Chapter 6 : Being Vulnerable

Valerie was the only one in the kitchen when I went down for breakfast the next morning. Even though I knew it was important to talk with her and gain information since she was in charge around here, I extremely disliked her. But I had to remain on her good side for the time being. I greeted her and served myself egg whites and fruit. Again.

I sat next to her at the kitchen counter, even though I wanted to choose the seat farthest away from her.

“I have some exciting news,” Valerie told me lively.

“Oh, yeah? What is it?” I asked her, pretending to be just as excited.

“Dante has requested to see you for a lunch date this afternoon,” she said. “Usually, we don’t allow visits on weekdays, but Mr. Faust insisted. He paid handsomely to be able to visit you,” Miss Valerie explained, then looked at me over her coffee cup. “Dante is one of our biggest benefactors. You need to show him a good time. Do you understand?”

I nodded, gulping down my eggs. Not because of what she was implying, but because of the way her eyes watched me intently.

“Of course, Miss Valerie. I will make you proud,” I promised her.

I was going to do the opposite of that by trading information to ruin her life and the society, but she didn’t need to know that.

“You have been exempt from training today and after you finish breakfast, you are allowed to prepare for your date,” she explained to me. “Make sure to wear something appropriate for an escort.”

She meant something tight and low cut. I fought the urge to grimace in front of her.

“Sounds good,” I responded, doing my best to keep my voice bright.

I hated how she was treating me like I wasn’t a thirty-year-old woman. But that’s exactly what being an escort did to you. You could no longer make your own decisions. Everything was controlled by Valerie.

I went back up to my room to get ready. While I curled my hair, I reviewed all the information I learned yesterday so I could tell Dante. I spent extra time on my make-up, lining my eyes with liner and making my eyelashes as big as possible. I put on a short white skirt, a black top, and white platform sandals.

I tried to tell myself that I was doing this to please Miss Valerie, but if I was being fully honest with myself, I wanted to look attractive since I was seeing Dante. Which was stupid. We were just partners in this case. It was dumb to think that we could be anything more than that. It was not only dumb, but dangerous. I shouldn’t even be considering this at all.

I was applying pink lipstick when Charlotte walked in.

“Oh, my God!” she exclaimed. “Someone told me that you had a date with your sponsor. I heard that is unheard of. He must have paid a lot of money to see you. He must really like you,” Charlotte added excitedly, closing the door behind her.

“Um, I think so.” I shrugged, unsure of how to respond to that. It wasn't like I could be honest with her.

“I hope I catch the attention of a sponsor at the next party,” Charlotte said wistfully, sitting on her bed.

I bit my tongue, swallowing the words I truly wanted to say. “I’m sure you will,” I replied.

Once it was time to meet Dante, I walked to the room that Valerie told me he would be waiting in. It was the same room that we had met last time.

As soon as I walked in, Dante rose from the couch.

I had to look up in order to talk to him because he was so tall. His black hair was short and curly, but somewhat messy, which only made him more handsome. I noticed how straight and white his teeth were as he flashed his gorgeous smile at me. He was dressed more casually than last time, in jeans and a white button-down shirt. His shirt was the same color as the bed behind him. Then, I imagined both of us in it and my mind began to flash images before my eyes without my permission.

Fuck. Why did he have to be so fucking attractive?

It was distracting me from the reason I was here.

His beautiful green eyes studied my outfit and I saw him swallow.

I wondered if he found me attractive too.

I shook my head and tried to stop thinking about these kinds of things. I walked into the room and shut the door behind me, so no one could hear what we were talking about. Dante sat back down on the couch.

“Hi,” I said, taking a seat next to him.

His musky cologne instantly hit my nostrils and I had to take a deep breath to compose myself. How could someone smell so good? It should be illegal for a handsome man to smell this amazing. It was an unfair combo.

“Good afternoon, Gabrielle,” he greeted with a husky voice.

Damn.

I tried to focus my attention on something else. Like before, the coffee table in front of us was filled with food. There were sandwiches, grapes, chips, a jug of lemonade with glasses, and two bottles of water. I loaded up my plate, starving from the strict diet Valerie kept us on. It pissed me off that we were only fed well when our sponsors came to visit us.

Dante allowed me to eat in silence for a few moments. I tried to ignore the way his eyes felt on me. It was distracting and intimidating, and I was afraid to look at them and have my mind wander again.

“I wanted to ask you a question,” I told him after I finished eating. I picked up a water bottle and sipped it.

“Go ahead,” Dante simply replied.

“Do you know why most women seem like they are fine with being here? Why would someone willingly choose to do this? We basically have all of our rights taken away and just wait until a man comes to shower us with gifts. All of the escorts have to be cut off from the outside world and we have no say in how we live our lives. It doesn’t make sense to me why the women here don't try to escape.”

“I understand what you’re asking,” Dante replied somberly with a nod.

His mood changed after my question. His fists clenched and his eyes narrowed.

