Chapter 3

He was out of his element, and the feeling was unfamiliar, unwelcome. The tense vacuum of silence around them begged him to fill it with blather, and he was about to give in to the urge when there was a knock at the door.

He tried to silence his sigh of relief. Saved by the dinner bell.

“Speak of the devil,” he said, with a raised eyebrow at Isabella. She looked as relieved as he felt.

He hurried to the door to let in the bellhop, who pushed a cart laden with silver-lidded trays toward the dining room table. Edward already had two tapers burning there on either side of an enormous bouquet of mixed flowers. He directed the server to place their dishes at one end of the table, across from one another. He wanted to be able to watch her--her expressions, her mannerisms, her manners--and her reactions to his. He needed to get a better read on her. So far, she had been frustratingly enigmatic.

She followed the two men to the table and watched as the server lifted the lids off the courses, describing them one by one. She pretended not to be surprised at the crab cakes, grilled asparagus, filet mignon and tiramisu offerings, since she had listed them all as her preferences. The food looked, and smelled, delicious. Its scent overpowered the escort’s for the time being, and her appetite seemed to recover enough to temper her nerves.

As Edward pressed a wad of cash into the bellhop’s hand before sending him on his way, she realized that his dinner was identical to hers.

“Excellent choices,” he told her, returning to the table and pulling her chair out for her. She sat down while he continued to eerily read her mind. “I decided to order the same things. You can never go wrong with a little surf and turf.”

He disappeared to the living room, then returned with the bottle of wine. He refilled their glasses and seated himself across from her, giving her a stiff smile. She tried not to stare at him, but it was a losing battle. He must find her horribly rude. Or possibly a little touched in the head.

But her studies were revealing more about him, slowly but surely. Once her eyes adjusted to the glare of his beauty, she began to look for cracks in its veneer. He was human, after all. There was a flesh and blood man under that pretty face and impeccable Italian suit of armor.

His eyes were the first to betray his aura of confidence. They weren’t as cool and collected as the rest of his demeanor. Their gaze was uncertain; tentative around the edges. Then his hands began following suit, agitating his hair with habitual regularity, making its disarray more and more prominent. His mane defied gravity; his eyes defied circumstance.

She realized with a start that he didn’t like his circumstances. He didn’t want to be here.

He didn’t want to be an escort.

She frowned at her plate and wondered if she should call him on his bluff. Call this whole “date” off, and reject everything the exchange of money for services implied. Whatever his reasons for pursuing this line of work, she was now certain they were of necessity rather than choice.

The silence continued to oppress them as they unfolded crisp linen dinner napkins and spread them across their laps.

He wondered if she would ever speak.

She wondered what to say.

She stabbed a fork into her appetizer and tried to muster the courage to voice what they both must be thinking: that he’d rather be anywhere else than with her right now, and that she wasn’t sure she could go through with a night of loveless sex in a five-star hotel any more than she could in her dingy dorm room.

But before she could build up the nerve, he beat her to the punch.

“Why are you here, Isabella?” he asked with abrupt candor. At this point, he figured he had nothing to lose.

A large bite of crab cake went down her gullet in a hasty gulp. “What do you mean?” she stalled. She hadn’t expected him to put her on the spot instead.

“You’re not my typical client. You’re young and beautiful. You could have your pick of eligible guys. Why do you think you need me?”

She stared into his serious gaze. Damn, he was good. She almost believed him.

“Look, I know you have to say those kinds of things because I paid you good money to,” she said. “But I’m letting you off the hook. You can cut the crap. I mean, I know the truth.”

“You don’t know anything,” he retorted. He frowned, his thick eyebrows squeezing the bridge of his nose. “Just because you don’t believe what I say doesn’t mean it’s not true. I don’t have to tell you you’re beautiful. If I didn’t find you attractive, I would just say that your dress is lovely, or your hair looks great, or you look amazing tonight. All of which is true, by the way. I don’t tell everyone they’re beautiful. Hardly anyone, in fact.”

