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“Everything about his childhood is familiar to me. We’ve experienced the same setbacks and heartaches. The level of empathy between us is amazing,” I insisted. “And he’s completely open and honest with his emotions too. There’s no guessing with that man. No games for a change.”
Our waitress set our drink orders on the table and left us in peace once more.
I couldn’t keep the grin off my face. Even though returning to work had been overwhelming, I felt an inner peace and happiness that transcended stress, all thanks to the new man in my life.
Troy took a sip of his water with lemon, eyeing me without a hint of happiness in his eyes.
“What?” I asked, my smile faltering slightly, the hum of the busy restaurant around us fading away.
Lips in a thin line, he set his glass aside and pulled out his cell phone. Swiping it to life, he asked, “Have you checked out Mason online? Done any digging to make sure he’s being honest with you?”
“What?” Another puff of laughter left my lungs, but my smile diminished as Troy once more turned his serious gaze to my face.
“Has he told you what he’s really been doing for work since Carter Communications folded in January?”
“Odd jobs,” I replied. “Nothing permanent—but he did check out Silas’s website and is considering putting in an application for the new team members they’re looking for. He seems to think he might be a good fit.”
Troy slid his cell across the table, and the hairs on my nape rose with some sixth sense of impending…something I wouldn’t like.
“What’s this?” I picked his phone up with a shaking hand.
A picture of a shirtless Mason…
I glanced to the website’s title.Elite Escorts MM. I scrolled down, reading and not comprehending the description of the man who had stolen my heart.
“He’s an escort, Jasper,” Troy stated quietly, leaning forward to speak for my ears alone. “He’s Elite’s most sought-after silver fox, a dick for hire who cares for men who have a lot of money to blow on make-believe sugar daddies.”
I stared at the picture of my lover, the body I recognized. Had memorized. “That’s—that’snotMason,” I argued over the description my friend had recited to me.
“It is.”
“But…he’s not even a top! What the fuck is this, Troy?” Scowling, I clicked the website’s menu and perused the front page, convinced it was some kind of hoax. A veryunfunnyApril Fool’s joke in July.
It wasn’t.
EEMM was an actual escort service—posh as hell and definitely only available for those well above my pay grade. Over a dozen available escorts were listed according to whatever a client desired. Arm candy. Simple dinner date. Vanilla to the opposite end of the sexual spectrum of sadist dom.
Mason’s profile listed him as Elite’s sexy silver fox with raving reviews about his professionalism and agreeable nature. The persona he wore in public sat like a mask on his face…
I tore my focus off his fake smile in the picture, my chest aching—fucking cracking in two. He’d lied? I’d thought…fuck, I’d trusted the connection we had between us.
Did I really though, my inner voice whispered. I hadn’t shared my secrets with him either and had no plans to. It would be best to keep the truth from him to protect the little boy inside me my father had bullied and nearly beaten half to death.
“I-I don’t understand. He hasn’t said anything about this,” I choked out, my eyes stinging.
Wariness filled Troy’s gaze. “I’m guessing he feels ashamed about his work, but it also makes me wonder what else he hasn’t told you.”
Fuck. “Y-you think there’s more?”
Troy shrugged.
I swallowed hard, fighting for calm. “How did you find this?”
“I’m a lawyer. I’m curious about everything. Suspicious. And when it comes to my friends…” Troy shrugged again without an ounce of apology in his gaze. “You’re a good man, Jasper. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
I hadn’t ever asked Mason what he had been doing at the hotel on the night he’d been attacked. I glanced back down at his false front I recognized all too well. Had he been with a client? Or was the fake part of Mason Thomson the oneIknew and was falling for and that image I stared at was the truth?
My stomach churned as I grasped for an explanation, his unwillingness to share the truth with me. I’d thought Mason trusted me fully, that he’d let me in. Had I been manipulated by a master as his mom had been? But for what, exactly? It sure as fuck wasn’t cash. I didn’t have enough money to even afford an hour of his time.
