“Almost since I left you.” She interpreted his meaning correctly. Aw Christ. He’d known deep in his gut that he’d somehow driven her to it.
“I was young. I couldn’t get a job or find a place to stay. I sent you that letter from L.A. Then a friend told me I’d do better in San Francisco.” For the first time, she bent her head. “It wasn’t better. I was on the street. I thought I’d die. Sometimes I wished I would die. Then Melora found me.”
She said nothing that cast blame on him, but he wondered what her life would have been like if he hadn’t kept her a secret, if he’d told his parents that either they accepted her or he was gone. With her. They wouldn’t have fought that last time. She wouldn’t have run away.
“Melora was my mentor. She saved me from the streets.”
He couldn’t help himself, the bitterness flowing in his words. “But she turned you into a—”
“I already was a whore, Royce,” she said, oddly lacking in the bitterness he would have expected. “She turned me into a courtesan and showed me how I could have a good life, a life I enjoyed. A life I was in control of.”
He breathed through the pain, through the confession. “But how can you be in control when you have to do whatever ...” He couldn’t finish.
“I do whatever I want. I make up the rules. No one looks down on me. No one disrespects me.”
He winced. He’d loved her all those years ago. He’d sworn he didn’t look down on her; it was just his parents. The reality was that if he’d truly valued her, he wouldn’t have hesitated to take her home. “I drove you to this,” he said, almost to himself, hearing the wonder in his voice. She waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t be stupid, Royce. I chose this, and I’m not sorry. I’d choose it again.”
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But would she have chosen it over him? He studied her, the proud bearing, self-confidence, elegance, and intelligence. She’d left before she graduated high school, but she’d turned herself into an articulate, cultured, competent woman.
“I like the person I’ve become,” she said with no artifice. She truly believed it.
“But I realize it’s an adjustment for your moral fiber.”
“My moral fiber,” he echoed. He was ethical in business; he’d never cheated on his wife; he loved his daughters to distraction. Beyond that?
“Most people have a hard time not putting a judgment on what I do and who I am.” She sat ramrod straight as if expecting his judgment.
“And you think I’m like most people.”
She tipped her head. “Aren’t you?”
Thirty years ago he hadn’t stood up to his parents. Today he was his own man. He would expect either of his daughters to bring home the man she loved, asking for respect, receiving it. As long as the guy wasn’t a criminal, a wife beater, or a drug addict.
But what if the guy sold himself for money?
“I am not judgmental,” he said finally, acknowledging to himself that he sounded defensive. “I’m simply having trouble wrapping my mind around the concept.”
She laughed. Her voice was huskier than he’d known all those years ago, but her laughter was no less musical. “Now, that is an understatement.” She pushed her plate away untouched. “I’ll tell you what. I’m going to leave you so you can think about all this, come to grips with it, and decide what you want to do about it. Sound fair?”
It wasn’t fucking fair at all. She’d laid a whammy on him. “What do you expect me to decide?” He spread his hands. “Are you even considering giving it up?”
She gave him that unnervingly steady gaze again, her eyes a deep, enigmatic blue in the intimate restaurant lighting. “Melora left Courtesans to me. It’s not just a business; it’s a legacy. It’s not just men and women who work for me or clients who come to me with needs; it’s a relationship with people I care about. It’s the life I’ve built for myself.”
So no, she wasn’t going to give it up. Fuck. “So you expect what from me?”
“I don’t expect anything. You can either accept me as I am and we’ll go on as before. Or you can walk away.” She leaned forward, dropped her voice to that 194
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sweet, seductive pitch that sent him over the edge when he was buried deep inside her, and laid her hand over his for the first time since she’d blown his mind. “There is another choice. You can step fully into my life and let me show you how good it really is.”
MAKING THAT OFFER HAD BEEN THE LAST THING ISABEL INTENDED. Yet it seemed the only way to demonstrate that she wasn’t ashamed of what she was. She couldn’t say how she’d made it through the whole ghastly conversation. She’d thought about laying bills on the table to cover the dinner she didn’t eat, then decided against it because somehow it felt like adding insult to injury, as if she were blowing him off with a little money as a tip. The grandfather clock struck midnight. Melora had shared her love of antique clocks and porcelain with Isabel. Yet Grandfather’s chime was a portent of the end. Royce wasn’t coming back.
