Gabrielle (10 page)

Still—foolishly, perhaps—I wanted to know.

“Try me.”

“Which reason do you want to hear first? The one that will make you hate me more than you already do? Or the one that will only make you hate me a little?”

I couldn't believe it. I almost laughed. “I don't hate you. I don't even know you.”

And after tonight, I'd never see him again.

He shifted his gaze away from the rooftops to lock with mine. “All right then, I'll ease into it.”

The corner of my mouth shook, wanting to curve up. He was just so likable. And, I couldn't help but notice again, absolutely gorgeous.

“I'll get my scorecards ready,” I found myself joking. “You know, to rate the level of skeeziness.”

He almost seemed surprised by his answering grin. “Honestly, you were the last person I thought to meet here tonight.” His grin fell away. “Maybe if things were different, if I didn't have to do this, you and I could've met somewhere else. Somewhere normal.”

I shivered at his words, thought,
If only things were different
, before I caught myself.

“I have a boyfriend,” I blurted out.

A boyfriend I really liked. I shouldn't be sitting here joining in Bradley's fantasy about meeting under more auspicious circumstances. I don't know why I hadn't told Bradley this earlier, or why I was telling him at all. He was here looking for a courtesan, not a girlfriend.

“Of course you do. How could someone like you not have a boyfriend?”

He seemed to have forgotten what he'd been about to tell me. But I hadn't. Even though his flattery was really, really nice.

“Okay, I've got the scorecards ready. Go ahead and hit me with it.”

“My family has lost a lot of money in the stock market.”

I felt bad for him, but I was confused. “Wouldn't that mean you can't afford a courtesan?”

“It's exactly why I have to have one. My future marriage is the reason we're getting to keep the family business alive. It's the reason my younger siblings get to stay at their school. It's the reason the mortgage is being paid.”

“Your parents are bartering you for money?”

“No. I'm bartering myself.”

I sat back hard against the metal bench. The situation Bradley had laid out for me wasn't pretty. Frankly, though, I was more confused than ever.

“But if you need to marry some rich girl to keep your family flush, if she found out that you were in the market for a mistress—”

“Courtesan,” he corrected.

“Whatever. Wouldn't that girl and her family pull the deal?”

He sighed. “Not if the girl didn't like guys.”

At this point, I was just trying to get everything straight. “Okay, so since you're going to have to marry a girl who doesn't like guys, you're also getting a jump on the whole courtesan thing?” I'd never been able to speak this frankly, this openly, with a guy before.

“Her parents are desperate that no one ever finds out.” He held open his arms, tilted his beautiful face up to the night sky. “Which is where a courtesan comes in. That way, I'll be the perfect husband-to-be who will never tell.”

Wow. However I had expected our conversation to go when we came out here, it wasn't like this, that was for sure.

His mouth quirked up again, and the truth was, I was glad to see the serious expression gone. It didn't suit him.

“So,” he asked, “have the judges deliberated?”

“Judges? Deliberated?”

“I'm waiting for your score.”

I finally remembered what he was referring to. My little joke about his skeeziness factor.

I pretended to flip some cards around on my lap. I held one up.

“Four.” I raised an eyebrow. “The judges think you can do better,” I teased.

“They do, huh?”

I shrugged, and it didn't occur to me not to say exactly what was on my mind. We were way past pleasantries.

“You're a guy,” I said as if it were obvious where I was going. “This whole process has to be every guy's fantasy. Coming to a party like this and getting to pick out a girl who will exist solely to fill your needs. I mean, even if you've got to marry someone you don't love to save your family, at least you'll be able to have sex with anyone you want.”

It wasn't until I got to the end of the sentence that I realized how far I'd gone, talking about
needs.
About Bradley's future sex life.

My face flamed. To be perfectly honest, I felt hot all over, even sitting outside in the light evening breeze on the cool bench.

“I only found out about this whole courtesan thing a couple of months ago,” he said suddenly.

I was right there with him. “A week ago for me.” Well, that wasn't exactly true, I realized.

“I knew my grandmother and great-grandmother were courtesans in France, but I thought that was a whole different world, totally in the past.”

To Bradley, I confessed what I didn't dare tell Dylan. “Last week was when I found out about my mother. That she had been one. That she had chosen to do it.” I took a deep breath.

“That's when I found out that my father had been her...you know. That was when I also found out that my grandmother thinks becoming a courtesan is my
destiny
.” I made air quotes around the word. “She claims that no woman in her family has ever found love another way, that there's a curse on us.”

Bradley's hand covered mine and I didn't think to move away from him. Not when his touch was so comforting.

And then he said, “Nice to know I'm not the only one being sucker-punched by destiny.”

The air between us sparked and my breath hitched in my throat.

“The way my father explained it,” he continued, “is that the men in our family have always had to marry well, for one reason or another. He told me that this time he didn't expect history to repeat itself. Until it did. So maybe I'm cursed, too.”

Questions lined up in my mind one after another. “So does that mean your father never loved your mother? Just his mistress? And if it was just a business deal for both of them, how was that fair to you and your brothers and sisters?” Barely stopping to take a breath, I said, “I just can't get my head around how any of this can possibly work.”

I'd forgotten all about scoring his reasons. How could I judge him when it seemed that his biggest fault had been to be born into this shadow world, just as I had?

“My parents have never had that great a marriage. I never thought it was all that weird.”

He shrugged. “At least they hadn't gotten divorced like most of my friends' parents. Only now I know why. Because it had been a business deal from the start.”

We were both silent, listening to the sound of traffic below.