He was being generous. He’d never told any client she was beautiful, ever. He had found all sorts of creative ways to get around that bit of dishonesty. From the start, he had decided that the only things he was obligated to prostitute were his body and his time. All else--his opinions, his preferences, his needs, his desires--were his and his alone, to bestow as he saw fit.

And as he sat across the table from Isabella Swan, watching the candle flames illuminate her porcelain skin and flicker in her deep brown eyes, he found her indisputably beautiful. The notion that she saw herself as anything less confounded and disturbed him.

She could see that he was serious; offended, even, that she hadn’t accepted his praise more graciously. She looked him in the eyes and said with utter sincerity, “Thank you. That’s quite a compliment coming from you.”

His expression was one of bafflement. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well, come on,” she said with a slight roll of her eyes. “Look at you. You’re . . . ” She paused as her eyes swept over his broad shoulders, up his masculine neck, and lingered over his achingly attractive features. “You’re ridiculously good-looking. I’m sure you know that.”

“What am I, Zoolander?” he said with a light snort of laughter. She barely cracked a smile at the joke. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” he added, with a sardonic twist of his lips. He hated talking about his looks. He hated the arrogance it implied to even acknowledge them.

She found his tone surprising. It smacked of sarcasm, as if his handsomeness was nothing but a sham. She wondered how someone like him could look in the mirror and not see what the rest of the world saw.

But his words also meant that he found her beautiful, just as she did him. That was something she did not expect. She was still hesitant to believe him, even though he spoke with conviction. Perhaps he was so practiced at the art of flattery that his falsehoods rang true. But something in his eyes told her that he was not yet that jaded.

“What about you?” she countered, letting her curiosity - and the wine - make her brave. “Why are you here? Why do you need this?”

He stared at her blankly. Clients never asked him that. Well, some of the older ones did. They assumed it was the money, and they were mostly right. He liked to think he did it to stroke his ego a bit, too, except that he didn’t have one. But he was great at faking it.

“The pay is excellent and the perks are, well . . . ” He finished the thought by raking his eyes up and down her slight frame, pausing to stare provocatively at the bare expanse of flesh right above her breasts.

Her cheeks flamed hot, but she remained undaunted. “Besides that,” she pressed.

He shrugged dismissively. “There is nothing else. It’s easy money and I’m good at it. My friends always used to joke that I was so good at picking up women that I ought to get paid for it. One day I decided that maybe they were on to something.”

Her eyes narrowed. She was studying him again. He was used to appraisal, but not scrutiny. He squirmed uncomfortably and polished off the rest of his wine.

“That’s bullshit,” she finally declared with a shake of her head. “You like being used. You think that’s all you’re good for. That that’s all you deserve.”

He felt the impact of her words like a knife to the gut, piercing and deep, spilling his entrails out on the table before he ever felt the pain of the attack. It was too late to raise his shield, so he launched a counter offense.

“Let me guess--you’re a psych major,” he said with a withering sneer. “Is that why you came here? To psychoanalyze me and figure out why I’d make such a fucked-up career choice? Just don’t forget to turn the microscope back on yourself while you’re at it. I’d love to hear why a beautiful young girl would pay two months’ rent to be seduced by a complete stranger.”

She looked flummoxed, and he was glad. She would think twice before she left her glass house for another attack.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he continued. “I’m sure I can guess. Your boyfriend treats you like crap, or maybe he’s lousy in the sack, so you came here to find out if there’s something better out there. Or maybe it’s the opposite--he’s complaining about your lack of expertise, so you thought you’d get some from a professional before you lose him. Am I getting warm?”

The only thing warm was her face. She was livid. How dare he make such presumptions about her? Never mind that you just did that to him, her guilty conscience chided her.

“You’re ice cold,” she said, in a tone to match.

“Am I?” he challenged, his eyes boring into hers, searching for answers. “If things are so hunky-dory with your boyfriend, then why are you here?”

“There is no boyfriend, okay?” she exploded. “No boyfriend, no sex, no . . . nothing.” She bit her lip, cutting herself off too late. Her status as a loser was confirmed. Now he could gloat, and be arrogant, and fulfill all her worst fears about him. He was well on his way now, so he might as well finish the job.

