The Billionaire's Command
Page 21

Dancing wouldn’t last forever. Eventually I would get old and have to quit. And it wasn’t like I would be able to find other work after that. I didn’t have any skills. I was basically unemployable, aside from stripping. I needed to save up enough money to support myself and everyone in my family for the rest of our lives. So I had to make every night count while I could, and I was terrified of doing anything that would threaten my earning potential. Even for Turner.
Maybe especially for Turner.
Rule 1, and whatnot.
“How much money?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Name your price. I don’t know the going rate for whores.”
That word again. I would be an idiot to take him up on it. He didn’t like me, he didn’t respect me, and he didn’t give a shit about what this would do to my career. “Career,” sarcastic air quotes included. I didn’t have a career. I was a fucking bottom-feeder.
So fuck him, and fuck me for being so drawn to him, like a moth to a stupid candle, that I was even considering his offer. Fine. Fuck both of us. I decided to tell him a number so huge, so over-the-top, that there was no way he would agree. “Two hundred and fifty thousand.” That was more than five times what I made in a good month. I could buy my mother a new house.
“Done,” he said immediately, like I had just low-balled him, and I sat there with my mouth hanging open, dumbfounded.
What in the name of sweet baby Jesus had just happened?
“Hold on,” I said. “I need to think about it. This is a big decision for me, and—”
“That’s fine,” he said. “Take your time. But don’t make me wait too long. You never know when my attention will wander elsewhere.”
“You’re an asshole,” I said.
“Careful,” he said. “That’s no way to talk to your present and future boss.”
“I didn’t say I was going to do it,” I said.
“No,” he said, and took another sip of his wine. “But you will.”
* * *
I thought about Turner’s words that night as I tried—and failed—to fall asleep. They kept running through my head, an endless repetition, taunting me: You will.
Well, I wouldn’t. I was going to prove him wrong.
I was an idiot.
I gave up after half an hour or so and went out into the dark living room. Long experience had taught me that if I couldn’t fall asleep fast, there was no point to lying in bed and stressing out about how I couldn’t sleep. Insomnia happened, and there was nothing you could do about it except wait it out. Sort of like the flu, or falling in love.
I turned on a lamp and flipped through the stack of magazines on the coffee table. Yolanda was a light sleeper, so I didn’t want to turn on the television, and I didn’t want to read one of my magazines because that always led to a downward spiral of shopping for makeup at four in the morning. I needed something boring. I settled on the latest issue of The Economist: Yolanda’s favorite magazine, and my fool-proof insomnia cure.
Halfway into an article about some political upheaval in central Africa, I gave up and tossed the magazine onto the floor. This wasn’t working. Instead of being lulled to sleep by the incredibly dull details of men who couldn’t agree with each other, my brain kept racing around in little circles like a rat trapped in a cage. I couldn’t get Turner out of my head.
The thing I didn’t understand was why him. Most of my clients were old and creepy, yeah, but there had been a few over the years who were young and charming and attractive—even a few who had made my heart flutter for a few moments, before I remembered the rules. I flirted with them, fussed over them, and then forgot them as soon as I left the club.
But I couldn’t seem to forget about Turner.
I felt trapped. I couldn’t escape my own mind.
I needed to stop thinking about him.
I went back into my bedroom to get my phone, and then sat on the couch in the lamp’s warm circle of light and texted Cece. It was summer vacation for her, and she was basically nocturnal by nature. You up?
My phone rang a moment later, the screen showing me Cece’s beaming face. It was an old picture I’d taken with a disposable film camera and scanned in at the photo shop down the street from my apartment. I had only seen Cece once since I left Virginia, and that wasn’t exactly a happy occasion.
I picked up. “Surprised you’re awake,” I said.
“Surprised you are,” she said, and it was so good to hear her voice that I smiled helplessly, face stretching out with the force of my joy.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I said. “Where are you?”
“Front porch,” she said. I could picture it like I had never left: the paint peeling from the steps, the broken railing that had never managed to get replaced, the full moon sinking slowly toward the trees. Cece would be sitting on the ripped-up old couch that had been on the porch for at least a decade, the perfect place to sit on a long summer evening and wave to everyone who strolled down the road.
Nostalgia formed a hard knot in my throat, and I had to swallow a few times before I could speak. I pressed the phone closer to my face, like doing that could bring Cece closer to me. “I miss you,” I said.
“Yeah, same,” she said. “But that’s not why you’re calling me.”
“How on earth would you know that?” I asked. “You don’t know why I’m calling you. Maybe I want to talk to Mama.”
“Bless your heart,” Cece said. “You don’t call me just to chat and exchange pleasantries. I know you better than that. Plus you should be asleep now, so there’s some reason you’re awake and calling me.”
“It’s sort of creepy that you’ve memorized my schedule,” I said. I could already hear my accent coming back. Thirty seconds of talking to Cece, and my words relaxed and stretched out like I hadn’t spent my first six months in New York doing everything I could to erase every trace of the South from my voice.
“It’s not like you do anything but work and go to yoga, so it’s not too hard,” she said. “You need to get a life. What’s the point in living in New York if you’re just going to be boring?”
“Well, the men,” I said. “They’re a lot more handsome here than they are in Wise County.”
Cece giggled, and then she said, “Is that why you’re calling me? Did you meet a man?”