Final Call (The Call #2) (11 page)

The man is magical. And
really quite wonderful.

“Come on, Bambi,” he
says softly, easing me back.

I slide from him,
letting him get out, and stare up at him. He wraps a towel around
his waist and grabs me. I giggle quietly at the ease he lifts me
from the tub with and grab a towel for myself.

I sit on the bed and
watch as he dries himself. And as the little water droplets cascade
down his silky skin. Each one is gradually soaked up by the towel,
and a pair of boxer briefs hangs low on his hips.

He towels me off
tenderly, making sure every part of me is dry, and instructs me to
lift my arms and legs until he’s certain there isn’t a drop of
water left on my skin.

“Wait here.” He
disappears into his closet. I’m sitting naked on his bed, the only
light the city lights flooding through the window, and I’ve never
felt more comfortable.

He emerges from the
closet, a pair of panties in hand.

“Is that…?”

“I ordered more.” He
hands them to me with a knowing smirk.

“That’s impossible. It
was like”—I glance at the clock on the nightstand—“six hours
ago.”

“And I called while you
were getting ready and had some stuff delivered. My housekeeper put
it away.”

“Your housekeeper?”

Holy crap. Someone else
touched my panties.

Someone who isn’t
Aaron.

He pulls them up my
legs, making me stand, and lightly smacks my ass. “Don’t worry. She
only comes in when no one is here. Her schedule will be different
now.”

I roll my eyes and
climb into his bed. Soft. Warm. Sex-smelling.

Aaron-smelling, rich
and musky and woody and masculine.

He gets in next to me
and pulls me into him. Our legs tangle. His arms go around me and
he holds me tight. I press my face into his neck, breathing him
in.

“How am I doing on the
making it up to you?” he mutters after a long moment of
silence.

“Not bad.” I smile
against his skin.

“Not bad?”

My smile widens, but I
say nothing. If I justify it, I’ll let him in further than I need
to. I’ll tell him what he doesn’t need to know yet. He still has
work to do. He still has to prove everything to me, make me know
we’re solid and that everything we have is secure. That it’s really
for real this time.

“Thank you for looking
out for me tonight,” I whisper, snuggling in even farther. I could
be under his skin and it wouldn’t be close enough.

“Oh,” he breathes,
kissing my head. “I’ll always look after you, Dayton. Always.”

***

Aaron opens the car
door and lets me climb out. “You could stay at my apartment.”

“I need to be here. I
need to pack,” I remind him, patting his chest. “Besides, I don’t
want to put any crazy moving ideas in your presumptuous little
head.”

“God forbid.” He drops
his head and brushes his lips across mine. “I’ll be back when my
meetings are over to pick you up.”

“What if I want to stay
at my place tonight?”

“Then I’ll make sure to
get some spare clothes before I come over.”

I raise an eyebrow.
“Did I invite you to stay over?”

“You don’t need to,” he
mutters, running his thumb along my jaw. “I’m going to anyway.”

“Is this part of making
it up to me?”

“No. This is part of
making sure you can’t walk away again.”

“By being together
almost all of the time?”

“Yes. Get used to it,
sweetheart. It’s not changing anytime soon.”

He kisses me chastely
and moves me to the side. He climbs back in the car with a wicked
smirk, leaving me standing on the sidewalk as it pulls away.

“Bastard,” I mutter,
pulling my keys from my pocket and unlocking the door. My voicemail
blinks at me, and I jab the button as I walk past.

“
Dayton? Call me
when you get this. We need to talk.
” Aunt Leigh’s voice is
sharp and to the point, as always, and I sigh. Talking with my aunt
right now is the last thing I want to do.

I reach for the phone
when it rings again. Her name flashes on the tiny screen.

“Hey,” I answer.
“What’s wrong?”

“Oh good. You’re in.
Where have you been?”

“Uh…”

“Dayton.”

I cringe as I answer.
“With Aaron.”

“Mmm. Monique called.
Will you be at home in ten minutes?”

“Yes. I just got
back.”

“Good. Stay there. I’m
coming over.”

Fantastic.

The line cuts before I
can say goodbye, and I drop the phone with another sigh. There
isn’t a single part of me looking forward to this. I know what
she’ll say, what she’ll remind me of. This conversation is
unnecessary.

I don’t care and I
don’t want to hear it.

Besides, it’s a little
late to
not
fall in love, isn’t it?

I hear the rumble of
her Audi outside as I pour myself a cup of coffee. She lets herself
in without as much as a single knock. Her heels click almost
formidably against the wooden floors as she walks through to join
me in the kitchen, and I hold an empty mug over my shoulder.

“Coffee?”

“Sit,” she demands,
knocking on the island.

“I guess not,” I
mumble, setting the mug down and turning.

I sit opposite her. Her
lips are pursed, her eyes narrowed, and her nails rap against the
marble countertop repeatedly. I reach over and smack her hand down.
Fucking irritating sound.

