The Blind Date

by Alice Ward

  I laughed. It had been a long time since my days of hiring escorts, but I couldn’t remember one that had been so self-deprecating, down-to-earth, and well, funny. Most were out for what they could get from me. I’d showered my riches upon them, buying them the luxuries they expected, and they ate it up. But Jewel? She seemed uninterested and almost embarrassed by it.

  “Not so. You make that dress look like a million dollars, not the other way around.”

  “I’m not used to wearing gowns,” she explained, swishing the gauzy fabric at her legs. “And heels this high. I feel like I might trip.”

  If she wasn’t used to it, she didn’t let on. She looked just as elegant as a runway model, but better, because she had those deadly, perfectly proportioned curves. It might have been part of the act.

  “Just stay close to me,” I whispered as we rounded the entrance for the Met.

  I glanced across Fifth Avenue to a five-story, yellow limestone terra-cotta brick mansion, hidden by trees on 82nd Street. It was the type of obscenely wealthy place that most people only dreamed about, with nine bedrooms and nine baths, but now, only my mother lived there, and for half the year.

  Growing up, my bedroom overlooked the museum, but it wasn’t a typical kid’s bedroom. I didn’t collect baseball cards or have posters of my favorite Star Wars characters on the walls. It looked more like one of the galleries across the street. We often had magazines like House Beautiful and The New Yorker coming in to photograph, so my mother ensured the place was showroom quality. Always.

  Reason number 4,392 why I rebelled early, and often, and still didn’t let anyone tell me what the fuck to do with my life.

  We made it to the gala at ten, fashionably late, as my mother would call it. My mother would be there because she hated the Florida heat — she usually moved north from May to October — and lived for these things. Anything with a time and a place and a structure, my mother relished. There were rules, set in stone in my mother’s mind, and she’d raised me to follow them, but I’d fallen from that faith. Now, she viewed me as a lost cause.

  She’d long since given up trying to find me a nice girl to marry, so I had no doubt in my mind that she’d know Jewel was an escort. I’d been bracing myself for her reproachful, disdainful lip-pursing and head-shaking since I’d donned my tuxedo earlier this evening. My mother was an expert at piling on the guilt.

  Good thing the Met was a veritable maze of rooms. I could probably lose my mother after five minutes.

  We climbed the long marble staircase to the front as other couples arrived, each wearing their best. But Jewel? She put them all to shame. There wasn’t a single woman who even came close to her, and I couldn’t keep my eyes on anyone but her. Every time they trailed away, I found them aching to look back at her.

  Other men seemed to be suffering from the same problem, jaws gaping as she walked in, unable to tear their eyes away from the lady in red.

  “I’ve never seen the Met like this,” she said as we walked into the Great Hall. “All these people, so dressed up. It’s like a dream.”

  These days, I rarely even went to the museum when it wasn’t like this. Truthfully, I liked the idea of walking the museum, browsing the exhibits at a leisurely pace on a Saturday afternoon with a cup of coffee in hand. But this was how I got my culture — my parents had always ensured that I’d gotten a lot of culture — since I was a kid. “What’s your favorite collection?”

  Her face lit up. “Well… I like Ugolino and His Sons.”

  I quirked an eyebrow at her. “Is that so?”

  “I did a paper on it and Dante’s Inferno in college. I know it’s gruesome, but the look on his face and his sons’ as they begged him to eat them…” She sighed, her hands pressing to her belly. “And his toes! Have you ever seen more conflicted toes?”

  I laughed, thinking of the marble sculpture. Conflicted toes. I’d honestly never really thought about it.

  “It just… I don’t know. Gets me right here.” She patted her chest. “And I guess that’s what art is supposed to do.”

  I led her forward. “Then European Art and Decorative Sculpture it is.”

  She looked at me, surprised, as a waiter came by with champagne. I took two flutes and handed her one as she said, “Do you know the location of every piece of art in here?”

