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She looked confused for a second before her face cleared. Nodding sagely, she murmured, “Ah, so it’s the girl, then?”
I covered my mouth with both hands. Girl? What girl? Did he have a girl?
Oh, my God. Was I the girl?
I had to be. Who else could the girl be? I was the only girl who’d publically associated herself with him and the one girl Dr. Janison had seen him sitting beside.
“That’s fine. You’re young and curious. I don’t mind if you play at a relationship for a while. As long as you return to where you belong when you’re done.” Dr. Janison reached out to touch his hair, but he shifted his head away from her seeking fingers. She dropped her hand but didn’t look deterred in the least. “Just let me know when you’re finished with her. And then…I’ll pay whatever fee you ask.” She winked. “I know you’re good for it.”
She took a business card from her pocket and slowly bent to set it in the spine of the open pages as if slotting in a bookmark.
Eww. Now I was going to have to spray every page with disinfectant to erase her slut cooties after Mason returned the story to me.
How dare she put her business card in my book? It made me hot and angry and sad and heartbroken and kind of sick with jealousy and repulsion. I even grew pissed at Mason for leading the kind of life he led, where situations like this happened.
Dr. Janison blew him a kiss, then turned and strolled off.
As soon as she was gone, Mason sliced a guilty glance in my direction.
The breath caught in my throat. Oh, God. I couldn’t breathe. He did know I was here, which meant I just might be the girl.
He’d come up here to be close to me. He’d told one of his clients he was done taking appointments. There was a girl involved. In my head, one and one and one made holy shit, he’s no longer a gigolo.
Giddy warmth stole through me, but then I mentally slapped myself across the face.
What the hell was wrong with me? I’d just watched another woman solicit him for sex—which she planned to pay any price for—and I was woozy about thinking he might want to start a relationship with me?
I must’ve lost my damn mind.
I don’t think he saw me watching him. I was still kneeling on the floor by the bottom shelf, but I moved my face out of my peephole just to be sure.
When I had to—yes, I had to—look again, he was picking Dr. Janison’s business card out of my book with the very tips of his thumb and index finger. Handling it carefully as if it were contaminated, he flicked it into a nearby trashcan.
A huge grin spread my lips wide.
Who cared what sick plague had infected me for wanting to be with a gigolo—or possibly an ex-gigolo. He’d just turned down a client.
For me!
Well, maybe for me. But the maybe part made all the difference. I was thrilled. Euphoric.
Getting back to work in a much better mood, I sorted through the misshelved books and organized them with much more buoyancy. I couldn’t stop smiling. I might’ve even begun to hum a cheerful tune under my breath.
I felt jovial until I heard another female voice saying Mason’s name. Jesus Herbert Christ, they were like cockroaches coming out of the woodwork to swarm him.
But this voice was way too familiar.
“Well, look who’s hanging out in a library, actually reading. Or is that just a front to meet some horny skank?”
I jerked my face up and peeked through a gap in the books in time to see Eva knock my book out of Mason’s hands—gasp, I know; the sacrilege of knocking Harry Potter to the floor was simply obscene. Then, my dear sweet cousin went and took its place, plopping onto his lap. Looping her arms around his neck, she added, “I just saw Dr. Janison up here. Isn’t she one of your regulars?”
My mouth dropped open wide. What the hell was she doing?
“Eva, get off me.” Grabbing her wrists that she’d seemingly super-glued around him, he struggled to untangle her arms.
Still perched on his lap, she merely smirked. “So, did you two actually do it up here, or were you only setting up your next…appointment? Personally, I think it’d be hot to do it in some place public. Like a library. Except we’d have to be too quiet.”
Giving up on trying to unlace her arms from around his throat—because he was having no luck whatsoever—Mason lifted his hands in surrender. “Seriously, you need to get off me. Now.”
