Boyfriend for Hire: A Stand-Alone Contemporary Romance (Escort Files Book 1) (14 page)

After a moment, he said, “Are you okay?”

She lifted her head and kissed him, then looked into his eyes, seeing his sleep mussed hair and the pillow creases still marking one side of his face. “I’m great.”

*****

After a shower and a quick policing of the room to pick up the condom wrappers, Mike couldn’t find his shoes and they laughed when they discovered them out on the steps, obviously placed there with care by one of the staff.

“Yikes, I hope they didn’t get an earful,” Amy said, looking up and down the beach to see if there were any hurriedly retreating backs.

Mike laughed and shoved the shoes onto his feet. “If they didn’t, we can try again later.”

Arms around each other’s waists, they descended on the buffet like starving vagabonds. With his clothes still wrinkled from spending the night on the floor and his freshly washed hair, it wasn’t hard to guess that he was midway through his walk of shame. He grinned at the server who brought their coffee when he gave him the eye.

The only hiccup in a perfect breakfast was when that woman who had raised her glass to Amy that first day came in, her husband trailing her. She saw them, her eyes narrowing when she caught a glimpse of Mike wearing his dinner clothes and long pants. The way she focused her sharp gaze on his back made Amy’s hackles rise.

She put down her cup and sat up straighter, staring directly at the woman, any notion of a polite smile gone. The woman noticed and gave her a knowing smile, but it wasn’t a nice one anymore. It was the kind of smile meant to make a person feel small.

Mike must have sensed her discomfort because he looked up from his mountain of scrambled eggs and followed the line of her gaze. He gave a soft, “Oh shit,” when he saw the woman and then turned back around quickly.

The woman’s husband saw too, and quickly stepped in front of the woman, breaking her line of sight. There was a harsh, whispered conversation and then he led her right out of the restaurant and off the patio.

“What was that all about?” Amy asked, seeing Mike’s face blanche and then flush with color.

He poked his fork into his eggs and then looked at her, his expression almost hopeless. “I don’t want to ruin this,” he said.

Amy’s stomach took a tumble at his words. Ruin it? She looked at the place where the woman had been, then back at Mike. A terrible thought came to her.

“Was she a client?” she asked, horrified.

Mike reared back a little, his eyes widening. He shook his hands as if pushing the very idea away from him. “God, no! Fruitcake on a stick, no!”

“Then what?”

He shook his head and sighed. “She’s been circling like a hawk. I don’t know how, but she’s somehow figured out who I am. Or rather,
what
I am.”

Amy was horrified, but hadn’t her nervousness and the way they’d sat so carefully at the table that first day given away that they didn’t know each other? Her trying to shake his hand when they were supposedly close enough to go on vacation together? Could it really be that simple or did that woman, who always seemed to have a wine glass in her bony hand, have some other information?

“How could she?” Amy asked, reaching across the table to hold his hand, wanting to comfort him now that he seemed so downcast.

“I don’t know, but she cornered me yesterday and it was awful.”

She tried to imagine what that would be like, especially knowing that what she suggested was true. It would make her feel worthless, like she had nothing that couldn’t be bought. That thought made her angry.

“Well, fuck her and the horse she rode in on,” Amy said, squeezing his hand.

Mike spluttered a laugh and looked at her, but that confidence of before was gone. He was trying to read what she really thought on her face. She raised an eyebrow and said, “Seriously.”

He smiled at her and squeezed her hand back. “We should talk though. I’ve got some things to say.” At her look, he added, “Nothing bad.”

Amy looked at the wasteland that was her breakfast plate. She’d made a minefield of crumbs around her plate while pushing eggs and sausage onto her fork. If she’d been starving before, she was overly full now. She let go of his hand and picked up her cup, sipping the cooling coffee.

She nodded at his half-demolished egg mountain and said, “Eat up then.”

Twenty-Three

What should he say first? Should he say how firmly she had wedged herself into his heart or that he was quitting the job? Or should he make it clear that he hadn’t really been working at all in the first place, but rather just trying to get close to her. He glanced out the window and saw her on a beach chair, the umbrella above her keeping her in the shade.

