His Sugar Baby

SARAH ROBERTS

Copyright © 2011

Chapter One

Cathy Somerset was desperate. The thought had kept creeping into her mind lately that the only thing she had left to sell was her body. Now here was the opportunity in black and white.

Mature Sugar Baby Wanted—I’m seeking a slender, attractive woman, 24-34, for a friends-with-benefits arrangement that will provide you with up to seven Benjamins per week or about three grand per month.

“I’m crazy,” she whispered. But she
was
still staring at the ad. She was clearly, seriously considering the possibility. It was disturbing.

If two years before someone had predicted what her life would be like, Cathy would have laughed in utter disbelief. But the black clouds had rolled in, gathering overhead, preternaturally darkening her life, and there was still not a shaft of sunshine in sight.

She had sold or liquidated everything that she could. Her house was gone and most of her furniture. She had sold her nice car with the equally nice monthly payment. Now she drove an older vehicle with no payment. She had raided her 401(k) retirement account and broken her IRAs. She had even taken many of her clothes to consignment shops. In short, anything of any value was gone.

Cathy scrubbed her gritty eyes with the backs of her fingers. Her eyes hurt from the strain of staring at the computer for hours at work earlier and now at home. It was late. She had finished looking through the part-time-job ads online. Then because she didn’t want to sleep, she had looked at eBay listings. Now she was cruising in the personal ads. She was having nightmares again, which was hardly surprising. That was one reason she wasn’t in bed yet. The other reason, of course, was that she had hoped to find a part-time job to supplement her income. The bills were like a black hole, sucking away everything she made and more.

Seven Benjamins a week. Three grand a month.

Her mind absorbed, calculated again the total of the bills that were at that moment stacked on her desk. It would be too overwhelming to factor in the tax consequences of breaking her IRAs, so she didn’t. Over the long, long months, she had gotten very good at sticking her head in the sand.

Rereading the ad, Cathy bit her lip. “I haven’t been with anyone for six years.” Could she do it? Like this? Chills shivered over her skin. Hastily, she shut down the computer, blanking out the temptation.

Cathy got ready for bed and crawled tiredly between the sheets. Her whole body was buzzing with exhaustion. She closed her eyes. But she couldn’t shut down her mind. She switched from one side to the other and back again. Trying to get comfortable, she adjusted her pillow, pulled up the covers to her shoulders, then tossed them back down.

It all came down to money.
Seven Benjamins.

“Shut up! Shut up!” Cathy yanked a pillow over her head, pressing her arm down on it.

Three sleepless hours later, she dragged herself up and went into the narrow room that served for an office. In the dark, Cathy powered up the computer. The white light hurt her eyes, but she scrolled until she found the ad and printed it out. She set up a new e-mail account with a made-up name and typed a short message. Then swiftly, before she could change her mind, she hit send.

Cathy sat immobile for a moment, the screen’s white light shining in her face. She had actually done it. Unbelievable. She shrugged. She turned off the computer. When she got back into bed, almost as soon as her head touched the pillow, she fell into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.

When she got home from work that night, she opened her new e-mail account. She had a message. Apprehension slid along her spine. She licked suddenly-dry lips. Slowly, she clicked open the e-mail. As she read it, her heart began to pound. Then she proved to herself that she had really gone mad. She sent a reply, agreeing to meet the man who was offering seven Benjamins a week for sex.

* * * *

They met for coffee downtown on SoCo at an outside café during her lunch hour. His name was Michael. He didn’t offer his last name, and she did not ask it. She said that her name was Winter. He did not ask for her last name.

Michael explained more in depth what he was seeking. He was an IT professional. His career was demanding. He was based there in
Austin
, but he traveled. He was not interested in a traditional relationship, nor did he want to go to the trouble of developing a relationship.

“Dating is difficult to mesh with my schedule. I want to see someone about once or twice a week, perhaps more, when I’m in
Austin
. I’ll provide three thousand dollars a month, plus any clothes or anything else that I buy along the way,” he said.

Cathy carefully thought over everything he had said. The strange feeling of distance, as though she was watching and listening to someone else, still had her in its grip. From her perspective, it was a distinct advantage that he traveled extensively and that his profession was far removed from her own in academia. There was less chance of there being mutual acquaintances between them. She would have died even to have had any of her friends or colleagues eavesdrop on this conversation, let alone have them become aware of any such liaison.

The arrangement as Michael outlined it did not sound particularly demanding, which was also an advantage. It was more fluid than a part-time second job, which was an unpleasant option that she had reluctantly accepted to be necessary. That was the only reason that she was even entertaining the idea.

However logically she examined his proposal, though, did not explain how she had come to be there, seated across from this man, calmly listening to him as he laid out his expectations. At the back of her mind, behind the wall of impersonality, Cathy toyed with the suspicion that she was suffering from a brain fever.

There was still the question of how things were supposed to work. “These assignations…They would happen at your place?”

He smiled. There was a watchful expression in his curiously pale blue eyes. “My home, yes.”

“W–would—” Realizing she was stammering, Cathy stopped to steady herself with a deep breath. “Would you want me, or–or whomever, to socialize with your friends or coworkers?”

His smile faded into a slight frown as his dark brows drew together. “No. This would be strictly between us. We would take in some shows and go out to dinner, maybe attend a few concerts. But it would never be a group thing. You wouldn’t meet my friends. I don’t want to meet your friends. Discretion is a must for me.”

Cathy gave a jerky nod. “Okay. That part is good.”

He looked across the table at her, examining her. She fidgeted under his unwavering gaze. “You are nervous.”

