Boyfriend for Hire: A Stand-Alone Contemporary Romance (Escort Files Book 1) (3 page)

Marion nodded, then went to the closet and poked through the slender offerings. Amy had been on a shoestring with the company for so long that she didn’t own anything that didn’t come from a discount store or wasn’t bought on deep discount after the seasons changed. It wasn’t an inspiring closet.

But, it also wasn’t hopeless. She plucked out a black sheath dress and grabbed the only really sexy shoes Amy owned. She wore them for fundraising and investor dinners. The outfit definitely grabbed attention. “Then bring this at least. You can feed him nice once, can’t you?”

Amy eyed the dress for a moment, thinking. It was a beautiful piece, bought really cheap at an end of year sale at the outlet. Simple, yet curve hugging and cut exactly right. It left one shoulder bare, but didn’t show even a hint of cleavage. It was the kind of dress that hinted at many wonders beneath it, but didn’t advertise them.

“Yes, that,” she said, and tucked a pair of white capri pants into the suitcase. She reached for the dress, but Marion snatched it back and fished out the tag.

“This is a size ten. Perfect. Can I borrow it when you come back?” She dangled the dress out of arm’s reach until Amy relented, then added, “Great! Don’t bring it back with cum stains because that would be crass.”

“You’re the most disgusting person I know.”

“And you love me,” Marion said, bringing the promised cotton panties over.

“That I do.”

Once done, they lugged the suitcases into the living room of Amy’s tiny apartment and sipped wine, both of them imagining the week to come. Amy figured their imaginings were markedly different.

“So, he’s super-hot?” Marion asked…again.

“Yes, extremely. Actually, I didn’t think they made them like that without some sort of genetic manipulation first. He looks like the offspring of Brad Pitt and Chris Helmsworth, only with dark hair.”

Marion raised her eyes to the ceiling, probably trying to decide what that might look like. She asked, “Okay, which one carried the baby?”

“What?”

“Hey, that matters, you know. I can’t picture him without all the data.”

“You’re hopeless,” Amy said, downing the last bit of her wine.

“You never told me what he said when you guys made your arrangement. I mean, what did he say about your whole problem?”

Amy thought back to the meeting. It had been the worst meeting of her life and she’d had some doozies. It was worse than the one with an ex-boyfriend when he’d had the gall to bring his new girlfriend. The leggy blonde had even carried Amy’s box of stuff from his apartment and put it into her arms. Super awkward.

This was worse.

But he had been nice. Very. And it was all just another thing to him, no embarrassment or funny looks. He’d merely smiled and said, “There are a lot of very busy people in the world. It’s more common than you think.”

When he’d shaken her hand and smiled, a deep dimple in one cheek appeared and his lips slid up more on that side. That crooked smile made his level-ten sexiness ride right up and off the charts with a whoosh. It also appeared that his dimple might have a direct line to her nether regions. When it appeared, she felt a tightness and warmth that made her wriggle on her seat. She hoped he hadn’t noticed that.

But it was a good sign.

“He was really polite. He just said he would be happy to work with me.”

Marion rolled her eyes and then looked at the clock on the cable TV box. “Crap, you’ve got a flight in eight hours. You need to hit the sack. I’ll make sure you get up.”

Amy was pretty sure she would never fall asleep, right up until the moment she did.

*****

If the cup of coffee Marion waved in front of her face hadn’t smelled divine and hadn’t been that perfect color that only comes from adding real cream, Amy would have rolled over and gone back to sleep. But it was, so she woke up and took the cup.

“You’ve got a half hour. Then I’m rolling you into the car naked if I have to.”

Her grin was cruel, but very Marion. Amy scooched off the bed, while desperately trying to get some of the hot coffee down her throat and into her bloodstream.

“You’re a merciless bitch,” she mumbled and headed off to the shower.

Twenty minutes later, she reappeared with her bed hair hidden by a scrunchie-tied ponytail and wearing a loose fitting pair of beach pants. She felt like it was a good disguise, nothing that said she was looking for a good time.

