Camille

I find my answer in his hesitation, but now I need to confirm it. I move away from the door, my gaze scanning the room in search of the outline of a lamp. I never agreed to the darkness, I only did as I was told because he was paying me. Now that this is over, all bets are off.

My palm slides up the metal rod of a small desk lamp, searching for the switch at the top.

“What are you doing?” His question comes half a second too late.

One little click, and “John” officially has an identity . . .

And it’s undeniable.

Ronan Montgomery stands before me, an empty crystal tumbler in his left hand and a concerned expression on his handsome, chiseled face. He’s every bit as beautiful as he looks in the media, and I’m every bit as paralyzed as I was earlier under the trance of his asshole younger brother.

“Well.” My throat constricts as he holds my gaze captive, and I back myself toward a nearby sofa, collapsing on the rolled arm. The room spins, and my muscles grow weak. This is must be what it feels like when shit gets real.

“Now do you see why I tried to protect you? You’ll be forever linked to me the rest of your life, whether you like it or not. And anyone looking to damage the Montgomery name is going to use you to do so. Congratulations, Camille. You’ve officially made yourself a pawn.”

My arms fold across my chest, but I can’t stop staring at this gorgeous creature across from me.

“I wish you’d have been up front with me from the start,” I say. “It would’ve been nice to know what I was getting myself into.”

“Why do you think I hid my face? My precaution may have been extreme, Camille, but it was necessary,” he says. “Besides, you’d have said no had I been up front from the beginning.”

“You don’t know that.”

“So you’d have said yes?” His perfect, dark brows lift as he awaits my response, and my gaze falls to his impeccably talented mouth.

“I’m not sure.” I glance away for a second, crossing my legs. “Probably not.”

“My point exactly.”

When I look at him again, I realize he hasn’t taken his eyes off me yet, and I can’t help but feel as if I’m meeting him for the first time all over again. In a way I am.

My mind wanders to all the naughty things this Adonis has done to me in recent weeks.

“Why would someone like you pay over eighty grand a week for sex?” I ask.

“Someone like me?” He huffs, raking his hand along his rugged jawline. “I believe you just answered your own question.”

“You could have anyone.”

“Maybe I don’t want just anyone.” He clears his throat. “It’s hard enough to find no-strings-attached sex, let alone with a woman who won’t go running her mouth to the media the second they name her price.”

“So you limit yourself to anonymous sex because you’re paranoid someone, someday is going to sell you out?”

“My entire adult life has been nothing but strategic side-stepping, avoiding black marks on my record, walking a straight line, and ensuring that five or ten years from now, when I run for office, there won’t be a single speck of dirt contaminating my past.” He hasn’t moved from his spot. “You understand how being linked to an escort would have implications for me, don’t you? For yourself as well.”

“Of course.”

He slides a hand in his pocket and ambles toward me. “I don’t care that you’re an escort, Camille. I don’t think you’re any less a woman because you’ve honed the art of pleasing a man. Quite the contrary.”

Ronan takes a spot on the sofa, hunching over with his elbows on his knees. He places the empty tumbler on a coffee table and pulls in a long breath.

“In a perfect world I could walk down the street next to you. I could take you out, really get to know you,” he says. “Unfortunately, it’s a luxury I’m not afforded as a Montgomery.”

“I get it. You’re royalty and I’m a lowly prostitute.” I turn away. “The last thing I’d want to do is tarnish your golden image.”

The warmth of his hand on my wrist pulls my attention back to him. His dark blue gaze has softened. There’s strength and calmness in him, and I’m surprised he wasn’t more upset with me for turning on the light.

“When I first saw you,” he says, pulling me to the cushion beside him. His free hand lifts to his chest. “I couldn’t breathe, Camille.”

Our eyes lock as he takes my hands between his.

“Everything about you was perfection. You were radiant,” he continues. “Lit from within. I’d never seen someone so effervescent, and yet you were alluring at the same time. And those eyes. I never knew eyes could smile like that.”

He brings a hand to my cheek, drawing the side of his finger across my cheekbone.

“Do you remember the masquerade ball?” he asks. “Last New Year’s?”

