She laid on my chest, and her body felt so soft and warm against mine, I didn’t want to move. I ran my hands through her hair, my mind completely blank, something I’d never experienced before. Sex so good that I was in a state of euphoria.

“No one has ever called me Lulu or even Luella when I…” Her voice trailed off, and I waited for her to keep speaking. When she didn’t, I said what I knew she didn’t want to.

“When you were working as an escort?”

Silence.

It took a second until I felt her nod against me. “Have you ever seen Pretty Woman?”

“No, but I’ve heard about it. It’s about a prostitute and a wealthy businessman who fall in love with one another, right?” I wasn’t really much of a movie person.

“Yeah, that’s the one.” She giggled, and the sound tickled faintly on my skin. “Everyone loved that movie when it first came out. Julia Roberts was nominated for an Oscar for it. People still watch it and think it’s cute and sweet. But when they meet an escort or a prostitute in real life, it’s like we have a scarlet letter written all over us. Women and men judge, and we stop being people and become sex toys. People don’t think we can have an honest sexual experience with someone.”

She lifted her head, resting her chin on my chest, and looked to me as I looked to her. “Are you trying to tell me what we just did was an honest sexual experience?”

“Yes,” she answered. “Just like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman didn’t let men kiss her on the lips, I don’t let anyone call me Lulu.”

“You didn’t need to tell me,” I told her and meant it. “Your past doesn’t hurt or faze me. Just like in Pretty Woman, I’m a rich businessman who does not care, and besides, you’re no longer an escort, or in need of money. There’s nothing you gain by being here with me, so how could I think it was dishonest? I’m the one who wants you to stay. Not just you but also—”

“Alaric,” she said.

I nodded, looking up at the ceiling. The lights from the city outside the window reflected on it. “Did you know, biologically, I could technically be his father? Donovan and I were identical twins.”

“I know, that’s why I didn’t come to you the first time. I was afraid you’d take him from me. If Donovan didn’t think I was fit to be a mother, what would his well-to-do brother say? You said you have no other family. I thought if you knew about Alaric, you’d want him desperately. With all the money and power you have, I knew you’d take him if you wanted to. I was a broke woman with only a high school diploma, and a whore on top of that. You could fight for him and take him. And I would die.”

Not once had I ever thought of taking him from her. But now that I thought about it, she was right. If I’d wanted to, I could have.

“I’m not going to take him away from you,” I said. “I want to be in his life, that’s all. You aren’t a whore. Not to me. You’re a mother who did everything she could for her son. I know why you needed the money. I know he was sick. None of that was your fault, and if anyone makes you feel like you aren’t worth it, I’ll happily correct them. A man who buys women is far worse than the woman who has to sell herself.”

“I fell for the wrong twin.”

I snickered at that. “You might not have suffered financially had it been me, but I would have hurt you too. All the women I’ve been with always leave. I’m incapable of loving, apparently.” And I never doubted their assertions either. “I would do my best for Alaric, of course,” I added quickly, not wanting to shoot myself in the foot.

She smiled, truly smiled. “Okay.”

“Okay?” I said a little too eagerly.

“You can meet him.”

“Really?”

She laughed. “Really.”

Just like that, my world felt a little bit brighter.

LUELLA

The clock read 4:06 a.m. when I opened my eyes. The bed beside me was empty. Grabbing the sheets, I sat up and noticed my suitcase was in the room. But I took his shirt off the floor instead of looking for something of mine to wear.

I stumbled forward, my legs like Jell-O when I tried to stand. He'd really done a number on me, and in all honestly, I felt amazing.

Stop it, Luella. Focus.

The glow from the aquarium was the only light illuminating my way as I walked down the spiral staircase.

He sat in the living room in silk pajama pants, right in front of the large windows, tapping on a laptop. The glasses he wore slid down the bridge of his nose. In fact, I was sure he wouldn’t have noticed me had the last step of the stairs not squeaked. He glanced up, pushing the glasses up before taking them off completely.

“Lulu.”

“It’s fine. Don’t get up.” I held my hands out as if to push him back down even though there were a good couple feet between us. He slowly sat back down, not moving but still staring at me. “I don’t want to bother you, I just wanted to get some water.”

Actually, I wanted to know where he was. But he didn’t need to know that.

“Help yourself.” He nodded to the kitchen.

“Thanks.” I smiled at how sweet he still was.

He’d screwed me three times, and I’d begged him for it the first time. Yet he still didn’t look at me like the rest did. Those who knew what I did for a living looked at me in one of two ways, with utter lust, eager to get off, making me do whatever they demand, or as if they hated me. They got off on putting me down as they used me, telling me how disgusting and worthless I was, and I just had to take it.

He saw me as a woman, just like he’d said last night.

