Boyfriend for Hire: A Stand-Alone Contemporary Romance (Escort Files Book 1) (17 page)

“I’m sorry. I just…it’s weird…but I had this horrible feeling of what it must be like for people to treat you like that. Like property or a trading card or something.”

It was for him. She wasn’t crying because she got into a public…though thankfully not too public…quarrel, or because someone found out she had hired him, but because of how she thought it made him feel. He squeezed her tighter, then leaned down to kiss her nose, her forehead, her hair. He wanted to shout out how he felt, to tell her that he was sure this was meant to be. It might not be an agricultural fair, but this was it. He knew it.

It might take her time to figure that out, but he already knew it.

“You think we should go to the cottage?” he asked.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

Twenty-Six

It was nice to put away Mike’s things in her room…or at least fold them before he crammed them into drawers. It felt sort of official, like they were going somewhere good and doing it together. That display in the back foyer of the resort had made her blood boil, but at least it would be over in the morning.

Amy figured if they lazed in bed and maybe had room service again, or even went into town to sample the local food delights, then they wouldn’t have to worry about meeting up with those people again. And the funny thing was, she still had no clue who they were.

That they were rich was obvious, that they weren’t newly rich was equally obvious. That meant she would never have mixed in their circles. She’d spoken to plenty of investors, but old money always had others do that sort of listening for them.

After Mike shoved his suitcase into the closet next to hers, he came to the deck and moved the other chair close to hers with a loud squeak, then plopped down like he was exhausted. He probably was. Between all the activity last night—and again this morning—quitting his job and entirely changing his life plan, he was probably tapped out in the energy department.

He looked out at the sea for a minute, then rolled his head to face her and asked, “What did that man mean when he said you didn’t need people talking at the moment?”

Whoops. There was the big question. Her picture had been on every business website she’d surfed before she got on the plane. Pharma sales were big news, even when it was a little company like hers. There was no question that man had known who she was, which seemed weird. Nevertheless, she’d never even considered the possibility of someone outing her and now that he’d brought it up, she hoped he could keep his word.

Not because it would be bad for her, but because it would be terribly hard for Mike. New relationships were hard enough without adding that into the mix.

Rolling over onto her side, she propped her head up on her hand and said, “I just sold my pharmaceutical company for enough money to sink a boat.”

There, it was over. She’d told the truth. Maybe she should have hedged, but she knew he wasn’t with her for the money. Deep down, she knew. If she had been breaking up with guys for years because she got tired of faking satisfaction with sex and simply couldn’t admit it, then what would it be like to have to admit something like this? How would she explain something like that later?
Oh, hey honey, I kept this from you so you wouldn’t want me for a sugar mama, but guess what…we’re rich!

No, that would not fly.

He didn’t say anything at all. He just looked at her like he was entirely confused. He snapped out of whatever held him and said, “But you stay at the Holiday Inn Express.”

She laughed and said, “I did. Until I sold my company, I’ve been scraping by on nothing since grad school. Seriously. I live in an apartment surrounded by college students because it’s cheap. Every penny I could raise went into the company. The only product we actually sold were laboratory services that needed the kind of equipment we used. That helped, but we ran on what I could raise.”

“Then how…”

“It’s complicated, but the basics are that I was a junior researcher working for another start-up. The team I worked with was led by someone who actually owned the rights to his research, which is something of a rarity nowadays. There were three teams in total and all of us were developing something related to the problems presented by certain kinds of chemo, specifically the effects on non-target, fast growing cells in the body.”

Mike looked like she’d lost him and he shrugged, then said, “Tree guy here. I understand biology, but plants are my thing.”

“Okay. All that matters is that the start-up failed, mostly due to mismanagement by a total novice in the world of biotech and pharma. The other two teams were swallowed up by another company, but it turned out that I was a much better saleswoman and manager than I was a researcher. And here we are.”

“Wow,” he said. “I think I’m intimidated.”

