I bite into the honey almond croissant, wiping a few flaky pastry bits from my lips. I watch as Yasmine sips her medium roast coffee. She ordered a chocolate croissant, which is an indulgence for her, and instead of biting into it, she's eyeing it suspiciously. She's one of those women who refuses to eat anything with sugar and butter 99% of the time in fear her ass will start ballooning out, but come on, we're both having brunch at Balthazar—one of those places where it's as if you've been transported to Montmartre at the turn of the century, yet it's still 2016, and it's still SoHo. In other words, you don't skip the pastries at this place. Besides, Yasmine had the body of a Victoria's Secret Angel from a young age, and she still maintains it. One pastry isn't going to do her in.

"You're lucky you weren't at the club last night," she says. "Some guy tried to pick me up like a bowling ball right on the stage. I lost my shit—like, really lost it, Ash."

"What happened?" I ask, my eyes going wide. And then I do a double take. “And what were you even doing on stage? You’re a house mom!”

Yasmine laughs.

“Just because I’m 35 doesn’t mean that I can’t dance from time to time, baby,” she says with an arched eyebrow. “Besides it makes me feel sexy.”

Oh wow. Now this is just what I need to get my mind off of missing Arsen.

“Feel sexy, Yasmine?” I ask, and lean in. “Who is he? Don’t tell me it’s one of the bouncers again!”

Again, Yasmine laughs and takes a sip of her champagne.

“Hardly,” she says. “And I can’t tell you. Call it attorney-client confidentiality.”

“So, he’s a lawyer?” I ask. She just smiles at me and stays silent. After a moment, I move on. “So what happened to the guy who tried to pick you up literally?”

"I hit him. Repeatedly. And then the bouncers showed up and asked me what the hell was going on. I had to recount the whole thing to them, and they asked me if I hit him open palmed—like a slap—or close fisted. Do I look like I'd slap someone?"

I watch as she balls her fist in reenactment. She has a point. Despite her small size, she's got a hard exterior. Cross her or her dancers, and she’ll come after you with the power of a MAC truck.

"No, you're right. I could picture you close fisting that asshole."

"It's like letting a dog piss in the middle of your living room, you know? Sure, I could've let the bouncer take care of him, but then he'd never learn. He'd do it again to some other girl, in some other club, and the cycle would never end."

"I guess you've got a point."

"I swear I need to get out of that place. The money's good, except on Mondays. Can you believe I danced for a solid 45 minutes and only made $25 on Monday? If that were a Friday night, I'd have made $500. My family keeps asking me when I'm going to get a real job—they know what I do, but they pretend like they don't. It's always awkward."

I nod my head in agreement. I can understand where she's coming from. I couldn't even tell my family about it. They still think I'm serving coffee somewhere while I try finding a place to put my Art History degree from Yale to use. But let's be real—serving coffee won't pay NYC rents.

"Anyways, enough about me," she continues. "You're lucky you got out when you did. It was a smart move. Sit in bed all day at talk dirty on the phone. I’m glad one of my girls got out."

"I'm not so sure," I say, shaking my head and looking down at the last bits of my pastry. I don't even want to look Yasmine in the eyes, in fear she'll recognize something in me that I haven't even admitted to myself.

"What's that supposed to mean? I thought you were doing great at Simulated Pleasures? Aren't you one of the highest grossing operators?"

"I am, but it's complicated."

"How complicated can it be? You take a call, act as part seductress and part therapist for as long as possible, and get them off. Voila!"

"It's been a crazy last couple of days."

"So what—you have some crazy stalker now calling at all hours of the night? Keep him on the line and rack up those minutes, girl."

"It's not a stalker. I'm falling for one of my clients."

"You can't be serious?"

"Serious as a heart attack."

"Rule number one, never fall for a client, especially not over the phone! Ashley, come on! He can be anyone. You don't know him at all. You've never even seen the guy. He could be an ex-con with a tattooed face for all you know."

"Actually, you're wrong. I do know who he is, and that's the problem."

I watch as she chokes on her champagne. "Now you've lost me. I don't understand."

"Do you remember Arsen from Scorcher's? Intensely blue eyes, hot body, and billion dollar playboy?"

"THE Arsen Hawke? Sure. I mean, who could forget a guy like that? So, where's this going?"

"Well, last night I found out that Arsen is the client. He's the same person. But he's been hiding that from me for weeks. For countless calls, he's been calling my direct phone sex line and masquerading as a 'King Henry.' We were having the most mind-blowing phone sex. I mean, I was supposed to be getting him off, and yet, there he was, making me come so hard every time. It was like he could read my mind. I couldn't get him out of my head. But as this was all happening, I was meeting up with Arsen—dinner, drinks, sex, and I found myself falling in love with him. But then I started pulling away from Arsen when I realized I was falling for a man on the other end of my phone too. It all became so emotionally confusing. It didn't feel right to be falling in love with two separate people."

"Wait a minute. You're in love with Arsen Hawke?" Yasmine asks, eyes wide in disbelief, and seemingly ignoring a good majority of my story.

