Chapter Two
Now
Ishrug out of my jacket one arm at a time as I walk into my apartment.
I hold my phone to my ear with my shoulder, half-listening to Jinkyung ramble about scheduling conflicts and a cancellation from last week’s inquiry that fell through.
I toe off my shoes at the door and line them up against the wall out of habit, padding across the floor in my socks toward the kitchen.
I’m reaching for the cabinet above the stove when Jinkyung says something that makes my hand stop mid-air.
“Wait,” I say, pulling the phone off my shoulder and pressing it properly to my ear. “Say that again.”
“A potential client,” Jinkyung repeats, and I can hear the careful optimism he’s trying to keep out of his voice, like he doesn’t want to get my hopes up but can’t quite help himself. “Long-term contract. Could be six months minimum, possibly longer depending on compatibility.”
I lean my hip against the counter and fold my free arm across my chest. “And he’s interested in me specifically?”
I can’t keep the doubt out of my voice. I don’t even try.
It’s been three weeks since my last client, a one-night job that paid enough to cover groceries for the month and not much else, and it’s been nearly a full year since anyone offered me anything longer than a single session.
My last actual contract was six months with a beta-pharmaceutical executive who dropped me the second a twenty-three-year-old with wider hips and a sweeter scent profile crossed his desk.
Even that contract had felt like a miracle at the time, a stroke of luck I didn’t expect to repeat.
I’m thirty-four. In this industry, thirty-four is ancient.
The gaps between jobs have been getting longer, the calls from Jinkyung less frequent, and the clients less interested when they pull up my profile and see my age, my build, the fact that I’ve already had a kid.
Most alphas looking for a rut companion want someone young and soft and untouched, someone who’ll whimper prettily and fold in half without complaint.
They don’t want an omega built like me, with shoulders too broad and hands too rough and a body that’s been used hard enough to show the wear.
“Well,” Jinkyung hedges, and there it is, the catch. “Not you specifically. Not yet. But hear me out before you shut me down.”
“I’m listening.”
“This particular client is having a hell of a time finding a suitable companion. He’s gone through omega after omega, Yoonjae.
I’m talking double digits. Every single one he’s found unsatisfying, sends them back after one session, sometimes doesn’t even finish the session.
The agency is tearing their hair out trying to match him, and he’s willing to offer very favorable terms to any companion who can actually please him. ”
I close my eyes and let my head tip back against the upper cabinet.
“So he’s impossible to satisfy and you want to throw me at him.
Jinkyung, I’m not going to meet this guy’s standards either if nobody else has.
If he’s rejected omegas half my age with twice my appeal, what exactly do you think I’m bringing to the table that they couldn’t? ”
“You don’t know that,” Jinkyung says, his tone shifting into placating.
“That’s the thing, Yoonjae, nobody knows what this guy wants because he apparently doesn’t know either.
He just knows that none of the pretty young things the agency keeps sending are doing it for him.
He’s stopped looking at profiles entirely.
He told the agency to just send whoever they’ve got, he’ll decide after he meets them.
He doesn’t care about age, he doesn’t care about type, he just wants someone who works. ”
“So he probably hasn’t seen my age or my history,” I say flatly.
“He hasn’t seen anyone’s anything. That’s the point.
You’re going in blind and so is he, which means for once your file isn’t going to be the thing that knocks you out of the running before you even get through the door.
” Jinkyung pauses, and when he speaks again his voice drops lower, more serious.
“This could be exactly what you need. If this client likes you, you could have stable income for a year, maybe longer. The guy is so starved for a good match that you’ve got just as much of a shot as anyone younger.
More, maybe, because you’ve got experience and you know how to handle a difficult alpha, which is clearly what this situation calls for. ”
I chew the inside of my cheek and stare at the ceiling.
A long-term contract. Stable income. The words alone make the knot of tension inside me loosen slightly.
I think about the stack of bills on the counter behind me that I shuffled into a neat pile this morning so Sungyoon wouldn’t see how many there were.
I think about the tutor I hired for Sungyoon’s math, the one I’m two payments behind on.
I think about his school fees due at the end of the month and the college fund that’s barely a fund at all, more of a hopeful savings account with a balance that makes me wince every time I check it.
