The Billionaire's Call Girl: A BWWM Billionaire Romance (3 page)

Sleep did not come to her that night. ,Her mind worked over and over through ideas and scenarios. She considered going to the bank to talk to them, but she knew that there was no way that it could be helped.

She considered getting two or three jobs, but her parents said that even if they both got two more jobs on top of the full time jobs they were already working, they could not manage the payments. She had school to think of. At first she thought she would quit school and work to pay off the debt for her parents, but she realized that it would be the supreme slap in their faces to walk away from the very thing that they had given up their home for her to have.

Hours whiled away into the silent night, and the first light of dawn crept around the edges of the world and into her window. As it did, she felt the immeasurable weight she had taken on in the knowledge of what her parents had done for her. She thought about what it would cost their family, not only for her parents and her siblings, but also for the generation to come after them, the generation of grandchildren that her parents had mentioned.

She could scarcely breathe for the sorrow in her heart that was suffocating her. She ran over every scenario in her mind, until there was none left to consider. There was nothing that she or anyone else could do, and that was the end of it.

As her alarm went off, she reached over and touched it softly, thinking to herself that it would be no matter of time at all before that alarm was going off in another home. Probably a rented place. Perhaps she would need to share a room with her siblings.

She pushed herself up out of the bed and readied for the day, but the shower didn't brighten her, nor did her brother and sister teasing each other in the hallway or the dog running around their feet, barking at them. The hot coffee and delicious breakfast that their mother prepared for them did not cheer her up. She was quiet, moving through their regular morning routine as if she was in a dream.

Every step she took felt like it was leading to her last step in the house, and she looked at everything around her with new eyes; eyes that saw a finite timeline in her forever home. The paintings on the walls that were all but invisible to the family now because they had hung there so long, the old curtains that had hung in the windows forever, and the sunlight that came through them.

The worn spot on the kitchen doorway that everyone seemed to touch as they entered the kitchen, just out of habit. All the little things that they didn't notice and took for granted every day; the things that would be gone in no time at all.

She looked around, knowing that she would miss all of it more than she could ever have imagined, and her heart ached as if she was dying. She was saying goodbye before anyone was aware that she knew, and she almost envied her younger brother and sister for their ignorance about it. It was true in this case, what they say: ignorance was bliss.

She picked up her bags for school and her wallet and walked out of the front door, feeling everything more carefully and mindfully. Breathing in the scents of her home, letting her touch linger on the door just a moment longer. All of it was bittersweet.

She sat on the train, staring out the window and watching the city roll by without seeing it at all. Her parents’ words kept echoing through her mind. The reality of her future was bearing down on her, and it felt like everything she knew was being crushed and ripped apart and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

"Excuse me, miss?" the voice came and she was drawn slowly out of her reverie, like being pulled up from deep, dark water toward the surface and coming to as it happened. She looked over and saw an old woman sitting on the seat across from her.

Felicia shook her head a little. "Yes Ma'am?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Do you happen to have a pen on you? May I please borrow one if you do?" the older woman asked politely.

Felicia drew in a deep breath and nodded. "Yes, yes, of course." She opened her wallet and pulled out a pen, handing it to the woman. The woman wrote a few things on a piece of paper she had and then handed the pen back to Felicia, and Felicia tucked it back into her wallet. As she did so, she saw the deep red business card that she had gotten from the older woman at the club the night before. She pulled it out and looked at it.

"Margaret Halstead," she breathed the words in a whisper as she read the card. Ms. Halstead had told her that she would be able to make a lot of money working at her agency. She ran her finger over the card, and turned it over in her hands. An idea was forming in her mind; a reprieve and release from the guilt that her parents’ situation had caused her. She pulled her cell phone from her bag and called the number on the card, her heart tight in her chest, gripped in the thinnest slivers of hope.

The phone was answered after a few rings.

"Hello?" came her pleasant voice. Felicia recognized it from the club.

"Ms. Halstead? This is Felicia Bennett. I met you last night at Le Jardin, and you gave me your card. You said that you had a business opportunity you might be able to offer me.

"Yes, I remember you well, Felicia. Have you given my offer some consideration?" she asked in a friendly voice.

Felicia felt ill, but she thought of her parents and carried onward. "Yes. I'd like to meet with you to discuss it, if I may."

Ms. Halstead sounded very happy about it. "I think that would be in your best interest, Felicia. What are you doing this morning? Do you have time to come in to my office?"

Felicia looked at the train stops yet to come and considered the economics class she had that morning. She was far ahead in the class and it wouldn't make a difference if she missed it once. She bit her lip. It was out of character for her to ditch school for any reason at all, but this was important. This might be the only chance she had at helping her parents.

"I can come meet with you., she said solemnly.

"That's very good news, Felicia. Thank you." Ms. Halstead gave her the address and they arranged to meet within the hour. Felicia hung up, wondering what she was doing with her life and hoping that she was making a good decision.