She’d hoped, but hadn’t expected.
For a moment she was seventeen again hitching a ride to California, leaving behind the boy she’d loved. She’d hated starting that last fight, but she’d told herself she’d had no choice. Yet something inside was torn and bleeding. If a bad thing had happened to her along the road, she wouldn’t have cared all that much. The worst had already happened.
But she was not that girl. The person she’d become would have made different choices, stood up for herself. Then again, maybe all roads led to the here and now.
Makeup removed, face and body moisturized, Isabel crawled between the sheets of the great four-poster bed. She loved the bed. Royce was the only man she’d ever shared it with, the only man she ever would share it with. She didn’t bring her work home with her. And there would never be anyone in her life like Royce.
She’d slept with men without being paid by them in particular, but she’d always been paid for the act. She’d sometimes invited friends or other clients, like Simon Foster, who helped fulfill another patron’s needs. But she always got paid in the end by someone. Money was power.
The only one who’d ever had her without paying was Royce. Except . . . but she wouldn’t think about that. She was the one who’d paid that price, and she’d wiped the memory from her mind a long time ago. She 195
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didn’t even dream of it anymore.
She certainly wouldn’t dream about it now. Instead she closed her eyes and burrowed into the pillow she’d pulled from the other side of the bed. Royce’s pillow, his scent still lingering on it. He smelled like the outdoors, like trees and sunshine. He’d once tried to get her to hike with him. She’d laughed, claiming she’d ruin a nail, or something equally catastrophic. She was a city girl now, getting her workouts in a gym or a pool.
Now she wished she’d gone with him. Or to the Academy of Sciences as she’d suggested. It would have been a memory to keep. She’d stored the scent of his body, the taste of his come, the feel of his lips, but she needed more. Royce with the sun pouring down on his head, turning his hair to silver. The bunch of his calves as he hiked a path, the play of muscles as he climbed a steep trail. She didn’t realize she was crying until a drop of moisture slid from the bridge of her nose to the pillow. She never cried. She wiped away the teardrop. She’d lost him before. She’d survived. She would survive again. She’d still be able to dream of him.
Just as she would tonight. His hands on her, slightly rough with calluses. Yard work, he’d told her. She loved the feel of the hard ridges along her skin. His lips. Soft, moist, teasing her breasts. His tongue laving her nipple, his mouth sucking her inside, teeth biting, a sweet pleasure-pain. In her sleep, she rolled to her back, stretched, gave him greater access. Cool air caressed her as the covers fell away; hot hands stroked her; hair-roughened skin slid along hers until she felt his breath between her legs and opened for him.
“Oh God
,” she whispered as he teased her clit, brought it to life, made her throb. Shoving her fingers through his thick hair, she held on, arched into him, pushed against his mouth, begged for more.
Real hair, real skin, a real touch, all man. This was no died-and-gone-toheaven dream. Royce lapped at her, sucked her, licked her, shoved two fingers high and deep inside her. She climaxed, her body gripping him. When she came off the cloud, she crawled down to wrap her arms and legs around him, trapping him against her.
“Was that one last fuck before you go?” she whispered, her whole body aching.
“I haven’t fucked you yet,” he murmured. “And I’m not leaving.”
Her heart slowed to barely a living beat. She waited. The carriage clock 196
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ticked. The Westminster tocked.
“I can’t accept and go on as we were.” His fingers found the pulse at her throat. “But I can’t walk away, either.”
She squeezed her eyes shut.
“The only alternative is to share.”
“I can share,” she said, grabbing onto the desperation and holding it.
“You don’t understand what I mean by share. Here’s what I need.” He gathered her hair in his hand, pulled her head back. “We share each other’s lives. You share mine, do what I do, see how I live.”
