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I shake out my hands and pace the empty private penthouse elevator the same way I used to before a big audition.
“You’re a professional. Get it together,” I command myself.
I’ve done this a million times before. I like sugar dating. I like meeting new people, trying new things, going new places, and getting to put my years of acting experience to use. I’m good at it. There’s no reason my nerves should have a vice grip on me like they do.
But I’ve never been this desperate before. I’ve never met a potential sugar daddy only a few days after they messaged me.
I grab my phone from my purse and text my best friend and fellow sugar baby, Safiya, that I’ve arrived and confirm she is able to track my location. She is leaving for a months-long trip to Europe with her longtime sugar daddy tomorrow, and while I’ll miss her terribly, I’m hoping some of her good fortune will rub off on me. I send along a photo of the exterior of the odd downtown building too. It’s not part of my typical security routine, but the high-rise with all its heavy Gothic details and monstrous stone creatures circling the top are too curious not to share.
Everything about this potential arrangement is curious. The man’s name is Titan, for fuck’s sake.Who names a baby Titan?And his personal assistant, who’d greeted me at the building’s front door, called me by my full name. Not the abbreviated nickname, Jules H., I go by on the Sweet Arrangements website. Not even my stage name, Jules Hanes, that I’ve gone by since my first commercial at six and is at least searchable online. But my full legal name, Julianna Novak.
I’ve had background checks by potential arrangements before, but still, I couldn’t help the unnerving sensation that raced up my spine when she’d said it.
This will work.
For ten years I’ve been locked in a legal battle to gain access to the funds that my mother and acting manager stole from me at eighteen. Sugaring always covered the bills and more, but in the last year, my reliable arrangements have ended, and my cash flow has slowed to a trickle. My landlord is threatening legal action, and I’ve got about six months’ worth of debt collectors on my ass. My lawyer worked with me to create a payment plan for his unpaid fees, but I’m already several months behind.
I have to make this work.
The elevator stops, and my breathing follows suit. With a ding, the doors open.
I force a deep breath, adjusting the skirt of the tight white minidress I’d borrowed from Safiya. I’d worn it and the matching purse on my date with Harris. If I was superstitious, I would’ve tossed them both after that awful night. Luckily, designer gear always trumps superstition. I shift my tits forward in my bra for maximum effect.
I step out into what I assume is the foyer of the penthouse. It’s massive, with black marble floors, hunter green walls, and gold antique-looking sconces. Classical music plays through a hidden speaker system. Paintings—Impressionist, Cubist, Gothic—are individually lit and hang unusually high on the walls. There are pedestals with what look like ancient artifacts placed throughout the room. The columns are taller than I would expect and placed with ample space between them. It’s not what I expected. The men I usually meet seem to favor stark white walls and minimal but flashy decor that screams, “Does this fiberglass sculpture make me look young?” But this room is a mix between a museum and what I imagine an English gentlemen’s club might look like.
Who the hell is this guy?
In my brief messages with Titan, he’d written that he owns a private security company, Bruder Security, and that they work with high-profile clients. I double checked the company’s online presence, and it confirmed what the penthouse made clear: Titan’s business does very, very well.
I move towards a particularly interesting piece on display, a jewel-encrusted chalice, set on a pedestal in the back corner of the room. The piece seems far too precious to remain uncovered and in a private home, but here it is. I could touch it if I wanted to. I try to calculate its worth and what I would do with the money after paying off all my bills.
Girls’ trip to Fiji with Safiya, a thank you for all the times she let me crash with her. We’d do nothing but get massages and sip pretty little umbrella drinks by the ocean.
I feel the seemingly permanent tension between my shoulder blades ease at the fantasy.
“Julianna.”The masculine voice is deep and gently rough, like rocks smoothed by the laps of ocean waves. For a moment, it blends into the heat of my paradise daydream, but then it echoes coolly against the marble floors, making me snatch my hand from the chalice as I jump back.
My heel wobbles, and I teeter back as I try to catch my footing. A hand, large and hot, lands on the small of my back. I’m not sure how he made it to me so quickly, but when I turn and see the surely priceless ceremonial mask I almost knocked over, I’m glad he did.
“Now I see why you have so much space between the pedestals.” I laugh, forcing the nerves out of my voice. “Fuck,” I choke out as I turn towards my savior.
Titan is impossibly close and looks almost inhumanly attractive. His face is cut sharp and dangerously angled with sparse grooves at the corners of his eyes that only seem to emphasize the strength of his features and accent his dark gray gaze.
Contacts?I wonder, because there is no way that eye color is found in nature.
I feel Titan’s size before I can fully take him in. He’s tall enough to dwarf my not insignificant five feet and nine inches, with the type of broadness to his frame that completely fills my eyeline. It unsettles me. I’m used to towering over most men in heels. I like it. It makes me feel powerful, the perfect costume for my role as a fantasy girlfriend. But Titan surrounds me, filling the space and stealing my air.
“Are you all right?” Concern, far more intense than necessary for my small slip, mars the sharp planes of his face as he examines me head to toe and back up again.
His unusual eyes soften as he focuses back on my gaze. The look is intense and searching, and my body reacts immediately, urging me to avoid his scrutiny and drop my eyes to the floor. I resist, but just barely.
“Uh… yes,” I finally force out, irritated by my sudden lack of focus when his palm presses firmly into my back. It’s an action seemingly meant to comfort and reassure, but the heat of his hand prevents me from thinking clearly.
“Good.” He smirks and his palm remains.
I smile and nod, determined to regain command of my brain. This is not how I like to meet my arrangements.I’m in control. I set the tone for our interaction.Now more than ever, I need to. I subtly roll my shoulders back and stand a little taller in my heels, resolved to reclaim my position of seductress.
I return his earlier appraising glance and look him over head to toe, this time girding myself against his unusual features. Titan’s entire form is monochromatic, I realize, and well dressed. Designer black suit, black shirt, black shoes, black hair with gray streaks at the temple, and stubble to match his dark eyes, all of it made darker by his pale skin, which appears almost gray in the dim lighting. The only shot of color on him is the massive square-cut emerald ring that glints in the dim light on his left hand.