But when she looked at his face, his expression was thoughtful, not judgmental. He slowly leaned forward and picked up the wine bottle, refilling her glass and then his own.

“Why are you in such a hurry?” he asked. “A girl like you will have those things before you know it. You don’t have to buy them.”

She let out a bitter laugh. “If you saw the guys at my school, you would beg to differ.”

His smile was wry. He wondered why she thought he was so different. It hadn’t been that long ago that he was one of those ordinary boys she scoffed at, looking for a girl like her. A girl who might actually make him feel something. A girl who could have kept him from walking down this path he’d chosen. He’d given up on the endeavor, and apparently, so had she.

He sipped his wine slowly as the truth sank in. Now he knew the real reason she was here. She was through waiting for clumsy college boys to figure out how to get it right, to make her want to take that last step with them, to go all the way. She wanted her first time to be with a handsome prince on a cloud of four-hundred-count percale sheets, not in the back seat of a rusted-out car or the squeaky bed of a cramped dorm room.

She did want the fairytale, even if she had to buy it.

He could almost see the logic in it, except that she had overlooked the most important part. How on earth could Isabella Swan, or whoever she was, think that paying for sex would make it special? Didn’t she understand that the exact opposite was true?

He had never taken a client’s virginity. This would be a first for him. Older women seemed to prefer him, and he found them easier to deal with than the young ones. The conversation was less stilted, and they had a better handle on what they wanted out of the situation. They often told him he was an “old soul,” whatever that meant. He didn’t question it. He didn’t give much thought to any of his jobs. He kept his mind focused on the money and what it could do.

He took a deep breath and dug into the crab cakes on his own plate as he deliberated how to proceed. Could he really do this? Did he want this kind of responsibility?

He watched her from across the table for a moment. Her face was hard, cheeks flushed with embarrassment, eyes downcast as she speared another forkful of crab. She refused to look at him now. It made him want her unnerving gaze upon him like he’d never wanted anything before.

He longed to reach out and touch her across the table . . . to soften her edges; strip away the tough shell that hid her tenderness within. He wanted her to look at him like she’d never looked at any man before. Not with that suspicious, disbelieving stare, but with eyes far more vulnerable, trusting and willing.

Yes, he was ready. He could do this. He wanted to do this.

He wanted to be her first.

It was his job to give women a night they’d never forget. He would give that to Isabella Swan in the very best way he knew how, and make sure she didn’t regret it. But no matter what he did for her tonight, he knew he would never be able to match the gift she was about to give him. He only wished she would realize how precious it was.

He stared relentlessly until she finally looked up at him. His voice came out a little raspier than he intended.

“I’ll be whoever you want me to be tonight,” he said.

Those must have been the magic words, for he got his wish. Her eyes visibly softened as she regarded him.

Her voice was as raw as his when she replied. “I want you to be yourself.”

They both wondered who that was.

Chapter 2

She felt his hand reach for hers. Apparently he had tired of waiting for her to take it. He pulled at her gently, and she gave in immediately. She had no recollection of crossing the threshold. By the time she raised her eyes to the level of his adorable, slightly off-center nose, she was already inside with the door closed behind her.

“Would you like a drink, Isabella?” he asked politely.

The sound of her full name startled her. She’d never liked it. No one called her that except her father, and that was only through gritted teeth when he was upset with her. She’d never heard it sound like this before, so melodious. Maybe she would try being Isabella tonight. It matched the elegance of Edward’s name. And his designer suit. Her cheeks colored slightly at the thought of how her department store sale-rack dress must look to him.

“Sure, a drink would be great,” she managed to say. She’d try anything to take the edge off. In fact, drinking heavily might be an excellent idea if she really planned to go through with this crazy idea.

She watched him amble into the living area, its centerpiece a glass-topped table surrounded by modern but comfortable-looking chairs. She took a few hesitant steps after him, glancing around at her luxurious surroundings and trying to appreciate their sleek, expensive appearance.

