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His eyes turned hard and glittering. “I fuck myclientsbecause they deserve a good fuck, and I want to give it to them. In one woman’s case, I give her pleasure and don’t care that she might be thinking of her dead husband.”
“Oh my. How charitable and selfless of you,” she sneered.
“Isn’t it?” he said, picking up his wine glass and taking a sip, and maybe it was her imagination, but she swore his hold on the glass wasn’t quite steady.
She was getting to him, but why? What did he care if she thought he was the most heartless prostitute to ever walk the Earth?
Julian put his glass down. “As much as I care for her, I’ve never fully understood my client’s obsession with the memory of one person, even if he was her husband. And yet, three months ago, a woman in a black mask with raven feathers walked into my life. And I couldn’t get her out of my mind.”
At his sudden admission, Skylar felt a shudder run through her. She gripped the edge of the table to keep him from seeing.
“The questions started that night. ‘Who is this woman?’ ‘What is her story?’ ‘Where does the sorrow in her eyes come from?’ ‘Where did she get hair so white and lips so perfect?’ So many questions, Skylar. None that I could answer. Because you ran.”
“I did. I ran.” Her voice was a hint of a whisper, her heart pounding so heavily in her chest she was sure he could hear.
Julian leaned in even closer still. “Do you know what the loudest questions were?” he asked, his voice the volume of the flutter of a bird’s wing.
She could almost taste the wine on his lips, red and sweet and intoxicating— he was that close. She felt so fragile under his gaze, so fragile that she worried if she shook her head, she’d shatter into more pieces than the twinkling lights above them. So she remained still, like a spooked animal, and waited.
Finally, he spoke. “The loudest questions were theWhyquestions. Why did she fight the pleasure I gave her? Why did she stop me? Why did she run?”
When he eased himself away and leaned against the back of his chair, Skylar shivered. His withdrawal felt like she’d been dragged away from the heat of a fire into the cold of the night. She wanted to answer, but words, thoughts, they all drifted about in her mind like tiny snowflakes on a dark, bitter night.
His eyes were severe and dark as he stared at her. “I write about interesting people, people that intrigue me, people that puzzle me, people that keep me up at night,” he said. He reached for his wine glass and sipped it slowly before his eyes returned to her. “And you, Ms. McKenzie, have robbed me of sleep for three months. Not only that, but the thought of you fucked with my fucking. I have so many questions,” he continued. “And finally, one way or another, I’m going to get the answers to all of them.”
20
“Just how do you expect to get these answers?” Skylar said.
“I told you I have a proposal for you.”
Her chest clenched. She felt trapped at that moment right before the roller coaster tipped over the edge, full of fear and anxiety and knowing there was no way off and that the only thing to do was plunge. “Yes, you did.”
“So here it is. My proposal. I’m going to write a story, but I’ll let you decide which story I’m going to write.”
She tilted her head. “A story? I—”
“Hush.” He did that thing with his finger again, where he brushed it over her lips to stop her from speaking. He searched her eyes with a devilish grin. “Option One— I write a story about you andEmpowered in Finance. A story that I guarantee will launch interest and donations higher than you could have ever imagined.”
“Ah, but you’re already writing about the charity. So I fail to see how that would motivate me to answer your questions.”
He shrugged. “I wrote the puff piece based on yesterday’s interview and submitted it this morning. Three paragraphs, below the fold, on page six, one regional newspaper. Not a lot of attention, I’m afraid. But I can guarantee sixteen paragraphs, above the fold, on the Society page of the largest, most influential newspapers in the nation.”
“Oh.” That kind of attention would be a bigger boost to the charity than the charity’s semi-annual fundraisers could ever be. “Interesting.” Something struck her, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “And the catch is that I tell you all my secrets? Even the ones where you don’t even know to ask the question?”
Julian’s eyes flashed. “You have a lot of those, do you?”
“Probably no more than you do.”
Something flickered in his expression, making her wonder—given how he literally bared almost everything to the press thus far, what further secrets could he be keeping? For some reason, she suspected the last thing they had to do with was him being an escort.
“Is the biggest secret you hold why you’ve never come?”
Heat suffused her chest, crawling up her neck like a shadow creeping over the land. She shook her head. “I haven’t admitted that’s even true.”
“Then deny it. Right here. Right now.”
She hesitated, then lifted her chin and said, “No. Because it’s true. And I’m not ashamed of it. It’s just the way it is.”