“Does the client have a profile I can look at?” I ask.
“Confidential,” Jinkyung says, and I can practically hear him shaking his head.
“Very hush-hush. High-profile individual, the agency won’t release any identifying details until after the initial meeting and only if both parties agree to move forward.
But I can tell you he’s been thoroughly background checked, no red flags, no history of violence or complaints from previous companions.
Clean bill of health. The agency vouches for him. ”
I blow out a long breath through my nose. “Fine. When’s the meeting?”
“Tonight.”
I jerk the phone away from my ear and stare at it, then press it back. “Tonight? Jinkyung, that’s—I can’t just drop everything on a few hours’ notice, I have Sungyoon, I haven’t even—”
“I know, I know,” Jinkyung cuts in quickly.
“Listen, it’s just a trial run. One night only, no commitment beyond that.
If it doesn’t work out, you both walk away clean.
But the client is offering to pay the full one-night fee upfront, before you even get there, non-refundable regardless of outcome. ”
I pause. “How much?”
When Jinkyung says the number, I nearly drop the phone. I pull it away from my ear again and look at the screen as if the call display will somehow confirm what I just heard, then press it back to my ear.
“I’m sorry, how much? Can you repeat that?”
Jinkyung repeats it. The number doesn’t change.
“Is this guy insane?” I ask, my voice coming out a full octave higher.
Jinkyung laughs, pleased, the sound of a man who knows he’s got me.
“See? Told you. The man is desperate, and he’s got the money to back it up.
If he ends up liking you, the contract pay will set you up to retire comfortably, Yoonjae.
I’m not exaggerating. And if he doesn’t, well.
” He pauses for effect. “At least you walk away with a very nice payday for one night’s work.
Worst case scenario, you make more tonight than you’ve made in the last three months combined. ”
I press my lips together and stare at the kitchen counter, at the neat stack of envelopes I can see from here, the ones with red stamps on them.
I think about the tutor payment due next Tuesday.
I think about Sungyoon’s winter uniform that he’s already growing out of, the sleeves riding up past his wrists because he shot up another two centimeters last month and I keep telling him I’ll get him a new one next week, next week, next week.
I can’t afford to pass on money like this. I can’t afford to pass on the possibility of a long-term contract, not when the alternative is more weeks of silence from Jinkyung’s phone, more bills shuffled into neat piles, more next weeks that never come.
“Fine,” I say. “I’ll do it. Send me the address and the details.”
“Already sending,” Jinkyung says, and my phone buzzes against my ear with an incoming message.
“I need to call a sitter first,” I tell him, already pushing off the counter. “Give me twenty minutes.”
“You’ve got until eight.”
I hang up and stand in the kitchen for a moment, phone in hand, letting the reality of it settle. Then I take a breath and call out past the doorway.
“Sungyoon?”
No answer, but I can hear the faint scratch of a pencil from the living room.
I pocket my phone and walk through the narrow hallway, rounding the corner into the living area where Sungyoon is seated on the floor at the coffee table, school books and papers spread out in his usual organized arrangement, head bent over his work.
His handwriting is small and neat, filling the lined pages of his notebook in neat rows, and his brow is furrowed in concentration.
He looks up as I come in, and my heart does the thing it always does when I look at that face.
It’s not my face looking back at me. It never has been.
The features are too sharp, too angular, the cheekbones too high, the eyes too keen.
Brown eyes that catch light the way mine don’t, set beneath straight brows in a face that’s still filling out from boyhood but already carries the kind of bone structure that makes people look twice.
And when he smirks, which he does often because he’s fifteen and thinks he’s funnier than he is, there’s a dimple in his left cheek that I definitely didn’t put there.
I’ve never told him who he looks like. He’s never asked. I don’t know if that’s because he doesn’t care or because he already knows the answer would hurt, and either way I’m not brave enough to find out.
“Hey,” I say, leaning my shoulder against the doorframe and crossing my arms. I put on a smile that I hope looks easy. “I’m sorry, kid. I was planning on being home for dinner tonight, but I’ve got to go out. I’m meeting with a potential new client.”