In truth, she was much more interested in the dashing figure that the escort cut as he leaned over the table and picked up something from its surface. She noticed his hair was a curious shade of brown; almost bronze, with golden highlights. It duck-tailed neatly down the back of his neck, but spiked up from the top of his head in a display of artfully arranged anarchy, defying the studied perfection of his attire below.

“Red or white?” he queried as he turned suddenly to face her, a bottle of wine in each hand. Her unprepared eyes met his and she was paralyzed, gaping, like a salmon trapped in a frozen waterfall.

The computer profile hadn’t done him justice. It hadn’t even come close. The two-dimensional image she’d carried of him in her mind for the past two weeks was flattened further by the glory of the living, breathing being who stood mere feet away from her.

Edward Cullen’s eyes were the color and depth of Puget Sound shimmering in the distance through the glass walls behind him. His gaze swallowed her entirely. He was so handsome, she couldn’t find words to express it; and even if she could, she wouldn’t be able to utter them. She ignored his faintly bemused, quizzical expression and simply drank in his beauty like a desert cactus soaks up a desperately needed rain.

“If you don’t like wine, we can raid the mini bar,” he suggested.

He wondered how long it would take her to get her bearings and answer him. He was used to women gawking over his looks, but this girl really took the cake. She looked like she’d never seen a man before. He wondered if she had recently escaped a nunnery, or maybe prison. That was the kind of shit women never revealed on their applications.

He tried to make his smile appear patient and understanding. She didn’t look like prison material. She looked more like she’d perform a funeral service for a fly she’d just swatted. The nunnery was a definite possibility, though he’d never seen pious girls in heels and a short skirt like that. No nun should have legs like those, hidden away from a man’s eyes and hands. Those were legs that should be celebrated, then divided and conquered. Luckily for her, she had come to just the right place for the celebration to begin.

“Wine is fine,” she said, surprising him. He had begun to think he would have to carry on the conversation himself. He’d done it before; he could do it again. The conversation part usually didn’t last long anyway.

“Okay,” he smiled, returning the red wine to the table and reaching for the corkscrew to open the white. “You rhymed,” he added with the quirk of one thick, arched eyebrow.

Her cheeks turned a delectable shade of pink. “I prefer red,” she spoke up, less timidly this time.

His smile grew. Maybe the cat would let go of her tongue after all. He was usually good at getting pussies purring sooner or later.

“So do I,” he admitted. He did prefer red wine. He rarely lied to clients, except perhaps by omission. He found ways to say only what he meant, as much as possible. The honesty kept him balanced; kept the self-revulsion at bay.

He switched bottles and opened the red, a prestige cabernet sauvignon that he usually brought to these kinds of dates. After reading her application, he had put her on what he called the Enhanced Romance Plan. All women wanted some degree of romance, but a few of them required the whole nine yards: the very best flowers, gourmet food and wine, soft music, flattery and seduction. Many times, the fairytale was all they wanted, and sex never even entered into it.

He studied Isabella Swan’s big brown eyes a moment. He knew instinctively that she wanted more than a fairytale, despite the frilly, obviously fake name she’d chosen for the occasion. Behind the shy demeanor, he sensed that she was a girl with a plan of her own. She had a specific objective in mind. Before this night was through, he would ferret it out and fulfill it.

“I’m going to assume you’re old enough to drink this,” he said as he poured the deep garnet liquid into an over-sized goblet. Unless she had lied about her age on the application, he knew she was only nineteen. But a little wine would ease her nerves and loosen her lips. If he deemed her too tipsy to drive by the end of the night, he would pay for her cab ride home himself.

He held out the glass of wine for her to come and take. He would not approach her; he would wait patiently for her to come to him. She took a few tentative steps until they were face to necktie. He did not miss the slight wobble of her ankles above their skyscraper shoes; she did not miss the deliberate brush of his fingers against hers as he handed her the glass.

He poured one for himself and held it up. “What shall we toast to, Isabella?”

