Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
KATE HADN’T BECOME AN escort intentionally—and she wasn’t that kind of escort.
She’d read the fine print three times over before signing on the dotted line of her employment contract.
Sex with the clients was expressly forbidden.
This was about standing on the arm of some monied guy, usually an older widower who had a society function to attend, or some businessman in town for a weekend who wanted someone to show him the sights without the complications of romance.
It was innocent but more importantly, it was very well paid.
She’d moved to Sydney, because she couldn’t bear to go back to anything familiar; she’d needed a fresh start.
And on her first day, a woman had approached her and asked if she was looking for a job.
What could Kate say to that? Of course she was.
She’d been desperate, and with the repeated assurances that this was a purely above-board agency, and having conducted a tonne of research online to fact check that for herself, she’d agreed to try it out.
But there was a more vital reason for Kate taking on this job.
She wanted to feel something. She wanted to turn up for a job and meet a client—rich, handsome, well-dressed—and feel something in the pit of her stomach, like what Roman had so easily evoked in her.
A few butterflies would do, even if they were only half-heartedly flapping their wings.
She absolutely didn’t want to date. Not for real.
She wasn’t ready for that—she probably never would be again.
This was a way of seeing if anyone else could erase Roman’s power from her without any commitment back.
And she got paid well for it, so it was a win, win.
A month of dates passed, and Kate threw herself into the role.
There had never been a professional escort who worked harder to charm her clients.
She dazzled, smiled, learned everything she could about Sydney so she could be as knowledgeable as someone who’d grown up in these streets, and all the while, she buried a heart that was completely broken and utterly ignored.
Because she was a survivor. She’d left a lot of people in her life, been made to feel like she didn’t matter, but it had never hurt quite so badly as this.
It gradually became a question of not when she’d recover, but rather ‘if’.
“So…this is how you’re gonna play it?”
Roman eyed Tia without flinching. “What are you talking about?”
She rolled her eyes. “How long has it been?”
“You’re going to need to be more specific.”
She jammed a hand on her hips. “Since Kate left.”
Fifty-seven nights. “I don’t know. A few weeks?”
“Liar,” she spat. “You might be able to fool everyone else in your life, but I’m different.”
He grunted.
“You miss her.”
“This again?”
“Yes. And it will be this each and every time it needs to be, until you tell me the goddamn truth. No, until you do something about it.”
He ground his jaw, hating this. Hating the conversation, hating how his body responded, most of all, hating how much Tia was right. He missed Kate in a way he thought might have the power to kill him.
Even now, fifty-seven mornings after her departure, he woke up and reached for her.
That was if he’d even slept. He’d given up on bed.
He usually drank himself into a stupor in the lounge room, one scotch after the other until he passed out for a few hours, then woke up seeking her, craving her, hearing her, as though her ghost had moved into his penthouse. Maybe he should ask Tia to sell it?
“The thing I’m doing about it is moving on.”
“Oh, how? By rotting your liver?” She nodded pointedly towards his scotch. He threw it back defiantly. And he knew why it bothered her; it bothered him for the same reason. Both of their fathers had been drunks—and mean ones at that. But Roman, even when drinking, was in control.
“By going on a fucking date with someone,” he said, standing up, the plan forming in his mind all at once. Of course that was the solution, the one way he could prove that Kate hadn’t been that special after all. He’d find someone else to spend time with, to fuck, to laugh with.
“Yeah, okay. That’s a clever plan.”
“Don’t,” he said, closing his eyes, knowing she was right even as the idea hovered in his brain. He couldn’t just fuck Kate out of his mind; it wouldn’t work. The idea of touching another woman was anathema to him. “Just…don’t. This is what I need.”
“What you need is to have your head read. I can’t help you when you’re like this.” But she didn’t leave. Tia wasn’t someone who’d desert him. “Listen, I’m going to Australia next week.”
He turned to face her, hating that his heart banged heart into his ribs, like it wanted to burst from his chest and slip into Tia’s handbag, to go along with her. “What for?”
