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He winks. “As sure as I’ll ever be, or there’s no way I’d have clicked accept on the proposal. This guy is one of the best. He’s rich. And he’s hot. It’s an honour to be his entertainer. He could have anyone he wanted, paid or not.”
“It won’t make any difference,” I tell him. “There is only one of the best for me. And he’s wearing a red suit, right here, right now.”
“Thanks, baby,” he says, and kisses me gently on the lips to save my lipstick. “And on the red suit note, it’s time to go.”
We share a cab with Tiff on the way to the Mulberry, so I don’t get the chance to ask Josh anything more about the mysterious, mega hot client we’ve got a double gig with. I rest my hand on his leg while we listen to Tiff telling us about the newbies. She’s gushing with news on how she’s been chatting with them on the forums.
I give Josh’s leg a squeeze because I’m noticing how her voice changes, just a little, when she talks about Lochlan. And she smiles every time she mentions his name. Just in passing, but it’s enough to have me wondering.
I’d be so happy to see her grinning, loved up and comfortable with someone she adores. She deserves it. She’s dream worthy and worth a fortune. That’s in Creamgirl’s domain and not Tiff’s though, I suspect. I think there is more of a gulf in her confidence levels than anyone would ever realise. As though she’s afraid there’s a rotten, unlovable part of her buried deep.
I can relate to that. Luckily, I’ve managed to move on – or I’m trying to, a little by little every day – but I don’t imagine everyone gets to heal the darkness of their own inner trapdoor.
Maybe this Lochlan guy will be the one to help her. I’ve never seen her smile at someone’s name like this before, and neither has Josh, clearly. He nudges me when she does it again, barely hard enough to feel, and looks me in the eyes with a smirk. He’s thinking the same thing I am.
Josh tips the cab driver and we walk up to the glamour of the Mulberry entrance arm in arm, all three of us. We’re escorted upstairs and shown to our table, where Eb, Bodica, Harlot and Devon are already waiting. We exchange massive hugs, and are still in the process of saying our hellos when more people are brought up to join us.
I’ve still got Eb in a bearhug when I hear Tiff announce, ‘Lochlan and Mack, hey, great to meet you’, and I pull away, keen to introduce myself. Until I catch sight of one of them and my blood freezes.
Mack. That’s his name. It’s the idiot who fucked me on Daddy’s sofa, before he got turfed out during the proposal and ran off.
He was a prize prick, and I couldn’t stand him from the moment I met him. The guy fucked me as part of a proposal, and it didn’t matter that I thought he was an idiot then, because it was just work, but to see him here, in front of me, with that same arrogant tosser grin on his face, is enough that the loathing squirms in my gut.
He may have been my boyfriend at Daddy’s house, but now he’s just a jackass I have to be friendly with at a restaurant.
I grit my teeth when I smile and give him a wave, Mack, and then I tense up when he takes a seat along with us – snort laughing as he tells everyone how we are already acquainted.
The prick announces it with pride, in front of my real-life boyfriend, as though there is no me at all, just the girl whose holes he was paid to slam.
“We fucked,” he tells my friends. “I know her pussy pretty well, and her ass, but not her name.”
“It’s Ella,” I say, glaring at him, but he doesn’t give a shit, just carries on recounting the action, loud and abrasive, even though we are in the fucking Mulberry.
He tells everyone about fucking me on a sofa, and having to run away when the sick freak daddy came home, and then he stares at Bodica’s tits and gives another snort laugh as he jokes that he wishes it had been her.
I’ve never been one to preach or protest, or shove my views out into the world, but with this asshole I can’t help myself. I swig back some of my wine and find a voice I didn’t expect from myself.
“Daddy isn’t a sick freak,” I say. “He’s a client, who pays your wages. And I’m a coworker, not a cheap piece of pussy you can laugh about around a table.”
He raises his eyebrows and snort laughs again, like I’m the one who is the asshole, but I won’t be rubbished, or silenced. Fuck him.
“I mean it,” I tell him. “If you want to take the piss out of our careers, then get yourself a new one. Loads of people would give anything to be given the opportunities we have.”
“To be hookers?”
Josh clears his throat, shuffling closer to my side as he glares at Mack. I feel the fire from him. He takes my hand in his, in clear view of everyone at the table.
“To be well-paid, high-class entertainers, I think you mean.”
“Yeah, hookers.”
“Fine, call it being a hooker if it suits you, it suits me just fine, just don’t spout your whiny trap off about it like it’s some kind of joke. And stop gloating about fucking my girlfriend’s pussy. Gloat about being able to fuck her pussy, instead. Most people don’t get that privilege.”
“Shut your face, basically,” Tiff says to Mack, and her glare is worse than anyone’s.
Thank fuck the tension eases a little when the final additions arrive to join us, filling up the table. Kingsley and Bodica’s old friends take the attention from Mackass the jackass, and he shuts his face, his snort laughing fading into the background. At least for now.
I ignore him and focus on introducing myself to Bodica’s old friends, excited to hear all about them, and Josh joins in with me, conversation flowing just fine.