Entering the kitchen, I noticed that the food from dinner had been put away. The sides of the fridge were stocked with water and juices. I poured myself a glass of orange juice, then poured one for him, too.

“I lied,” I said, returning to the living room.

“About?”

“I didn’t just come down for water. I wanted to talk, but if you're busy, I can—”

“Let’s talk.” He closed the laptop, putting it on the table.

I handed him the glass and took a seat on the couch. I tried to think of what to say, but my mind went blank.

“Damn it,” I sighed, brushing my hair behind my ears. “I swear I really wanted to speak to you, but my mind is a mess.”

“We don’t have to start with the hard things first.” He sipped his juice and leaned back.

I’m wasting his time. He’s an important person, and I—

“Tell me about Alaric,” he said, and I couldn’t help but get excited.

Placing my glass on the table, I shifted so we faced one another. “He’s amazing, and I know I’m biased because I’m his mom, but he really is. He was born with this dark head of hair and bright blue eyes. They’re like yours, actually. He’s a charmer too, he loves vanilla ice cream and sweets in general. When we go to the ice-cream parlor, he bats his eyelashes at the girls behind the counter and they coo and give him a double scoop for free. On top of that, he’s gifted. I actually have it documented, when he started to fill out the six and up homework worksheets at daycare, I took him to get one of those tests. There was no denying my baby was a little genius. Math, science, literature—it didn’t matter. Once he learned it, he learned it forever. We could be lost in the middle of Central Park, and he would be able to retrace our steps and tell me everything he’d seen in backward order. The doctors said he has—”

“Eidetic memory.” He got up to sit beside me.

“How did you know?”

“I have it too. It’s rare in children, but even rarer in adults. I can remember everything down to the taste of the birthday cake I had when I was nine,” he replied, placing his glass on the table too.

“He gets headaches sometimes. I always thought it was the cochlear implant because he takes out his hearing aid sometimes. Do you get them too? Is it because he senses so much?” I frowned, thinking about it.

He nodded. “They come and go. They were far worse when I was a kid. Never being able to forget anything was stressful. Sounds, smells, places—I spent most of my time in my room, until I got used to it.”

“He doesn’t hide, he loves to go out and play. He loves tennis, soccer, golf, and airplanes. I left the television on a sports channel one afternoon, and he watched the matches. He also really enjoys how the planes flew overhead before the match. He’s always dying to know about everything. He brought home a toad once and wanted to keep it. He researched everything he could about it to make sure he had good home, but Murphy made a run for it the moment he took him outside. Alaric was so heartbroken, I even searched for it in the park.”

“Did you find it?”

I laughed, shaking my head. “I couldn’t bear for him to be so sad, so I went to the pet store and bought him a new one. But Alaric knew, and he said it wasn’t the same. He even went as far as to explain the difference between frogs, which have webbed feet, and toads, who don’t need them since they live on land. I was both disgusted and amazed by his lecture. We released the frog ‘into the wild,’ and he moved on to his next interest.”

“You’re a good mother,” he said with a smile on his lips.

“Am I?” I looked down at my lap. “I left him with my best friend this week, hoping my client wouldn’t need to fuck me every moment of the day so I could sneak off and see him. That is not being a good mother. That is the type of mother that scars her child for life. I’m scared one day he’ll find out and end up on some therapist’s couch, talking about me.”

“That isn’t the worst place to be.” He reached for his glass, holding it tightly. “I spent three years on a therapist’s couch, talking about my mother and my father. I don’t hate them. My mother never once got even half as excited talking about me as you do Alaric. All of the memories of her are of her drinking, drunk, crying, and fighting with my father. When she used to hug me, she reeked of booze and said she was sorry for being so worthless. Worthless was what my father called her. She’d want to be fun and have the driver pick us up from school so we could eat ice cream and watch movies. It was how she showed she cared, but she never made it through the whole movie before passing out. I knew she wanted to be better. In some ways, she truly loved me and Don. It just wasn’t enough to make her stop. None of them were actually strong enough. She died when I was fifteen, and Father only lasted five years after that. A year later, Donovan was at it too.”

“What makes you so strong?” I asked. He was the last man standing in the most expensive room in New York City.

He snickered bitterly, looking at a city on the verge of waking up. “I’m not strong. Everyone thinks that, but in truth, I’m afraid. I’m afraid of dying. I’m afraid the family legacy will be nothing but a laughingstock. I’m a man driven by fear. But that’s okay, right? I’m the last Rhys-Gallagher, so who's anyone to judge? I rebuilt my father’s company and became so successful, people fear me. Dorian ‘the Butcher’ Rhys-Gallagher. I’ve screwed people over for money too.”

He opened the laptop, showing me a list of names.

