Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 88879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
"I think those jobs are mostly for people who have an interest in wine but aren't addicted to it."
"Very funny. Still, we're here to talk about you, not me. Tell me what's wrong."
I take a small sip. The man stacking shelves was not wrong, the wine is good. "You’ll find this hard to believe. I don’t think I quite believe it myself, but I had to show a billionaire client a house today."
Her eyebrows fly upwards. "A billionaire client instructed your agency? Wow!"
"Yeah, I know, but that’s not the unbelievable part."
"What do you mean?" she asks, leaning closer.
I tell her everything, every detail. From start to finish. Afterwards, she stares at me, her mouth wide open. I point towards the swan. “And that’s the swan.”
She walks towards the crystal piece and stands looking at it. “Fuck me. That is some expensive shit,” she says in an awed voice.
"I did warn you it was hard to believe," I joke weakly.
She holds up her hand to silence me and for a few moments, neither of us speaks while she processes my situation. When she finds her voice again, she is shooting from all cylinders. “On a scale of one to ten, how ugly is he?”
I pick up my glass of wine and take another sip. “Actually, he’s quite… dishy.”
She walks back to the table and looks sideways at me. “What’s his name?”
“Ivan Ivanovich.”
Wordlessly, she pulls out her phone and googles him. I wait for it. A few seconds later her scream nearly tears down the walls of my tiny apartment.
"Holy fucking shit!" she yells. "This guy! This guy wants to pay you to sleep with him. That's fucking amazing."
"Leila, I can't believe you! That's not amazing at all. He wants me to prostitute myself to him—"
She looks at me like I'm crazy. "Are you kidding? I’d sell both of us for a hundred and twenty million dollars."
"That money doesn't go to us. It's for the owner," I correct dryly.
"What percentage does the agency get?" she asks crisply.
"I don’t know. I haven’t calculated it, but it’ll be more than I’ve ever earned in my whole life.”
She laughs incredulously. "Seriously. What are you thinking of? What's the problem here? We've both dated guys who weren't even one percent of the man this guy is, and we gave it up for them. I mean, I love you, you’re my best friend and everything, but honestly, you’re stark raving mad if you don’t take him up on his offer. Jesus, Lara. This is like a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Nobody else is going to come along and make this offer again. If you don’t take it, you’ll always regret it."
I stare at her with surprise. "Wow, I really thought you’d—"
"That I'd have some reservations about sleeping with Russia’s version of freaking Adonis?" she cuts me off impatiently. "Hell, I’d be jumping in there with both feet. What you need to find out is why you have any reservations about going for it. I know I’d do it even if there was no money involved."
I consider her question and don't get a clear answer even though I have not been able to get the intriguing and infuriating man out of my mind successfully for even a few minutes since he made his offer.
“Look. Be honest. If we’d met this guy on one of our girl’s night and he came up to you and asked you to go home with him, what would you have said?”
“Yes,” I admit readily.
“There you go,” she cries triumphantly. “It's just sex, Lara. Both of you are going to have a great time, but this time around, you also get to help your father get out of debt."
"Can you not just casually say that," I say. "He doesn't know I know anything about his debt. I found out by mistake when I was trying to pay one of his bills. It’s not really all that much, but if he knows I know, he'll be ashamed and devastated, and I don't want to do that to him."
"He's not here, is he?" she mocks. "Anyway, I think the problem is bigger than you know. The last time I saw him, it didn’t look like it wasn’t really all that much, your dad looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. You shouldn’t pretend with him, Lara. It’s getting to be a serious problem."
"It's just a bit of gambling," I say defensively.
She raises one eyebrow. "And the drinking?"
"He doesn’t do it during the day,” I say feebly. “And I will intervene, but just not yet. He’s going through a hard time right now, with the business being the way it is. It’ll be better once this period is over."
She looks at me, and then she sighs. "People hide just how bad things are from others—you do know this, right?"