  I let out a huff. That one, as one of the more popular pieces on display, was an easy one. “There are thousands of pieces of art here,” I told her. “I may not know where a couple of them are.”

  “How? You like art that much?”

  “I probably should have showed you where I grew up,” I said, pointing behind us. “The view from my bedroom window was the Met.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. So, I’m familiar. Whether I like it or not. But I do. I like it.”

  She sipped her champagne as we walked through the Medieval Art hall on the way to her famous sculpture. Massive tapestries and paintings and stained-glass windows with solemn faces stared down at us. I saw a few of the same eveningwear-attired people I’d seen at things like this a thousand times before, owners of companies, dignitaries, but no one I felt compelled to speak with. The gala itself was on another floor. Right now, I had this overwhelming urge to please this woman. And if she was pleased by a sculpture of a starving man contemplating whether to go cannibal on his own offspring, then so be it.

  We made it to the sculpture, and she stood in front of it, staring in silence, her hand clasped over her heart. Conflicted toes. I had to smile. Ugolino was sitting in a way that had his feet piled upon one another, toes crunched up, tense. Definitely conflicted.

  She looked at me, those gorgeous blues shining. “What is your favorite?”

  There was a certain pleasure that accompanied growing up in uptown New York City. Namely, one of the world's greatest art collections became your go-to rainy day activity. Call me spoiled. I’d grown up with each gallery as much a part of my life as my very own bedroom. I’d gone on a thousand school trips to this place. Hell, I’d gotten my first blow job in a hidden corner of Egyptian Art during a field trip from Trinity School, by a redhead whose name I couldn’t remember.

  “I have a lot of favorites,” I said, leading her to the staircase. “I used to be really into the American photographs, but I’ll show you one of my favorites. It’s upstairs.”

  She clung to me as she ascended the staircase, gathering her dress and lifting it carefully so she wouldn’t trip on the hem. If the inexperienced, innocent thing was an act, she was a fantastic actress.

  I took her to 19th and Early 20th European Painting and Sculpture and led her to Rodin’s marble sculpture of Pygmalion and Galatea. “Pygmalion created this sculpture and fell in love with it,” I said, finishing off my champagne.

  “So the goddess of love made her real,” Jewel finished. “I know that story.”

  I nodded. “I don’t know why. I just always liked this particular representation. It has an unfinished quality to it I find compelling.”

  She stared at the piece, her head cocked to one side. “Kind of like how love can blur things. I love the way a sculptor can make stone almost… soft.”

  I looked at her, mesmerized by her in the meager light of the chandeliers above. In this glow, she looked even more beautiful, her lips glossy and sweet. Pygmalion kissed the cold lips of his statue of Galatea until one day, to his surprise, the lips had gone warm. I had a deep urge to lean forward and kiss Jewel right there, to taste the champagne on her mouth. I couldn’t remember a time when I’d ever liked a woman so much that the temptation had been so strong.

  And then I remembered that it didn’t matter. She was with me because I was paying her. If I wanted to nail her at the base of the statue, she’d probably comply as long as I produced the required fee afterward.

  The thought made my spirits sink.

  I didn’t know why. A quick fuck was what I’d wanted all along.

  “Yeah.” I blinked away whatever amorous feelings were leaking
from my eyes and stiffened, then held an elbow out to her. “Shall we go to the ballroom?”

  She took my arm, and I led her to the elegant Charles Engelhard Court in The American Wing, a large, open glassed-in courtyard set with fifty round tables. Blue light shown down upon us, illuminating the three levels of displays above. A string quartet was playing, and the center was cleared for dancing. This particular shindig was the Met’s Spring Gala, an annual event they did in partnership with various businesses to raise money for the Met’s operating expenses. Vaughn Industries had a Founder’s Table for our donation of seventy-five thousand dollars. The ball itself was the same setup as it had been for the past decade, which should have pleased my mother, who liked everything a certain way. I scanned the space but didn’t see her at our table at the head of the room.

