“So if you don’t need anything else, I’ll just be heading out…” she said.
She started to turn to leave, but then he said, “One more thing, Josie…”
She stopped. “Yes?”
His face became stone cold serious. “I want you off my mother’s payroll.”
Her heart sank even though she’d been expecting this. “You’re firing me.”
“Yeah, I’m firing you.”
The thought of going back to her grandmother’s unheated trailer made her stomach fill up with sick, nauseous dread. But she refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing just how much she needed this job.
“Fine,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t sound as strangled as she felt. What was she going to do? How would she survive? She knew she wouldn’t be eligible for unemployment considering the short amount of time she’d been there. Maybe she could file for welfare, but how long would that take? What would she live on until then?
Stupid, stupid, stupid… why couldn’t she have just swallowed her pride and taken whatever Beau Prescott dished out? Anything was better than the life that now sat in front of her: no college for sure, and her mother would be rolling in her grave to know her daughter had been reduced to welfare after all the sacrifices she had made to ensure Josie received a better start in life than she had.
She turned to leave again, her mind spinning with this new set of problems, but then Beau said, “Hold up, Josie, I’m not done.”
She turned back to him, furious now. “It doesn’t matter if you’re not done, Beau Prescott. I’m done with you. I just want to go pack my things and try to forget I ever let myself get to the point where I was forced to take a job from you.”
“You weren’t working for me. As your little phone call proved, you were working for my mother. Didn’t you say she was the one signing your paychecks?”
“Paycheck,” she answered, folding her arms. “So far I’ve only earned one for the week of work I did, getting the house ready before you actually got here.”
His face darkened then. “If you’re looking for another job, I could give you one.”
She scrunched her forehead. “First you fire me and now you’re offering me another job?”
“Like I said, I don’t want you on my mother’s payroll.”
She frowned. “What exactly would this job involve, Mr. Prescott?”
“Basically, it would be your old job. Plus…” He pointed in her direction. “You…” He then pointed at himself. “Me… Sex. Whenever and however I want it. And I’ll double whatever my mother is paying you.”
She stared at him for what had to be a full minute, she was that shocked. In fact, she’d probably have kept on like that if he hadn’t asked, “So what’s your answer?”
She had to swallow, because the first time she tried to respond, she found her throat had gone completely dry. “No!” she said, yanking her arm from his grip. “The answer’s no, of course!”
His jaw tightened. “How about if I triple it?”
Her eyes went wide. “I’m not a hooker, Beau Prescott. How dare you—”
“I know you’re not a hooker. A hooker wouldn’t give me near this much trouble. But you’re the only one here, so…” He seemed to think about it. “Fine, one-hundred times whatever my mother was paying you. But that’s my final offer.”
Her first instinct was to say no, a very emphatic no, possibly followed up by a slap and a very dramatic exit, but against her will, the hourly wage he was now offering her popped into her mind’s eye. It flashed at her like a neon sign, while the right side of her brain ran a calculation. With a salary like that, it would take her less than a month to pay off her bills, pay for the rest of her college courses, and keep Ruth’s House funded for another year. Just four weeks and she’d be an independent woman: debt-free, and more importantly, Prescott-free.
Her voice shook. “Are you serious?”
He went very, very still, and the humid air in the room seemed to hang heavier, thick with anticipation.
“I don’t lie,” he said. “And I don’t make offers that I don’t intend to honor.”
“Yes, but—” She swallowed. “I just want to make sure I heard you right.”
He took a step closer to her, leaving nothing but a thin sliver of air between them. “If you sleep with me, I’ll pay you one hundred times whatever my mother was paying you. Deal or no deal?”
Her pride was screaming, “No!” But her brain was busy laying out what she could have if she ignored her pride and took the deal. There was also something else rooting for her to give in—something inside of her that was more than a little interested in the prospect of sleeping with the grown man version of Beau.
But she ignored that part and straightened herself up, lifting her chin and trying her best to act like the kind of jaded person who would actually take a deal like this. “You don’t know how much your mother is paying me. How about if it’s more than you can afford?”
“I’ve got a trust fund I’ve never touched, and I’ve been a professional quarterback all my working life.” His voice sounded thick and dark when he said, “Believe me, I can afford you.”
“I can’t be your...” She pushed the first word that came to her mind, “whore,” out of the way and finished with “…whatever you want me to be forever. There has to be some limits.”
He crooked his head to the side as if this entire conversation was boring him. “Name your terms.”
“I have plans for the spring, plans that don’t include working for you. So I can only stay until then.”
He shrugged. “Fine. I plan to be back in L.A. by then anyway. Once I get my sight back…”
She finished the sentence for him. “You won’t need me anymore. You’ll go back to Los Angeles and your groupies, and everything will be back to the way it was before, just the way you like it.”
“So it’s a deal.”
She gulped, trying her best not to think about her mother. “Yeah, I guess it is. When do I—I mean, um, we—start?”
