The Proposal (4 page)

She said, "What do
you mean its not what you do?  You stripped off didn't you?"

"But that’s not what
you want."

"You said it's not
what you do. So why did you do it when you came here?"

"Because you paid
me."

"Excuse me?"
Nadine had gotten up from her chair and had begun to pace the floor of her
kitchen. This conversation wasn't going at all how she had imagined it would.
It was exasperating. She was sure he was trying to make it as difficult for her
as he could.

"Calm down,
lady," he ordered. She wasn't happy about the tone he said it in either.

Holding back her rising
anger she asked, "Do you talk to all your customers in that way?"

"You'd be amazed at
how some of our customers want us to talk to them, " he answered in a more
somber tone, "Or the things they expect," he continued, rather
cryptically.

This was not going
anywhere fast.

Nadine felt
flabbergasted. "I need to hire you to pretend to be my
boyfriend."  She said it quickly and waited for his reaction once
those words hit home.

After a short pause, he
said, "Well, that's something I can do. What I don't normally do is the
stripping thing. I was only helping a friend out, a good friend, otherwise I'd
never had done that."

"I see." Were
the only words that came to Nadine's mind.

"You seem a
little...........tired, Nadine." At least he had remembered her
name.  "Care to tell me what exactly you want and when? You said it
was something you'd left to the last minute." 

"Aaaarrgh."
Nadine groaned.

"I'm in the area. I
could stop by quickly. Save us having this awkward conversation on the
phone." 

The idea of him coming by
right now appealed to her immensely. "Alright, come over. We'll discuss the
proposal face to face."

"See you in
ten." He hung up quickly.

Having quickly lost her
appetite, Nadine cleared away her table and checked herself out in the mirror.
She didn't want to have any spinach stuck between her teeth.

Almost ten minutes later,
Ethan arrived on Nadine's doorstep.  She let him in with a genuine smile
on her face, glancing at him as he walked in. He was even better looking than
she last remembered. The wine and vodka jellies had left a hazy memory of the
finer details of his appearance. She was more than pleasantly surprised to see
that he was even better in person than her memory had served to her.

Ethan walked into
Nadine's place and made a mental note of her figure which was spectacularly
shown off to its maximum in her cream wrap over dress. The last time he saw her
she'd been slumming it in her jeans and sweatshirt. Now he saw her for the
slick, professional and beautiful woman that she really was.

"Hello again,"
he said in his friendly and soft voice.

"Hey yourself, come
in."

When they were both
inside in her lounge, Nadine asked, "Drink?"

"No, I'm good thank
you."

"Working?" 
She wondered, remembering their conversation from last time.

"No, not
exactly," he replied.

The memory of him in his
g-string, with a shiny chest dripping with sweat and a perfectly honed body
suddenly flashed into her head.  She couldn't talk to him in the lounge
any longer; there were too many memories of the last time tied to it.

"I know what you're
thinking," he said in a husky voice, taking her lead and following her
into the kitchen.

"You do?"
Nadine asked rather faintly.

"Yeah, you're
wondering if I'm working or not?"

"The thought had
crossed my mind," she answered, with relief. The smell of mushrooms and
egg permeated in the air. It smelled comforting and warm.

She leant against her
worktop, watching him from a safe distance. “I have a proposal for you,” she
said in a tight voice. Then, thinking it might be better to put this to him
sitting down, she sat down at the table which had been cleared.

He sat across from her.
"I can't wait to hear," he smiled, a little too broadly for her
liking. She lost her trail of thought as she stared across at him. This was
going to sound embarrassing. Seeing her discomfort, he started, "You want
me to pretend to be your boyfriend. Is that it?"

She nodded weakly.
Finding her voice she added, "I've got a very important work convention in
Sacramento, next weekend. We leave on Friday, stay Saturday and head back
around Sunday afternoon. All the bigwigs from work will be there. With
partners."  

Ethan was intrigued. “So,
how do I fit into all this?”

"You won't have to
do anything. No stripping, no performing, no dancing, nothing. You just have to
eat, drink, talk to other partners, play some golf, swim, go to the gym. Meet
for dinner and cocktails in the evening. Two evenings and that is it."

"No stripping, no
performing?" he raised his eyes. She wasn't sure if he was reiterating
what she had said or if he was playing with her. She nodded.

This seemed too good to
be true. He ran it by her again, "All I have to do is eat, drink, I don't
play golf, but I can swim and I can go to the gym? It sounds like a holiday.
Sure, I can do that."

"My work colleagues
will be there and we have to pretend to them that we're an item." She said
this quickly, as though she couldn't get the words out fast enough.  Ethan
clasped his hands together in front of him and rested them on the table. He
leaned in closer towards Nadine. "So, regarding the boyfriend bit - do I
have to do anything to prove that?” his eyes had that mischievous look in them
and his lips carried a smile.

Thinking that he was
mocking her, Nadine felt the color rise to her cheeks. "Ethan," she
said evenly, "this is just a business proposal. I will pay you very well,
to pretend for three days to be my boyfriend. Do you think you can do it?"
Her eyes blazed with anger though she was trying to control it.

Softening his tone and
realizing he had taken it too far, he sat back. "Hey, Nadine, I didn't
mean anything by it. Just to clear things up. I'm not a stripper. I'm an
escort. A male escort. This is just a side job, desperate measures and all
that, but it’s temporary. This is what I do. Sometimes I take women out on
dates. It'd be a pleasure to hang around with you for a couple of days." 
Nadine had the feeling that he meant what he said.