Cathy was surprised into a hoarse, short laugh. “I’ve never done anything like this. I’ve never
thought
about doing anything like this!”

He didn’t reply at once but merely looked at her again. Abruptly, he asked, “Are you attached?”

She stared at him, at a loss. It took a moment before understanding came to her. “Oh, you mean… No, I’m divorced. Six years ago.”

He nodded. “That’s a plus. I don’t think an arrangement like this would work out long-term if you’re in a relationship.”

He didn’t say so, but she assumed from what he had said that he wasn’t in a relationship either. Cathy felt obscurely relieved. She didn’t like the idea of being with a married man.

Astonishment abruptly detonated in her mind, cracking that icy wall of distance. Her lungs hitched. Did she have any scruples left? Married or not, wasn’t it all the same thing? She was selling her body, for God’s sake.

She felt as though she had slammed into a brick wall. There was a ringing in her ears. She looked wildly around. The ordinariness of the day intruded. Other people sat at outside tables or walked past the café. The
Texas
sky was clear and bright blue. A light breeze offered momentary relief from the ninety-degree heat, but it did little to cool her suddenly heated cheeks.
Oh God, what have I been thinking!

Cathy fumbled for her purse. She stood up abruptly. “Look, I can’t – I didn’t think…” She stopped, drew a breath and held it until she regained control of herself. “I’m sure you have others to interview. I’ve got to go. Thank you for the coffee.” She walked swiftly away, trying hard not to think about the conversation just past.

* * * *

Michael Lambert could not stop thinking about her. The shift of transparent emotions on her expressive face, bits and pieces of their brief conversation, kept returning at odd moments. When she had jumped up and rushed away, he had shrugged and mentally marked her off. She had been right. There were others who had responded to his ad. He had no difficulty deleting most of them immediately. Others were as swiftly eliminated after an e-mail exchange or two. There were less than a handful that he actually followed up with meetings. He knew what he wanted, what he was looking for. Unfortunately, none of the remaining handful attracted him as much as the woman who called herself Winter.

She was not the most beautiful, by any means, nor the youngest. But there was something about the wariness in her wide hazel eyes and the sensual shape of her lips. She had a bow-shaped upper lip and a fuller bottom lip that looked made for kissing. He had watched how her teeth had kept worrying at that lush bottom lip, giving him the urge to bite it, too. Her fingers were slim, the pink oval nails well kept. No ring mark had marred the smooth skin of her left hand. Her figure was good, from what he had been able to discern of it through the conservative suit jacket and skirt she worn.

He thoughtfully swiveled from side to side, making his leather office chair squeak. She had seemed to be considering his offer before she leaped up and fled. A frown creased his brows. Maybe the long-term commitment had been too much all at once. Would she have agreed if he had offered a more fluid arrangement? Abruptly, he leaned forward to his laptop and clicked open the e-mail. He typed a brief message and hit send.

Now he would wait. He returned his focus to his work, able to put the woman out of his mind at last.

* * * *

It had been three weeks since the disastrous, ill-judged meeting at the café. Cathy had had no difficulty in forgetting the aberrant incident. She had too much drama in her day-to-day life to allow something small, like nearly prostituting herself, to infringe on her struggle to survive.

Her job was fine. It was secure, partially due to the fact that her direct supervisor was an old graduate-school friend. Yet she was careful to do her work well because she didn’t want to jeopardize her only remaining source of income. She had enough tenure, and she was valuable enough that she wouldn’t ordinarily have worried about losing her position. However, these weren’t normal times. During the past two years, as details of her situation became better known, it was difficult to remain unaffected by her coworkers’ attitudes. The universal pity was crushing her. There were days when Cathy felt like she couldn’t breathe.

Her supervisor, Paul Howard, had urged her to take off whatever time she needed. On general principle, Cathy had resisted the suggestion. She thought that she was already taking advantage of the opportunity more often than she should. She wanted desperately to be with her daughter. But she knew deep down inside, though she never allowed the thought to take root and she did not willingly talk about the possibility, there could well come a time when she would have to leave work permanently.

She thought sometimes that it would be a relief to leave, not just for her but for everyone who was so excruciatingly kind and understanding and-and evasive when they were forced by the proximity of their work to be around her. Cathy saw how they shifted their bodies, the nervous finger tapping, the sliding away of their gazes. She tried to give off as positive an aura as she could, but sometimes she just wanted to scream.

Of course, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t afford an emotional outburst. She would be hustled off the premises for her own good. Paul would gently tell her that it wasn’t surprising that she could no longer handle the stress. Anyone else could declare that they had had a bad weekend, cry a few tears over a break up, or kick at a malfunctioning copier. But she couldn’t. Cathy felt that she held such a tight rein over her emotions that at any given moment she might shatter into a million jagged shards.

Her sister lived too far away to call on when she really, really needed someone. Of course she had friends, good friends. Friends that she could confide in and who would hold her when she cried. A friend like Vicky Sotero, who was always there for her. It had been Vicky who had set up a website detailing Chloe’s condition and had sent out an appeal for funds. It had helped tremendously, especially after her health insurance had been capped out, and Cathy was grateful. But even Vicky, who was her closest friend in the world, would be overwhelmed and alarmed if Cathy let loose the way that she needed to, the way that she did sometimes when she was alone at night.

Cathy wearily let herself into the apartment. She dropped her purse, kicking off her heels at the same time. She hated the cheerless place. It was small and dingy and airless. The beautiful home she had sold had been light and spacious. It depressed her to think about what she used to have, so she didn’t. It was just another example of her ability to hide her head in the sand.