Escorting the Billionaire (The Escort Collection #1)

by Leigh James

  “Yes, dude?” I asked. “Actually—aren’t we too old for that now? We used to say that at Wharton. It makes me sad to hear it come out of my mouth now. It’s like I’m an old-timer.”

  “An old-timer who’s ready to settle down?” Cole asked.

  “Do you have to go there tonight, Coley?”

  “Fuck you,” he said good-naturedly and had some of his drink. “You know you’ve got an emotional boner for that girl on your forehead though, right?”

  “An emotional boner? I didn’t know they existed.”

  “It’s like a heart on your sleeve, but bigger and more obnoxious,” he said, laughing at me. “And you totally have one.”

  “She offered me a crab cake today, and I didn’t eat it.”

  “You’ve fucked her, though. I can tell. Like, fifty times this week I bet.”

  I shrugged. “Not fifty.”

  “Then Jenny and I are winning.”

  “Haven’t you been to work?” I asked him, simultaneously disgusted and impressed. He was probably exaggerating. Probably.

  Cole shrugged. “Nah. I did a conference call. But this girl is like a drug for me. I can’t keep my dick out of her.”

  “Does that qualify as an emotional boner? Or are you two just sort of disgusting?”

  “I don’t know,” he said and rubbed his eyes. For once, my friend actually looked perplexed. “I seriously can’t keep my hands off her.” He looked back at me. “Is that love?”

  “It sounds sort of like it… but it could just be lust,” I said.

  “There’s definitely lust.”

  “Do you like her?”

  “I’m fucking crazy about her,” Cole said. He had that baffled look again, and I patted him on the shoulder. I watched as Audrey and Jenny came back toward us, both of them laughing. Audrey looked happy and almost relaxed.

  “Dude,” he said. “Put your emotional boner away. It’s embarrassing.”

  Audrey

  Jenny told me that she’d had sex with Cole earlier today while they were out shopping, and it almost made me forget about the awful scene with my mother. And the story about Danielle. And Celia Preston’s offer to pay me to go away.

  Which was saying something.

  She wanted to tell me about how her assignment was going. We’d gone to a bathroom at the other end of the restaurant to avoid James’s family and anyone else connected to the wedding. “He’s frickin’ crazy,” she said, applying blush to her face with a pouffy brush. She added lip gloss and fluffed her hair. “I swear to God, I’ve never been with someone who wants to have this much sex. He can’t keep his hands off me.”

  “Even in the dressing room at a fancy store?” I asked.

  “Yeah. He totally thinks he’s above the law, right? It’s a billionaire thing—he thinks the rules don’t apply to him.

  “He just followed me when I was trying this dress on. We weren’t in there for two seconds, and he pinned me up against the wall. With the sales clerk right outside! He had to lift me up so they couldn’t see our feet together. And he fucked me like crazy. I had to slap my hand over his mouth though ’cause he’s a yeller when he comes. Real loud, Dre. Real loud. And he likes me to do this thing with his balls—”

  “Jenny—I don’t need to know the thing about his balls!”

  Jenny fanned herself. “Fine. But I’m gettin’ hot just thinking about it. I should be exhausted, but I’m not. Jesus. He’s worse than Loospy and Fat Vinnie put together.”

  “Do you like him?”

  “Are you kidding me? This is the best time I’ve had with a John, ever. It’s like we’re the same person. Except he’s rich, and he’s a guy. And that thing with his balls.”

  “Huh,” I said.

  “Huh is right.” She turned to me and inspected my face. “Mr. Sex in a Suit is a little romance-y tonight, Dre. He’s got it real bad. I almost feel sorry for him. Did you bat him around like a cat toy last night?”

  I decided to spare Jenny the actual ugly details of the past twenty-four hours. “I might have… a little.”

  She nodded at me, a knowing look on her face. “It worked. You better watch it. I know that look he’s got.”

  “Jenny, stop.”

