I nodded. “Yeah, it’s broken.”
“Broken love?”
Again, I couldn’t find the words so I just nodded and leaned back into him.
“Then that is what it shall be named. They will be hung together and labeled Broken Love.”
Of course it would. Broken love. That’s all I’ve ever had. It’s all I know. How very fitting.
Chapter 8
My time with Alec was going to end soon. Eight days to be exact. We had two more pieces to finish and I’d yet to leave this warehouse. I’d seen absolutely nothing of Seattle and even though the sun was shining now, I doubted Alec would want to leave. The last few days he’d been deep into adding finishing touches on each painting. He said he’d add something to them every day, almost to the point of no return when they’d need to be put up on the walls at the exhibit a week from today. The day after, I’d be leaving Seattle. Finally going home between clients.
Home.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t referring to LA. I was headed to Vegas. I needed to see Dad and I was being forced to make my second payment in person. Give ole’ Blaine a face-to-face meeting. Not my idea. Part of the deal. Son-of-a-bitch. I should have known all those years ago that getting involved with Blaine was bad news. Never failed. I always got myself into situations with men. At least now, I was being paid to and after the better part of a month it ended. Move on. No drama. Just a job. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.
Wes and Alec didn’t feel like a job. They were nice men that I cared about…deeply. Men any woman would jump at the chance to commit to. Not me. Not even an option. Though I didn’t believe that, even in different circumstances, my time with Alec would last longer than a few months. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed him, thoroughly, and he definitely appreciated having me around. Only it wasn’t a relationship to build a foundation on. He needed me for his work. I needed him for the money. In the middle of that, we formed a bond that survived on physical attraction and friendship. Nothing more. Wes, however, was another story altogether. Wes was the kind of man you fawned over, bragged to your girlfriends about, dreamed of marrying one day. He was not the love em’ and leave em’ type, even though, at the beginning, he tried to go that route—until it no longer worked for him and he’d asked me to stay.
Wes asked me to stay. With him. For him. So we could be an us.
I sighed loudly looking around the empty room and out at the sunny day beyond the tall windows. Alec needed to take me out. Period. I’d been in this warehouse for over two full weeks. Stick a fork in me, I was done.
Just as I was heading to the elevator to shanghai Alec, my cell rang.
“Hello?” I asked the caller without looking at the display.
“Good afternoon doll-face. How’s my best money maker doing?”
I rolled my eyes and slumped into the chair near the door. “Hey, Aunt Millie.”
“What did I say about calling me Millie? It’s Ms. Milan to you, baby girl,” she reminded me and which I continued to ignore.
Even though she couldn’t see me, I shook my head. “No dice. Never gonna happen. You changed my diapers, you know me better than my own mother—your loser sister—does. It will always be Millie, Auntie.”
“Ugh. Don’t remind me of what an old crone I really am. You might give me a complex. Which reminds me...” She paused and I heard a scratching noise, probably her making a note. “...to call my surgeon and get my Botox freshened up.”
I groaned. “That’s nasty, Auntie. Don’t put shit in your face. You could stay that way.”
“God willing!” she responded jovially. Millie chuckled then got down to business. “Anyway, the reason for my call is Mr. March. You’re headed to Chicago!” Buttons over a keyboard rang through the receiver. I planted a hand to my forehead.
“Chicago.” Never been there. Hell, I’d never been anywhere aside from Nevada and California. “Who’s the lucky guy this time?” I responded sarcastically.
She clucked her tongue. “Anthony Fasano. Big restaurateur. Owns the largest chain of Italian Restaurants across the nation. You know, Fasano’s?”
“Holy shit! I’ve eaten there like a million times. Gin and I love Fasano’s. Best Italian in Vegas!”
“Yeah, well, Anthony Fasano inherited the twelve hundred store chain of restaurants throughout the US when his father passed away last year. Apparently, the family is big on him finding a wife and having an heir. He’s the only male out of five children so you are coming in to be his on and off again long distance girlfriend, now fiancé from the West Coast. He’s bringing you in so you can meet the family and get the heat off his tail.”