Oh God, did he mean meet his daughters? Seeing them would quite literally tear a hole in her belly. Or did he mean go home? She could never go home. Prosperity wasn’t home. The name was a lie, at least if you were born in a trailer park. Her mom was long dead, and there was nothing in Prosperity but bad memories. She would rather die than go back there.
“Company functions,” he went on, “my pastimes, my work associates. See me as I am with them.”
Her heart trembled. “And your family?”
“We do families when we know if we can fit into the other areas of our lives.”
She held in the sigh of relief, but it was putting off the inevitable. “I can’t go back to Prosperity.”
“I’m not thinking about that yet.” Then he brushed it aside. “We’ll live your life, too, the parties or whatever you do, the sex you wanted to show me.”
Oh God, how she’d love to show him pleasure, another woman to help her show him the heaven of two mouths devouring him. She wasn’t jealous, not in the physical sense. The thought of giving him dual pleasures liquefied her. She was so very different from him.
Her throat dried up. “Are you sure you can do this without hating me later?”
He cupped her cheek. “No.”
Her heart bled with the truth. But he hadn’t walked away. He’d offered what she’d asked of him.
She couldn’t be a coward now.
“I will take the risk with you,” she said.
“And I will take the risk with you.”
It sounded close to a vow.
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4
SHE KNEW EVERYBODY WHO WAS ANYBODY. AT THE SYMPHONY, THE
opera, a benefit for breast cancer, another for the fight against domestic violence. Isabel was the event’s organizer, and the San Francisco elite were out in force.
Hell, no wonder she’d always sneaked him off to secluded places along the Peninsula. She couldn’t move without someone greeting her. Yet no one, not one single person, referred to what she did for a living. Men didn’t walk up and say, Hey, how about a fuck later tonight. She was treated with the utmost respect. She could have been a society matron instead of a . . . courtesan. Though Royce did receive glances. The curious wondering who he was to her. He did his share of wondering, too. Had she slept with that distinguished gentleman holding her hand to his chest and laughing down at her? Had she sucked off the handsome kid—okay, he was probably thirty—squeezing her shoulder? Royce could never tell—was it that one, was it this one? It made him nuts, coiled like a snake in his gut.
The calls she used to take behind closed doors, she now performed in front of him. Christ. He hadn’t thought much could shock him. But her clients were looking for threesomes, foursomes, men with men, BDSM, sex parties. Sometimes they wanted intricate scenarios played out, role playing, costuming. Hell, sometimes she even did a little psychological counseling. Are you sure this is what you really want? Think about the emotional consequences.
Let’s talk about how that makes you feel.
He never heard her make a date for herself. Yet he didn’t have the guts to ask what she did when he was gone. The thought of her fucking someone else made him see through a haze of red. He wasn’t ready to share. He knew she’d done multiples, that she wanted a threesome—or foursome—with him. He couldn’t conceive of it. Yet.
But nor had he been able to leave her that night. He’d sat in the restaurant drinking boatloads of coffee. As bizarre and outlandish as it was, he’d been hard. As much as it twisted his guts, his breath had quickened imagining her lips wrapped around his cock while another man fucked her. He couldn’t reconcile 198
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the two separate reactions.
As for introducing her to his life, he’d taken her to the branch Christmas function, brought her to holiday cocktail parties, a New Year’s Eve celebration with his branch manager and his wife. He hadn’t taken Isabel home, though he was sure his parents would have found her to be elegant and sophisticated. She couldn’t be mistaken for Isabel from that dirty little trailer park that used to be on the outskirts of town.
But he hadn’t asked her.
The night they’d agreed to try sharing their lives, she’d almost sounded terrified at the thought of returning to Prosperity. He’d used her reaction as an excuse for not asking. He was as terrified of introducing her to his daughters. He felt trapped. They weren’t any closer to a commitment. He wanted her away from San Francisco, from the life and people she knew. All to himself. No calls, no benefits, no men holding her hand ingratiatingly. Breakfast, before he headed out to work and she went to the gym. The winter sun streamed through the bay window of her dining room, catching the crystal teardrops hanging from an antique cut-glass vase and shooting prisms of color across the lace tablecloth. She drank hot tea from a dainty bone china cup. It was the start of a new year, time for a new tactic. Royce laid a plane ticket on the table. “I’ve booked a trip.”
