Page 39 of Escorting the Mogul
“I dunno, Coley.” But I got on my phone and started scrolling. Lo and behold, there were already pictures of us online, most of them from the previous party. I hadn’t worried about it, because we’d been having so much fun. But there had been photographers at all the events, and Cole and I had posed for multiple shots.
I showed him a picture of us from theHerald’s gossip column. We were smiling, Cole’s arm thrown around me:Boston mogul Cole Bryson and his date.
“They don’t even have your name in there,” Cole said. “How the heck did the Windsors track you?”
“Like you said, they’re wicked rich. And bored. They probably hired somebody to dig me up on the Internet andboom. They linked me back to the agency.” My shoulders slumped. “I’m real sorry. I hope you don’t get evicted because of me.”
“I’m not getting evicted, and you don’t have to apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong.” But his face had that dark and stormy look again.
“I’m still sorry.” I tentatively reached over and held his hand.
He didn’t pull away from me, which was a good thing.
But I didn’t know how long I had before that happened. If his nosy neighbors knew I was a hooker, the news could spread and fast. Cole might think it wasn’t a big deal, but I knew how this worked. He was worth billions. I was worth less than nothing. Billionaires and call-girls did not compute, not in any math I ever saw.
I felt like Cinderella when her chariot turned back into a pumpkin and all the pretty horses returned to being mice. It was only a matter of time before it turned to midnight, and the full spell was broken.
And what the hell was I going to do after that?
COLE
The Windsor sistersdidn’t scare me. As far as I was concerned, they could go die in a hole. They had money, but I had more money. They had time on their hands and an axe to grind, but I had all the best lawyers and all the best everyone else. I could bury them. Iwouldbury them now that they’d gone and pissed me off. I didn’t like how they’d spoken to Jenny. They were going to pay dearly for their transgression.
No, the Windsors weren’t my concern. But if they could find out about Jenny so quickly, so could other people. And therein lay the problem.
While Jenny washed off her makeup, I checked my phone. And there, just as suspected, were several more text messages from Kevin, my father’s assistant. These were ones I couldn’t ignore.
Me again. He asked me to send this:
There was a picture of me and Jenny from the party.
He wants to know who the girl is. Between you and me, he already has someone looking into her.
Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll deal with it.
Sighing, I turned my phone off. This was what I’d been worried about. If Florence and Greta found out about Jenny, so could my father. And he was way worse than my nosy neighbors.
I stared out at the night sky, thoughts racing. My “girlfriend” was a hooker. So what? What would he do with this information? Would Daddy call the police on me? I doubted it. He needed my professional connections. On top of that, AccommoDating’s Madam had assured me that their business was perfectly legal—on paper. So, what did I have to worry about? His approval? My father hadn’t seemed to approve of me for a long time…
Florence and Greta Windsor wanted to get me evicted. That was straightforward and, therefore, easy to combat. But my father… He was a hell of a lot trickier than my douche-y neighbors. I’d been fighting him for years and still hadn’t figured him out.
I didn’t say a word to Jenny as she climbed into bed and snuggled beside me. What was the point? I didn’t want to make her upset. It wasn’t her fault that the Internet existed. It wasn’t her fault that people on message boards talked and that if you looked hard enough, you could probably find out anything about anybody.
It wasn’t her fault I’d hired her.
“Good night. Thanks for another great day.” She nestled against my chest.
“Thank you.” I kissed the top of her head.
“Are you tired…?” She yawned but tried to hide it.
“Hell yes, I’m tired. We had sex, like, six hundred times today.” I laughed. “Go to sleep.”
“Okay, Coley. Good night.” Jenny stilled and fell asleep almost immediately, lightly snoring. She took up more than her side of the bed. Far from annoying, I found it charming as she burrowed deeper under the covers and against my side.
Warm protectiveness surged through me. Poor Jenny. The Windsors were such bitches.“We have to keep the riffraff out, you know?”What the hell did Greta or Florence know about anything? Jenny still hadn’t told me about her life, but it didn’t take much imagination to figure out. It probably hadn’t been too cushy.
My neighbors pissed me off; my father exhausted me. Part of me wanted to ignore his inquiry, ignorehim. I was my own man. I made my own money, and I had my own life. It didn’t matter to me that I’d paid for a fake girlfriend. In many ways, it was the best money I’d ever spent.