She laughed, then reached over to squeeze his arm. “Lightning struck in a good way. I couldn’t replicate that if I tried. We got lucky, but in a totally random way.”

He raised his eyebrows, as if asking her to elaborate.

“You know, I always wanted long nails. Turns out, our drug doesn’t stop hair from falling out, but during initial trials, it made nail type tissue grow like gangbusters.”

“Fingernails?”

She nodded. “Fingernails.”

He laughed and said, “Okay, lightning. Gotcha.” The moon slipped behind a cloud and the silver light dimmed, leaving them cocooned in darkness. After a while, he said, “I thought you were like me. I felt really bad that you might have spent your life savings on this or something.”

“Does it matter if I’m not poor anymore?”

He didn’t answer right away and Amy felt her stomach flutter, fearful he might say it did matter. Finally, he said, “No, but I’m not sure how I fit into this.”

While she wanted to climb on top of him and show him exactly how well he fit into all her equations, she knew that would be the wrong thing to do. It would simply reinforce the notion that he was good for sex. It would do nothing to answer him in a way that would make him feel good about himself. Mike was more than sex and hotness and he deserved to know that. Amy knew it with certainty.

“We’ll figure it out. I have no idea what I’m doing next and I don’t intend to suddenly take up fast cars and an even faster nightlife. I’m adrift, but I’m still me. Plus, it’s not
that
much. Enough, but not if I burn through it like wildfire by being stupid.”

He yawned suddenly and Amy realized it must be past midnight already. She stood and held out her hand for him to take, then led him inside their cottage. “I’m glad you’re sleeping next to me tonight,” she said. She meant it too. Sex or no sex, she wanted him near her.

As they got into bed, it turned out he wasn’t so tired after all.

Twenty-Seven

Days were passing too quickly for Mike. When he went home he was going to have to tell his roommate that not only had he quit the job he’d gotten him so Mike could dig himself out of debt, but also that once he put aside the last few payments on the land and the next tax bill, he wouldn’t even be able to pay the rent.

It was certainly an inopportune time to meet the woman of his dreams. Then again, he’d had a couple of offers—lowball ones—from one of the bigger growers looking to expand their holdings. He’d actually considered it, seriously considered it, the last time.

He’d been hammering the internet and had bookmark folders filled with information about places for a fresh start, a place where drought wouldn’t be looming over his head every year. There were a lot of places, but they were expensive.

It’s cheaper to hold land you already have than buy new.
That’s what his dad had always said. Of course, life was more complicated than a saying and Mike wasn’t at all sure that was true anymore. Water would continue to be a problem and that part of California seemed destined to return to the plains land it had been before it became the vegetable bowl of America. At least his part of it would.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Amy said, rolling over in bed and running a palm over his cheek. It was rough since it was morning and he hadn’t shaved yet. She scratched at his stubbly cheek in a way that felt absolutely delightful. He was starting to think it was true that men were dogs, just not in the way people meant. That felt
good
.

He covered her hand with his own and said, “Just thinking about water and California.”

Her brows drew together and she rolled all the way over to face him. “What?”

“I’m going to sell my place in California, I think.”

Her eyebrows shot up and she asked, “You have a place in California? Like sunshine and surf and beautiful people, California?”

He laughed and said, “Not like that. It’s all farmland where I’m at. People in boots that drive dusty trucks.”

“You’re a farmer?”

“Not quite. Orchards. Groves. I told you I was a tree guy. Almonds and apricots.”

“Ooo, I love apricots!”

He smiled like she’d just said something funny. “Me too. Don’t tell people that or they’ll think you’re weird. Anyway, it’s not in production right now. New trees take time.”

She sensed there was more. Of course she did. She didn’t push, merely waited, her hair a wild mess on the pillow and her lips perfect for kissing.

At some point, he would have to spill the beans, but his was not the happy story of lightning striking and raining money. His was more lightning striking and starting a fire that burned a whole swath of productive land that happened to include his orchards. And his parents.

