Escorted (30 page)

Ander had more
experience with the world than any man she’d ever met. He must have expected
something to happen.

She’d stammered
out some sort of explanation, concluding with how she couldn’t be his client
anymore. As she’d spoken, Ander’s expression had grown more and more shuttered.

“I’m sorry,”
she’d said shakily, trying to counter the way Ander was closing himself off as
she watched. “It just doesn’t feel professional to me anymore. I just can’t.”

“Lori, it
doesn’t have to be—”

“It’s all
messed up,” she interrupted, terrified of what he might say. She wasn’t
prepared to hear anything that might come out of his mouth. “There’s no way it
won’t be messed up between us now. I don’t feel the way I should.”

“I don’t feel—”

“Ander, please.
I’m so sorry.” His attempts to speak and the expression in his eyes was sending
her into a panic.

She didn’t know
what he wanted to say, but she’d been picking up little signs and clues from
him for months. And finally, after the intensity of the night before, the
pieces were all falling into place. She didn’t know exactly how he felt about
her, but she knew she wasn’t the only one with strong feelings. But she
couldn’t let him say it, not even what she was longing for him to say. “Anything
you say is going to confuse things even more. I can’t be with you anymore.”

Then she added
in a weak mumble, since she couldn’t stand the sound of her last words. “Not
now, anyway.”

Ander’s face
had frozen into an empty calm, and she knew he would no longer try to argue.

“I’d like to be
friends,” she’d added, even knowing his expression boded the worst. “If...if you
think it’s possible. I know things have been not quite right between us, but
you mean a lot to me. And I’d like...I’d like to be friends.”

When he didn’t
respond, she said lamely, “I’ll email you. We can just...just see.”

Ander was
sitting mostly naked in the bed, the sheet draped over his lap. And it had been
the hardest thing in the world for her to put her shoes on and get ready to
leave him.

She hesitated
before she left, the world unbalanced beneath her feet. “I...I’m sorry. I don’t
know if I need to pay you for last night.”

And that had
snuffed any slim possibility of a fond farewell.

That morning, Lori
had been working on fear, on self-preservation, on the need to recover any part
of her security. But she’d screwed everything up. She’d handled it terribly.
She emailed Ander later that day to apologize and try to explain herself
better, but he hadn’t yet replied to her email.

She was pretty
sure now he wasn’t going to.

She was certain
about her decision. She wasn’t sure of the nature of Ander’s feelings, but she
was pretty sure he saw her as more than a client. She and Ander, however, had
only ever related in ways that were unnatural or artificial because it had
always been about her paying him. While they’d managed to bond despite the
circumstances, she couldn’t see it leading to a healthy relationship.

They had to
take a step back before they could ever take a step forward, and now any step
forward seemed impossible.

An assistant
manager came out to return her overnight bag, and after Lori thanked him he
said, “Your friend is in the bar, if you’re looking for him.”

Lori blinked.
“My friend?”

“Yes. Your
friend. He’s in the bar. Your pardon, ma’am, I thought you were here to meet
him.”

She mumbled out
thanks and walked through the lobby and toward the hotel bar. It was almost
seven in the evening but the bar wasn’t very crowded.

Lori stood in
the entrance and stared at a man seated alone at one of the pub tables with his
back to the door.

He was lean and
urban in well-tailored trousers and expensive leather shoes. He had one swallow
of scotch left in his glass. And he was completely bald.

Without
questioning the instinct, Lori walked over to him. She pulled a chair up next
to him at the table and perched on the edge.

Ander twitched
in surprise at her appearance, but that was his only reaction. He took a sip of
his scotch and looked at her steadily without speaking or smiling.

“Hi.” She gave
him a tentative smile.

“Hi.”

“You didn’t
return my email.”

He hesitated, running
his tongue along the line between his lips.

“Were you going
to?” she prompted, making sure she didn’t sound annoyed or pushy.

“I don’t know.”

“I’m sorry
about the other day,” Lori said, trying once again to make herself clear. “I
did it all wrong. I’m sorry if I hurt you. Or...or if I treated you
thoughtlessly.”