Finally, he said, “Nothing is really that different. They're still my parents. My life hasn't changed much yet. But, somehow, everything feels different anyway.”

And in that moment, as I finished listening to him tell his story in a perfectly rational tone, my heart ached for him. I thought I had it hard. And if anyone had told me that I would leave this party feeling a connection with one of the men here—or that I would be truly worried about him—I never would've believed it.

Turning my palm up to his, I gently squeezed his hand. “Maybe sometime we could go catch some jazz.”

The smile he gave me seemed to wash away all of his sadness. And I was glad when he said, “I can't think of anything I'd like more,” before walking me back inside and escorting me over to my grandmother.

Of course, he made sure we traded cell phone numbers before he left. I should have deleted his, gotten rid of the temptation to actually call him one day and go check out a concert...but I couldn't make myself do it.

In the limousine on the way back home, I waited for my grandmother to ask about Bradley, but for the first few minutes she simply laid her head back against the leather seat with her eyes closed.

Yet again, she looked old to me. Tired. I hated it, hated to think that one day she would be gone.

“His name is Bradley.”

Her eyes shot open, just as I'd known they would. A small smile formed on her lips.

“He looked very nice.”

“He is.” I held her gaze. “But that doesn't mean I'm signing up for anything. For
the life
.”

It was time to come completely clean with her. “I'm seeing someone.”

The pleasure that had been in her eyes when we were talking about Bradley dimmed.

“His name is Dylan. He's new at school this year and I want you to meet him. I like Bradley, but he and I are just going to be friends,
Grandmaman
. He knows I've got a boyfriend.”

“True love should always start with friendship.”

I stared at her in disbelief. “Dylan and I are friends.”

Although the truth was, we had started with spark, moved to anger, then a kiss in an alley, impossible revelations, and now all of the secrets I was keeping from him.

Would a real friend tell him the truth?

“Invite him over, please.”

Wondering if she was being purposefully unclear, I had to ask, “Which one?”

“Both.”

I had a vision of Bradley and Dylan meeting in my living room over tea. One dark, one light. One who had everything, one who had nothing, with me as the tenuous link between them.

It wasn't a pretty picture.

I didn't know how I felt about having either of them over to my house. Certainly Bradley and my grandmother would get along great, but I didn't want her to get the wrong idea about where our relationship could lead. As for Dylan, I wasn't exactly sure how my grandmother would react to him. My guess? Not well.

So instead of agreeing, I said, “I want to ask you something,
Grandmaman
.”

The limousine pulled up in front of our house and we went inside. I looked around at the furnishings, the spot on the wall where the large painting had hung until a couple of years ago.

“Are we in financial trouble?”

Her face paled at my question, her fingers gripping her beaded purse tightly.

“Our finances are nothing for you to worry about,
ma petite
.”

“I'm old enough to know the truth.” When she didn't say anything, I took a more direct approach. “You had a lot of money in the stock market before it crashed, didn't you?”

She nodded.

“How much did you lose?”

Suddenly, she seemed to snap to attention. Looking like her normal self again, she moved across the room to me, took my hands in hers.

“We are in no trouble at all.”

I didn't believe her. And I didn't want to have to say it, but I was more afraid of letting the thought fester in my brain.

“Do you need me to become a courtesan to help pay—”

She squeezed my fingers so hard I yelped instead of finishing my sentence.

“
Non!
” Whenever she was truly upset, she switched into French.

“You have taken care of me your whole life. You've given me everything. You don't need to lie to me,
Grandmaman
.”

“I would never ask you to sell yourself for me.”

You'd think after all the things she'd already said to me, it would be impossible for her to shock me. And yet, the words
sell yourself
did just that. I pounced on them as proof that everything I'd previously thought was right.

“I thought you said being a courtesan wasn't about selling yourself?”

“If your reasons are right, it isn't.”

No. I wouldn't let her have it both ways. “So now you're saying sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad?”

“Yes. Everything has two sides. For me, for my mother, for your mother, it was right.

Good. A life filled with love and pleasure.”

I made a face at the word
pleasure.
I really didn't want to go there.

“I know this has been a difficult time for you,
ma petite
. But I promise you, we will be fine.”

I wanted to press her, find out for sure what the state of our finances was—make her admit how wrong
the life
was—but as the clock in the hall chimed midnight, I realized how truly exhausted she looked.

“It's been a long night,” I said before yawning, my spate of mostly sleepless nights suddenly catching up with me in a big way.

“Don't forget to invite your two men over,” was the last thing she said as I left the room.

But once I'd taken off the dress and my makeup and gotten into bed, my sleepiness disappeared.

If my grandmother did need money, I'd already realized that the usual route—college, entry-level job—wasn't going to cut it. It would be at least six to eight years before I would earn any kind of salary at all. By then my grandmother would be in her late eighties.

I owed her everything. I had to take care of her and make sure she had everything in her later years.

No matter what I had to do.

And the sick truth was, meeting Bradley had changed part of my perception of
the life
.

What?
No.

God, what was wrong with me? No guy was worth giving myself up like that.

I'd find another way to support my grandmother the way she'd supported me. Becoming a courtesan was by no means the only way to accomplish that goal.

* * *

Sunday morning, there was a text message waiting on my phone from Missy.

Need to hear everything!

Since there was no way she was going to let me get away with texting
Nothing to tell
back, I typed
Sunday brunch. The usual?

By the time I got out of the shower, she'd texted to say she was on her way to grab a sidewalk table.

My grandmother was reading the paper in the kitchen, the sunlight streaming in across her back. “Good morning,
ma petite
. Did you sleep well?”