Chapter One
“Just do me this favor. I swear I won’t ask you ever again.”
“Natalie, we both know that’s a lie.”
“Well at least you could have acted like you believed me for a few seconds.”
Samantha, usually called Sam by her friends and family, sighed as she watched her best friend of over a decade try to pout. It came across more like a child’s version of a fake cry—easily read through and yet somehow still effective. It was so unfair that Natalie could do that and still somehow look attractive. Sam would have looked like a cross-eyed fish out of water that was on its last gurgle. She sighed roughly, not that it would even work on Natalie anyway. She was the queen of getting her way, not being persuaded by others.
When Natalie had called her over for a dire emergency, Sam should’ve known better than to come running immediately without asking questions first. To Natalie, a broken nail could be rationalized as an emergency given the time, place, and surrounding circumstances. Sam could remember being called over for that exact reason just two weeks before. Somehow that broken nail was the end of the world, a governmental conspiracy to stop Natalie from leaving her house that day, and a premonition that natural nails were going to be extinct in the near future. Natalie hadn’t seemed very concerned with the fact that the disaster had taken Samantha away from a very important meeting with a client that she luckily had been able to schedule for the next day. Sam hadn’t talked to Natalie for a week after that one. This, however, was low, even for Natalie.
“You want me to be your replacement tonight with some old, smelly millionaire because your new boyfriend is starting to ask too many questions about your ‘night job’? Did I get that right?”
“In a nutshell. Please, Sam. You know I’m in love with my boyfriend, and I don’t want anything to mess this up.”
“Baby girl, you fall in love every three weeks with every boyfriend you have. You just like falling in love. That’s not a good answer for me anymore. It stopped being one after the first five times you used it.”
Okay, so that wasn’t very nice, but it was true. Natalie had an uncanny ability to fall in and out of love as quickly as it took her to change her clothing. It was the way she always had been. Sam wasn’t sure if the girl was shy about commitment, loved the idea of falling in love, or just wasn’t sure what the real emotion was. Either way the use of that four-letter word was a sore spot for Sam. She never seemed to do well with love herself. She rarely even got a chance to have a shot at it. She’d become accustomed to the lack of it in her life, even if a part of her envied the ease with which her friend could gain, maintain—and then toss when she was done—male attention.
“I can’t help that I just love men. It’s not my fault that they get me going in a way that you so obviously can’t understand. But this one is different. It really is. I am in love with the man, truly, madly, deeply, this time,” Natalie continued, bringing Sam out of her thoughts.
“The answer is still no.”
Natalie must have been losing her mind. There were a lot of things that she could have asked for and Sam would have done them without question, but she couldn’t do this. Natalie had become one of the highest-paid escorts for Madame Butterfly’s Beauties in the last four years she’d worked there. Every boyfriend had started and ended with that job lately, and each time Sam had been there to wipe her friend’s tears, as temporary as they may be. Sam wasn’t about to get sucked into a plan that spelled disaster. She and Natalie may look pretty similar, but that was where the likeness ended.
Yes, they both boasted thick coal-black hair that fell just under their shoulder blades, creamy cocoa skin, warm chocolate eyes, and a wide bow mouth, but where Natalie was a voluptuous vixen, Sam chose instead to bury herself in
“Just do me this favor. I swear I won’t ask you ever again.”
“Natalie, we both know that’s a lie.”
“Well at least you could have acted like you believed me for a few seconds.”
Samantha, usually called Sam by her friends and family, sighed as she watched her best friend of over a decade try to pout. It came across more like a child’s version of a fake cry—easily read through and yet somehow still effective. It was so unfair that Natalie could do that and still somehow look attractive. Sam would have looked like a cross-eyed fish out of water that was on its last gurgle. She sighed roughly, not that it would even work on Natalie anyway. She was the queen of getting her way, not being persuaded by others.
When Natalie had called her over for a dire emergency, Sam should’ve known better than to come running immediately without asking questions first. To Natalie, a broken nail could be rationalized as an emergency given the time, place, and surrounding circumstances. Sam could remember being called over for that exact reason just two weeks before. Somehow that broken nail was the end of the world, a governmental conspiracy to stop Natalie from leaving her house that day, and a premonition that natural nails were going to be extinct in the near future. Natalie hadn’t seemed very concerned with the fact that the disaster had taken Samantha away from a very important meeting with a client that she luckily had been able to schedule for the next day. Sam hadn’t talked to Natalie for a week after that one. This, however, was low, even for Natalie.
“You want me to be your replacement tonight with some old, smelly millionaire because your new boyfriend is starting to ask too many questions about your ‘night job’? Did I get that right?”
“In a nutshell. Please, Sam. You know I’m in love with my boyfriend, and I don’t want anything to mess this up.”
“Baby girl, you fall in love every three weeks with every boyfriend you have. You just like falling in love. That’s not a good answer for me anymore. It stopped being one after the first five times you used it.”
Okay, so that wasn’t very nice, but it was true. Natalie had an uncanny ability to fall in and out of love as quickly as it took her to change her clothing. It was the way she always had been. Sam wasn’t sure if the girl was shy about commitment, loved the idea of falling in love, or just wasn’t sure what the real emotion was. Either way the use of that four-letter word was a sore spot for Sam. She never seemed to do well with love herself. She rarely even got a chance to have a shot at it. She’d become accustomed to the lack of it in her life, even if a part of her envied the ease with which her friend could gain, maintain—and then toss when she was done—male attention.
“I can’t help that I just love men. It’s not my fault that they get me going in a way that you so obviously can’t understand. But this one is different. It really is. I am in love with the man, truly, madly, deeply, this time,” Natalie continued, bringing Sam out of her thoughts.
“The answer is still no.”
Natalie must have been losing her mind. There were a lot of things that she could have asked for and Sam would have done them without question, but she couldn’t do this. Natalie had become one of the highest-paid escorts for Madame Butterfly’s Beauties in the last four years she’d worked there. Every boyfriend had started and ended with that job lately, and each time Sam had been there to wipe her friend’s tears, as temporary as they may be. Sam wasn’t about to get sucked into a plan that spelled disaster. She and Natalie may look pretty similar, but that was where the likeness ended.
Yes, they both boasted thick coal-black hair that fell just under their shoulder blades, creamy cocoa skin, warm chocolate eyes, and a wide bow mouth, but where Natalie was a voluptuous vixen, Sam chose instead to bury herself in
Similar Books
