Total pages in book: 18
Estimated words: 16556 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 83(@200wpm)___ 66(@250wpm)___ 55(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 16556 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 83(@200wpm)___ 66(@250wpm)___ 55(@300wpm)
Her date tonight isn’t really a date.
He’s a male escort.
I can’t fathom why the hell a woman as beautiful and alluring as Lacey would ever need to pay for sex.
I’m still puzzling it over later as I sit at my desk. I’ve looked up the website where Lacey got her “boyfriend” and even managed to pull some information about their business license. Everything checks out.
But I’m still pissed off.
I thought when she brought up the masquerade, she wanted to go with me. The invitation was on my lips then she blindsided me with that date shit.
Despite the late nights we’ve spent together, Lacey is hard to read. I can never quite figure out what’s going on in her head and it drives me crazy. The curvy nineteen-year-old is constantly keeping me off-balance.
She also had a letter on the counter from the Asheville School of Arts. I wanted to ask her about that, but she can be so evasive that I wasn’t sure I’d get a straight answer anyway.
There’s a sharp knock on my door then Eric, Lacey’s older brother and my best friend, enters the office.
He’s in charge of the cyber security here and our jobs rarely require us to interact except on special occasions.
“I want you to take a look at this.” He passes me a folder.
I skim the contents while he takes a seat. I wonder if he knows his little sister hired a male escort.
Somehow, I doubt it.
The two of them aren’t particularly close. If anything, Eric ignores Lacey’s presence. I’ve seen the hurt in her pretty blue eyes from his dismissal. Each time it makes me want to take him to the mat.
“Everything looks in order here,” I say. I’ve already read over this proposal repeatedly. It’s in the final stages and there’s nothing more for me to do.
“I wanted your thoughts on paragraph seven in section C again.” Eric frowns at me, clearly irritated that I’m only scanning the document.
There’s another knock on the door and I glance up to see Lacey. She chews on her full bottom lip, the same one I think about kissing every night when we’re on the couch. “Is this a bad time? I can come back.”
I hate the uncertainty in her gaze and the way she hesitates around Eric.
“It’s a great time.” I shoot her brother a dark look, daring the bastard to contradict me.
She approaches my desk and steps to the side of it. She’s close enough that I can catch a whiff of her floral scent. The smell reminds me of earlier today when I held her in my arms and suddenly I’m hard again. Fortunately, I’m behind the desk so she doesn’t notice.
“Darlene said she needed your signature on the final forms right away.” She passes me a pen and I try to ignore the way her brother is staring at us.
I scrawl my signature on the documents she indicates.
She gathers the papers then frowns. “Wait, you missed one.”
Lacey leans over to point out the space where my name should be. Her blouse gapes and I can see the swell of her large breast over the top of a blue satin bra. If Eric weren’t here right now, this little girl would be in very big trouble.
“Thanks,” she murmurs. Her cheeks are pink, and I wonder if she knows my dirty thoughts about her. The filthy things I’d love to do to her body.
As soon as she leaves the room, Eric sends me a glare that could freeze hell. He’s been my friend long enough to know exactly what I was thinking when I was around his sister.
“When I was a teenager, I was sleeping in this shithole abandoned parking garage.” He chuckles but the sound isn’t one filled with amusement. I know enough to understand that neither Eric nor his sister had happy childhoods. They were products of a drug-addicted mom who kept churning out more babies.
He continues, “There was this tiny flea-covered kitten there. Every time I tried to feed it or care for it, the mangy thing ran away.”
“What’s your point?” I prod, not liking the idea of where this is going.
“This isn’t the first time she’s come into my life. She does this every year. She comes in and flits about for a few days or a couple of weeks then she’s just gone one day.” His tone holds no anger, only a deep weariness.
His words settle in my gut. I always suspected based on what Lacey has let slip that she’s a runner, a regular escape artist.
“Some people have been too beaten down by life to trust anyone,” he says before pushing to his feet. “Get back to me about the proposal.”
If there’s one thing my friend has forgotten, it’s the fact that I don’t give up and I’m not about to let beautiful Lacey slip through my fingers. No matter what I have to do.