“I’m one of three agents being chosen to sell a high-rise development in Sydney. There’s a launch event.” She moved closer. “Come with me.” Her voice was earnest. “You can go to Brisbane, find Kate…”
“No.” There was almost as much finality in the word as Kate had used, when she’d shut him down that day. “There’s no point. “
“She’s so good for you, though. She’s so…great. Kind and funny, smart, confident, beautiful…”
“You think she’s the first woman I’ve ever known who meets that description?” He felt like an ass even saying that. Even implying that any woman he’d ever met was in any way a match for Kate. But he needed to get Tia off his back.
“I think you’re going to regret this, Roh. I really do.”
There were a thousand things that reminded her of Roman on the daily, and, as it turned out, almost as many that reminded her of Tia.
The other woman was a part of Roman but she’d also been a larger-than-life presence for Kate.
So when she was booked for a date to a real estate event at one of the top restaurants in the city with some real estate mogul from Hong Kong, she’d naturally thought of the other woman.
What she hadn’t expected was to see her across a room packed with Australia’s glitterati. But unmistakably, holding court amongst a group of what Kate presumed to be well-heeled investors, was Tia Stallone. Beautiful, untouchable, and a heart-stopping reminder of Roman.
“Are you alright, m’dear?” her date asked.
The man—forty-seven-year-old Jonathan Baxter—had taken Kate for dinner before the event, making polite small-talk and discussing his late wife and their three children, ranging in age from seventeen to twenty-two.
He was such a charming companion, humble and polite, that Kate never once felt like an escort on his arm.
It was easy to stand there and smile and nod, and make polite conversation, easily diverting any questions about herself or her own life.
But when she saw Tia, her facade briefly faltered, so Jonathan’s expression was pure solicitude.
“I’m fine,” she promised, quickly regaining her footing and re-focusing on their conversation. “What were you saying?”
She was conscious of Tia for the rest of the night, always aware of where she stood.
And when Jonathan took to the stage to begin the formalities, introducing each of the estate agents who’d been awarded the rights to sell the apartments in this premier development, she watched as Tia took the stage.
And it was like being shunted back in time, to Roman’s apartment, the three of them sitting there, drinking champagne, talking, Kate feeling nothing more than a need to be close to Roman.
Nothing more? A voice inside of her pushed.
Because it had been more than two months since she’d left New York, and she’d been on dozens of paid dates since then, and not a single one of them had given her even the hint of a flutter.
And that was no criticism of her partners, either.
Many had been boring, or simply not to her taste, but there’d been more than a handful she could have described as truly handsome and interesting, yet she’d only been going through the motions.
She watched Tia shake hands with Jonathan and moved back a little further, standing behind a taller woman, trying to hide?
It didn’t work. Tia’s eyes swept the crowd and landed on her, almost like she knew she was there. Like she’d seen her earlier, with Jonathan? Kate kept her smile plastered to her face, but inside, her stomach was twisting.
I saw her.
Roman read the text with a groan, stepping out of bed and moving to the ensuite, flicking on the water, ice cold.
I told you to leave it alone. You shouldn’t have gone looking for her.
I didn’t. She was at the same event as me.
He frowned, flicking off the water, standing in his bathroom naked, trying not to think about the things he and Kate would be doing if she were there.
You sure it was her?
After all, a fancy real estate function hardly seemed like Kate’s thing. Plus, Tia was in Sydney. As far as he knew, Kate lived in Queensland, further north than that.
Oh, yeah.
His heart thundered.
Did you talk to her?
Tia’s dots appeared, then disappeared. He pressed the ?? and sent.
Briefly.
It was impossible to stem the ache that spread through his body.
How is she?
His need to know shocked him. It was a force taking over his whole soul.
I thought you didn’t care?
He ground his jaw.
Are you trying to piss me off?
No.
Again, her dots danced and stopped, danced and stopped.
What aren’t you telling me?
When she didn’t reply, he dialled her number. She answered on the third ring. “What the hell is going on?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing. You said you’re over her. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Tia, what else is there to say?” His voice held a sharpness he hadn’t used with Tia before. He couldn’t stop it. Urgency was pummelling him. “Is she okay?” He closed his eyes, acid biting at his gut. “Is she hurt?”
“She’s fine. She’s…stunning, as always. Easily the most beautiful woman in the whole room tonight. She stood out like a glorious thumb.”
“I can easily believe it.”