  I paused and then said, “What look is that, exactly?”

  She rolled her eyes at me. “I think he might be in love with you. I’m just sayin’.” She shrugged. “He doesn’t look like he’s pretending anymore.”

  “That only happens in the movies.”

  “Then I’ll come over and film you,” she snapped. “Jesus, Dre. You gotta loosen up a little. Sometimes good things happen to good people.”

  “Huh,” I said.

  “Huh is right. Let’s go. We don’t want your Mr. Suit to cry because he misses you… and Coley’s hand hasn’t been on my ass in more than five minutes. My butt’s gettin’ cold.”

  * * *

  “What’s going on with Cole and Jenny?” I asked James when we were driving home.

  “I have no idea,” he said. “Last night I thought it was just physical. Tonight I don’t know. What does Jenny say?”

  “That they have sex non-stop.”

  “That’s what Cole said, too.”

  “So that’s good,” I said. “They’re enjoying each other.” I wonder what’s going to happen afterward, I thought. If it’ll become a regular thing. I didn’t say it out loud; I didn’t want the conversation to circle back to us. It was something I wasn’t prepared to face.

  “They’re coming to the Bahamas,” James said. All of a sudden he was shaking with silent laughter. “I think Todd’s rewarding me for my good behavior all week. My mother’s gonna have a fit.”

  “I’m surprised Evie’s allowing it after Jenny tried to fight her last night.”

  “Her cousins think Cole’s hot,” James said and shrugged. “They voted for eye candy on the trip.”

  “Speaking of eye candy, I’ll make sure to tell Jenny to pack thong bikinis,” I said, grinning and feeling pleased. Being around my friend always made me feel better. I was glad she would be there next week just for that selfish reason, but the added benefit of her parading around in front of the Prestons in a minuscule bikini warmed my heart.

  The downside, of course, was that Jenny wasn’t the most inconspicuous person, and I still had to pretend to be a legitimate, aboveboard graphic design student from New Hampshire. I also had to get her to stop calling me “Dre” somehow.

  He linked his hand through mine. “This just keeps on getting better and better.”

  “After the past twenty-four hours, there was really nowhere to go but up.”

  “True,” he said. “Your mother didn’t come back tonight, though. That’s an improvement.”

  “I know.” Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t done with us. My mother was relentless. That’s how she’d lived this long on nothing of her own. “I’m worried about it, though.”

  He put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me to him. “We just have to get through the next twenty-four hours. Then we’re getting on a plane and getting out of the country. It’s going to be okay.”

  “Okay,” I said, wanting to believe it.

  There were a lot of things I wanted to believe right now.

  * * *

  I woke up before James the next morning. His broad chest was rising and falling in his sleep. I just lied there and watched him. I had so many emotions going on inside of me right now, it was hard to keep up. But one thing was certain.

  I loved him, and I had to do what was right for him.

  I got up and went out to the kitchen to make coffee. I needed to think straight. Today was the wedding; I had to play my part of loving girlfriend. That would be easy—too easy.

  The problem was just about everything else.

  My mother wanted to blackmail him and his family to keep quiet about the fact that I was an escort. A tabloid scandal like that might not do too much to injure James individually; he was a single billionaire,
and he could do as he liked. Public opinion probably didn’t mean that much to him, anyway. But his family—his mother—was a completely different story. Having her proper family associated with prostitution would ruin the Prestons’ spotless reputation.

  She would never forgive me for that. Worse, she would never forgive James.

  So my mother was a threat and a problem. Celia Preston was both of these as well. She wanted me to disappear from James’s life after next week. She offered to pay me to go away. She’d made it crystal clear that I was not Preston material—and that was based on the moderately respectable and completely false profile I was using for this job.

  If she found out I was a whore, she might do something far worse than make me cry really hard and then send me on my way.

  Also, what she’d said was still ringing in my ears. James’s children are going to be some of the wealthiest people in the country. They have to be able to handle the duties that come with that sort of privilege—and their parents have to be able to help them do that.

