Oh boy, here we go. I knew this shit was a mistake.
“So that’s what we’re gonna do here?” I tossed up my hands. “Tori, we agreed on a one night thing. Now you want to go all woman scorned? What exactly do you want from me?”
“No, I’m not going ‘scorned woman’ on you!” she spat. “Do you not recognize that what you did at breakfast wasn’t just you going off on your sister’s friend? I gave you my body, Avery. I would think a man with any sense of decorum, or manners, or hell, common freaking courtesy would hold a woman he’s slept with in a teensy bit higher regard, but I guess I thought wrong.” She took a moment to let out another joyless laugh before she continued. “And then for you to send me some half-assed apology note that doesn’t address what we shared the night before… it felt hollow, and it made me feel like shit, Avery. Especially after I found out you lived right here in the city. I don—” Tori stopped, holding up her hand in an obvious attempt to check her anger. “But, I guess that’s what I get for expecting someone who cared nothing about me, to display the actions of someone who did. That’s my bad.”
“It wasn’t like that,” I insisted. I hadn’t been able to keep this woman off my mind, yet here she was accusing me of not giving a damn. “I told you, I had a moment. Before I found out about your job, I wanted to ask you—”
Ask her what, Avery?
To spend another night? To cancel her flight, and go back home with me instead?
“What’s so wrong with my job?” She appeared calmer, but the slight tremor in her voice told me she was still angry. The least I could do was give her real answers.
With a heavy sigh, I tossed my head against the back of the chair. “I’ve used a matchmaking service before. Back when I started making money, I was having a hard time finding women who weren’t after me for that, so I decided to get a little help. I found a service online and that’s how I ended up meeting Natalie.” Tori’s expression was still impassive, but she wasn’t kicking me out of her office. She was listening.
It started with the police at the door, and charges of soliciting a prostitute. That was only a misdemeanor, but it could have been devastating for my reputation, and that of my company, which I’d busted my ass to build. I had argued bitterly, calling up a team of lawyers to fight the claims. I didn’t know what the hell was going on until finally, they told me they were talking about Natalie.
My sweet, beautiful Natalie was— when she wasn’t with me— a professional escort, with dozens of aliases, in dozens of states, but the worst part was finding out I was one of dozens of men she had been stringing along, and getting paid to do it for some. I was lucky my legal team was able to clear me of any wrongdoing without a formal arrest, and keep the entire ordeal quiet.
My relationship with Natalie started during the first whisperings of expansion possibilities outside the Midwest, before I realized how cautious I would need to be. She took advantage of the fact that I was extremely busy during that time, lavishing her with gifts in an attempt to make up for the attention I wasn’t able to give her while I focused on building my business. The magnitude of the betrayal still made me sick. I had devoted every free moment I had to her, but for Natalie, it had been another job. I loved Natalie, with everything I had to give for three years. I’d been planning to propose to her when it all came crashing down.
When I was finished with my story, Tori leaned forward in her seat. “So you’re telling me you decided to pop off at me because you were too either too sprung or too stupid to recognize that two years ago, you were being played?”