Page 40 of The Decadent Gift (The Gift 3)
“How was your weekend?” she asked with a wiggle of her brows.
“Yeah, how was your weekend?” Adam chimed in. “Did Jake finally ask you out? Because he won’t tell me, and I’ve been telling him to do it for months.”
Nina elbowed him with a “Shush.”
I frowned and turned to Adam, curious. “You’ve been telling him to ask me out? Care to elaborate?”
“Yeah. We know he’s into you. We told him to do something about it already.”
Nina snapped her gaze to her fiancé, shaking her head. “Who are you? You can’t just ambush a woman with something like that.”
Adam shrugged. “Just trying to move things along.”
I gave them both my best smile. It wouldn’t serve me to get waylaid by the Jake thought train again. “Thank you, but I’m pretty sure neither Jake nor I need anyone to move things along. We’re both good with where we’re at.”
Nina stared daggers at her fiancé, then turned to me. “Forgive Adam. He hasn’t had coffee yet. Anyway, are you ready for your pitch? You’re going to do great. I’m rooting for you. Girls’ night out marketing for the win,” she said.
“I’m ready,” I said, then glanced at my phone. “And I should go.”
Nina tugged me in for a quick hug, whispering, “Don’t read anything into it.”
“I wasn’t going to. I meant everything I said. Jake and I are on the same page. It’s all good,” I said with my best I’ve got it together smile.
Then I said goodbye, doing my damnedest to believe my own lies.
* * *
There were times when you had to set all the foolish emotions in your heart aside and get down to business.
This was one of them.
As Trish and I strode into the conference room she’d booked for the Sin City Escorts pitch, I held my chin high, shoved this weekend into a lockbox, then threw away the key.
Trish introduced me to Daisy DoLittle, a petite redhead with a constellation of freckles across her nose. She didn’t look like a woman who owned an escort company. She looked like she ran a ranch of abandoned hound dogs looking for a second chance.
But looks weren’t everything.
I said hello, then began the presentation, all business as I made the pitch.
I zeroed in on my taglines, I shared how we could use them, and I showcased my plans to make this service a must-have gift for women to give their friends. Daisy kept an impassive face throughout, but her green eyes flickered when I shared the anecdote about the bride and her maid of honor.
“‘You deserve this,’ the bride told her friend,” I recounted. “And that got me to thinking—honestly, don’t we all deserve pleasure? Don’t we all deserve to feel amazing? Don’t we all deserve to explore our fantasies? That’s what Sin City Escorts can do. That’s what role-playing makes possible. We all become adventurers exploring the delicious land of fantasies.”
A grin seemed to tug at Daisy’s lips then, telling me I’d hit the right note.
When I was through, she peppered me with questions, and I answered them all.
“And what do you propose we call this new offering?” She folded her hands, waiting for my final answer.
A reel of this past weekend flickered before my eyes.
Feelings, sensations rushed over me. A tingle raced down my spine, and I recalled how Jake had made me feel.
I’d been reluctant to voice it with Trish yesterday.
And perhaps I’d been reluctant to admit it to myself, but I knew.
“I’d call it the Decadent Gift. Because that’s what it is.”
Daisy’s lips curved into a satisfied grin.
A few minutes later, she declared we’d won the account.
* * *
In the back of Trish’s limo, my boss recounted every second of the meeting in a play-by-play recap.
“And when you brought out that name—perfection. This is a most decadent gift.”
“It is,” I said.
I wished I felt half as good as I made the service sound.
But the truth was ugly.
I didn’t feel decadent anymore.
I didn’t feel pleased.
And I definitely wasn’t happy.
All I felt was a crushing wave of relief when Trish issued me my bonus check in advance and I deposited it in the bank, then made the final payment on my debt.
But I wished that I felt something else entirely.
20
Jake
Monday did what Mondays do.
Smack you upside the face with the reminder that it wasn’t Friday, it wasn’t Saturday, and it wasn’t Sunday.
Monday had a particular stench to it, and it deserved it.
When my computer whirred to life that morning, it reminded me of all that I’d avoided that weekend.
Emails.
Contracts.
Clients.
I sighed heavily.
But I was there. I’d shown up. And this stuff . . . this was reliable.
My law practice was dependable.
For a flash of a second, I heard my sister’s warnings about my dad, how hard he’d worked, how he’d given too much of himself to a business that was no stand-in for his family.