There was a moment of crackling silence. Then he answered, “Now.” And his lips came crashing down on hers.
10
He hadn’t expected her to say yes. Of all the ways he had thought she might respond to his proposal, pitched half out of frustrated anger and half out of desperate need, the last one would have been yes.
But when he offered her one hundred times her current salary, she had gone quiet, so quiet, all he could hear were the last drips of water falling from the showerhead and the winter wind roaring outside the bathroom window. Then there was another sound, her shoes squeaking against the tile floor as she turned back to face him.
He braced himself then, thinking she’d say something derisive or maybe even slap him, but she’d hadn’t done either and though she hadn’t actually left the bathroom, her voice sounded faraway when she asked, “Are you serious?”
He had to hold on to himself very tightly, freeze himself to the spot in order to fight the impulse to close the space between them and take her into his arms. Just the hint that she might be open to sharing a bed with him….
But he realized what a fragile thing this possible agreement was, so though he got as close to her as possible, he kept himself from actually reaching out and touching her as he answered her next few questions. He forced himself not to laugh when she asked if he was sure he could afford it.
The truth was, not only could he afford it, he would have paid twice what he was offering if she had even hinted that was what it would take—that was how desperate he was to have her.
Part of him realized how weak this was, that he, Beau Prescott, one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL was offering a woman money to be with him. Not out of convenience, but because that was the only way he could have her.
But the other part of him didn’t give a damn. If money was the only way he could get Josie and end the torment of having her so close without being able to touch her, then that was what he’d do w
ithout hesitation or conscience.
Still, he must have had some pride left because when she said she was only willing to stay until spring, he shrugged it off, and said. “Fine. I plan to be back in L.A. by then anyway. Once I get my sight back…”
“You won’t have any need of me. You’ll go back to L.A. and your groupies, and everything will be back to just the way you like it,” she concluded.
His offer was more than that of bored rich guy, but he had no intention of letting her know about his ongoing obsession with her.
“When do I—I mean, um, we—start?”
A gentleman would have given her some time to adjust to the thought of becoming his paramour. Beau was no fucking gentleman.
“Now,” he practically growled, before doing what he had been dying to do since she came back into his life a week ago. Kiss her. Kiss her like the man he was now, in order to satisfy the boy he had been back then.
* * *
Josie was completely taken aback by that kiss. From what she’d seen in the tabloids over the years, Beau had been with countless women, all prettier and way more famous than she was. She’d expected him to be all smooth swagger, to take her back to his bed in the next room and claim the girl who had sworn she’d never work for him with cocky disdain.
But there was nothing smug about the way he kissed her; it felt more like an attack than a cashed in chip. And his beard scraped against her skin as his mouth devoured hers with an almost desperate hunger. If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought he was actually attracted to her and not just looking for any warm body to share his bed.
“Josie, Josie…” he said, coming up for air, “…we need a bed.”
“A bed?” Josie repeated.
“Yeah, a bed, and since you’re always wanting to help me, I’m going to let you lead me to it.”
He stood there, waiting. Waiting, she realized, for her to make the next move, for her to lead him to the location that would seal her fate as a woman who would sleep with a man in exchange for money.
Quickly, she grabbed his hand and led him out of the bathroom and over to the bed. Like ripping off a Band-Aid, she thought to herself. It was better not to contemplate it too long, just do it.
She placed him right at the bed’s front edge and said, “You can sit down.”
“You sit down, too,” he said.
Her heart drummed in her chest as she took a seat at the far corner of the bed. But he said, “Closer.”
She moved infinitesimally closer.
“I felt the bed move a little bit. But I’m not sure you actually moved.”
“I did,” she assured him, trying to keep the tremble out of her voice.
“Now, Josie, a deal’s a deal. Don’t make me work for something I’m paying good money for.”
Guilt and shame roiled in her stomach, but nonetheless she forced herself to plop herself down right next to him. “No, I’d never want you to have to work hard for anything, Mr. Prescott,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
A shadow of a smile crossed over his face. “Now that’s the Josie I remember. Punishing you for that mouth of yours is going to be fun.”
He reached up and stroked the side of her face with a large palm, and she flinched. Just like that, her former sass disappeared. Wayne had always accused her of the same thing, telling her she deserved his punishments, because she couldn’t keep her mouth closed.
“Oh, hell, now you’re trembling,” he said.
She tried to stop, but found she couldn’t. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m trying not to.”
He gave her an irritated sigh. “Try harder. Look, I know I’m blind now, but imagine me the way I used to be. Back then just about every other woman in America would be paying for the chance to sleep with me. Literally. A few of my groupies even paid people off in order to get near me. I’d walk into my hotel room for an away game and it would be like, boom! Two, sometimes three or four naked girls on my bed. Surprise!”
She held herself as stiff as possible in order not to shake, her hands squeezed tight in her lap. “That must have been really nice for you.”