“I’m not sure why every woman joins. I know some are tricked into signing the contract. They always prey upon women who are in tight situations, whether that be financially or abusive parents or partners,” Dante explained.

I thought of Charlotte’s story about wanting to get away from her parents so badly that she chose homelessness.

“The escort system is cruel. I think some women are kidnapped. The Golden Hive forces them to change their identities and keep them locked here so they can’t be found,” Dante continued, crossing his arms angrily.

My head whipped up and stared at him. We locked eyes and Dante was quiet for a moment. It seemed like he was considering whether or not to tell me something. After a while, he sighed and started talking. He couldn’t meet my eyes though, staring straight in front of him instead.

“My mother was an escort,” he admitted in a small voice.

Holy shit! Whatever I thought he was going to say, it was definitely not that. I looked at him with wide eyes and waited for him to explain further.

“My father was the biggest benefactor to the escort system here. He was a member for a long time until he met my mother, who was an escort here at the time. The Golden Hive made a special exception for him and allowed her out of the system on the terms that she could never see her real family again and my father controlled the rest of her life," he carried on.

"My mom died when I was ten. On her deathbed, she told me about what happened and asked me to find her real family and tell them that she didn’t want to abandon them, but that she was forced into the system. She couldn’t even remember her real name. My father continued to come here and meet with escorts after my mother died,” Dante said, his voice cold and emotionless.

I was glad he wasn’t looking at me, because I definitely couldn’t hide the shock in my face as he shared his story with me.

“Even with all of my money and resources, I couldn’t find out my mother’s real birth name," he continued. "I’ve been trying to find it all my life. All I want to do is grant my mother’s dying wish and tell her family about what happened to her.”

Dante turned to me. His green eyes stared right into mine, and my heart immediately skipped a beat.

“That’s why I want to tear this fucking place down. Why I have to. I want to find my mother’s family, my family, and make sure this never happens to another woman again. But the society’s contracts are airtight. If I don’t take them down legally, then I’m the one who will lose everything I’ve worked for in my life. They would eat me alive.”

I took a moment to process everything that Dante just said. I was glad that he told me his reason for doing this, it made me trust him more. But I felt so bad for him and his mother that they had to go through something like that.

Seeing him show his vulnerable side also made me wonder if he was actually the bad person I first thought he was.

Without even thinking about it, I reached forward and grabbed his hand. They felt so good in mine. It seemed like he wanted to pull away at first, but then he threaded his fingers through mine. We sat for a moment, just holding hands.

Why did it feel so right?

Since he told me his reason for taking on this dangerous mission, I figured I owed him an explanation as well.

“I took on this case because I found out someone from my childhood went missing and I traced her back to this place. I found out later she had died,” I said in a soft voice.

Even though it had been so long since I’d seen Sara, it was still hard for me to talk about her.

“How did you know her?” Dante asked. I could see he was genuinely interested in my story too.

“I grew up in an orphanage,” I told him. “She was like a big sister to me. Then one day, she got adopted. Sara didn’t even say goodbye to me. But it always felt weird to me how fast the adoption process was. Something felt off about it. It always bothered me how quickly everyone forgot about her too. If I had been the one to go missing under suspicious circumstances, I know Sara would do everything in her power to either find me or find out what happened to me. I, um, know she’s not alive—"

I swallowed hard, trying to keep my voice from cracking.

"But it’s my goal to find out what happened to her and make sure it never happens to another woman again.”

After my confession, I felt even more connected to him. Even though our situations weren’t very similar, we knew what it was like to grow up feeling neglected and unloved. I was sure that his dad wasn’t a great father, and his mother died at a young age. It felt nice to finally talk to someone about this.

“Thank you for telling me,” I told him, and squeezed his hand. “It makes me trust you more.”

“Same here.”

We looked into each other’s eyes and the mood suddenly shifted. With his hand still in mine, I looked into his eyes and noticed that they had tiny gold flecks in them. Damn, the more I studied him, the more attractive he got.

“Gabrielle,” Dante whispered my name, and leaned forward slightly.

His voice and eyes were mesmerizing, I could barely form a proper sentence.

“Yes?” I unconsciously began to lean forward as well.

“You have a beautiful name,” he murmured, his eyes darting to my lips for a brief second.

Damn it, if that wasn’t the perfect thing to say to make my mind go blank. My eyes fluttered closed and I acted on impulse, suddenly closing the distance between us and gently pressing my lips to his.

We only kissed for half a second before Dante pulled away. He looked torn and confused.

“I, um, have an important meeting to get to,” he told me, jumping up from the couch as if he’d been electrocuted.

Dante left the room without another word and closed the door behind him, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I stared at the door and unconsciously touched my lips.

What the hell was wrong with me? Why did I kiss him?

Frustrated with myself, I left the room with the promise that I wouldn’t allow that to happen again.

This mission was too important for me to be distracted by Dante Faust. But no matter how many times I repeated that to myself, it didn’t seem to be enough to convince me.