  Jewel took in a shaky breath, admiring the statue of a female archer nearest to her, and the sheer enormity of the room. “It’s… elegant,” she said, a blush appearing on her pale cheeks. “Everyone looks so beautiful.”

  I took her hand and found it trembling. Maybe this really was her first time as an escort. No wonder this felt like a real date. I squeezed her hand and had to wonder if this was anything like what she’d expected when she loaded her profile onto Kitn.com. “You, most of all.”

  With that, a thought of her lying on that lounge with her perfect breasts bared sprang into my head, and my cock lurched in anticipation.

  But though my cock wanted to get things going, something wanted me to take my time. I was having fun in this woman’s company. It’d been a long time since I felt that way. Maybe I’d been wrong when I told Gavin I just wanted to fuck. Maybe I’d wanted something else instead.

  As we walked down a set of stairs, a man with a beard waved at me, ushering me toward his group. It was Al Brandeis, the president of TastyMade, the company we’d once been in talks with to acquire. He and my father were old friends, and when Al talked of retiring, it only made sense for us to swoop in and take over their business. We knew the market, after all, since TastyMade was a direct competitor of ours. But then, Yummy Brands had to come in and outbid us, leaving our acquisitions team with their thumbs up their asses.

  “How are you doing, Al,” I said, shaking his hand. I bowed to his wife, a red-haired, portly woman with moles on her face. “Marge.”

  “Fine, fine.” Their eyes trailed over to Jewel.

  “This is Jewel,” I said, presenting her. Until now, I hadn’t thought of how I would announce her. I fumbled for a second before adding, “My date. This is Al Brandeis and his wife, Marge.”

  She shook hands with them very cordially, a sweet smile on her face. “It’s nice to meet you both.”

  “How are you enjoying your retirement?” I asked.

  The older man shrugged. “Could be better. Wished we could’ve come up with something with you guys. You know your father always meant a lot to me. He retired to Florida, from what I hear?”

  I nodded, but his semi-apology made my jaw tighten. If he’d wished us to acquire him so hard, he could have consulted us before accepting our competitor’s offer. I forced myself to smile and focused on his comment regarding my father. “On the golf course morning till night. You know him.”

  I excused myself, feeling my temperature rising as we walked toward the elaborate buffet, complete with ice sculptures shaped like some of the more prominent works of art in the museum. Nothing about this gala ever changed. Jewel leaned over to me and whispered, “What’s wrong?”

  I looked at her, those big blue eyes blinking at me. “Nothing, why?”

  “You don’t like those people?”

  “No, I…” I supposed it didn’t matter what I told her. She was an escort, and after tonight, unless I paid for her services again, which I had no intention of doing, I wouldn’t see her again. “I had an acquisition deal that went south, and I’m a little sore about it because they didn’t give us a chance to counteroffer.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  She said it as if she felt my pain personally. Warm, caring, innocent, hot as hell… this woman was striking all the right chords within me.

  I almost wished she would stop.

  Because the second I fucked her, she would stop. And for the first time ever, I felt like I was in danger of wanting more.

  I stopped at the end of the buffet line. I really could use some actual, solid food, none of this crappy finger food that wouldn’t fill a real man’s stomach. Steak. Mashed potatoes. Something that stuck to a person instead of crudité and quiches. But that’s all they ever served at these things. “Do you want anything to eat?”

  She shook her head. “Do you want to dance?”

  Dance. Yeah. I fucking wanted to dance. I wanted to hold this beautiful, magnificent creature against my body and forget about the business for just one fucking night. “Hell, yes.”

  I took her hand, leading her to the center of the dance floor.

  She felt so damn good pressed up against me. She smelled like vanilla cake, and soon, I didn’t want stick-to-your-ribs food. The only thing I had an appetite for was her. She twirled with effortless grace in my arms, smiling up at me like I was the only man in the room, and I kept repeating to myself that this was one date I wouldn’t mind spending a little extra time with afterward.

  And then I remembered that that would probably cost me extra.

