Romance: The Billionaires Collection (Watched By A Billionaire, Stranded With A Billionaire, Caught By A Billionaire, Billionaire Stepbrother) (10 page)

When I check my bank account, however, I see that it's
grown significantly. My initial thought – not being particularly
financially savvy – is that I've made money in interest.

And then I check my transactions, and see that
additional sums of money have been deposited each day after seeing
Gray. I look back to the day after the experience on Liberty Island,
and notice an influx of thirty thousand dollars. Then I check the
date after our night at the opera and in the hotel suite, and see
another deposit of the same amount.

He's been paying me for sex.

The thought makes me feel strangely cheap, even worse
than before when I was performing in the show room. He had said I'd
have to earn it, that he'd pay me if it meant me stopping working for
Randall Taylor.

But, since then, we'd never spoken about it, and I'd
assumed that such a thing was only words, never to be backed up with
actions.

I was wrong.

And now it's growing clear to me that I really am
nothing but a high priced whore to him. So here's me, falling for the
guy like a fool, and he's just using me as an escort, paying me for
sex.

Does he even like me at all beyond my body? Does he
care about me at all?

The thought consumes me, and my work suffers even more.
Soon, I find myself just sitting at home, waiting for him to call,
ignoring every other part of my life.

I get calls from my mom regularly, checking how things
are going with the new fake job I told her about. My replies are
always grumpy and short, and that makes me feel even more guilty.
When she invites me to come and stay for the weekend, I tell her that
I can't and I'm busy.

In reality, all I'm doing is sitting around and hoping
that Gray calls and takes me out again. I end up leaving every single
night open just in case he gets in touch, and my life starts to
suffer as a result.

Eventually, two weeks after our night in the penthouse,
he calls me. My reaction, this time, is mixed, a feeling of euphoric
joy at hearing his voice, but this time mingled with a sense of anger
that he hasn't been in touch sooner.

Of course, I don't say anything, because he's likely to
just toss me aside if I do. I just listen to what he's got to say,
and once more await the car that he sends out to pick me up.

Yet, it feels different now.

I'm not his girlfriend. We're not dating.

He's paying me for this. We're going to fuck tonight,
and for that I'm going to get paid.

I am a fucking whore.

When we meet for dinner in a private restaurant, the
entire place booked by Gray so we can be alone, I try to keep my
feelings at bay. But, I can't, and after several glasses of wine I'm
about ready to spill my guts.

It comes out suddenly, just when he's finished telling
me a story about meeting some head of state in Europe somewhere.

“
So I'm just a whore?” I start.

He's startled by my sudden question, as much for its
randomness as for its content.

“
Sorry?”

The wine has clearly gone to my head, because I'd never
be so bold as to talk like this otherwise. And, even though I know
that, right now my inhibitions are scattered to the wind and I have
no censor on my mouth.

“
I saw that you paid me for the sex. That makes me a
prostitute, doesn't it?”

His eyes narrow in slight anger.

“
Ashley, are you complaining about getting paid thirty
grand to sleep with me?”

I retreat slightly, and duck my head briefly before
lifting it back up defiantly.

“
I just don't like the idea that I'm nothing but a
whore to you, Gray...”

“
So you'd rather I didn't pay you?”

I shake my head.

“
Well then I won't.”

He takes a sip of wine, slightly more flustered than
I've seen him, and returns to his meal.

“
Maybe this wasn't such a good idea,” he says
quietly to himself.

The words send a stabbing pain into my heart.

“
What?” I whisper.

“
You,” he says calmly. “I can't deal with another
irrational woman in my life. Your complaints make no sense, Ashley,
given how we met. You were only too happy to fuck different guys for
money, while being watched by a bunch of men, but you won't take any
money off me for sleeping with you in private. It's not logical.”

“
So, you really do think of me as a whore. Or, maybe
an escort, if that makes you feel better?”

“
Me feel better? I don't feel anything about it either
way. The money means nothing to me, Ashley. Clearly it means a lot
more to you. I thought I was doing you a favor, helping you get your
dream of being a fashion designer started. Clearly, I was wrong.”

He stands, suddenly, wiping his mouth with his napkin
and tossing it down onto the table.

“
Look, I'm very busy with work at the moment. My
driver will take you home. I'll be in touch.”

And with that businesslike and almost callous parting,
he walks quickly out of the empty restaurant and into the night.

I'm left alone, a tear growing in the corner of my eye,
my heart filling with cement.

Because right now, I don't ever expect to see him again.

Chapter Four

“
Darling, it's so good to see you. How's work going?
How's your new apartment? Is it exciting living over the river?”

My mom is rattling off the questions as if she hasn't
seen me in ten years. Really, she's asked those same questions time
and again on the phone over the last few months since I moved.

I guess, however, it's slightly different asking them
face to face.

I'm back at my parent's house for the first time since I
moved out, feeling the embrace of my mother and feeling altogether
empty and depressed.

In fact, I feel worse than I did when I first returned
here months ago after escaping from LA. Back then, I had no money, no
job, and no prospects. I was at rock bottom. Now, I've got plenty of
money, a dream that's alive and running, and all of the prospects in
the world.

But still, I feel worse than I did.

It's been a month since I've seen or heard from Gray,
and his impact on my feelings has never been more pronounced. I'm
acting as if I've just broken up with a boyfriend of five years, not
some guy I only really saw a handful of times.