"Alright then."

"My daily rate is
five hundred dollars plus expenses."

"I'll pay you eight
hundred dollars per day for three days and I’ll take care of the
expenses."

Why was she increasing
the rate?

"You don't have to
increase the rate. I charge five hundred dollars a day, I told you."

"And I'm happy to
pay eight hundred, I told you." She had no idea why she had increased the
rate. She didn't want him to think she pitied him.  In any case, she didn't
feel she
was
pitying him. It was more that he was helping her out of a
really difficult situation. She wanted to help him out too.

"We have a
deal," he said, putting his hand out and she shook it.  They held the
handshake for a little longer than normal, before letting go.

"Do you think it
might be a good idea to get together before we turn up at the ....umm," he
cleared his throat, "hotel?"

Nadine hadn't thought of
that.  He was right though. If he was to be her boyfriend, they had to get
their facts straight. And then of course they would be sharing a room together
for two nights.  They would be expected to check in around three o'clock
on Friday and then check out late on Sunday morning.

Two days, almost
manageable.
It was the nights she was more worried about.

"Saturday," she
said, thinking aloud.

"Excuse me?"
His brow furrowed as he tried to figure out what she could possibly mean.
 Nadine looked at him with her hazel eyes and Ethan’s heart flipped.

This was one offer
where he didn't mind breaking his unspoken rule.

"Saturday, you’ll
need a tux or something smart for Saturday evening. Do you have a tux?” she
asked, her wide eyes looked at him mockingly. Now it was his turn to feel as
though she was toying with him.

"Tux, yes - it comes
with the territory. Kind of. Like a uniform, if you want to think of it like
that."

She shuddered to think
what he did as a male escort. Yet at the same time she was quite intrigued
about the actual duties required from him in that role. She said, "Good.
Well maybe we ought to get together one evening to get our stories
straight?" 

He watched her bemused
and found himself looking forward to this assignment.

With his other clients,
women who were older, desperate and craving the attention that their husbands
hadn’t given them, his role was simple. He just had to give them his time and
attention. Mostly, he just listened to them and all that these women really
wanted was to be heard. They were lonely. 

But this assignment, with
Nadine felt different. For starters, she was not the average customer. 
She was young, beautiful and obviously smart and he could not work out why she
was single.

Many of the women he met
were older with rich businessmen husbands who were off doing their own dirty
businesses. But Nadine was single. He was confused as to why a woman like her
couldn't get anyone, not even an ex-boyfriend or male friend to escort her to
this type of event.

Nadine leaned forward,
and touched his hand playfully, "Whatever thoughts you're thinking, stop
it," she gave him a cheeky look.

"I was just
wondering," he began, "that how come someone like you doesn’t have a
boyfriend?" 

"I could ask the
same thing of you?" returned Nadine, relieved to have found a way to
deflect the question back to him.

“Shall we just settle on
meeting up one day next week?” he asked her, avoiding her question completely.

“That’s a good idea. I’ll
call you.”

The week of the
convention was more hectic than ever.

It was only going to be a
four day week at work with everyone making their way up to the luxurious
Stormont Hotel in Sacramento on Friday afternoon.

A few people from higher
up in the management chain would go on Thursday evening. Not Nadine though; she
knew she would be late at the office finishing tasks off.

She knew that Sandra
Donnelly would make her way up to the hotel on the Thursday afternoon, a day
earlier than she needed to be there. She had palmed her children off to her
nanny for the four days. Her husband had been instructed to make his way up to
the hotel by Saturday evening at the latest. No doubt Sandra would have had a
few spa treatments pre-booked at her leisure.

As always, Sandra passed
a lot of her workload onto Nadine though she cleverly made sure that she was
the one who signed off the jobs  and always attended the webinars and
online conferences. In this way, it wasn't completely apparent to most people
that Sandra Donnelly only bore the title of the Director of Strategy but did
not contribute much of value to the company.

The other reason Nadine
felt going up on Thursday would be a mistake was that she didn't want to have
an extra day with Ethan.

They had decided to leave
together on Friday afternoon and she would drive. They had arranged to meet at
her place at three o'clock.

On Tuesday afternoon,
Nadine worked through a presentation that she would be giving to the other
senior heads of marketing from around the world. Michael Zimmerman would be
attending this presentation and she really wanted to make a great impression.
This was very important to her.

She had just finished
reading the notes of her speech and didn't like what she had produced so far.
Her phone rang and it was Melissa on the line, “Ethan on line two,
 Nadine." Almost choking at these words Nadine was about to say,
"Who?" when Melissa said, "He sounds so sexy, by the way. 
Putting him through now."  She heard the click and then "Hey
honey, thought I'd give you a call to see how you are."  She could
just imagine that he had a big cocky smile on his face. The thought of him
suddenly brightened her mood. "Hey yourself. How did you get my number? I
didn't tell you where I worked." 

"But you told me
about the marketing convention at The Stormont in Sacramento this weekend, so I
googled it and it told me which company was having their annual convention
there."

"Quite the little
detective aren't you?" she found herself smiling into the phone. She held
it closer to her ear.

"Nothing little
about me honey, I assure you." There it was again.  She could almost
see the mischievous twinkle in those sometimes deep, sometimes bright blue
eyes.

"Do your
conversations always have to head down Smut Alley?" she asked, although
she was enjoying this playing around on the phone.