I nod my head but before I can respond she says, "You and ever other girl in New York City! Come on Ashley, he's the biggest playboy in this city!"

"That's the thing. I think he loves me too—at least that's what he'd said. I've really fallen for him… well, until a few nights ago anyways. Now I don't know what to think."

"What happened last night?" she asks.

I stare off at the happy couples brunching, smiling, drinking their $6 orange juices, as I recall the events of the Boathouse. "That's when everything came crashing to the surface like some horrific car accident. He admitted to me that he was the man calling into my sex line. He said it so casually, as if it were the easiest thing in the world. I can still hear him ask me, 'is it King Henry?' and right as those words left his mouth, it felt like my entire world was shattering. I knew he wasn't lying—he couldn't have possibly known about that caller any other way—and it felt like everything I'd known was a lie."

Yasmine takes a sip of her champagne and pushes her croissant around her plate a bit with the tips of her fake, neon-pink nails. "I don't know… it just sounds so weird, don't you think? The whole notion that you can fall in love with someone just over the phone."

"I don't want to sound cheesy, but until last night, nothing felt weird at all—it all felt like fate, Yas."

"Fine, fine," she says, throwing in the towel to her argument. "So what's the problem? You're being an idiot. That's what I think. Go get Mr. Perfect. You loved him on the phone, and you loved him in real life."

"How can you say that? You make it sound so easy. I was lied to, remember? He knew all along what he was doing."

"You're over reacting. I get that it hurts to be lied to—I mean, that'd piss me off too, but the bottom line is you're in love with the same person. You pulled away from Arsen after you slept with him, and it's obvious that he was just trying to find another way to get close to you."

"I don't know… it still feels so… wrong. I said things… did things… that were so personal on the phone."

“Listen, Ashley baby,” Yasmine says. “I’ve known Arsen Hawke a lot longer than you. And let me tell you that before he met you, that man knew how to tear shit up.”

“Yeah, I know,” I say to Yasmine resignedly. “I know I could make him happy though.”

“You did from the moment he met you, now that I’m remembering that far back,” Yasmine says.

That stops me up short. I look at her and lean in closer.

“What are you talking about, Yas?” I ask.

She’s silent. I wait. She looks at me. Finally she sighs. “Alright, fine,” she says. “You know that Arsen’s dad used to own the club before he died. He started the whole empire.”

I nod to Yasmine. Arsen has told me all this.

“Well, Arsen used to come in and fuck the girls if they wanted a ride, you know? Kind of like a welcome committee. Not all of them, and not every time. But he’s been known to wet his whistle with a Scorcher’s girl quite a few times,” Yasmine says. What she’s saying isn’t a secret. I used to hear girls talk about Arsen in the dressing rooms. About his body. His appetites. His giant cock. “But what you don’t know is that the night you left early, like a week later he came back.”

Now I’m curious as Yasmine continues. “Comes in and I think oh, maybe it’s time for me to finally take big boy for a ride, and I’m flirting with him.”

I wince as I think about Yasmine sharing the same man that I love but she continues. “Motherfucker completely shot me down,” she says. “Instead asks me if I knew where that pretty blonde haired girl with a nice tits and hot ass and blue eyes went. I told him she didn’t work at Scorcher’s no more. That I sent her over to work at Simulated Pleasures.”

I freeze. Arsen had seen me at the club. And he had been looking for me. He had singled me out. And he had wanted me.

“Guy didn’t even touch one hair on all this,” she says, using her hands to gesture to her body. “I was ready to suck his cock right there on the main floor too – it was one of those nights. But alls he wanted was you, babe. Haven’t seen him inside the club since.”

“He just wanted me…” I say to her softly, but I’m speaking more to myself.

“Since the moment he met you, girlfriend. So I’d go a bit easy on him,” Yasmine says, finally taking a bite out of her chocolate croissant. "If anything, Arsen was trying to protect you."

"How's that?" I ask.

"Well, he sold his company in chunks to the Russian mob. I'm sure he was trying to protect you for as long as he could. They probably would have pressured you for sex or something to keep working there."

Her words stun me. What if that's true? Could that be it? Was Arsen just trying to keep me safe and protected?

I ask, "How do you know all this?"

"I have my ways."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

She thinks for a moment, as if she's not sure whether to say anything or not, but then continues, "Do you remember that slightly old lawyer who always hangs around Mr. Arsen Hawke?"

"Vaguely," I say, thinking of the times I’ve seen him on the video conference screen or he’s come by Arsen’s One57 apartment. ‘Gerard?”

"Well, he's the lawyer Arsen uses for everything, including selling the pieces of his company to the Russian mob. And he’s held out selling Simulated Pleasures as long as he can because he’s worried about how the mob is going to treat the girls that work there."

"How do you know that?"

"Let's just say I've seen him—both inside… and outside of the club."

"No—you two are having an affair?"

Yasmine motions her fingers over lips, as if she's zipping them shut.

"Fine, don't tell me," I say. But as soon as I say it, I realize that I may have everything wrong—yet again. If Yasmine is right, then Arsen hasn’t just loved me. He’s protected me. And all I’ve done is to repay him with scorn.