“Two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand people will be out of a job this year because I took over another man’s company. I’ve memorized every last name, and there is nothing I can do but send out job care opportunities that will only help one-third of them. There is nothing more I can do. Everyone is screwing someone over. You aren’t the only one.”

“It’s okay to be afraid,” I admitted. “I didn’t go to college because I was afraid. I’m dyslexic and grew up in the foster system. In school, my teachers would call on me to stand and read in front of the class, and I was called retarded and laughed at. I liked learning, and I wanted to get better, so I pushed myself. I was smart. I just couldn’t read like everyone else. So, I listened to audiobooks and studied that way. In high school, a few of my teachers gave me my exams orally. I graduated in the top percent of my class, but I was scared there was no way I could work and go to college. So, I quit. We all have fears, and sometimes they get the best of us.”

His eyes shifted from my lips to my eyes. He leaned into me, and I moved closer to him.

“You should go to bed,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because I want to kiss you again, and the longer we have this conversation, the more you might look at me and see my brother, not me. This is messy. We are messy. So, before we sort us out, I’d like to get closer to Alaric. I want to be part of his life, and that means yours, too. I have a feeling we’re going to end up in bed together again, but right now, let’s focus on him.”

I wanted to kiss him too, we were the very definition of messy.

“One more thing about Alaric.” I pulled back, licking my lips.

He nodded, sitting straighter. “Yeah?”

“You mentioned you could biologically be his father?”

“Because Donovan and I were identical twins.” He nodded for me to go on.

I opened my mouth to speak, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it. Shaking my head, I moved to leave, but he came over and grabbed on to my hand.

“What is it?” He asked.

“It’s silly—”

“You said it was Alaric, I doubt it could be silly, what is it Lulu? Tell me. Is he alright?”

I smiled at how concerned he was. “It’s just … he’s been asking about his dad for a long time, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him his father and I weren’t on good terms, so I said he was sick and went to get better. But then Don passed, and since then, I haven’t been able to tell him. I’m trying to explain this to him.”

“His father passed and now he has an uncle that looks identical to his dad?”

I nodded. “It’s crazy, don’t worry, I’ll tell him the truth—”

“What is crazy?”

“Huh?” I looked into his eyes, and he was looking down at me so gently.

“What is the thought you think is crazy?”

I hung my head down. “I…I, you would just say he was yours for now. In the future, when he was older, we could tell him the truth…but that’s….”

“Yes.” He smiled, nodding. “I’ll do it.”

My head snapped up back to look at him. “Really?”

“Yes,” he nodded. “I know what it’s like to hear your father is gone and never coming back. It sucks…and nothing prepares you for that feeling. I don’t want the first time he meets me to also be the first time he hears his father is gone too. I don’t want to break his heart like that. He must be really holding on to belief that his father is right around the corner.”

I bit my lip, trying to breathe. “Yeah…he asks almost every other week now. He even asked to visit him yesterday because he thinks it will make his father get better sooner.”

“Then let’s not disappoint him.”

“Thank you Dorian…thank you.” I whispered, hugging onto him. And when he hugged me backed, I didn’t want to let go.

“I don’t know sign language, but I’m a fast learner. Will you show me how to say a few things? Like ‘hello’ and ‘nice to meet you’? I looked online, but there were a lot of variations,” he whispered into my ear, and I laughed.

Breaking free of his arms a little, I reached down and held his hands, ignoring the shiver that went up my spine. “This is ‘hello.’” I showed him on my hands and then moved his fingers into place.

“Hello.” He smirked, staring at his hands strangely.

“It’s easier to speak and sign at the same time whenever I’m with Alaric, but speaking with someone else, I do my best to sign, even if he’s not in the conversation, to make him feel more comfortable. He can partially hear because of his hearing aid, but it’s not perfect. And this”—I moved my hands—“is the sign for ‘Alaric’. Names are often signs. Like for ‘Luella’, point to your lips and bring your finger outward, like this.”

“Why?” He copied me.

I smiled. “Because ‘Luella' sounds like a song. So, my name sign is that action with an L.”

“Luella.” He did it again, and I loved not only seeing my name but hearing it too. “What is it for ‘Dorian'?”

“Hmm.” I thought for a moment. “You have to be careful with name signs. Once yours has been established, it’s yours for life. I’ll spell it out for him and see what he comes up with.”

“What else do I need to know?”

Seeing him so eager made me want to kick myself for not going to him earlier.

DORIAN

I’ve had meetings with governors, police chiefs, Wall Street wolves, and more than a few run-ins with celebrities and athletes—hell, I’ve even been to lunch with Larry King once—but not once had I ever been as nervous as I was now, about to face a five-year-old boy.

“You said your friend is bringing him over?” I asked again, buttoning my shirt. She wore a bright blue sundress. She had no idea how tempting seeing her bare, smooth legs were. I couldn’t help but remember having them around me.