She tensed, setting the cup down on its saucer with a too-loud clink. “Oh?”
“This weekend. Palm Springs. Can you do it?” He hadn’t wanted to give her much more than a day to think about it and come up with a reason why it wouldn’t work. He already knew they had no other engagements scheduled, for once, thank God.
She sighed audibly, relief, he was sure, that he hadn’t booked a trip home. “I can make it.”
He raised one brow. “You won’t bring your cell phone?”
She rolled her eyes. “It’ll take a surgical procedure to remove it.”
Royce laughed. “Then you better schedule the surgery right away.” He felt his own measure of relief. He’d planned for more of a fight. “Do you have hiking boots?”
Her eyes widened as if he’d suggested a hundred-mile walk across the Mojave. “No. I’ve never hiked.”
“Good God, woman, how is that possible with Yosemite and Tahoe, Big Basin 199
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and the Pinnacles all within a day’s drive of you?” He’d taught his girls his love of the outdoors, many of their family vacations being hiking trips, though his wife had never gone. He’d thought of it as father-daughter bonding time.
“I’ve never been to Yosemite, and I don’t even know where the Pinnacles are.”
“Holy hell. You’ve been here thirty years.”
She shrugged, gave him a saucy grin. “I’ve never done the touristy stuff.”
She’d been fighting to survive. He refused to let the thought dampen his mood. “The Pinnacles are between Hollister and Sole-dad.” About an hour and a half south of San Francisco. He’d checked the nearby
state and national parks. Since finding Isabel, he hadn’t ventured out to one yet. “I can’t believe you’ve never gone to Yosemite, not even to see the redwoods.”
She buttered half a piece of toast. “We’ve got redwoods right here in Muir Woods.”
Which was up in Marin. “I bet you’ve never been there, either, have you?”
She shook her head, then let a smile grow on her lips. “My education is sorely lacking. You’ll have to tutor me.”
God, he wanted to. “We’ll have to take you shopping and get the appropriate clothing.” Tomorrow. Before the evening flight he’d booked. The idea buoyed his spirits. She was willing. He could introduce her to something he loved, like a present he could share.
“Dare I ask where and how far you’re going to make me hike?”
“Slot canyons. Only four or five miles.” He’d hiked slot canyons in Zion, and he’d done a little research on a place down in Palm Springs called the Painted Canyon.
The main idea had been taking Isabel out of San Francisco, away from her environment, giving her something entirely different. Eyes wide again, she mouthed, “Four or five miles?”
He nodded. She was in shape, worked out daily. “Piece of cake.”
“Right,” she snorted. “Famous last words. What are slot canyons?”
“You’ll see.” His mind worked, planning the weekend. He’d booked a suite at one of the resorts, and a swank restaurant for a late dinner. Elbow on the table, she leaned her chin on her fist. “If I do this hike, you have to do something for me.”
His heart thrummed in his chest.
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“A spa treatment afterward.”
He guffawed. “I’ve never done a spa treatment in my life.”
She raised one brow. “I’ve never hiked.”
“Touché. All right, it’s a deal.”
“And,” she added, her lids lowered seductively, “I think you’re going to love this spa.”
HIKING. SHE WAS INSANE. YET SHE WAS GIDDY WITH EXCITEMENT. She’d never been on a traditional vacation with a man, not even a weekender. When she went away, it was work, and she got paid for her work. This was new and exhilarating. While she was packing, Isabel had worn the boots around the flat to break them in. This was his life, his passion. He’d arranged and planned everything, his excitement at the excursion tangible. She had always been the planner. It felt so damn good to have someone else do it for her. She’d told her assistant she was to be disturbed only in an emergency, defined as a close friend near death or the Dow Jones sinking below five thousand. Heh, it was a weekend, so at least that one wasn’t going to happen.
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