Page 11 of The Plus One Pact

Something doesn't add up. "What's the catch?"

"He's a professional."

"Like me?"

"No, Ivy. Not like you. He's not a sex therapist. He's a gigolo."

Chapter Three

Romeo

There's a saying about sex workers:

You don't pay a woman to fuck you. You pay her to leave afterward.

A stereotype about what men want. True for women too.

About half my clients hire me for a good time. They want me here for as long as it takes for them to get off.

But lots of people are lonely.

They want the boyfriend experience. A handsome young man who wines and dines them, flirts just enough all through dinner, teases them with promises of more, peels their clothes off, whispers sweet nothings in their ear as he kisses a line down their body—

Let's just say I've got a routine at this point.

And enough practice that my clients don't notice it's a routine.

It's not a bad gig, really.

After all, look at this place. High ceilings. Angular windows. Thick white blinds. The view of the ocean.

Silk sheets.

I’m naked in silk sheets.

What could be better?

I convinced my client to switch from cotton. To treat herself to a more sensual life. After all, she has the cash—her late husband was loaded—and she doesn't have many pleasures left in her life.

Why not enjoy this?

She wants a replacement for the man she loved for thirty years.

I don't blame her for paying for a younger, more virile partner.

And, yes, she likes the attention. But she also likes dictating when it starts and ends.

Once upon a time, I didn't think I'd ever find my way into a two-million-dollar house, much less an estate like this one, worth ten times more.

Sure, I could have spent my life mowing millionaires’ lawns. That’s what my father wanted for me. If I tended to enough front yards and saved enough money, I could open my own landscaping business.

But when someone hires Romeo to prune the shrubbery, they have another goal in mind.

Not that I blame my mother for picking the name. Not entirely. It’s not the name. It’s the poetic temperament I inherited from her.

When we were young, we didn’t have much, but we did have each other. Or however the story goes.

And then, all of a sudden, my great-aunt married into money, and we had a lot. And then her husband passed, and she passed, and Dad inherited her fortune, and we had everything.