My heart catches in my chest, and my body freezes.

“You were passing the coat check,” he says. “And our eyes met. You weren’t wearing your mask.”

The corner of my mouth rises. “Silver gladiator mask. All black tux. That was you?”

We were barely at the party a half hour when Trey declared he couldn’t wait another minute to rip me out of my evening gown. In retrospect, he probably wanted to show me off to a few of his cronies and then get me the hell out of there before someone who knew his wife spotted us together.

“I thought I imagined that moment.” Everything about that night floods my memory. I used to relive that moment time and again until things grew more serious with Trey, and then I convinced myself that it was all just wishful thinking–that I had imagined it into something it wasn’t. That it wasn’t possible to gaze into a stranger’s eyes and feel something almost otherworldly. I laugh for the first time this evening. “Ronan, that was really you?”

He nods. “I spent the rest of that evening searching for you.”

“We left.” My nose crinkles. “I didn’t want to.”

“I couldn’t get you out of my head,” he says. “I went looking for you, asking around. Nobody knew of anyone who fit your description, or if they did, they weren’t owning up to it.”

“Smart men.”

“I saw you a couple of weeks after that night. You were leaving a hotel.”

My eyes roll. I practically lived out of hotels during my Trey Bancroft phase. The man was insatiable.

“You weren’t happy, Camille,” he says. “And I knew then that you deserved more than Trey fucking Bancroft.”

“I was mostly happy with him.” I sigh. “At least while I was blissfully unaware of the fact that he was a lying, cheating bastard.”

“I sent the letter.”

His stark admission sucks the air from my lungs.

“The photo of his family,” he says. “Actually, Oliver sent it if you want to get technical. I’m not proud of what I did or the way I did it, but you had to know the truth, because he sure as hell wasn’t telling you.”

I stare ahead, lifting my fingers to my temples. “Wow. I . . .”

“We did some asking around to get your name. It took months, Camille. You should know that your name is kept under lock and key around here.”

I shrug. “They’re protecting nothing but their own reputations.”

“Anyway, it wasn’t until my assistant overheard Bancroft talking to another senator over lunch at the White House Mess.” He clears his throat, adjusting his tie. “Apparently, he was preparing to pass you along by the end of the year.”

My gaze narrows. “That makes no sense. The things he was saying to me . . . he was talking about babies and our future. Not that I wanted that with him, but the man was obsessed.”

“It’s hard telling without having heard the whole conversation,” he says. “But everything in this city is negotiable, and everything can be handled like a business transaction. Votes. Allegiances. Women.”

“That bastard was going to trade me off.” My voice breaks. Now my meeting with him makes sense. For the first time, Trey Bancroft told the truth: he never truly loved me.

I sit in silence, sinking from the weight of this information and what it means. Glancing at Ronan, I unintentionally catch his stare when he turns my way. This is the most he’s ever spoken to me, and all things considered, he’s actually not a horrible person.

“I should be more upset with you than I am right now.” I worry my lip and study the subtle hollow beneath his chiseled cheekbone. “And I have a million more questions to ask you.” I yawn. “But it’s late, and I’m exhausted, and I don’t want to think anymore.”

He nods toward the bedroom of this palatial suite that I haven’t yet had a minute to fully appreciate.

“Stay here tonight,” he says. “The room’s already paid for.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

I’m too fatigued to turn down his gesture. “Thank you.”

“We’ll talk in the morning,” he says as I shuffle to the bedroom suite and begin to pull the sliding doors closed.

I yawn once more, sliding the zipper of my dress until it reaches my lower back. Perhaps a small part of me wants to torture him and subtly remind him that he doesn’t get any of this anymore.

This lifestyle doesn’t serve me anymore. Starting tomorrow, I’m no longer for sale.

He takes the bait, his eyes glued to my every move, and I let my dress fall down my shoulders seconds before I close the doors.

I dive between the cool, lux linens of a heavenly king-sized bed and smile into the pillow as the image of Ronan’s longing gaze plays in my mind. Everything I thought I knew was flipped upside down tonight except for one little fact . . .

Men.

So fucking simple.

Starting right here, right now, I’m officially retired.