Marion shoved her sandals at her, then half of a bagel liberally spread with cream cheese. “Sorry, I ate the other half. Eat. Tick tock!”

Riding in a car with Marion was an exercise in how hard Amy could press her feet into the floorboard and not poke through the car. Though Marion refrained from giving explicit advice on what to have her “boy toy” do to her, she wasn’t above mentioning a wide array of things that she loved to have done. At some point—though Amy wasn’t sure exactly how long it took for her to get to that point—she put her hands over her ears and started humming nursery rhymes.

At the airport, she hustled up to the security point, Marion hot on her heels. The line was long—as usual—so Marion hung with her, even though she shouldn’t have. When Amy reached the point where the cables strung between the lines meant they should be ready and stay in line, she pushed Marion back and said, “No. This is as far as you go. I’m leaving now.”

Marion stepped out, neatly cutting between a couple wearing honeymoon t-shirts, then waved and shouted, “I love you! You’d better come back satisfied! And I don’t mean donuts!”

Amy could have died right then. She could feel her face turning bright red and the appalled looks from those around her focusing directly on her. She waved goodbye and watched as Marion flounced off, her skirt wiggling in tune with the beat of her hips.

There was nothing to do now except hope someone else shouted something equally horrifying. She shuffled forward as soon as space opened up, distancing herself from the site of the disturbance.

For the first time in her life, she turned left at the entrance to the plane rather than right. It seemed surreal to sit her bum in a seat so large she could actually choose which side to lean against. By the time they were airborne and the other first class passengers were doing what they were clearly accustomed to doing, Amy was fast asleep, her champagne untouched in front of her.

The attendant woke her gently, a professional smile on her face. “We’re here,” she said. “Are you okay?”

Amy wiped the unfortunate line of drool off her chin and looked around blearily. “That was fast.”

“Not really, you were sleeping well. First vacation in a while?”

Amy smiled and took the napkin offered to her, wiping off the drool she’d transferred to her hands. “You have no idea.”

“Well, enjoy it then. I’ll bet you’ve earned it.” With that, she turned to the next person in need a wake-up and Amy watched her go. She was slender in a way that usually made Amy want to go on a water-plus-water diet, but this time all she thought was how much standing the poor woman had to do each day on a plane.

With a deep breath and a hope that she wouldn’t ruin this weird, but potentially awesome week, she disembarked into the St. John’s airport.

Four

She was unpacked. She was showered. She was dressed in something that looked at least marginally like what everyone else was wearing—if clearly not designer label. And finally, she was waiting.

The resort was everything the internet had promised her. The pictures hadn’t lied, which was a first for her. The room at the resort wasn’t even a room, but a separate little house that opened directly onto the beach. She’d splurged mightily on this resort, but the truth was that everything on the island was booked. She’d gotten this expensive suite because of a cancelled honeymoon. She felt bad, but also grabbed the opportunity.

For her companion, she’d managed a room, but again that was luck. She hoped it was as nice as her suite. She knew he’d checked in, and now she knew his real name too. He’d had to use his real name for the flight. Michael Grant. Such a nice normal name. His profile said his name was Blake, which had made her giggle when he’d said it to her with a straight face at their initial meeting.

When she saw him winding his way through the tables on the patio, her belly fluttered and she squeezed her thighs together under the table.
I’m so going to bone him
, she thought, then felt the heat in her ears just from thinking it. Eyes surreptitiously—and sometimes not so surreptitiously—watched him walk. He was definitely worth watching. Definitely.

He saw her and once he did, his eyes never left her. He glanced down at her sleeveless shirt, an extra button on the lavender cotton left unbuttoned, and then he smiled that lazy, sexy smile just for her. The dimple did its work and she felt a liquid heat that was foreign and yet, delightfully welcome.

A woman watched him as he passed her, then saw Amy and raised her wineglass in a salute with a grin.
Oh god, she knows.
The smile was a knowing one, but also one that said,
Welcome to the club!