Ms. Halstead's office was several floors up in a high rise right in the middle of downtown. Her heart pounded all the way up to Ms. Halstead's office, and when the elevator doors slid open, her nerves began to calm slightly. It was a normal looking office; there was dark wood on the walls and the desks matched it.

There were lamps around and a few chairs set up against the far wall. There was a place to hang coats and there was a little coffee and cookie station. She felt like she could be getting an insurance quote.

Felicia walked up to the receptionist at the desk. "I'm here to see Ms. Halstead," she said quietly. "I'm Felicia Bennett."

The receptionist nodded at her and picked up her phone to call Ms. Halstead and then  looked at Felicia with a pleasant smile. "Please have a seat. She'll be out in just a moment."

Felicia dipped her head politely at the receptionist, thanked her, and sat in one of the deeply cushioned chairs in the reception room. It wasn't a normal looking reception room; it was incredibly lavish. There was lush carpeting, fabric facade on the walls and elegant molding along the ceilings. There were marble columns and tables which were set with huge bouquets of fresh flowers, and a stunning chandelier that hung from the center of the ceiling. It looked like no room she had ever been in.

Her nerves were jumbled, and she was positive she couldn't feel any tenser. She was somewhere so different from anything she was used to, waiting for a woman who was going to talk with her about a job she wasn't sure she wanted to do. She closed her eyes and thought of her parents. She owed them far more than it was going to cost her to do what she was sitting in the office to do.

She began to twist her fingers together and was just feeling the tension spread through her when Ms. Halstead walked into the reception area and reached her hand out to Felicia. Felicia stood up and took it with a nervous smile.

"Hello, Mrs. Halstead, how are you doing?" she asked with much more confidence than she felt.

Ms. Halstead nodded and smiled at her. "I'm well thank you, how are you?"

Felicia didn't want the woman before her to know just how she was feeling and she lifted her chin up to give the impression of confidence. "I'm good. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice."

Ms. Halstead turned toward the long hall behind the receptionist’s desk. "Of course! I'm just so glad that you called me. Let's go back to my office where we can talk."

Felicia followed the woman down the long hallway and into her office. Her office was much more luxurious than the reception area. She sat down and Ms. Halstead sat across from her at the enormous black lacquer desk that dominated the room. Her office was designed with an Asian flair with subtle accents of black, white, gold and red. Felicia swallowed her intimidation.

Ms. Halstead gazed at her from across the desk and smiled. "I'm so pleased to see you here, Felicia. I think you'll make a wonderful addition to our circle of ladies, and to be quite frank, I believe that you will be quite popular with our patrons. I have a feeling you'll do very well here with us."

Felicia nodded and smiled. "Thank you, Ms. Halstead. What is it exactly that you do here? What would I be doing here?"

Ms. Halstead leaned forward over her desk and rested her arms on it, looking intently at Felicia.

"We run an escort service for the very elite. You would be an escort. A lady who is paid to date men who wish to have a beautiful woman on their arm, but no wish to be committed to the lady beyond the services that they require," she answered with a professional voice.

Felicia stared at her. "An escort? Like a call girl?" she asked, her voice thinning as her heart began to thud against her chest.

Ms. Halstead nodded. "Exactly. Our services are only for the elite, though; we are very selective about our clientele, and they have very discriminating taste."

Felicia swallowed hard as her mind raced. She would be paid to date men. Rich men. She wondered what that would be like, and then she wondered something else. Something she didn't want to voice, but she had to know the answer to her question before she agreed to take the job.

"Ms. Halstead," she asked softly. "Would I have to... would I be required to have intimate relations with the men?" She managed to get her question out and it made her stomach turn to even think about it.

Ms. Halstead looked at her with an even gaze. "No, of course not, Felicia. This is not that kind of facility. There are some clients, however, who prefer to receive more affection from their ladies, and those clients do pay more for the services that are given to them.

If you were to entertain a client that way, we would certainly charge substantially more for your time, but intimacy is not required by any means. If you aren't comfortable with it, you don't need to worry about doing it. We will let the men who hire you know that they are hiring a woman who declines the intimacy aspect of the agreement. Would that make you more comfortable?"

Felicia sighed in relief. "Much more comfortable." She tilted her head a little and looked at Ms. Halstead with some curiosity. "How does the business work?" she asked.

Ms. Halstead smiled at her. "Well, we hire you on as one of our ladies, we design a sort of portfolio for you that shows all of your... qualities. We put in information about you and photographs of you that we make; we have an in-house photographer that we use.

We put your profile up on our private website, and our clientele are able to review the profiles of the ladies available to them, they select the lady they wish to see, and after each successful date, you are paid for your time. Most of our clients want a lady who will be available to them for events or social gatherings, so that they can have someone on their arm.

Most of them are not looking for companionship for more than just a single night. Some of our ladies have gotten along so well with their dates that they have earned the benefit of repeat clients, and they find themselves with certain men who they date regularly."

Felicia thought it over. It sounded like something that she could do. Date rich men for a big chunk of money and not have to sleep with them. She could certainly help her parents better if she were to take the job.