Chapter 13
Bargaining
Victoria should have known Sebastian already knew all about Nicolette. “That came up in my background check, didn’t it?” she said.
“Naturally.”
“Well...” She took a deep breath. “She’s a screenwriter, actually. Nothing that’s been produced, but she’s written a few scripts.” She realized she sounded defensive but she felt she had to explain. “The escort job isn’t something she’s ashamed of, but it’s only for a couple of years. She sees herself mainly as a writer.”
“And how do you see yourself, Victoria?”
She reddened a little. “I’m a writer too. Nothing that’s been published.”
“But you’ve written...books?”
“Nothing finished. I’m still working on my first novel.”
“Working on it. You’re twenty-five. Did you just decide you were going to be a novelist last year?”
“Since I was twelve,” Victoria said. Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to tell him what an amazing failure she’d been as a novelist. He already thought she was a massive failure for being poor and having crappy clothes.
Sebastian took a sip of wine. He looked thoughtful, but didn’t say anything.
“So you’re all right with it, then?” she said. “About the person tutoring Benson living with an escort, I mean.” She was hired, after all.
“It’s not really my concern. People give up things for sex all the time. Sometimes it’s love, sometimes it’s money.”
“You make it sound like you think everyone’s a ...” She stopped, not sure if it was appropriate to say the word she was thinking.
“A whore?” Sebastian said without so much as blinking once. “I’m saying everyone has a price. It doesn’t mean some of us can’t be good people.”
Victoria stared at him for a long time, uncertain what to say.
“I... that’s either incredibly open-minded or incredibly cynical of you,” she said, finally.
“Maybe I’m both. Obviously you have no qualms about what your friend does for a living.”
“I don’t. She’s smart, and she’s a kind, generous person. I respect her. She’s probably the person I respect the most in the world.”
“So you wouldn’t mind paying a man for sex, then?”
“What?” She didn’t expect that question. “I...uh, of course not. Not a problem with me.”
“Have you ever done it?”
“Paid a m- no, I haven’t.” After a second, she added, “Not yet.” The truth was, she’d never even thought about it.
“But you would.”
“Of course.”
Wait. What did she just say?
“So hypothetically speaking, you’d pay to have sex with me.”
She swallowed hard. “Well, not you necessarily... I mean, you’re not my type.”
Sebastian raised an eyebrow.
Victoria sighed. Of course there was no way he’d believe she didn’t think he was attractive.
“I think you’re ... cute,” she added.
“Cute.”
“Yeah.” If by cute, you mean so hot I wet my panties at the sight of your neck, then yes. “Of course, I couldn’t possibly afford you,” she added in a small voice. She avoided his eyes. How on earth did the conversation get to this?
Sebastian seemed nonplussed. “Oh I don’t know,” he said. “I think you and I can agree on a reasonable rate.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I pay you two hundred dollars for a two-hour session, correct?”
“Y-yes.” Victoria wasn’t quite sure where he was going with this.
“Now since you bring your very fine college and graduate education to the work of teaching my nephew, I can’t possibly charge you the same rate for work that doesn’t require the same level of... academic expertise.”
“No, I guess not.”
“I believe twenty dollars would be a fair rate then.”
“Twenty dollars. An hour.” Was he serious?
“A night.”
Victoria stared at him, unable to think of what to say. “Oh,” she said.
“What do you think? Fair?”
“What? Oh, yes. Very fair.” She wanted to laugh. This was all hypothetical, of course. It wasn’t like he was actually offering her sex for money. She nodded, feeling a little relieved. “This is all hypothetical, right?”
“What do you think, Victoria?”
“But... you’re my boss,” she said, completely confused. What was he doing?
“Would you put money in an account at my bank?”
“Yes, but that’s not—”
“Then why not pay me for any other service then? It’s a transaction, nothing more.”
A transaction. Like a bank deposit. Twenty dollars for an incredibly hot, incredibly wealthy man to be hers for a night. In a naked way.
Getting the obvious question out of the way, she said, “Why do you want to do this?”