Focus, Dorian.

She brushed my hands aside, unbuttoned my sleeves, and rolled them up my arms. “Relax, he won’t bite, I promise. He’s not shy at all. Just expect him to ask a whole bunch of questions. I’ll translate everything.”

“What of your friend? Does she know who I am?”

“Eva Sotiropoulos is like my big sister. She does her best to watch out for me, and when I told her everything you were doing for me, for Alaric, she told me she’d have my back no matter what.” She laughed, putting her hands down. I missed her touching me.

“How did you two meet?”

She sighed. “I was still working at Shameless, where I waitressed, after Don left me. Alaric had come home from the hospital, and I used up all my money paying off as many bills as I could. My boss even let me have the room upstairs for free. It was more like a closet, but hell, it was better than nothing. One day Eva comes in, and everyone cheers and pounds on the tables. She walked behind the bar like she owned the place, mixing drinks like a pro. She didn’t look like a bartender, though. She was in a cocktail dress and designer heels. Everyone kept saying they were proud she was finally moving up in the world. Around closing time, she saw me taking out the trash and heard my story from the boss. So, she gave me the card for the House of L.”

I frowned, looking at her angrily. “She’s the reason you’re in this?”

“No.” She tried to smile. “I’m the reason I’m in this. When she first told me about it, I was horrified. But two years later, Shameless closed. I had no place to go, and Eva took me in. I had no money, no house, and I saw how she was living. She made twenty grand in one night. I still had hospital bills, not to mention caring for Alaric. So, I did it. Eva gave me one of her clients, he was nice enough. I didn’t realize just how nice until I’d been there a while. I cried afterward, took the money, and bought new clothes for Alaric. I bought him new everything. The next three years were easy enough. But I know Eva regrets ever handing me that card.”

Her friend should regret it. You can’t dangle food in front of a starving person and not expect them to take it. Friends don’t put friends in positions like that.

“You’re upset,” she said.

Damn straight. “I’m fine.”

“Now you’re lying.” She laughed softly, reached up, and pressed her finger on my eyebrow. “Your eyebrow twitches just like Don’s did when you’re annoyed.”

I removed her hand, but I didn’t let go. “You were vulnerable. You didn’t have that many choices—”

“We’re all vulnerable, that’s how we get roped in. No one grows up dreaming of being an escort. Your life gets derailed, and you end up here. Don’t be biased toward me because you know my story. Eva’s tried to get me out too.”

I sighed, nodding. Someone knocked on the door. My heart pounded faster and faster.

“I’ll get it,” she said, smiling wildly, then opened the door. I saw a blur of blue and green as the boy ran toward her. She picked him up, spinning him around. When he was back on his feet, his shoes lighting up, she took his hand and moved aside so I could see him clearly.

He looked just like me—like Don and me as boys. His hair was dark brown, but his eyes, his nose, they were all Rhys-Gallagher. She kneeled next to him, letting go of his hand in order to sign to him.

“Alaric, this is your dad, D. O. R. I. A. N.”

His eyes widened, and he looked at me before turning back to her signing.

She laughed, brushing his hair with her fingers. “Yes, really.”

He ran straight to me, wrapping his arms around my legs. His glasses fell off, but he didn’t care, he just held onto me. That did it. Tears pooled and overflowed. I tried to step back, but he wouldn’t let go of me.

“Alaric.” Luella, also crying, rubbed his back.

He let go some, and I knelt in front of him. He wiped his tears with his arms.

“Hello. Alaric. I am. So. Happy. To. Meet. You.” I did each sign slowly, so as not to mess up.

He grinned, signing back faster than I could even hope to follow.

Luella said, drawing his attention, “Alaric, sweetheart, slow down. He doesn’t know all the signs yet. You know when you try to read lips, but they are talking too fast? You are doing the same thing.”

He signed again, and I realized why she both spoke and signed. Watching two people chat with no way of understanding them would be painful and frustrating.

He took a deep breath and looked at me.

“Hi. I. Am. Alaric,” he said, his voice louder than normal. He started to speak again but got frustrated and turned to his mother.

“Don’t worry,” she said, then glanced at me. “He doesn’t like how he talks. He can read lips pretty well but talking is hard.” She turned to him. “I’m here, and I’ll translate. He’s a fast learner, and with us as teachers, he will know how to sign in no time.”

He smiled, talking with his hands.

“He says this is serious, so I have to get it right.”

“No pressure,” I replied, waiting.

He signed slowly, pointing to me once, and she dropped her head, pulling him into a hug lightly before standing.

“What did he say?” I asked eagerly.

“He asked if you were better now, and if you’ll ever get sick again?”

I picked him up and hugged him, hoping he knew I was here to stay.

And I hoped my brother would forgive me for taking everything he’d left behind.