Escorting the Billionaire by Leigh James
James
We got backto the apartment, and Audrey went to go change. I poured myself a drink and stormed around the living room, watching the city below, wondering what the hell I’d gotten myself into.
After I’d woken up holding her hand, I’d panicked. I’d dressed quickly and headed out of the apartment before she woke up. I needed to be alone. I’d grabbed a large, black coffee and decided to go for a walk.
I found myself back in the Commons where we’d been yesterday. The sun was just coming up. I was marching through the park as if I had a meeting to rush to—because I usually always had a meeting to rush to. I finally gave up and sat down on a bench, staring at the abandoned swan boats, docked and covered with morning dew.
I needed to think, but all I could think about was her. Nestled against me at that game last night. Laughing and drinking her beer. Sound asleep in her T-shirt, right next to me but still out of reach.
I was so, so fucked.
I should have just fucked her when I had the chance, I thought now. So that maybe she never would have talked to me, never would have gotten under my skin. Then she would just be another faceless lay, someone else I’d fucked and could forget about.
But oh, no. I had tried to keep control, and now the whole thing had gone to hell.
I had feelings for my escort. Real. Feelings.
I wanted to bitch slap myself, but I wasn’t sure what a bitch slap actually entailed.
I’d gone through the fitting and the rest of the day on auto-pilot, trying to at least be semi-pleasant and not ruin Todd’s stupid almost-wedding. I’d told him about the swan boats and the Red Sox, trying to play up my relationship with Audrey so he’d believe in it. But I didn’t need to play it up. It was real, and he already believed in it. He nodded and smiled when I told him about my day.
“She’s a really nice girl,” Todd said.
She was a really nice girl. She just also happened to be my escort.
What she’d told me about my mother had set off a rage-spiral in me, and I had to control it. For Audrey’s sake.
I also had to keep my feelings for her to myself. Also for her sake.
I just had to get through dinner tonight and the next couple of events, I told myself. Then we had the rehearsal dinner and the wedding this weekend. The trip was after that, but I didn’t have to think that far ahead. Not yet. I was going to take it one step at a time and try not to fuck everything up further.
“Where are we going tonight?” she asked me, jarring me out of my self-admonishing reverie. I hadn’t heard her come back out.
“A restaurant called Ministry, in the Back Bay—it’s very trendy. And very overpriced,” I said.
“Perfect,” she said. “What does one wear to a very trendy and very overpriced Back Bay restaurant these days? When one is pretending to be a real-life person, I mean?”
I looked at her, and I couldn’t help myself: I smiled. I wanted to be a glacier, and here she was like the sun, melting my angry resolve.
“Something sexy and black,” I said, instantly regretting it.
She nodded, looking game. “I’ve got that, boss.”
“Would you like some wine before you get ready?” I asked. “We’ve got an hour.”
She marched to the kitchen and parked herself on a barstool. I noticed that she’d changed out of her earlier outfit to a pair of leggings and the T-shirt she’d slept in.
“I never say no to wine. Especially not your wine, James—it’s good,” she said approvingly. “Mine usually comes from one of those big bottles. Or a box.”
I shuddered. “Promise me you’ll never go back to drinking that,” I said, and she furrowed her brow at me.
Of course she was going to go back to drinking that.
“You promise me something,” she said.
“What,” I said, looking at her suspiciously and pouring us both hefty glasses of wine.
“Let’s try to have fun for the rest of the time we’re together,” she said quickly, in an earnest rush. “I was just thinking about it—I had fun yesterday. I can’t remember the last time I had fun. I didn’t think I was capable of it, to be honest.”
“I don’t know if I can commit to that,” I said. “Being around my family is usually the opposite of fun.”
“You’ve been handling them pretty well,” she said, shrugging. “Just thought I’d point that out.”
“Because you’re the pointer-outer of things,” I said.
“That’s right.”
I laughed in spite of myself. I wasn’t sure how I’d gone from berating myself about her to suddenly asking her to wear something sexy and pouring her wine, but it was like I could suddenly hear the clock ticking. She was only mine through next Friday. This was all I was going to get.
“I’m sorry about before,” I said, “after I picked you up. I can get a little moody sometimes.”
She shrugged, forgiving me easily. “Well, I’m sorry I said your mother needed a bitch slap,” she said.
“She does need a bitch slap,” I said. “You might have to show me how to give her one.”
“It’d be my pleasure.”
I puton my nicest dark suit, which was saying something. Audrey put on a cocktail dress with a plunging neckline. It was black, and it was very sexy.
I sucked in my breath, hard, when I saw her.
She was wearing black high heels, and her hair was loose and glossy around her shoulders. Her breasts looked fantastic—perfectly round and alert, like only a twenty-two-year-old’s can. Or Jennifer Lopez’s.
“Is this approved?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said, completely monosyllabic.
My cock twitched just looking at her.
“You look dashing, as usual,” she said and linked her arm through mine.
Kai averted his eyes when we came outside so I knew that it wasn’t just me—Audrey really was stunning. I felt stupidly proud then that she was with me, that no one else could have her.
I didn’t let myself examine the irony of that particular train of thought.