  I’d barely graduated high school. I had an alcoholic, grifter mother and an absent father. I lived in an apartment in the bad part of the city, and I was lucky to be there.

  Also, there was the fact that I was a whore.

  I swallowed my coffee. It tasted bitter, but I made myself drink it, anyway. I was not in a position to raise wealthy trust-fund children and help guide them through the duties that came with that sort of privilege. I got excited about James’s super-fluffy towels; his fancy coffeemaker was like a ride at Disney World to me. I didn’t have the experience or capacity to live in his world, or attempt to raise a family in it.

  But it was this train of thought that brought me to my biggest problem. James was my John. Just because Celia Preston, my mother, and Jenny thought he cared about me did not make it true. Just because I hoped against hope that he cared about me did not make it true. He was paying for me to pretend I was his girlfriend. He was paying to fuck me.

  The fact that he’d let me play with his hair yesterday afternoon and that he’d told me about his dead girlfriend did not a relationship make.

  I was in love with him. That fact was as clear to me as the sun coming up outside. But I couldn’t let my feelings cloud my judgment. I had to protect myself a little, too. Otherwise this was going to hurt too badly. I wished I could put a shield around my heart, so it wouldn’t break all ugly and uneven when this was over…

  Because that was the thing. James had told me he cared about me. But that was it. He’d held my hand. Our lovemaking had been totally intense—but how did I know he felt what I felt? Just being close to him made my heart feel as if it was going to burst. When he was inside me, I felt like I was going to weep because I finally felt complete.

  I’d had a lot of sex. Too much. But none of it had ever made me feel anything close to the rush of emotion that I felt when I was with James. He’d been so tender with me, so loving, that it felt as if it was more than just sex for him, too.

  But he hadn’t said a word about the future. He’d said he cared about me right now. And that was something, and I would cling to it when he was gone, but it was only what it was.

  If he felt more than he was saying, it made it even worse.

  “Hey.” He’d padded out to the living room in his sweats and nothing else. Of course, my traitor heart stopped when I saw him.

  “Hey.” I got up and went to him. I ran my hands down his gorgeous chest and kissed him deeply. Because he was only mine for right now. And I wanted to remember all of it, every feel, every detail of him, for when I was alone again. Which would be all too soon.

  James

  “Can you do my cufflink?” I asked. I could manage on my own, but I wanted her to touch me.

  Audrey clasped it and straightened my tuxedo jacket. “You look amazing,” she said, beaming at me. “I didn’t think you could look any hotter than you do in a suit. But wow.”

  I laughed and ran my fingers down the pale lace of her dress. “You look stunning. I never knew I liked yellow until now.” Her hair was up in an elegant bun. Her gown was long and strapless, with beading along the waist. She looked like a princess. You would never know that she lived in a piss-poor tenement apartment in Southie. She wore the gown, jewelry, and flawless makeup regally, as if they were hers from the beginning, not some borrowed finery from her madam.

  My gut twisted at the thought.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” I said, more casually than I felt.

  “Are you nervous about the ceremony?”

  “Not really—it’s more like adrenaline.”

  She nodded and let out a shaky breath. “Me too.”

  “Are you ready?” I asked, and she nodded. “Oh wait—I have something for you.” I grabbed a turquoise jewelry box from my dresser and handed it to her.

  “What’s this?” she asked. Her voice was a little shaky.

  “Just a necklace,” I said, watching her face. “I saw it yesterday when we were walking down Newbury Street. I had the concierge pick it up for me.” I’d seen it in the window, and I’d immediately wanted to buy it. It was beautiful and understated. It was a gift, but it was a selfish one: I wanted her to have something on her body from me. So I would always be touching her.

  “I thought you might like to wear it today.” She opened the box and pulled out the delicate gold chain. There was a pendant attached, with two interlocking diamond-encrusted gold rings.