“Because,” he said, leaning back against his armchair and linking the fingers of his two hands, “I’m curious to know how full of shit you really are.”
“You don’t believe I’d do it,” she said, trying not to sound as deflated as she felt. It was all a bluff. And she believed it, like the idiot she was.
“No, I don’t. Like most intellectuals, you seem to live your life in the hypothetical. You say you want to be a writer, and yet you’ve never even finished a novel.”
His words stung as though he’d slapped her. “It’s not that easy.”
“No. But it’s not that hard, either. You won a fiction prize at the age of sixteen, if I remember your resume correctly. There are entire shelves in bookstores full of crap books written by hack novelists who can’t put a proper sentence together. What’s your excuse?”
Victoria sat silently, staring back at the man who, thirty seconds ago, just offered himself to her at a bargain basement rate, and was now explaining to her how much of a failure she was. Again.
Just when she thought she’d gotten used to his artless honesty and his insults, Sebastian would find a way to beat her self-confidence back down again.
And his eyes. The humor and kindness she imagined were there a few moments back were gone. His blue eyes held nothing but contempt now.
“I hired you because I believed you were gifted. Because I wanted someone to help my nephew understand why it was important to achieve more than what society expected of you.” Sebastian stood up, and laid a fist on his desk heavily, but not with enough force to make a sound. Yet it betrayed his anger more than if he had thrown the desk across the room.
“It looks like I made a mistake.”
They looked at each other in silence for a long time.
Victoria swallowed hard. “Are you firing me, Mr. Chase?”
“Get out.”
She couldn’t meet his eyes, but she nodded once before turning to leave.
***
There have been certain times in his life where Sebastian Chase fucked up, and they were few and far in between. This was definitely one of them. In fact, this may have been the worst.
That he felt like shit was an understatement.
What the hell happened?
What was supposed to have been a simple sexual proposition had turned into an awkward, blundering mess. He had no idea what fever or demon possessed him to suddenly offer to sleep with Victoria. For twenty dollars, no less.
Obviously, he was desperate. She was his employee. He needed something — anything — to justify what he used to think was one of the lowest depths a man could sink to, which was a relationship with a woman who worked for him. And all his pathetic intellectual powers could come up with was to ask her to pay him for sex.
Of course she turned him down. How disgusted was she at him at this moment? If her tone of voice was anything to go by, he’d be surprised if she hadn’t run out the house already as soon as she had left the room. At the very least, he may not be able to look her in the eyes anytime soon.
Her beautiful brown eyes. Like liquid chocolate, tempered by a sweet champagne, luring him into their depths.
Sebastian took another large drink of the sherry. What he really felt like doing was smashing the glass at his head. What a monumental moron he was.
He was almost sure his fascination for Victoria would die out after a day or so. He knew beautiful women — they flocked to him like bees to honey. And while he was aware he was not exactly an ugly male specimen, he knew that it was his money that made him irresistible to women, and even some men.
Victoria was not one of these women.
She had no interest in him more than that of an employer who gave her a position that enabled her to use her education and skills, perhaps not in the way she intended, but he knew she found the work fulfilling. She was honest in her dealings with him, and unlike most of the people he’d met, didn’t seem dazzled by his wealth or his power.
Was that why he could not stop thinking of her? Was she just another pretty face made special by the fact that he did not make her fall on her knees just by walking into the room?
Sebastian was sure all he needed was one night with the girl, just one encounter to make her satisfy his lust and he would be over her. After that, he would no longer dream of her dark red hair spilling like wine on his sheets as she moved in ecstasy underneath his hard body, her mouth moaning his name as he plowed his manhood firmly into her inner depths. He would stop drowning in her eyes every time they lit up like a midday sun whenever she greeted him.
Thanks to his failure today, he may be doomed to a few more weeks of the agony of his unsated desire for the girl with the wine red hair and sun-drenched smile. Because surely this hunger for one woman could not last forever.
He emptied his glass and prayed to the heavens that this was true.