“This sounds like all kinds of Jerry Springer.”
“Look Mia, we only care that they pay the handsome fee for your pretty hiney. What it entails doesn’t really matter. Board meeting, social event, muse, pretending to be someone’s fiancé to fool their family…” I could practically hear her shrug. “Doesn’t matter to us. Just do your job. Besides, another fine male specimen. You could make your extra twenty percent. Speaking of, you received an additional twenty percent on your fees deposited into your account by Mr. Channing and just yesterday by Mr. Dubois. Seems like you’re having a good time,” she remarked.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“Besides the fact that you’re making a mint…”
“No! Yes. That. Wes and Alec paid me…for sex?”
I closed my eyes and felt my heart stop beating. “What the fuck?” I whispered, a deluge of tears formed in masses, ready for the dam to burst and set them free.
“Doll face, they’re supposed to pay you. I’m surprised you didn’t notice it earlier. Mr. Channing requested your bank routing information and transferred the money in before you left Malibu. Mr. Dubois had it posted by one of his assistants yesterday. What’s the problem?”
I shook my head and clenched my hands into fists wanting nothing more than to pound both into the nearest wall. Heat flooded my body as if I was hot lava burning a path down a volcano. “I gotta go. Send me the info on the next client.” Abruptly, I hung up pressed a few buttons and hit Send.
The phone rang a few times. Just enough for my rage to reach boiling.
“Hey you?” Wes’s voice came through the line all salt and sand. “I was just thinking about you…”
“Save it. What the fuck do you think you are playing at?” My voice was razor sharp and held no protection against the bloody sting.
“Excuse me, back up. What’s the matter?” He sounded concerned, but it was all bullshit. Everything between us was a total fucking lie.
“The money, Wes! How could you do that?” My voice croaked trying to get the ugly words out.
“Didn’t you get it? Oh my god. Is your dad okay? I can come out. I’ll pay whatever you need. Tell me you’re okay, Mia!” he roared through the line.
“My dad is fine. Still in a coma. I wasn’t talking about what I owe the sharks. I was talking about how you could deposit the money for being with me. Intimately. Or was it just fucking to you?”
His voice was raw when he responded, filled with emotion. “It was never about the fucking money, Mia, and you know it as well as I do!” I could hear the fight in his voice, the attempt at holding back his own frustration.
“Then why? Why would you treat me like your whore!” The tears streamed down my cheeks faster than I could wipe them away.
“No. Christ, no! Don’t you dare say that. Mia, it wasn’t like that.”
“Oh no? Then why is an extra twenty thousand dollars sitting in my account from you! Millie told me so!”
“Who the fuck is Millie?”
“My Aunt. Ms. Milan. It’s her escort service. Ring any fucking bells? Ding, ding, ding!”
“You work for your aunt?”
I ground down on my teeth, anger filling the sadness and replacing it with white-hot rage. “Not the fucking point, Wes! I thought what we had meant something. That’s why I didn’t tell you about the fee! I
would never have made you pay it. I’m not a call girl! I was with you like that because I wanted to be, not because you were paying me.”
“Mia, sweetheart, listen to me. It’s in my contract. Besides, I wanted you to have that money. You wouldn’t let me pay off the sharks to help your dad. At the very least, I thought you could use that to help get you out of their debt faster. I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you.” There was a long pause where I didn’t hear anything but a deep sigh. “Fuck! I’m sorry. Mia, you gotta believe me. I would never think that about you. I care about you. So much…” he whispered the last part. “I miss you. More than I should. I’m…tell me what to say to make this better.”
I sucked in a huge breath and stared out the window. Everything looked really green after so many days of rain and now sun. “Wes, it hurt. What you did. But…”
“But what?” He sounded like a man who was grasping at straws, at anything that would get him out of the hole he’d dug.
I closed my eyes and swallowed the lump in my throat. “I get why you did it. It’s going back...the money.”