Should he tell her? It made him feel needy and he didn’t like that at all. He knew she could fix his problem in a heartbeat and she might even offer to, but that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to face his problems and deal with them.

He needed to shed some baggage.

He’d had a hard time going back to plant those first young trees. Unable to stop looking at the clearing where his home had been, he’d stayed at a friend’s house rather than camp on the property as he’d intended. Mike simply couldn’t bear to be near it.

He knew he needed to sell the groves. He had just hoped to make it better before he did. Put it off so that he didn’t have to think about it. But look what he’d been doing in order to pay for it. If running away to the other side of the country to become a paid escort wasn’t an escape from problems, he didn’t know what was.

“I can lay here for a shockingly long time,” she said, smiling a little.

He chuckled and tapped the tip of her nose. “I guess I was hoping to put off you finding out all the not-so-great things about me until after we left paradise.”

That clearly got her attention and she stuffed the pillow under her head more firmly, a little frown on her face. It wasn’t a displeased frown, but rather a concerned one. It lifted his heart to see it. She genuinely cared. She proved it with everything she did.

Patting his belly with her hand—it was more like a concerned pat than a sexual one—she said, “Everyone has some not-so-great that comes with the greatness. It’s a package deal. Plus, I feel like I know facts about you, but not so much how you feel about things.”

“What do you mean?”

She pursed her lips to the side, which was a sight with full lips like hers, and thought for a second. “Well, I know you love camping, especially the real kind. That you’re scary good at naming fish and plants and that you don’t just see a shady spot when you see a tree. I also know that you like baseball—for many reasons. I know that you prefer realism to more abstract art styles—”

He pressed his hand over hers and interrupted. “Wait. How do you know that? We haven’t talked about art.”

She grinned a little at him and said, “By the way you lingered over the more realistic pictures, but stood away from the abstracts at the gallery.”

“Aren’t you perceptive,” he half-asked and half-complimented. He’d had no idea he was doing that while they looked at the various art pieces on display. “What else?”

Amy shrugged a little and said, “The rest is just all facts. You’re an only child like me. Also like me, your parents are gone. You went to college on a swimming scholarship and so did your friend Charlie. You’re two years younger than me and you have an obsession with a space TV show that borders on the unhealthy.”

“Only the original series, though,” he said. “It’s an important distinction.”

She laughed and said, “Of course!”

He rubbed the back of her hand where it rested on his stomach and thought about it. They really didn’t yet know that much about each other. Not really. “It seems like we’ve been doing a whole lot of talking over the last few days. We should know more about each other.”

She nodded, but said, “That’s all just time and exposure. We know the best bits. We’ll get there.”

When Amy said that, he knew she meant it. She was telling him that they were together, that they would be together when they left this island and long after. All the rest was details.

She pinched the skin of his belly softly and said, “And you’re going to tell me about this farm.”

Mike shook his head. She was persistent for sure. He snuggled down under the sheet and rolled so that he could face her, both of them nearly buried in the big pillows and surrounded by clean white cotton. Amy must have sensed his difficulty, because she shifted her hand to his upper arm and stroked him softly, gently. It was comfort and support.

“Okay, it’s pretty simple really. My groves were actually our family’s groves and orchards. They put me as a partner after college because it’s safer…in a legal sense. The drought had been going on for so long that things were very dry. Other groves near us had actually been bulldozing older sections of their groves up. We were shifting to a micro-irrigation system, which basically means we were shifting our watering habits to accommodate the drought and be more environmentally friendly, but that meant everything not at the roots of the trees was dry as a bone. With me so far?”

She nodded, but said nothing to break the flow of his words.

“Well, I was gone for a long weekend with friends and a lightning strike started a fire between our property and the next groves over. There was a stand of trees between us that used to be watered by a little stream, but it was dry that year. It just swept through on the winds. It was so fast that it was an issue of containment rather than putting it out. When all was said and done, there were a whole lot of smaller growers who were out of business for a while.”