  “It’s so beautiful.” She sounded touched.

  I went behind her and fastened it around her neck. “I just wanted you to have something from me.” I came around to face her, and I was suddenly embarrassed. My emotional boner was at full mast.

  I was going to kill Cole for ever saying that to me.

  She reached out and stroked my hot cheek. “James—I love it. I’ll never take it off.”

  “It’s beautiful on you.” I smiled at her, pleased. “We should go. Happy occasions in my family don’t come around that often—we don’t want to miss any of it.”

  The attendants in the lobby stopped and stared at us. “You look amazing, Miss Reynolds,” one of the girls called. Audrey smiled back at her shyly, pleased.

  “I figured they’d be saying that to you,” she said.

  “No one’s even bothering to look at me, babe,” I said. “You’re too stunning.”

  Kai was waiting for us outside. It was a beautiful June day, the weather lustrous and bright. I held Audrey’s hand and led her to the car, careful of her long gown.

  “If I may say so, Mr. Preston, Miss Reynolds is looking particularly lovely this afternoon,” Kai said stiffly.

  I smiled at him. “You may say so, Kai,” I said, “and I agree.”

  When I slid into the car next to her, I looked at her smooth skin in the sunlight, her hand clasped around the necklace I’d given her.

  My whole world was centered around her now. Everything else—everything that had seemed crucial to me only last week—was muted in the distance. The thought had been creeping up on me, but now I knew it all at once, sitting and watching her like that.

  She smiled. “What?”

  “What do you want to do after next week?” I asked her bluntly. I hadn’t planned on asking it, but there it was.

  “What do you mean?”

  I tightened my grip on her hand. “What do you want to do when we get back from the Bahamas? About us.”

  She looked down, and I could see how flustered she was. “I don’t… I don’t know what to say.”

  “Do you want to keep seeing me?” I asked. My temples were pounding hard. Fuck. What if she said no? Why the fuck was I doing this to myself?

  The thing was, women never said no to me. Never. As in not once. But that was for a different reason than the one I was looking for from Audrey.

  “Of course I do,” she said, the words coming out of her all in a rush.

  I felt relieved until she looked up at me, her eyes dark and sad. “I ju
st don’t know if we should.”

  “Because of your mother?” I asked.

  She nodded miserably. “Yours, too.”

  “What did she say to you yesterday?”

  “Honestly, you don’t want to know right now.”

  Anger flashed through me. “I don’t even care anymore,” I said flatly. I could pay Audrey’s mother off, and I would shield Audrey from mine.

  If that was what she even wanted.

  “I’m tired of them both. We’re adults. We can handle them.”

  The car pulled up at Trinity Church; it was unfortunately close to my apartment. Now that I’d finally started it, I wasn’t ready to let the conversation end. I wanted to know where I stood. But we had to go in. The ceremony was going to start soon, and I had to go out back with my brother.

  “We’ll finish this later.” I watched her until she nodded her assent.

  “Audrey.” She looked up at me, her face a mask. “Smile.”

  * * *

  I deposited her with Cole and Jenny, who were both looking very fancy and freshly fucked, in a pew toward the front of the church. I headed back toward the rectory, giving curt nods to my mother and father.

  “There he is,” Todd said when I came around the corner. “I was hoping you weren’t going to jilt me.”

  “Ha ha,” I said. I pushed all the bullshit in my head to the side and smiled at my brother. “This is your day. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  “Good,” he said. There were nine of us back here; Evie had wanted an insane number of bridesmaids so Todd had to ask as many cousins and friends as he could, just to match her.

  “Are you ready?” I asked, slapping him on the back.

  “I’m past ready,” he said. “I’ve been wanting to marry her since the day I met her. I just want her to be my wife, already. I can’t wait.”

  “You get to be married forever,” I reminded him.

  “I know. But when you finally figure out what you want, you’re pretty ready for forever. You know what I mean?”