But first, she had to do one more thing.
Pulling out her phone, Evin squinted at the bright light and fluttered her eyes until they adjusted. She opened the First Class Escorts app and logged in. There was one new message, she clicked on it. If his profile picture was anything to go by, the date tomorrow was yet another old man with possible ED.
Ms. Coates,
Your car will pick you up at noon. Pack your bag for the long weekend. You will have your own bed, but I was only able to rent a single cabin. Apologies.
I look forward to the weekend,
Tucker Matthews
Evin gagged at the formality, as if he wasn’t going to be like any other wrinkled up old man. She wanted to back out so badly, spend the weekend and Christmas home with her dad, but she couldn’t afford it. He lay there, safe and warm, because of what she did and what she provided.
And she’d keep doing it as long as she needed because he kept her safe and warm her entire life.
Chapter Three
Shit. Shit. Shit.
She was running late. Evin hadn’t anticipated her dad having a seizure that morning. When she woke up to him locked up and shaking, her heart sank, and she’d been off her game ever since. It made her want to stay with him this weekend all the more. But, Jenny wouldn’t allow it, she knew what the money meant for her and her father, and once again the woman was a saint.
He was calm now, though, and no longer suffering from the immediate effects, but she was running around like a chicken with its head cut off to get ready in time.
The clock on the stove read eleven fifty-nine and she still wasn’t dressed yet.
“You’re going to be late!” Jenny padded down the stairs with a packed bag slung over her shoulder. Jeans in one hand, Christmas socks in the other. “Here put these on.”
Evin slumped her shoulders and counted her blessings for Jenny one more time. “You’re an angel.” She jumped into her snug skinny jeans with the frayed bottom hem, in the middle of the kitchen because there was no shame in that house. “How do you always know what I need?”
Jenny laughed and grabbed up Evin’s coat and scarf the same moment a car honked outside. “Well, we’ll see how good I am when you sift through the bag later, but I think I got you some good options.”
“I’m sure they’re fine, Jen.” Her heart was racing at the thought of being late to a date, and she put her boots on as quickly as possible, while Jenny shoved the black stilettos into the Victoria’s Secret duffle bag she got for free after buying enough five for twenty panties to clothe all the women of Aspen.
Once zipped Evin slung it over her shoulder. A knock came at the door and her heart dropped again. It didn’t matter how many dates she went on, there were always nervous jitters right before meeting someone new.
She took a breath and swung the door open. It was a bald man in a classic black suit. He gave her what was supposed to be a curt smile, but he didn’t pull it off. It may have been just her, but he looked like a bodyguard in every bad action movie she’d ever seen.
Please don’t be my date.
“Ms. Coates?”
“That’s me.” Another customer service smile, just in case.
“I’m Duncan, I’ll take your bags.”
Oh, right. The car.
He held his hand out and gestured to the duffle on her shoulder, which she graciously handed over because it felt like Jenny put her entire closet inside it somehow. “Right this way.” He turned to the side and gestured to a black Cadillac SUV parked in front of the house.
Classic, sophisticated, sported all-wheel drive for the worst parts of snowy passes, and probably came with the car service her date hired.
It was cold as balls, a daily winter occurrence in the Rockies. Her breath fogged in front of her face and she bundled herself up tighter. Evin looked back and caught sight of Jenny with two thumbs up before she shut the door.
Evin mustered a confident smile, one she hoped didn’t fall short but probably did. “Call me if you need anything.”
Jenny shooed her away. “We’ll be fine. Be safe.”
Her nerves were shot but she kept her hands and breath steady as she padded down the stairs. The driver was fast on his long legs, because he was right beside her and opening the back passenger door by the time she made it there. “Thank you.”
He inclined his head without a word and she stepped in. Her bag went into the back hatch, and they made their way down Cleveland street, her house disappearing the farther they went. Evin wrung her hands and tried to calm her mind and body, to get into the mindset of being with a date all weekend.
A date she couldn’t afford to not make feel special. It was a lot of money, and a good holiday bonus for a woman without a nine to five.
If she were lucky, she’d play the part so well he paid her extra for the effort. She’d be able to turn down a few dates after Christmas and spend time with her dad that didn’t involve being his caregiver. They could go see lights like they used to do. She could bundle him up and push him around Silver Circle, where he seemed to come alive again.
All she had to do was pull this date off better than any other before.
No pressure.
None at all.
Dammit.
Her knee bounced subconsciously and she took a shaky breath. Hopefully, Mr. Matthews wasn’t an ax murderer. Now why ya gotta go and say shit like that, Coates?
Evin cleared her throat and looked at the driver. “So, where are we headed?”
“You’re to meet Mr. Matthews at the Mount Grand where he’s booked a cabin.” He glanced at her through the rearview mirror and then back to the mostly plowed road. “I have your key, and he’ll meet you in the room when he’s finished with his meeting.”
“Okay.” She took a deep breath and relaxed her shoulders. There’d be time to get used to the environment without Mr. Matthews there breathing down her neck. “Is he nice?”