“No, sweetheart, no. Please let it help you get out of this sooner. It’s selfish, I know, but...” His breath was ragged coming through the line. “Maybe it will bring you back to LA sooner. Help your sister with college. Whatever you need. Mia, I just want to help you. Please just let me do this one thing.”
“Wes…”
“Please.”
“Fine.”
“Thank you.” Wes murmured softly, the way a lover does. “Are we gonna be okay? Are we still…”
“Friends,” I offered.
He chuckled low in his throat. It was the most beautiful sound I’d heard in three weeks. “Yeah, friends,” he finished.
“We are. I gotta go.”
“Your client?” His words were flat, held no emotion.
I nodded even though he couldn’t see. “I miss you too you know.”
“You do?”
“I do. We’re gonna be okay. Catch you later?”
“You know where I am, sweetheart. You’ve got the key.”
“Bye, Wes.” I hung up before I could hear his reply. Hearing it would make me want to jump through the phone and kiss him, soothe him, make him better. Make me better. At least he did what he did to help and truly didn’t realize what message he’d sent to me.
I am no man’s whore.
Time to deal with Alec.
***
“Ma jolie! I am ready for you. We must do stills for “Selfish Love,” Alec bustled the moment I entered the loft warehouse. He ushered me to the white sheet that had been spread over padding. “Clothes off, we mustn’t waste any time.”
Before I could express the rage simmering within me about the money, he’d whipped my top over my head and was undoing my pants. Instantly, the space between my thighs heated at his insistent caresses. Traitorous body.
“Frenchie, stop! I need to talk to you.”
“Non. Remove your clothes, but leave your lingerie on.” He moved from me to the ladder. His movements were quick, precise and not helping the situation. Alec was knee-deep into his creative headspace—that place where he’d stare blankly or paint incredibly fast, seemingly without seeing what he was doing. It was downright strange.
“Alec, I need to speak to you,” I tried again as one of his attendants tugged at my feet trying to get me to remove my jeans. I did what they wanted, preferring to get this part over with. When I was left standing in a standard white t-shirt bra and matching simple bikini briefs, the attendant helped get me settled. The hair chick Alec hired to be on hand started fussing with my hair, making it sweep out as if I’d lain down, yet my hair was perfectly sprawled out.
Then one of them came forward with the red paint. “No!” I pushed a hand out. “I told you, Alec. I needed to speak to you. About the money that appeared in my account yesterday?” I gritted my teeth and waited for him to look at me. He didn’t. Instead, he fussed with his camera, the lighting, yelled out commands until finally he answered me.
“Oui, I had it done yesterday,” he said absently while looking through the lens of his camera.
“Why?”
“Place your hand into your panties, close your eyes and pretend you’re having fun with yourself.”
“Excuse me?”
Alec sighed and his jaw clenched tight, the muscle at the corner beating a rapid tempo. “Pay attention, Mia. We have…”
“We have much to do, yeah I know,” I growled in response. “I’ve heard that a time or two before.”
His gaze flicked to mine like a bullet from a rifle, his eyes narrowing. “Then you know I am on a short deadline. The exhibit is in one week, there are two more paintings to be done. This one and one more I have yet to visualize. Now what is your problem? I sent the money, you received it, oui?”
“Yes, Alec, but…” I looked around. There were at least ten people hanging around, which was unusual for a racy photo day. He usually did those in private. “I want to talk to you alone.”
“And we will, once these photos are done.”
With a sigh of resignation I nodded and did what he said. Only the pictures weren’t working, which made him a bear to deal with. Eventually, he kicked the staff out.
“Today has been a waste,” he said, anger dripping from his lips. His long artist’s fingers went into his hair and he tugged at the tie that held the massive mane of hair back, allowing it to fall forward. Alec paced and mumbled in French.
“Well what did you expect? You want me to finger myself in front of a room full of people, not to mention while I’m pissed at you?”