  Somehow, I kept forgetting. This was not a date. She was merely a rental, a warm body to keep me company for one night only.

  She was charming, sweet, and every man’s dream, and she knew it, because she was available, for a price, to every man in the room.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Juliana

  When I was a little girl and my parents, both doctors, were away at the office, my nanny would read me tons of books. My favorite, and the kind I had the most of, were princess books. I couldn’t get enough of those fairy tales, where the prince found the fair maiden and courted her, then saved her from the evil dragon. I always wished that I could be the princess, sharing a waltz on the ornate ballroom floor with the prince of my dreams, surrounded by guests who were watching us, sighing with admiration.

  As I grew up, those fantasies sounded impossible. Stupid even.

  But this? This was like my childhood fantasies come true.

  Ordinarily, I’d never have made it down the steps before running for a column to hide behind. As the ultimate wallflower, I would’ve been so afraid of doing something wrong that I would have shrunk into a corner. I’d have been worried I would trip down that long flight of stairs, step on his foot as we danced, or say something stupid that would make my date “go to the restroom” and disappear, never to be heard from again.

  That was how Juliana Hurley’s dating life usually went.

  But Zachary Vaughn had a way of giving me courage. Forget the dress, the glitz, and the glamour. He always had his warm hand in mine, or on the small of my back, encouraging me forward. He was constantly whispering how beautiful I was, like my guardian angel, so sincere that it took my breath away. He stayed at my side, treating me like I was some precious jewel he wanted to take care of.

  And he was a fantastic dancer. I’d waltzed, what, four times in my life, usually at family weddings with cousins or men my father’s age. But Zachary twirled me around the dance floor as if he’d been doing this all his life, and often. His hand was strong against my bare back, and he leaned in, nuzzling my hair with his nose, his warm, champagne-sweet breath on my ear, sending fireworks of excitement up and down my spine. Every once in a while, his hand would stray southward, caressing my ass.

  He wanted me.

  But even more than that, he believed in me. Every wall I had built around my heart, from those high school days? As the night wore on, I felt them crumbling down.

  And before long, I knew that whatever he asked of me, I would say yes.

  “So, you go to a lot of these things?” I asked him as he stared into my eyes.

  He gave me a lopsided
smile that made him look like the little boy he’d once been. “Probably too many. They get rather dull after a time.”

  And then he — holy cow — he dipped me. I just went along with it, letting him curve me gracefully over his arm, and somehow, I wound up back in his arms again.

  I thought those things only happened in movies.

  I looked around, and nobody seemed to be laughing at us, so we must have done it right. Of course, he’d done it right. Did this man do anything wrong?

  “Dull?” I was anything but bored, though. No, I could have whirled around the dance floor, in his arms, forever. “You don’t like these galas?”

  “Not particularly.” He smiled down at me, making me feel like the only woman in the room. “But I like this one… now.”

  My heart fluttered. I suddenly felt like Cinderella and had this flash of sympathy for her. How did she ever go back to being a scullery maid after dancing with the prince? As thrilled and excited as I was, I knew this would end. This was a first date. A blind date at that. And I never could be sure what I did wrong, but I had to admit, I had a way of making first dates only dates. Come Monday, I’d be back to my normal life, and I’d no longer be the belle of the ball in this fairy tale world.

  Something like four songs later, he stiffened in my arms, and I realized he was looking across the dance floor at a stately elderly woman with a short, well-groomed silver bob of hair. She was wearing an elegant, pale pink lace evening gown, and watching him.

  “You know her?” I asked.

  He whirled me around again. “A little. She’s my mother.”

  A little? I could’ve said the same thing about my mother. “I thought you said your parents were down in Florida?”

  “My father is. My mother doesn’t like the heat, and all of her society friends are up here, so she comes back to the city from May to October,” he murmured as our dance slowed to almost a near stop.

  He stole another glance at the woman, who was standing at the edge of the dance floor. Her lips were moving slightly, like she was silently singing some siren’s song to reel him toward her. “Do you want to introduce me?”