Yet I'm still hurting like I've never felt before, the
promise of what we had, and perhaps were going to have, now cast
adrift in the ocean of my mind. The man has ripped me open and
shredded me from the inside out, and still lingers in my head on a
day to day basis, torturing me from afar.

The embrace of my mom, as when I first returned from LA,
causes my eyes to water. But this time I don't let the tears fall. I
hold them back, put on a brave face, and keep telling myself that my
life is actually going much better than I could ever have expected.

Strangely, it gives me little solace.

“
So, darling, come in and tell me all about your
life.”

My mom is ushering me inside to the living room, where
she's set out tea and cookies and various other treats she knows I
like.

“
Mom, you shouldn't have,” I tell her.

“
What, this? It's nothing, just some things I had
lying around.”

I know that's a lie. As soon as I told her I was coming
to stay for the weekend, she'd have gone straight out and bought all
of these little snacks and treats. I suppose she must have heard my
downbeat inflection on the phone and thought I needed some cheering
up.

“
So, tell me darling, how is everything?”

She sits down on the sofa and starts pouring some tea,
her eyes darting up to mine every so often with a genuine interest
inside them.

“
It's good mom, really good,” I lie. “The
apartment's great, you need to come see it sometime...”

Actually, it's not great. It's a hollow shell, and I
feel fucking alone there.

“
And work?”

“
Work's going well, although I'm thinking of quitting
and trying to make my own designs.”

My mom still thinks I've got a regular job, but I'm
tying to slowly set the foundations so that when I tell her I have a
studio and, hopefully, my own label, it won't come as such a shock.

“
Really?” she asks, eyes bright. “That's great
honey. It's what you always wanted.”

Her smile is wide and makes me spontaneously smile too.
But inside, I wish I could just tell her the truth...the truth about
everything. I could do with some advice, and have no one to talk to.

We sit for a while and talk, and I take in the ambiance
of my home once more, feeling altogether happy for being there and
the distraction it's causing in my mind. But still, Gray creeps in
here and there, jumping out of my memories at odd moments. Haunting
my mind and never giving me a moment's peace.

But why am I thinking about him so much?! Why can't
he just leave me alone!

“
So, anything on the boyfriend side of things?”

It's not the sort of question my mom would usually ask.
In general, she'll wait for me to volunteer such information, rather
than trying to extract it.

Her eyes tell me, however, that she's seen something in
me. Some look of sadness within the shadow of my face, the sort of
depression that can only be brought about by a boy.

“
I was seeing someone, yeah,” I say. “But...it
ended.”

“
Ah, that's a shame, darling. Are you OK?”

I nod, and feel my voice caught in my throat. There's
something about someone asking if you're OK that somehow brings out
the emotion inside you. When it's your mother, staring at your with
sympathetic eyes, it's even worse.

Before I know it, tears are running down my face,
purging me of the emotion that's been building up inside me. My
mother is immediately out of her chair and hugging me tight, which
only serves to make me break down down more.

She brushes my hair with her fingers and tells me it's
going to be OK, her voice reassuring and calming all at once.

But the flood keeps coming, the cathartic release
unstoppable, until my eyes begin to sting and I start to wonder
exactly how I'm so affected by all of this. How such a brief period
of time with a man could elicit such a reaction from me.

Eventually, when I stop crying, my mom asks me more,
mining to discover the truth. I don't give it, but lie once more,
telling her it's just a guy from the office who I met and who dumped
me soon after.

I suppose, in a way, that's true. If you count the show
room as being my office...

Soon I pull myself together, and tell my mom it's just
that time of the month and I'm being needlessly emotional over
nothing. She accepts that version, or appears to at least, and sets
about making dinner for when my father comes home.

“
His case completed last week, so he's around a bit
more now,” she tells me when I ask how things are going.

It occurs to me that I don't do that enough. That I
never really ask my mom how she's doing, and that when we're together
or she calls me on the phone we only ever talk about my life.

A feeling of guilt penetrates me, and I resolve in my
head to be more sensitive to her needs. I've just seen her as this
stay at home mom who's job has always been to make sure her husband
and daughter are happy.

The realization disgusts me, the thought that what if my
mom isn't happy? What if she's got her own issues to deal with that I
never even ask about?

But no more. From now on, I'll be the first to ask her
how life is going, rather than the other way around.

Chapter Five

The weekend at my parent's house is just what I need. As
my mom told me, my dad wasn't quite so busy now, so we all manage to
get out together and enjoy some time as a family over Saturday.

We go walking and have some lunch in a nice local
restaurant that my parents used to take me to as a child. In the
evening, we do something as simple as watching a film together back
home with some drinks and snacks. I tuck under a blanket with my mom
and feeling closer to her than I have for years, her warmth running
through me and making me feel positive and enthusiastic about
everything again.

I muse over the loss of my enthusiasm, a trait that I've
always held in high regard for myself, something I've always been
proud of. I was the girl to see the light at the end of the tunnel in
any given situation. To look at the bright side when the chips were
down. To build someone else up and make them see that all is not lost
when they're feeling low.

And now, spending time with my mother and father again
as a family, I'm beginning to rediscover that part of myself. As the
film plays in the background I begin to marvel at just how brilliant
my life actually is right now.