“I don’t know him in a personal capacity, ma’am.”
Great. She offered a smile to the driver, but he didn’t look back toward her.
The rest of the drive was silent. Evin looked out the window to the view she’d seen her entire life, and still never got tired of. The snow covered mountains were always incredible. They reminded her how small she was, how insignificant her problems were to the universe. Though, it didn’t lessen the weight of them because she herself was also small and insignificant.
It was easy to feel like her problems were an avalanche she was always trying to outrun, but when she opened her mind and saw the world as a massive place, it almost let her breathe for a moment.
Almost.
“We’re here.” The driver put the vehicle in park and stepped out, grabbing her bags before he made his way to her door. Which was fine because her stomach was in her ass and her throat was closing up. The moment to process was nice.
“Thank you.” She inclined her head, and when he reached her door, she stepped out from the warm car into the thin, icy air.
The cabin was beautiful in raw wood and black metal. She hadn’t realized they’d built a resort on that mountain, but there were miniature homes peppering the private area, and a big lodge sat at the pinnacle of them. Suddenly, she was excited about the weekend, could pretend to be rich and beautiful for a few days instead of worrying half to death about her father.
He was in good hands, and she could breathe for a little while.
Chapter Four
Tuck scanned his entry card and opened the door to the posh little cabin his company rented for the weekend. It wasn’t really a cabin, more like they took a million dollar mansion and shrunk it down to two bedrooms and a bathroom. It was big-tiny. If that was a thing.
When it clicked shut, he was met with silence. He frowned, his brows knitting together. There was supposed to be a woman there somewhere.
The spare room yielded nothing but a red and black bag at the foot of the bed. Duncan informed him he dropped Ms. Coates off an hour
ago. So, where was she? No one was in the bathroom, on his bed, or in either the living space or the kitchen.
He stood there, in the middle of the sitting area, dumbfounded. Surely she didn’t just run off and leave her stuff. No, that was illogical. She was there. Somewhere.
There was one more place to check. Tuck stepped over to the glass door and out into the snow. Thankfully, he hadn’t yet taken off his overcoat. The snow fell gently and the mountains held some sort of silent power over the place. It relaxed the mind as well as the body. It was nothing like south Texas.
Hell, it was still warm when he left yesterday.
At first glance, no one was out there, but with closer inspection, he realized the balcony had its own stairway to a more private deck below, into the dense trees.
Someone was down there sitting quietly as the snow fell. He was tempted to disturb her, but if she wanted to be disturbed, she would have stayed on the balcony where he could easily find her, not down below. Far be it from him to ruin her solitude.
He watched for a moment and reveled in what he hoped was the same calming silence. The meeting that morning, which trickled into the afternoon, was the usual. Old men yelling over other old men, while no one listened to the other. It actually felt good to not hear a single thing but snowflakes hitting the ground. He took a replenishing breath, his eyes locked in on the woman, before bowing to the cold and stepping back into the warmth of the cabin.
If he gave her time, maybe their meeting wouldn’t have to be so awkward. It was sure to be once she found out who he was, but until then, he could pretend to be nonchalant about it. Even though, deep down, there was a slight thrill in her finding out whose dick she nearly unleashed the night before.
To kill time, Tuck went to his room to change. The suit was too stuffy for a weekend vacation, and he didn’t want to look like a pretentious asshole when they came face to face.
Again.
The words that slipped out last night were an accident, too much whiskey in his system tended to do that. It may have been inappropriate, but he doubted she cared about that kind of thing in her line of work. And oh, he knew it was her the moment he saw her sitting at that table.
She was even more beautiful in person than she was in her profile picture, even if he didn’t care about that at all. She wasn’t there to look good to his eyes.
It was bad enough he was still questioning his decision to hire an escort in the first place instead of just finding her some other way. But hiring her was more efficient with his limited time in Aspen. He was tempted to cancel, but decided against it for some fucking reason outside his realm of thinking.
The weekend was going to blow up in his face, and he knew it.
His track record with women was...depressing.
He loosened his tie and yanked it off. The belt went next, followed by the shoes. All of it was uncomfortable and he was ready to get back to Texas and in jeans. His H&H branch wasn’t nearly as stuffy as the New York branch, but it was his job to make them look good when they mingled, so a suit it was.
Once his jacket was off, he laid it neatly on the bed. The view outside his window was breathtaking, and he got lost in it, forgetting everything around him as his fingers mindlessly unbuttoned his shirt. He could see one peak in the distance, but the snow covered evergreens against the cabin gave an air of solitude to the otherwise packed resort.
“Already?”
The sweet, sultry voice snapped him back into the cabin, and he was glad he still had pants on. He looked over his shoulder and was half tempted to button his shirt back up, but he didn’t. Instead, he ripped the bandage off and turned to her with a smile.
She really was beautiful, didn’t look like any escort he knew. Not that he knew any. Her face was wholesome and kind. The curve of her ass in those skintight jeans would drive any man wild. The way she slung the neck of her sweater to the side and pretended to bite her nail was adorable. The way her eyes grazed up his half exposed body had him almost ready to rethink his current stance of look don’t touch.
