the window back to her. “What?”

“One-night job my ass. You’ve been staring out of my window for the last five minutes chewing on your lip. My rose garden is pretty, but it isn’t that fucking pretty!”

I clicked my tongue. “I’m… I don’t know. I’m shocked, all right? Jesus, I haven’t seen him for seven years. Then he’s my goddamn client? He doesn’t even live on the West Coast, so what the hell is that about?”

“It’s about life throwing you a curveball. You gotta swing with it, sugar, or it’s gonna hit you in the butt.”

“Because my client being the only guy I’ve ever loved isn’t enough of a hit in the butt?”

She shrugged and lit a cigarette. “Gina, it doesn’t matter if you loved the guy. Shit, honey, it doesn’t matter if you’ve fucked him six ways to Sunday. What matters is he knows your real name. What matters is he knows where to find you.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“Oh, you know that. I just don’t think you have a clue what to do about it.”

Goddamn, I hated it when she was right. But that was the problem with having an aunt who used to do this exact job. You couldn’t get anything past her.

I grabbed my purse and stood. “You know what? I’m going to see Brenda.”

“Do what you want, sweetie, but do me a favor.”

“What?” I paused at the front door.

“Just remember—call girls don’t fall in love.”

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I stared into the glass in my hand and twisted it by the stem. The remaining wine swirled in circles, rising up the sides of the glass and dropping back down with a tiny splash with each full circle. Sitting there in the wine bar Brenda worked in, I could almost pretend George Stone didn’t explode back into my life, that I was waiting for my best friend to finish work like any other twenty-four-year-old.

But I was not any other twenty-four-year-old. I never have been. I never will be. And I was okay with that.

Becoming a call girl was my choice, and when the time came, I chose to make it a career. I’d always known the rules, and hell, I watched Aunt Leila’s marriage break down because of her unwillingness to give it up. She chose escorting over love, and I understand it. I get why.

Being an escort gives you control. Sure, the client plans it from the location to what happens. They pick how they want you to look—girl-next-door, dominatrix, or just plain sexy—and they choose how everything unfolds, but the second the money leaves their hand, the control switches. It was up to me to give them everything they wanted. The look, the feel, the whole experience. It was like  porn  without a camera.

I relished the control. There was nothing in this world like having someone at your every command and sometimes at your mercy. It was invigorating, a rush like nothing else. It was compelling and addictive. And it was a constant. It’ll never change—and that’s why I loved it.

As long as men need sex, I had a job.

But with love… With love, you surrender control. Love is promising to give someone everything and not expect anything in return.