Chapter One

Perrie

Sometimes, a girl just didn’t need a finger up her asshole.

Today was that day.

Unfortunately, whether I needed it or not hadn’t mattered to the selfish, married guy lying on the bed in the next room. He wanted his finger in my ass, so I had to deal with his finger in my ass.

Thank god I made him pay before I fucked him. I wanted to get the hell out of this room—and before he did. I’d been stiffed with a hotel bill before, which basically meant all the degrading bullshit I’d put myself through that evening had been for nothing.

I brushed my hair up into a ponytail. The band snapped against my fingers right as the sound of a phone ringing shrilly crept through the crack in the bathroom door. The sounds of a scramble ensued, followed by a very clear, very bright, “Hi, honey!”

Yeah. I’d be bright and happy if I were a guy who’d just got my dick sucked by a professional.

If I had business cards, that’s what I’d put on them. Perrie Fox: Professional dick sucker. It had a ring to it.

As much as I wanted to stand here and cuss out the guy, I couldn’t complain. One, I was as bad as he was. Two, he’d paid me enough to keep the roof over mine and my daughter’s heads and feed us for the next several days. This was also my cue to leave.

I knew how it went. He’d speak to his wife for at least fifteen minutes, telling her all the things he’d done. Then, when she inevitably saw the credit card bill or bank statement—or she’d been online—he’d explain away the cash withdrawal as a little gambling he’d inevitably lost.

Welcome to Sin City. Not even Satan wanted half these fucktards.

I stuffed my heels in my purse and slipped on my flats. They allowed me to escape through the suite unnoticed. I didn’t know which room the guy was in, but he didn’t hear the click or creak of the door as I made my getaway.

Thank god.

I’d learned to read people in the few years I’d been doing this. It came in handy—if I had to approach anyone in a busy place, it made it easy to pick out who I could sidle up next to at the bar or the gambling table and get lucky with. I was rarely wrong. I couldn’t afford to be wrong—if I was, by the time I’d realized it, someone else had grabbed the right guy.

Anyway, this meant I knew exactly what kind of man the guy I’d just disappeared on was. Aside from being a sleazeball cheat, he was one those. He’d ask for my number to call every time he was in Vegas since he was here for business.

The fact he’d told me, mid-screw, that I was the best hooker he’d ever paid for gave that away.

Unfortunately, I’d had virgins give me a better time, so he could suck it.

I certainly wouldn’t be doing any more sucking for him.

I handed my ticket to the hotel valet. He’d already been slipped a hundred bucks by the guy, whatever his name actually was, so the valet retrieved my car and handed me the keys without a word. He knew exactly what I was. I wasn’t exactly a stranger at any of the hotels in Vegas, but as long as they kept getting business out of me, they didn’t really care that much.

Because, let’s face it. This was Vegas. Hookers weren’t exactly unique here.

Or, maybe they did care. Maybe they simply realized that for every moment they did care, there was someone else who didn’t.

It was whatever to me.

I slipped the valet ten dollars and got into my car. It wasn’t the newest car—hell, it was older than my daughter, so I stood out like a sore thumb at this high-end hotel, but no amount of luxury could disguise what I was, and it was just that simple.

No matter how you looked at it or even considered the fact my family owned half the strip clubs in Las Vegas. I always was and always would be a whore, because they were all but dead to me.

Stuck in traffic, I tapped my fingers against the top of the steering wheel. The minutes were clicking over on the clock, and I was ever more aware of the fact that if those minutes ticked over the hour, my sitter was going to cost me even more money. Which was a joke in itself, because my daughter, Lola, would be asleep. And if she wasn’t, I needed a new damn sitter since it was a quarter to midnight.

Thankfully, I managed to escape down a side road and made it home minutes before the clock hit twelve. I hastily paid my sitter, bid her goodnight, and locked the door as she left. I watched through the window as she got into her car and drove off down the street into the darkness.

I rolled my shoulders. I felt dirty—dirtier than normal. There was no other reason than the one that had caused my absence from my house that evening. The man who’d defied what I’d wanted and done whatever he wanted, regardless of how it would make me feel.

I should have been used to it.

Really, it should have been something so normal to me after all these years.

Yet, it wasn’t. It never would be. I was, after all, the embodiment of the seedy underbelly of the city that could be so beautiful.

I was the lie in the fancy dress, the deceit on the arm of the rich businessman, and the humiliating truth of what really went on between the sheets.

Tonight, not even scalding hot water of my shower could wash away the regret.

The humiliation.

The dull ache inside.

It never would.

***

I hit ‘send’ on the email seconds before I heard the elephant-like stomps as Lola made her way down the stairs. My seven-year-old daughter was many things—bright, inquisitive, imaginative, but quiet was not one of them.

“Mommmmmmy!” she shrieked, skidding to a standstill in the doorway next to me.

“Right here,” I said, clicking off the browser screen.

“Oh.” She turned to look at me. “Is it breakfast time yet?”