Ander let out a
small breath. “It’s all right. I understand why you made the decision. I just think
there were other options than the one you chose.”

“There were,” Lori
admitted, her belly twisting with nerves. She couldn’t—she just couldn’t—let Ander
offer her another option. If it was something even close to what she
desperately wanted, she wouldn’t be able to resist taking it.

And their messy
relationship would only get messier.

“But this is
the only option that can work. Don’t you see?” Her voice cracked in her
earnestness. “I’ve been paying you to fuck me for months. And I’m not the only
woman who does. You’re a male escort. I can’t stand the thought of you with your
other clients. I hate them. Hate them. I’m not going to be able to get over it.
And, even if you were to quit later on, we still have this unnatural dynamic
between us. Taking away the money isn’t going to magically fix things. I don’t
know what you...what you want from me, but all we can be now is friends.”

Ander stared at
her for a long time. But she could tell he was actually thinking about what she
said. Finally, he nodded his head.

Lori let out a
gust of air. For the first time, she felt a flare of hope. “Please, Ander,
don’t shut down on me. I think...I think we could really help each other. I
still want you in my life. I need you in my life.”

He finished off
the last of his scotch and stared at the table for an agonizingly long time.
Until at last he murmured, “I need you too.”

*
* *

“Okay!” Lori called out from the
Ander’s kitchen. Very carefully, she carried a small chocolate cake with
caramel icing and ten lit candles over toward the living area. Since all the
separated his kitchen from his living room was a granite-topped counter, she
made it without incident. “It’s ready.”

Ander had been
reading on his sofa while Lori prepared his cake. As she approached, she saw
him close the book and discreetly tuck it into his leather case, which was set
on the floor near the couch.

He’d been doing
that a lot lately—removing whatever book he happened to be reading from her
sight. She didn’t comment on it, though. Just grinned as she set down the cake.

“Happy birthday
to you,” she began to sing, with exaggerated jollity and mostly on key.

Ander made a
face as she began but by the time she finished the song and clapped her hands,
he was chuckling. Then she watched him expectantly as he leaned over to blow
out the candles.

“Did you make a
wish first?” she demanded.

“Of course.” Ander’s
mouth twitched as he examined the cake whose preparation had taken hours of her
morning. “Did you make this cake yourself?”

“Yes. And don’t
you dare laugh at it. Baking is not one of my talents. But I did the best I
could.”

“It looks
great. You shouldn’t have gone to all the trouble.”

She slanted him
an indignant glare. “Why the hell shouldn’t I have gone through the trouble?”

Ander’s lips
twitched again.

Feeling a rush
of warmth at the familiar sight of his handsome, amused face, Lori explained, “I
couldn’t fit all thirty-four candles on your little cake.”

He gave her a
cool glare from under his eyelashes that made Lori giggle. Then he admitted, “Yesterday
was my birthday, you know. Not today.”

She handed him
the knife so he could cut them both a slice and place them on the plates she’d
laid out on the coffee table earlier. “I know. But you were the idiot who
scheduled an engagement on your birthday. So I had to make do and move the
celebration to tonight.”

Lori would
never admit it, but she was a little hurt that Ander had done such a thing.

They never
talked about his work. She knew he gone in the evenings sometimes. He took his
case, and he never said a word about what he did. He must have cut back on his
clients significantly, as he’d told her he was doing. He wasn’t gone more than
two or three nights a week now.

It had been two
months since she’d been Ander’s client. After running into each other in the
hotel bar, they’d slowly fallen into a friendship. At first, it had been a
little awkward. Lori was nervous around Ander, and Ander was rather standoffish.
But they’d grown gradually more comfortable with each other, and now Lori saw
him or talked to him almost every day.

But she hated
that he hadn’t retired from the male escort business. She still hated the
thought of every one of his clients and everything he did with them. Hated that
he wouldn’t stop objectifying and devaluing himself—which might not be part of
everyone’s experience as an escort but were certainly part of his. She wouldn’t
judge him, knew the reasons that led to prostitution were too complex for her
to truly understand.