She almost snorted aloud at the question. None of the answers that popped into her head were things she could possibly say out loud. Her heart palpitated helplessly as she stared up at his gorgeous face. He looked even better up close. Who actually looked better up close? Now she could truly appreciate the inordinate length of his sable eyelashes, the smoothness of his skin, the prominence of his stubble-covered jaw. She could even smell him from this proximity--clean, slightly spicy, with a hint of musky maleness. She unconsciously leaned into his scent. She wanted more of the musk.

Her awkwardness was uncomfortable for him to watch. Her eyes were enormous, like those of a frightened but curious fawn. Still, he adored the way she blushed and bit her bottom lip, her two front teeth leaving an impression behind after they released it. He stared at the white imprint as it filled with pink again. He could almost taste it. Moreover, he wanted to taste it.

Odd. He rarely ever wanted to kiss clients, and usually took steps to avoid it until absolutely necessary.

He wanted to kiss her.

He frowned slightly at the realization, then focused on the task at hand. He needed to come up with a toast.

“Here’s to this evening being everything you want it to be,” he said, his tone laced with careful innuendo. It was always a good idea to identify the reason they were both here. There was no point in her wasting her money or his time if she didn’t know what she wanted.

She swallowed audibly as she nodded and lifted her glass to his. “Cheers,” she said softly.

He noticed her voice was smooth and low. Nice. He’d take quiet and reserved over shrill and overbearing any day, though he wished she could pipe up long enough to take his cue and fill him in on what she expected. Her application claimed she wanted all the usual frou-frou trappings, but he was skilled at reading in between the lines. She didn’t care about parading him around in public like a piece of arm candy, or showing him off at a wedding or reunion to prove she could get a date.

She wanted to be alone with him.

He knew from experience, however, that a private date didn’t always end in sex. He hoped it would tonight, though. He already knew he wanted to fuck her. He was grateful for that, because it would make the evening much less tedious. He cherished the nights when he was actually attracted to his client. They were becoming fewer and further between. Either the women of Seattle were losing their charm, or he was losing his.

But jaded wasn’t such a bad way to be. Life had become a lot easier to deal with when he had stopped letting it surprise him so much.

She took several quick sips of her wine, not seeming to savor it. Perhaps she was anxious for its narcotic effects to kick in. He watched her lips caress the glass and he wanted to kiss her again.

Crazy. He needed a distraction.

“I hope you like the room,” he said, gesturing to the rest of the Grand Suite, or at least what they could see of it. It boasted a kitchen, living and dining rooms, a master bedroom and bath, and a guest room. He would live here exclusively if he could afford it. Maybe someday he would.

She looked around, trying to take it all in. The place was almost as gorgeous as he was, save the crucial deficiency of being cold and inanimate. Edward Cullen was easily the most attractive thing in the room.

“The view is spectacular,” she said. He didn’t notice that she was looking at him instead of the city skyline beyond the expansive glass walls.

“Isn’t it?” he agreed, gazing out over the water in the distance. The sun was beginning its slow descent in the west, casting a warm glow through the windows and bathing the entire room in gold. Isabella’s pale skin took on its warmth, and it suited her. It softened her eyes into two chocolate drops atop her flushed cheeks, and brought out the reddish highlights in her long chestnut hair. She seemed to get prettier the more he looked at her.

Or maybe it was just the wine.

He took another sip, and another stab at conversation. “I went ahead and ordered your favorite foods for dinner. I hope that’s okay. Room service should be here any minute.”

“What? Oh, that’s great. Thanks,” she said, trying to disguise her confusion. She couldn’t remember what she had listed on the application as her “ideal dinner.” Spinach ravioli, perhaps; or maybe filet mignon, if she had been feeling decadent that day.

She didn’t really care about the menu. The food, the wine, the small talk were all just a prelude. A prelude to something that suddenly felt so enormous that she wasn’t sure she could go through with it. She gulped more wine, barely noticing its dry yet velvety feel in her mouth before swallowing.

He winced at the sight. He hated watching college girls drink wine. They had no idea how to savor or appreciate it. That was one area where older women excelled. He preferred their experience and refinement. They had taught him a lot--one perk of the job, he reminded himself.