She was sultry, in a good girl kind of way. If he didn’t know what she did for a living, if he didn’t know she was being paid to look at him like that, he’d be tempted to bring her straight home with him so she could do it every day.
Call him vain, but it made him feel good.
When her gaze finally landed on his face, she paled. “Oh my God!” She pushed off the door frame, spun, and disappeared into the main living space while he stood there and held in his laughter. Well, that went better than expected.
“I’m not that bad am I?” Tucker finished changing, allowing her time to work out the moment on her own. “I mean, I’m no Brad Pitt, but come on.”
She reappeared with her eyes wide and her hand to her forehead. The sleeves to her red sweater were so long they hit mid palm. Of course, he was down to his briefs by then and she spun her heel, disappearing again.
“Oh my God!”
“Is that all you can say?” He grabbed a pair of sweats from the bag he refused to unpack and slid them on.
He was actually enjoying her reaction, it broke the ice easier than anything he had planned, and she was absolutely adorable all pink faced. Because of that, he skipped the shirt.
When he emerged from his room, he made his way to the kitchen to brew a shitty cup of coffee. She had to be cold after sitting outside for so long, and maybe it could bring them together to further break the ice.
“Would you like coffee?”
She looked out the wall of glass, to the mountain view and falling snow. Her hands were clasped behind her head and all he could do was smile at her tiny, little existential crisis.
“It’s not that bad you know.” He filled a pot with water and put it on the stove to boil. “We can forget about it.” That’d be nice. If he could forget all about her pushing him into the seedy bathroom he was all for it. But as it stood, it was still vivid in his mind.
Not like you want to forget it.
She spun on him, catching him off guard and too late to form a well-meaning smile. “No, we can’t. You know we can’t.”
“We could.” He leaned against the counter and rested his elbows on it.
She dropped her arms to her sides dramatically and huffed an exasperated breath, blowing up the strands of hair on her face. “If it makes you feel better I was a little drunk.”
“Well, that makes two of us.” Even though he didn’t really drink all that much, and even though he had wanted to push her further, see how far she’d go. The bathroom in a shitty bar wasn’t the place.
She laughed and stepped closer, making it halfway into the seating area. “I really am mortified, and that’s rare for me.”
They shared that feeling.
Surely, there was a way to get past the events of last night and on their way to a different topic. Before he could say anything, she hopped onto the island separating the living space and the kitchen, and crossed her legs. She gave him a beautiful smile and held her hand out.
“I’m Heaven.”
He looked from her hand to her eyes, and back. “What’s your real name?”
She dropped her smile and her hand before all her little micro expressions gave her away. She was uncomfortable.
Again, a shared feeling.
“I’m Tucker Matthews. You can call me Tuck if you want.”
“What about Mr. Matthews?”
“Never Mr. Matthews.” He smiled and her shoulders dropped a little as she relaxed. Good, he was going in the right direction. “I work at a company called H&H and we manage hedge funds for people we hope aren’t criminals. But who can really say in this day and age?” He held his hand out and hoped she eased a bit more as he spoke.
When she took it, she gave a timid smile and furrowed her brows. “Why do you care what my name is? We’re just going to fuck and never see each other again.”
“Well, you’re half right.” He let her hand go and took the boiling water off the stove before pouri
ng it into the French press. It didn’t matter how fancy the cabin was, how luxurious the bag of coffee said the contents were, it was going to taste like shit. Just like it did yesterday morning. “We’ll never see each other again, but we won’t be havin’ sex.”
Chapter Five
Baffled. Bewildered. Dumbfounded.
How many more synonyms were there for what-the-fuck-did-he-just-say?
Her English professor would be disappointed in her ineptitude at synonyms, but all she cared about was figuring that guy out.
If he didn’t want to have sex with her, the margin for error greatly increased. She needed the money and was banking on blowing his fucking mind in bed. If she didn’t have that, she had nothing.
Her brows shot up, her mouth hanging open. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I don’t plan on havin’ sex with you.” He kept his back to her and pretended the French press needed a watchful gaze to brew properly.
Damn, that good ol’ boy accent sounded even better in the harsh light of day. He was just as ruggedly handsome as the night before, and she was still reeling from that alone.
Holy fuck.
Why did she have to see her second date while she was on her first date? That had to be some escort no-no or something. Mortified didn’t even begin to describe the whirlwind inside her.
All Evin wanted was to find a boulder and hide under it until spring.
“Look, I’m sorry about last night. I didn’t know you were the second date. I thought it was just going to be another wrinkly old man who needed to get his rocks off.” She winced, and ungracefully slid off the island. The sitting area was far enough away from the kitchen for her to lick her wounds in relative safety.
“Wait. You were on a date?”
She spun to face him, his eyes a little darker than they were a moment ago and her heart hammered in her chest as she winced.
“Uh…yes.” She picked the oversized white tufted chair that looked out the expansive wall of windows and tucked her legs up, ignoring anymore of that conversation.
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