Umbrellas
, he thought, remembering those panties of hers.

“Get a grip,” he muttered to himself and tossed down a t-shirt. No, not too bright. This was serious. He pulled on a dark blue tee and some baggy shorts with way too many pockets he’d borrowed from Charlie. His swim trunks bunched underneath his shorts and he had a devil of a time getting them unbunched. He was so glad she couldn’t see him like this, hopping around and digging a swimming suit out of uncomfortable places.

He didn’t have her money with him because his service handled that, giving him his earnings from the total. He would have to dip into his savings to return the forty percent they took, but he’d do it. She had to believe he was serious and that was the only way. He looked in the mirror and realized his hair was sticking up everywhere in a way that was almost comical, but it just sprang back up when he tried to smooth it.

He made a sound of disgust and then looked himself in the eye. “Don’t screw this up,” he told himself, then left the room.

Amy was lying back in the chair, one arm thrown over the top, her fingers resting on the back. She had beautiful hands. Her fingers were long, but looked strong and her nails weren’t long and weird like so many others preferred. Coming up behind her, he bent and kissed her knuckles.

She smiled up at him and tickled under his chin, scratching in a way that made him want to lie down and shake his leg like a dog. It was funny, but he didn’t think anyone had ever done that to him before. He liked it.

Holding out a hand for her to stand up, she smoothed a palm down his arm, but made no further move to embrace him the way she had before. He tried not to think about what that might mean. Handing her a bottle from the pair in his other hand, he asked, “Want to walk down the beach a ways?”

She took the bottle and twisted it around in her hands, so he could tell she was nervous too. They walked along the fine sand, the ocean lapping gently at their feet and the air already warm and balmy. This place was perfect. Peaceful, beautiful, gentle. Sort of like Amy was when she wasn’t so nervous she was about to hop out of her skin.

They settled into the sand away from the others on the beach, the spot they chose a little too far from the beachside drink service for most people. At first next to each other, Mike decided the best way to do this was face to face, so he twisted in the sand until he sat cross-legged and touched her knee so she would do the same.

Now that he was facing her, his mouth dried up and he found himself speechless. She was so beautiful, the sparkling water making her eyes bluer than the sky.

Before he could speak, Amy took a deep breath and said, “I have something to say too and I should just get it over with.” She looked down at the bottle still clenched in her hands and said, “You’re fired.”

Mike jerked his head back a little and she looked up at him, her expression both nervous and a little sad. Dropping the bottle to the sand, she leaned forward and touched his knee. “I don’t want you to think you did anything wrong—”

“I was going to quit,” he said, cutting her off.

Now, she looked unsure and it was her turn to jerk her head back a little. She seemed to be doing some sort of calculations in her head and then she asked, “Why?”

Mike stabbed his own bottle into the sand and took a deep breath. It was now or never. “I shouldn’t have taken this job, but once I met you I knew it was the only way to actually get to know you. Even if I had passed this on to someone else and then figured out how to meet you in some other way, all you would have seen is the escort. I had zero chance.”

Her eyebrow lifted briefly at that, so he knew he was spot on. That’s exactly what would have happened. Shaking his head, he pushed the hurt aside and continued before he lost all his nerve.

“I thought that if I took this job, I’d get time to win you over, or even just see if there was anything really here between us.” He had pressed his hand to his chest at his last words, and he saw her eyes soften when she noted it. “And there is. At least for me there is. I wasn’t working with you last night. That was me. Now, I don’t know what to do. But I’m giving you back all the money, that I promise you.”

She waved that away as if it were unimportant and said, “I already paid your service and I’m pretty sure they don’t offer refunds. Don’t worry about that.”

He motioned with his hands, almost as if he were calling someone “safe” on home base during a baseball game, and said, “They’ll pay me and I’ll refund the part they take. I have to.”

She must have seen the earnestness in him because she nodded and said, “Okay.”

