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My fingers did the work before my brain.
What do you want to do with Paige Emmerson in one of our sessions exactly?
I was finishing up my cigarette when a ping sounded back.
Talk, it said. How much just to talk to her?
I leaned back against the porch railings as I stared at the screen.
Talk.
He’d pay a ridiculous chunk of bank balance just to swap words with the sweet Miss Emmerson.
Another message flashed up before I’d had the slightest real chance to think it through.
Please, it read. Soon. I’ll pay more for a priority appointment.
My eyes shot up to the back door. No sign of Eric or any of the security detail.
I couldn’t reply in any depth on that social media login, not knowing my brother had admin rights to the same profile.
I switched away from it on my handset and went back to the bid screen, trying to pull myself together enough to regain my business brain and click accept on the latest offers.
It was a pointless task. The requests were enough to make my stomach spit and lurch. The idea of watching those seedy cunts tear the girl upstairs a new one was enough to inspire a fresh wave of turbulence.
If I could have pitted the two sides of myself against each other in a fist fight and trusted the business sense side to come out on top I’d have commissioned the fight gladly, but as it stood I wouldn’t have hedged my bets on the outcome.
I hissed a whirlwind of self-abuse to myself as I stared up at that clear winter sky, determinedly reminding myself that affection meant nothing in a world drenched in greed. Love meant nothing when pitted against piles of cash.
This couldn’t be anything like love.
This compassion, affection… fascination… whatever the hell it was that I felt towards the slip of a girl upstairs could in no way be constituted as love, no matter what the pangs down deep had to say.
Love didn’t exist.
It hadn’t existed in any way that meant anything when it mattered to me the most.
It hadn’t existed in any way that meant shit when I’d been prepared to put everything on the line for a woman who claimed I meant everything to her way back when.
Everyone could be bought.
Everyone would sell any part of themselves in a heartbeat in the right circumstances.
Everyone would sell their proudly pronounced declarations of love down the river for a decent cash injection.
I was past keeping an eye out for Eric when he decided to join me on the back porch. It was the slap of his hand on my back that sent me spinning, eyes fierce as they slammed into his, only to find his stare full of pity in return.
Was that really me? Pitiful?
Was I really so far off my throne of self-control that the world was witnessing some kind of weakness?
“I didn’t tell you about that college boy message,” he said, clearly having registered me as logged into the profile. “Didn’t figure it was worth more than a laugh when it came through last night.”
I graced him with a nod. “His family do have money.”
“Yeah, I know them. Seen their name on a shit ton of trucks. Just didn’t think he was client material. Not even close.”
I pinched the honesty that he was damned right on that score between my teeth. “Maybe the kid has some dark urges with enough of an allowance to grace them an outing.”
He shrugged. “You’d think he’d be better off waiting for her to get back on campus and offering her a movie night, not paying an absolute shit load to spend a few minutes with her in this place.”
I didn’t laugh. He did.
Another shrug and he carried on talking. “Who knows, hey? She seems to the turning enough of the world crazy right now.”
For a flash of a moment I had the urge to spill some of the truth of my own crazy to the sibling in front of me. He was my only actual memento of my younger lifetime, when I had belief in something other than the supremacy of money and power combined. The only person who stood a hope in hell of remembering the side of me I’d long left behind and being able to talk some fucking reason into me.
But I couldn’t manage any of it.
I’d never manage to spit any truth into the outside world, not even to my biological brother, I simply couldn’t make myself that vulnerable.
“I’ll keep the kid in mind,” I muttered, forcing myself into some semblance of control. “In the interim we have more than enough clients wanting in on the action.” I landed a slap on his arm and headed us back inside, determined to enforce my composure. “I’ll be getting on it shortly. Drake will be eating his bullshit when he realises how well the Emmerson sixty days is performing for his cash balance.”