Beau sat there silent for seconds on end, and she began to wonder if he wasn’t about to call the whole thing off, having seen how poorly equipped she was to handle being somebody’s consort.
But then he said, “Why don’t you start by telling me what you’re wearing now.”
She looked down at her clothes. “A plaid shirt and some jeans.”
She expected an insult about her non-sexy wardrobe choices or worst, another story about his groupies. But he went still again, as if trying to hold himself back. “Unbutton the shirt.”
Tentatively, she began to do as he said.
“Are you doing it?” he asked.
“Yeah, I am,” she answered, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I tell you what,” Beau said. “Why don’t you give me my money’s worth and narrate what you’re doing while you’re doing it.”
“Narrate?”
“Like when I first came here and you wanted to talk me through everything you were doing like I was some kind of helpless invalid.”
Her eyes widened at his misinterpretation of her sincere actions. “I wasn’t trying to treat you like you were helpless, I was just trying to—”
He cut her off with a long, slow shake of his head. “Last I checked, I wasn’t paying you to argue with me. You’re so big on calling me Mr. Prescott these days, from now on when I make a request, all I want to hear from you is, ‘Whatever you say, Mr. Prescott.’”
Was he serious? She clamped her lips together to keep back an angry reply.
“Whatever you say, Mr. Prescott.” she finally answered after a brief wrestling match with her pride. Then she began narrating in a monotone between clenched teeth. “Right now I’m unbuttoning my shirt. Three more buttons to go. One . . . two . . . three. . .”
“Take the shirt all the way off.”
She began to do as he said.
“I don’t hear you narrating.”
“I’m pulling one arm out and now the other.” Her cheeks flamed. “And now I’m sitting here in my bra.” She didn’t add, “feeling real self-conscious.”
“Details, details,” he said.
It took her a moment to understand what he was getting at. “You want me to tell you what the bra looks like?”
He half-smirked at her. “I want you to do your job. You wouldn’t lead me up the stairs without telling how many of them there were, would you?”
“It’s nothing special,” she said. “Just two triangles of cotton.”
“Take it off.”
“I’m taking it off,” she said. “Now I’m sitting here naked from the waist up.”
“Draw me a picture of what that looks like.”
Embarrassment swirled inside her stomach as she answered, “I’m all-right looking, I guess. I mean, I’m not big-chested like most of your girlfriends.”
“How do you know what my girlfriends look like?” he asked. “You been checking up on me, Josie Witherspoon?”
Yes. When she’d still been living in Atlanta, she had flipped through a few celebrity magazines in the supermarket to see if he was in them. But out loud she said, “You seem like the kind of guy who’d prefer a chest over substance.”
“Don’t go discriminating, now,” Beau said, his Alabama drawl in full effect. “You can’t judge a girl’s brains by her boobies.”
He suddenly covered her breasts with his large hands. And she gasped when she discovered that despite his trust fund background, his hands were rough and callused, probably from years of throwing footballs.
She also gasped because of what the fingers on his right hand were touching. A short thin puckered line. “What’s this?” he asked.
“A scar,” she answered.
“How did you get it?”
“It’s a long, stupid, mood-killing story.”
Not a lie, but not exactly a truth either. She
waited with baited breath to see if he’d question her further.
“It feels like you got more than a handful, which is enough for me.” To her great relief, he moved on from the scar, caressing the undersides of her breasts while his rough thumbs worked her nipples.
Soon the tension of the scar conversation was replaced by something else. A delicious thread of desire licked down her stomach, and when she looked down, her nipples were standing at attention. He dipped his head and pulled one into his mouth, and the warm, wet sensation made her forget the previous conversation all together as her lips parted on a moan.
He gave her engorged nipple a few long, lazy tugs before he said, “Tell me how this is making you feel.”
“Nice,” she said.
He stroked her nipple with his tongue again. “Just nice?”
“Good,” she added. Then she moaned when he drew her breast into his mouth and sucked on her nipple quite a bit harder. “Really good. You’re sucking on my nipple, but I can feel it down there, too.”
“Down there? Tell me where. Exactly.”
Embarrassment flooded her otherwise aroused senses. “You know where, Mr. Prescott.”
“I know I know where, but I want you to tell me.”
“Down below, inside my kit kat.”
She felt silly using such a childish word, for not being the grown woman an exchange should require her to be. But she didn’t have a lot of experience with being sexy.
Wayne had preferred for her to lie there, quiet and docile, while he moved on top of her. He’d never asked that she actively participate in their lovemaking, especially not like this.
She expected Beau to tease her about not using the right words, for not talking sexy like his hotel room groupies, but instead he said, “Take off the rest of your clothes and lay back on the bed.”
She did as he asked, but once she was lying down, she had to fight the urge to cover her chest and womanhood with her arms and hands even though she knew he couldn’t see her, that’s how self-conscious this made her.
You’re just an object to him, she reminded herself. A warm body. He doesn’t care what you look like.
His Pretend Baby Page 21