But she wanted Ander
to stop. And he hadn’t.

In some ways,
it was safer this way. As long as he continued in his profession, there would
be no remote possibility of a romance developing between them. And that barrier
made it easier for Lori to get over a lot of the confusion and self-delusion
she’d suffered before.

She still hated
it though. Every time Ander picked up his case and went out to meet a client.

He’d even
scheduled an appointment on his birthday, when he must have known she’d want to
celebrate it with him.

For the last
month, he’d had an engagement every Wednesday evening. It was worrisome because
she was afraid it might be a regular client, and regular clients were somehow
more threatening than occasional ones.

After all, look
how deeply she’d fallen herself when she’d been his regular client.

“I’m sorry I
was busy last night,” Ander said softly, as if he’d read at least some of her
thoughts.

Lori shook away
her heavy thoughts. She was silly to brood about it. Her friendship with Ander
was thriving, and it was much better than what they’d had before. Yes, she
missed the sex. Sometimes so much she thought she would explode. But it felt
like they were building something real between them—even in such incongruous
circumstances—so she wasn’t going to gripe that it hadn’t worked out like a
fairy tale or a silly movie.

Beaming at him,
she said, “That’s all right. We’ll just pretend your birthday is today.”

They ate cake
and drank Burgundy, which Ander insisted was a perfect complement to chocolate
cake. They chatted easily until Lori brought up a subject she’d been pestering Ander
about for almost a month.

“I need to send
in the little card that says I’ll attend the wedding,” she said, trying for a
casual tone. “I should say it’s me and a guest, right?”

Ander eyed her,
mild but unwavering. “Only if you’ve found yourself a date.”

Lori huffed.
“Don’t be that way, Ander. You know I want you to come with me.”

“And you know
that I can’t. I have other plans.”

“Well, your plans
are ridiculous. What kind of fucking client would hire you for an entire month?
I mean, that’s just selfish and creepy.” Lori was so annoyed her teeth
practically snapped together. She hadn’t believed Ander when he told her he’d
be out of the country next month—for the entire month—on work. But evidently it
was true.

The thought of
some other woman having Ander at her disposal for a whole month made Lori ill.
And it wasn’t just jealousy—although there was certainly plenty of that. It was
thought of Ander being on call for all that time, expected to please some
woman’s smallest wish for so long.

It couldn’t
possibly be good for him.

“Lori,” Ander
said, an edge of warning in his tone.

“I mean it,”
she insisted, her voice thickening as her emotions rose, “Ander, just cancel
that job—whatever it is. I don’t care what kind of fortune she’s paying you.
It’s not worth it. It...it worries me.”

Ander’s eyes
scanned her face, first questioningly and then almost tenderly. He reached out
a put a gentle hand on her cheek for just a moment before he removed it. “I’ll
be fine, Lori. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Well, I do
worry about you,” she muttered, disappointed that he hadn’t changed his mind
about that job. But he’d been doing this for years. Surely he knew his
limitations, and it wasn’t her role to interfere. To lighten the mood, she
added, “You’re sometimes kind of stupid, you know.”

At his arched
eyebrows, she snickered. “I’m not saying you’re the only one.”

Ander smiled at
her and she recognized the gesture as a peace offering. She smiled back.

There was no reason
for her to obsess about this. Ander was a grown man and he had to make his own
decisions. All she could be was his friend. As long as he didn’t push her away,
she would be content.

As she scraped
the last of the icing off her plate, Lori couldn’t help but return to her
previous concern. “But can’t you come to the wedding with me anyway? I have to
go. You know he was my best friend in high school. I can’t miss his wedding.”

“I don’t expect
you to miss his wedding,” Ander said imperturbably. “There’s no reason you
can’t go by yourself.”

Lori groaned
and rubbed her face. “I don’t want to go by myself. It will be so awkward. I
mean, I was in love for him for so long, and he knew it. Can’t you take a day
or two off from your engagement that month and fly back to go with me? I’ll pay
for your airfare and everything.”