Michael—or Blake or whatever he was today—was wearing almost a mirror of her clothing, but it was done to very different effect. White drawstring pants with enticing little ties that dangled in front and drew the eye right to parts of him that she really shouldn’t be looking at. A shirt of pale blue unbuttoned just so made his skin look tan and entirely lick-able. He looked delicious. Dark hair, dark eyes, and a body so well built it had to be a full-time job to maintain.

“Hi again,” he said, placing his hands on the back of the other chair, clearly waiting for an invitation.

Amy’s mouth felt very dry all the sudden and she squeaked a little when she said, “Hi. Please, take a seat.”

She started to reach out a hand for him to shake, but then pulled it back when she realized people were watching, especially the smiling older woman with the wine. Amy needed to stop being so obvious about not knowing him. She gulped down a bit of the cold water in her glass and wished for a bottle of vodka. Just the bottle, olives not needed.

Michael/Blake leaned forward a little and winked, “Don’t be nervous. We’re here for lunch, right?”

The server appeared and asked if they were ready for menus. While she listed the specialties of the day, Amy tried hard to concentrate, but the simple presence of this man made her brain fuzzy. He smelled of something fresh, like the ocean only with a little something that spoke of maleness. His hands were strong and so perfectly imperfect, the strength in them evident when he rotated his glass on the table. Even the hair on his arms was sexy, black but not overwhelming.

The truth was, she’d lost her appetite and wished she was an artist so she could draw him all day. Naked, of course. Did stick figures count?

“Anything sound good to you?” he asked, breaking her reverie. The server’s lips turned up ever so slightly, and Amy realized she’d been staring. Was she drooling too? She checked, but her chin was dry. Thank goodness for small favors.

“Uh, I’m not sure,” she answered, having absolutely zero memory of anything that server said aside from a few mentions of the word fish.

He covered neatly for her and said, “We flew in this morning and we’re both still half-way on the plane. How about we just look at the menus?”

Once she was gone—with drink orders because Amy needed a drink more than anything else in the world at the moment—he handed her a menu and said, “It’s just a late lunch. Or early dinner. Whatever it is, it’s just food.”

Pulling in a deep breath, Amy pushed it out and held up the menu. He was right. She was acting like she was on some sort of deadline or had some quota in terms of sexual encounters. But in reality, she didn’t have to do anything at all. Not one thing.

If she wanted to look at him while she ate cake all week, she could. If she wanted to simply watch all the other women drool over him, she could do that too.

Whatever she wanted, she could do.

Her appetite came back with a vengeance at that thought and she perused the offerings. It all looked good. She started to do the calculus she always did, figuring out what would have the least calories and not make her look like a glutton. Almost narrowing her choices down to two forms of salad, she looked up at all the other people relaxing with their meals.

She could do what she wanted.

“I’ll have the creole mahi,” she said, putting her menu down to prevent any temptation to change back to a salad.

Michael—or Blake maybe—nodded, his eyebrows rising a little. “I like it. A little spice, a little danger. But I do have one question for you. It’s a serious one.” He leaned forward, the menu folding against that delicious triangle of skin showing above his buttons.

Amy didn’t know what his question might be, but she hoped it wouldn’t make her get up and run from the table. She nodded and said, “Go ahead.”

“Can I have a bite if I get the red snapper?”

Amy leaned back in her chair and threw back her head, a loud laugh escaping her. She covered her mouth with her hand at the looks from several other diners, then said, “Are you Marion in disguise or something? I’ll never get to eat my food in peace.”

He must not have been sure she was joking, because he looked like he was trying to figure out how to retract his request. She waved it off and laughed again. “I’m teasing. You’re more than welcome. But only if it’s an equitable trade. I love red snapper.”

“Deal.”

Five

Mike kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.
There’s no possible way that this woman needs help from someone like me, not looking like that. And she’s booking me for a week to do it. What, am I winning the lottery or something?

The flight had been long and crowded, the woman in the seat next to him hinting she’d like to become a member of the mile high club with increasing bluntness as he pretended not to understand what she meant. By the time Mike had snatched his bag from the carousel and flagged a cab, she was circling like a piranha, looking for that vacation squeeze to round out her tropical spring getaway.