He was ready to attempt more conversation; to ask her if she was about to start the fall semester, and what grade she was in, and what she was studying. But when he looked into her eyes, the blunt honesty he saw there crippled his tongue. This girl would not be impressed by banal chit-chat or glib flattery. He could see that his usual techniques would not seduce her.

The question was, what would?

Chapter 1

The hotel door loomed before her, enormous, forbidding.

“Forbidding” was a good word, she thought, but “forbidden” was more accurate. For once she knocked on that door, once she put one toe across that threshold, she knew there was no turning back.

Not in the literal sense, of course. She knew he would not keep her here against her will. She had signed an agreement, and so had he. It looked legitimate enough. But even a nineteen-year-old virgin was smart enough to know that what they were both doing was illegal, and the piece of paper they had signed was a mere formality, no more binding than a handshake.

Still, she had to believe that he would uphold his end of the bargain. The Enforcer was waiting in the hotel bar to make sure that he did. That’s what Renaissance Escorts had called the brute downstairs, and he certainly looked like an extra from a mobster flick. If she didn’t reappear later this evening unharmed and happy as a clam, the brute would make Edward Cullen pay. That’s what the agreement said. If the escort laid one hand on her in a way she didn’t approve of, he would suffer the consequences.

She wondered if Edward Cullen was his real name. It sounded too old-fashioned for a twenty-two-year-old. Or was he even twenty-two? He looked young in the photo. She had chosen him not just because he was hauntingly beautiful, but because there was still a certain innocence about him, if that was even possible in his line of work.

Maybe all the escorts had names and looks in keeping with the “Renaissance” theme. This service was supposed to be one of the most prestigious in the city. For a handsome fee, a handsome man would be at any woman’s disposal, wining and dining and wooing her according to whatever fantasy she described in her application.

Her fantasy was simple. She wanted someone to pay attention to her.

That’s not what she wrote in the application, of course. How pathetic would that sound? So she came up with a romantic hodge-podge of scenes from books and movies: candles, dinner, fancy clothes, small talk, soft music, dancing, romancing. The stuff that was a prelude to what she was really after. What she hoped and assumed that a paid escort would ultimately provide.

Sex.

She was tired of being a virgin. She probably should have just given in to Mike Newton in high school; succumbed to his clumsy fumbling and sloppy kisses. How bad could it have been? At least she wouldn’t be the only virgin on her dorm hall, smiling and laughing and trying to throw in a witty comment when she had no real idea what she was talking about.

She even watched internet porn on the sly just so she’d know how it all really went down. She was mildly repulsed at the loveless, animalistic acts she saw there, but she forced herself to watch anyway. She didn’t want to act the clueless, naïve virgin, even if that’s exactly what she was.

She’d had opportunities to get laid during her freshman year. Even the most homely girls could accomplish that. She didn’t quite think she qualified for that designation, though in her estimation she was no raving beauty, either. She had always fallen somewhere in between. Acceptable, forgettable, even invisible at times. She was not the natural-born life of the party, but not the wallflower either. She was adrift somewhere in between.

She had met a few boys who were adrift, too. She had chatted with them, made friends with them, even made out a little with them. She kept waiting to feel the spark. The passion that would push her over the edge and make her want to take the next step; to let this person into not just her head, but her heart and soul and body, too.

She never felt it. Not even with Jake this summer, when she really wished she would feel it. But after the way he ended up treating her, she was glad she didn’t give in.

She grimaced now at the memory. She wondered if something was wrong with her. She had never considered herself a romantic, and had prided herself on her practicality. But when it came to boys, the ordinary just didn’t seem to be enough. If it had been, then she would have done the deed by now. For this one major milestone in her life, she wanted something more than the mundane. She wanted to do more than settle. And if she had to use all her hard-earned summer job earnings to find the extraordinary, then so be it.

Edward Cullen certainly looked extraordinary in his profile picture, his pretty features assembled attractively over rugged, squared-off bones. The written description said he enjoyed reading, playing the piano and running on the beach. She figured that was a load of horseshit, but she didn’t care. She liked his eyes. They were large, blue-green and laden with a heavy-lidded intensity that seemed to project far beyond the confines of her computer screen. She didn’t even look at any other possible suitors after she found him.

