“Are you sure about this, Graham? I mean … this will be career suicide,” Amber asks me for the fifth time in as many minutes.

“Yes and stop stalling. No one’s going to run in here and stop me. I’ve had enough. And I don’t care about my career when not doing this means I can’t be the man I need to be for Apollo.”

“Why don’t you talk to her?” she asks in frustration.

“I will. I’m going to take her away when I get back. And I’ll tell her before it airs next Sunday.”

“Before you record the interview, Graham. You won’t be able to pull it back once you’re done. You’ve already signed the waiver. They’ll air it whether you change your mind or not.”

“I know that,” I say, trying hard to hold on to my composure. This is all a such a fucking nightmare. “That’s why I have to do the interview first,” I admit and then drop my forehead into my hands.

“Graham, maybe you should—”

“If I didn’t have to, I’d never tell her,” I confess. I keep my eyes on the table. I’m too ashamed, too full of dread and fear to meet Amber’s eyes. “She’s going to leave me.”

“Graham, she—” Amber tries to interject, but I don’t want to hear her say something she can’t possibly know. I have to prepare myself for the consequences of what I’m doing.

“But, then at least I know I’d done everything I could to earn the love she’s given me. I can’t hide anything about this from her. I don’t want her to hear it from anyone but me. Nanette is in the city. She’s already caused one rift between us. I’m not going to let her hold this over my head. To threaten Apollo. So, this is it. And I’m going to tell her. After I finish this interview.”

Amber nods solemnly, gives me a grim smile before she turns back to her computer and starts typing.

I spent the week in Los Angeles tracking down a couple of the people who worked at Talisman when I was there. Nanette was running a lot more than just her escort service; she had some sort of scam going where she’d been defrauding people online. She had hundreds of online dating profiles. And she had a team of people who spent all day at their computers pretending to form attachments to men and women they met on those sites. They would spend weeks, sometimes months making their mark think they were in love. They’d have some sort of crisis—a medical emergency, a car accident, a sick relative. Their internet partners would send them money. When they had milked their mark dry, they’d close the dating site account and disappear.

Armed with this knowledge, I was about to go on Sixty Minutes and tell my story and expose Nanette. Then I was going to take Apollo away and tell her the truth. Even if it meant she wouldn’t forgive me, I could finally stop lying to her. That was the thing I was most ashamed of. I’m not proud of what I did, but there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my mother. But, I can’t live with this lie between us anymore. Apollo deserves better. And so do I.

“You ready?” Amber’s voice drifts into my ear. I was lucky she was in town for the week. The reporter is coming to Amber’s studio for the interview, and he’s here. Dean is going to fucking kill me. But I need to cut this cancer out of my life—my way. Without considering whether it will help or hurt my career.

She shows the reporter in. We get settled, and as we agree, I begin the interview with a prepared statement.

“My name is Graham Davis. Many of you know me from my television show Losing to Win. Today, I’m speaking to you as my mother’s son and as a man who wants to be worthy of the woman he loves.” I clear my throat and continue. “At the start of my senior year at UCLA, my mother became very ill. She worked as the maid at my high school. As you can imagine, a maid, even at a private high school in Beverly Hills, didn’t have a great salary to begin with. But, with me working, as well, we were fine. Until she was diagnosed with late stage acute leukemia. The only hope she had was a treatment her insurance company refused to pay for because they said it to was too experimental. We appealed and were denied. After her diagnosis, my mother went back to work because she couldn’t afford not to. I was in college, on a partial scholarship. I worked—sometimes two jobs—to pay the rest of my tuition.

“The treatment that she needed to stay alive was only out of reach because we didn’t have the money. So, I dropped out of school. The university gave me a refund on my tuition which was enough to pay for half of the first month’s treatment. I looked for more work. I was offered a job that would allow me to pay for the treatment and go back to school. It was described as providing companionship. But it was prostitution. Sex for money. Initially, I turned it down.

“And then, my mother got pneumonia. She called me to her bedside and told me that she was prepared to die. That she was ready. She was the only family I had left, and I wasn’t ready. I sat there knowing that I couldn’t live with myself if my mother died because of my pride and fanciful notion of being with the girl I loved. Those sorts of dreams aren’t for people who are desperate. Life doesn’t care what we want. It binds our hearts without our consent. It gives without limit and then steals our joy without warning. It takes from us what it requires and expects a thank you in return. It gives us a shell that blinds everyone who sees it to the will of the heart that beats within it. So, yeah, I had other dreams. But they had to wait because I had the chance to save the woman who had given me life and who I loved more than anyone. Even if it meant never having what I wanted.

“My agent, which is just a nice word for pimp, arranged all of my clients for me. And for that, she got fifty percent of the fee we charged for each session. I did this for three years. And when new opportunities came about that allowed me to still take care of my mother without having sex with strangers for money, I quit. Since then, every month for the last nearly two years, I’ve paid that pimp a monthly ransom. It seemed a small price for her silence.

“I know I’ve built a reputation as a lady’s man. I know the things you like best about me are my hair and my body. That’s fine. But that is not all I am. I have let this thing I did define me for far too long. I’ve let it hold sway over my life, and I have paid dearly for it.

“A few days ago, my former pimp, Nanette Mannerman, asked me for more money. I said no, and she threatened to tell the one person I’d prayed would never find out. I said no. I’ve spent the past few years doing everything I could to make sure no one ever knew what I’d done. I was ashamed. It’s not exactly a profession that is held in high esteem. But it was honest work, and I needed the money. So tonight, I’m going to tell my story. On behalf of all the men and women who do work, most of us pray we’ll never have to in order to make sure they or their families can live decent lives. To my mother and to the love of my life, I am so sorry for the shame this will bring you. I hope that you will forgive me. At the time, it seemed like the least disruptive option. Instead, it cost me dearly. But for my mother who saved my life on more occasions than I’ll ever know, I would do it all over again. Nanette, you didn’t force me to do anything. I was reluctant, but the decision was mine. What makes your actions wrong, besides being illegal, is the way you held it over my head. How you decided it wasn’t enough to make money off me, you wanted to touch me yourself. You wanted to ruin my relationships. But your two-year reign of terror is coming to an end. My statute of limitations is up. Yours ... is not. I can’t keep the smile off my face. I look forward to standing in a court of law and testifying under oath and give every single sordid detail if it means you’ll end up going to prison. If you’re stupid enough to still be in the city, I think you’ll find that the police are looking for you.”

Amber counts backward from three and runs her fingers across her throat to tell me it was done recording. “How was it—”

“Oh, Graham,” Amber wails before she launches herself at me. “I’m sorry you had to tell that story, but I’m so proud of you. That could not have been easy.”

“You don’t think they’re going to want to burn me in effigy?” I ask, relieved at her response. It was her first time hearing all of that, too.

“No waaaay,” she says, her voice bright with certainty. “But,” she pauses and chews her lip nervously.

My anxiety is at peak level, and I snap, “Just spit it out.”

She looks at me, her eyes full of sympathy. “Apollo’s still gonna kick your ass.”

“God, I hope she still cares enough to.”