He stopped pacing, his head jutting back, his hands going to his hips. Almost reminded me of a chick. A hot, manly chick, but the hands-on-hips thing was a total girl move.
“And what have you got to be mad about?” His tone was laced with piss and vinegar. It ruffled my feathers just enough to rekindle the fire that I’d kept banked for the last couple hours.
I leaned up and crossed my legs. “You paid me for sex, that’s the problem!”
He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “And you’re upset with this? Why?”
“I’m not you’re whore! That’s twice today a man has treated me like I was their fucking whore. I didn’t have sex with you because of the money! Jesus Christ, why are men so dense?!” I screamed into the open room. The sound echoed off the walls louder than I intended. He cringed.
“We had sex. Your contract states you are to receive twenty percent more for taking off your clothes, and/or having sex.”
Groaning, I stood up and walked right up to him. “I thought you were making love to me?” I spat.
“I did. We were. Unfortunately, the eyes of the law might not see it that way.”
“The eyes of the law see that as prostitution! The rule was one of those unwritten things you just do to skate the law with. Jeez.”
“Then unwrite it from your contract. Ms. Milan has the item as an add-on note. No, it isn’t written in the fine print, but your enforcer ensures you receive it. Plus, you did get naked many times for the art. The fee is owed to you for that alone. Now, you tell me how I should take that, chèrie? Hmm?
My shoulders slumped and my head fell down. Shit. It wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t doing anything wrong; he was following what he thought were the rules. It was official; I was an idiot.
At that point, he could have berated me, made me feel worse than I did, but he put his long, strong arms around me and held me while I wallowed in my own self-pity. It wasn’t the men that had me believing I was a whore. It was me. My own insecurities had crept up and wreaked havoc on my psyche.
“I’m sorry.”
“Shhh, it’s okay. I can imagine this is hard on you.”
Within the warmth of his arms I reasoned with myself. Told myself I knew what I was and what I wasn’t. No dollar bill, or misunderstanding, or even Millie would change that about me. I was a lot of things, a daughter, a sister, a fri
end, an actress of sorts, I was this man’s muse but I wasn’t a streetwalker, call girl, or a whore. A slut maybe, but not whore.
Comfortable with how I’d worked it out in my head, I kissed Alec with everything I had left in me. Once done, I leaned back, walked over to my spot on the floor and sprawled out. With a wicked gleam in my eyes I stuffed one of my hands into the space between my bra and breast. His tawny eyes twinkled against the bright lights as he watched me. I slid my other hand ever so slowly down my body. Alec scrambled up the ladder and grabbed his camera.
“Show me how selfish you can be with your sexy body, ma jolie.”
And I did. Closing my eyes I played my body as if he was touching me. Every move was made by his hands. Every sigh was for him, every moan swallowed by his lips.
My imagination did not fail to secure him the perfect picture.
Chapter 9
Hand-in-hand, Alec and I exited the warehouse. The sun shone bright, the wind blew against my hair, and the world opened up and greeted me. Hello world, I missed you.
“You realize this is the first time we’ve left the warehouse since I arrived, and I’m leaving in three days.”
Alec lifted my hand and placed a kiss on the top. “I didn’t, no, ma jolie. I’m sorry. I’ve been a terrible host.”
I laughed and swung his arm while we walked. “You had…”
“Much work to do,” we said in unison and then both chuckled.
“I am sorry chèrie. When I am focused, there is nothing but the work, food, sexual gratification and sleep.”
“The last of which you don’t get enough of,” I chastised. He didn’t. The man slept less than most insomniacs.
Holding his hand tighter, I turned to him. “So, where to?”
Alec had his hair back in his ever-present man bun. The sun made it look more red than brown and gold. Still incredible. He wore a thin, white, scooped necked thermal, and a pair of dark-wash jeans. A camera hung loosely around one shoulder. Alec Dubois was yummy. Manly, sexy, all that and a bag of the cheesiest potato chips. And I was the lucky girl that had his attention…for three more days.
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