Mike swallowed hard. Now came the hard part. It wasn’t hard to tell her how he felt, because he was sure he felt that way. Absolutely and positively sure. It was hard because she might reject him and that would hurt. A lot.

“Amy, don’t think this is a line, because it’s not. I’ve never met anyone like you. You’re like a bundle of contradictions and every bit of it is fascinating. You’re confident, yet also so shy. You’re sweet and sarcastic. Polite and somehow also laid back about manners.”

She blushed and fidgeted, clearly uncomfortable with the compliments.

“And see, you’re all of these things and still it makes you twitchy just to hear that I can see those things in you. But I do see them.” He reached out and took her hands, squeezing once for comfort and rubbing the backs with his thumbs simply because touching her felt so good. “And we are so very compatible…in every way.”

That made her bite her lip and squeeze her legs a bit together, which was a trick considering she was sitting cross-legged. The way the color traveled up her face and down into her shirt let him know she was thinking of exactly what he was and his groin tightened in response.

He laughed and pointed down with his eyes, not letting go of her hands. “See what you do to me?”

She glanced over at the obvious response in his pants and then up at him, her eyes soft and sexy, her lashes dark against her skin. A devilish half-smile lifted the corner of her lips. “I feel the same, though luckily, it’s not quite so obvious.”

What he really wanted to do was pull her hand over to him, press her palm onto him right there and…but no, this was time for talking. If all went well, then there were no rules at all about what might happen next.

He shook his head and murmured, “Baseball. Two outs. Pitcher is tired, but the next hitter isn’t reliable.”

She laughed and asked, “What are you talking about?”

He opened his eyes, back on track, and said, “Baseball. It’s what I use to calm down when I’m around you. I’ve been running through a lot of really bad games over the last several days.”

She laughed loudly, tossing her head back and letting her full voice out. He loved it when she did that. No covering up her mouth, no stifling the sound as if it weren’t allowable. Baseball was not going to work for long at this rate.

“Well?” he asked, hoping he would hear good things from her, but trying very hard to prepare for heartbreak. “What do you think of what I said? Do we have any shot at all? I think we’ve got the start of something really good, but do you?”

Her laughter gone, she squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and pulled in a long breath. Mike’s heart sank like a stone when she shook her head a little, as if preparing to disappoint him. She squeezed his hands and looked back at him, then scooched a little forward so that their knees were touching.

“Mike, I’m not going to lie and say that I was looking for anything at all other than some therapeutic companionship. I had zero intentions of anything more. But I feel what you said. I do. I just don’t know how to trust that feeling. It’s easy to fall, but it’s not so easy to pick yourself up afterwards. I don’t want to scrape myself up after getting hurt. And there’s a lot to consider here.”

“What?” he said, unable to stop the smile spreading on his face.

“Your job, for one.”

She had him there. He couldn’t undo his past and he couldn’t change anything that he’d already done, but he could be honest. He could demystify it. “True. Ask me anything. Really. Ask away.”

Amy eyed him and he could tell she was wondering how far she could go, how truthful he would be, so he decided to let her have the short and dirty of it without being forced to give voice to the questions. “Okay, wait. I’ll just tell you and then you can ask. Will that work?”

She nodded.

This was going to be embarrassing, but honesty was truly the best policy and he wanted nothing shady or hidden to fester between them. That would erode a relationship as quickly as anything. He had to be willing to be open if he wanted her to be.

“Right. Okay, I’m just going to get this out and over with. I’ve been doing this job for a little over a year and a half. I figure I’ve got another year and a half…or I did until I met you…before I can quit and go home for good. I’m straight and only date women. Yes, I do have sex with women for money, but probably not as much as you think and probably not at all the
way
you think. It’s not like that.”

She already looked skeptical, so he pressed on. “More than half of my jobs are honest-to-goodness escort jobs. Busy women, divorced women, women who are still keeping it secret that their preferences run to other women, you name it. I’m good to bring to a party or a dinner or something like that. I’ve been introduced to more families as the new boyfriend than you would believe.”