I glanced at the clock. “Almost. Ten minutes, okay?”

She sighed dramatically and threw herself onto the sofa. Her braid was half undone, and her flop through the air allowed the loose strands of hair to circle her head like a halo. “This is so unfair!”

“Welcome to real life.” I snorted and walked into the kitchen.

“Oh, Mommy! You don’t know. I’m starving! My tummy is eating itself. Nom nom nom nom.” She made chomping noises and clapped her hands together to coincide with each one. “I won’t survive.”

“That’s slightly dramatic, given that all you want is a bowl of cereal.”

“And an apple, some grapes, and a juice.”

“A bowl of cereal is all you’re gonna get if you carry on speaking to me like that.” I swear, seven-year-old attitude was going to kill me one day. I didn’t much care about how bad teenagers were. They were old enough to know better.

Lola, however, seemed to have one setting: Full attitude. There was no ‘off’ button. Sadly.

One day, maybe evolution would get around to installing that off button on children. Preferably with ‘sleep’ and ‘mute’ ones to cover all the bases.

I’d just pulled a bowl from the cupboard when I felt a small hand tugging on the bottom of my ratty, old NKOTB shirt that I’d worn to bed last night.

“Yes?” I said, looking down at my daughter’s angelic face.

“Mommy, please may I have an apple, some grapes, and a juice with my cereal?” She blinked her dark blond eyelashes, staring at me with those big, brown eyes that got me every time.

“Of course. Go sit at the table, okay?”

“Okay. Thank you!” She ran away, and the scrape of a chair against the hard flooring in the next room made it clear that she’d actually done as she was told.

Wow.

There was a first.

I fixed her breakfast and took it in for her. She’d switched the TV on and was jabbing at the DVD player controller to start the disc. A tiny growl escaped her mouth, and when her lips curled back, I could see her teeth clenched in frustration.

“Here.” I set the breakfast down and took the controller. “You just gotta wait, Lo. See? It’s not ready yet.”

“I know that, but it just takes so long.” She groaned, picking up her spoon. “Mommy, why is it so slow?”

Probably made by a man, I wanted to say.

“That’s just how it is,” was my actual response. “Don’t forget you’re sleeping over at Felicity’s house tonight. She’s coming with her mom to pick you up at two.”

“How many hours is that?”

I glanced at the clock. “Five.”

“So, when the big hand is on the twelve and the little one is on the two?”

“Exactly right, chickpea.” I chucked her under the chin. “Are you excited?”

“Mhmm,” she said around a mouthful of cereal. Milk dribbled down her chin, and she reached up to wipe it away. “Yuck.”

“You’re a messy eater.” I threw her a cloth, turned on her DVD, and headed back into the kitchen.

“I’m seven, Mom! I have to be messy. It’s in the rulebook.”

“I don’t think there are rulebooks for children except the ones their parents make,” I called over my shoulder.

Her sigh was so loud I could hear it perfectly. “Obviously, you don’t know about this one. It’s a secret.”

“Oh, fair enough.” Shaking my head, I hit the button on the small coffee machine in the corner.

It looked like I was gonna need it.

***

I adjusted the top of my stocking, the elastic snapping against my skin as I released it.

Sitting on the edge of my bed in front of my mirror, I looked like the complete opposite of the thing I was. All right—so my dress was bunched around my hips, but still.

My hair was perfectly curled, hanging around my shoulders in big, loose ringlets that framed my face well. I’d perfected it over the years, knowing exactly how to style it so I showed off my features the best I could.

My make-up may as well have been applied by a professional. My slick, dark pink lip followed the curves of my mouth, while my bright-blue eyes were extenuated by the darkness of the smoky powder on my lids and jet-black mascara curling my lashes.

I stood, pushing the skirt of my dress down. Falling to mid-thigh, the floaty skirt highlighted my curves in a way I knew would tempt any red-blooded man to look my way at the very least.

If only I wasn’t so hollow inside, I might actually think I looked beautiful. As it was, I was nothing more than a plaything to whoever picked me up tonight.

I was an expensive plaything, but a plaything all the same.

I swallowed that feeling and slipped my feet into a pair of heels. There was a way out this life, I knew that, but there were so many bridges to cross. A hateful family and a father who wasn’t really my father were my obstacles—ones I would probably never be able to get past.

I’d made my bed when I got pregnant, and their insistences upon an abortion I refused to have was when I laid in that bed.

This was my life. I accepted it—I had no choice.

I’d given myself no choice.

I went downstairs, locked the door, and got into my car. Thinking about the ‘why’ always got me. Why did I do this? Why had my life gone this way? Why was I allowing it? Why couldn’t I do better?

Maybe one day I would understand that the ‘why’ didn’t matter. I was here, and it was my job, and I had to get on with it. No matter how badly I wanted to change things, unless someone was willing to take that chance on me, there was nothing I could do about it.

Not a damn thing.