He was the one who would deflower her.

She laughed out loud now as she thought of the old-fashioned phrase. It fit his Victorian, or rather Edwardian, name. And wasn’t that what she really wanted, anyway? Someone to take her maidenhood rather than pop her cherry? Even though he wouldn’t give a damn about anything more than the exorbitant fee she’d forked over, at least he, and all the trappings she had requested in her application, would give her the illusion that this was a special occasion.

She couldn’t wait to hear him try to play the piano. She had paid extra for an upright version to be wheeled into the luxury suite just so she could call Edward Cullen on his bluff. Even if the rest of the evening was a disappointment, his humiliation alone might be worth the outrageous outlay of cash.

Speaking of cash, time was money. She had spent at least five minutes now standing outside the hotel door, staring at it. She had memorized its rich mahogany burnish and chrome handle with the sleek I.D. sensor entry mechanism. Her fist had hovered near the elegant wood several times, but her knuckles had yet to make contact.

What if Edward wasn’t as good-looking as his picture? What if he was good-looking but an arrogant ass? What if he was perfect except for a horrible case of halitosis? Or, worst of all, what if Renaissance Escorts had pulled a bait and switch, and the door would open to reveal some hideous middle-aged pervert rapist instead?

Her face was configured in a mask of horror at this last thought when the door suddenly, inexplicably opened. She gasped loudly with a shock of surprise. Her eyes locked straight ahead, giving her a view of a dark-blue tie, perfectly knotted and collared under a meticulously crafted jacket of matching navy. The suit was expensive. She knew it instinctively. Why wouldn’t it be? The guy was making a thousand dollars a pop.

Pop. She giggled nervously again at the euphemism for what she was paying him to do tonight.

“I thought I heard someone outside,” came a voice from above the tie. The sound was low and soft. Warm, inviting. Why wasn’t she relieved? She knew she should raise her eyes, but she was concentrating too hard on breathing to perform any additional bodily functions.

“You have a nice laugh,” the voice added.

Laugh? Had she laughed? Oh, that’s right. She had, at the deflowering. That’s why he had come to the door. To commence with said deflowering.

“Would you like to come in, Miss Swan?” the voice continued. It sounded a bit concerned. Then, apprehensive. “You are Miss Swan, right?”

She knew the answer to that one. Now all she had to do was say yes, or at least nod. She could do that, couldn’t she? She tried to shift her focus from the breathing to the nodding. After a moment, her head and neck cooperated. She realized she was still breathing, too. That was a relief. Next she could work on looking him in the eye.

But first, she must coordinate her limbs enough to step into the room. One foot in front of the other. She’d been doing it since she was one year old, she reminded herself. One toe over the threshold. . .

Her eyes dropped and affixed themselves to the plush carpet beneath his polished black shoes as she waffled. He had big feet. She wondered if the correlation everyone always joked about was true. The possibility made an extra zing of nervousness jolt through her body.

Suddenly something reassuringly fleshy and human entered her line of vision. She jumped a little and refocused. She was relieved to realize it was his hand, outstretched. His fingers were long, elegant, yet masculine. The hand of a piano player, perhaps. An Edwardian hand.

She laughed again in her nervousness, and he answered with a small chuckle. The sound was as delicious as his speaking voice. She needed to look up at the mouth that was soothing her; put her hand in the welcoming warmth of his. He would make all of this okay. He would help her put more than just a toe through that daunting doorway.

She let her eyes roam slowly upward. Up the line of his tie and its symmetrically-tied knot; over the subtle swell of his Adam’s apple; through the burgeoning jungle of seven o’clock shadow on his neck; and over the speed-bump of his chin, with a satisfying pit stop at its cleft. At last her gaze settled on the vibrant pink of his full, half-smiling lips.

His grin was crooked; a bit of smirk, really. Utterly disarming. She hadn’t even looked into his eyes, and she was already lost.