“So. You’re off the
books.” No questions. A simple statement that sounds so final.

“Temporarily,” I
correct her. “For now.”

She unwinds her
lightweight scarf from her neck and lays it on the island. “So,
what? You’re going to spend however long with Aaron Stone then just
go back to your job? Or is he the kind of man to let you continue
fucking other men every day and not let it impact your
relationship?”

I stare at her
flatly.

“Because that’s what
they all are, honey. They’re all good with it until they’re not and
they leave you in the dust as they speed away to something
better.”

“My aunt, always the
cynic.”

“Realistic, Day. I’m
realistic.”

I get back up and pour
my coffee. “You would know, right? One marriage accounts for all
the men in the world.”

“It accounts for all
the men with an ounce of self-respect. You and I both know Aaron
won’t stand for you escorting if you’re in a relationship.”

My fingers curl around
the lip of the counter, and I take a deep breath. “I know. He’s
made that crystal clear several times.”

“So he should. Call
girls don’t have relationships and—”

“They don’t fall in
love. Yeah, I know.”

“In theory.”

“Theory is bullshit
without reality.”

My aunt’s lips curve
into a smirk that is identical to mine. “Precisely, Day. Theories
are just that. They can be tossed aside as easily as the one before
them.”

I chew the inside of my
cheek and study her. The hardness has gone from her eyes. All the
tension has seeped from her shoulders, and she almost looks
relaxed. Alarm bells ring in the depths of my mind.

“Where is this
going?”

Aunt Leigh pauses,
nibbling on her bottom lip. “Will you give it up? For him? If it’s
him or your job, will you step away from the escorting world and
give him everything you have?”

“Yes,” I whisper
without a thought. “If that’s what it comes to, yes. I’ll walk away
for him.”

“Good.”

My eyes shoot up to
hers. “What?”

“Good,” she repeats,
her voice firmer than a moment ago.

The stool scrapes
against the floor as she stands and turns away from me. She looks
out the doors that lead to my backyard and briefly rests her
forehead against the glass.

“Good,” she says yet
again. “Do it. If you have the choice, take the escape. Take the
way out. Don’t let your job ruin your relationship.”

Silence lingers as I
process her words. They’re soft and heartfelt. They’re tinged—no,
they’re saturated—in regret. They hit where it hurts.

“Aunt Leigh?”

“You know I didn’t. You
know I chose escorting over my marriage to Luke. You know it killed
the five years we’d spent together.” She exhales heavily. “I chose
the power and control over the love I had for him, and it destroyed
us.”

“You’ve lived with that
for six years? Why didn’t you say anything?”

She turns, a wan smile
on her face. “I gave it up six months later. Do you remember?”

I nod.

“It was simply six
months too late. If I’d left when Luke told me he was leaving, we
could have saved our marriage. I didn’t. We didn’t.”

“Why are you telling me
this? After all the times you’ve told me call girls don’t fall in
love, why now?”

She crosses the kitchen
to me and cups my cheeks in her hands in a rare show of her
maternal side. “Dayton, I’m telling you so you don’t make the same
mistake I did Call girls don’t fall in love…until they do. Don’t
choose power and control over love because, when you lose that
control, you have nothing else left. With love, at least you’ll
always have something.”

“You’re telling me to
leave Monique.” Now it’s my turn to state a fact.

“I’m telling you to do
whatever you need to, to stay true to yourself.” She pats my cheek
softly and steps back, grabbing her purse. “Whatever that might
be.”

I watch as she strolls
from my kitchen, completely dumbfounded by that conversation. Never
did I imagine she felt that way—that she regretted her
lifestyle.

Would that be me? If I
don’t give Aaron everything, will I look back in five years’ time
and regret it?

Is not giving him
everything even an option?

I sink into the stool
she just vacated. My head is spinning. First, my agent tells me to
believe in true love. Then, my cold and cynical aunt tells me to
pick love over the job she so adored.

I feel like I’ve
entered the Twilight zone.

I drop my head to the
table and turn it to the side. And stare right at Aunt Leigh’s
scarf. I reach for my cell on the other side of the island and dial
her number. It rings to voicemail.

“Hey, Aunt Leigh, you
left your scarf—” The rumble of a car outside distracts me. “Oh,
never mind. You’re here.”

I drop the phone, grab
the silk scarf, and walk to the front door to meet her.

But when I open it,
it’s not my aunt.

“What the hell are you
doing here?”

Naomi stands in front
of me, her blond hair pulled back in a bun, and her long, fake
eyelashes fanning out as she blinks at me. “We need to talk.”

She moves forward to
enter the house, but I step in front of her, pulling the door shut
behind me.

“Is that so?”

“Aren’t you going to
invite me in?”

“You’re the ex-wife of
my boyfriend. What do you think?”

Her lips curl into an
evil smile. “It’s really in your best interests to invite me in,
Mia.
”

Fuck.

Chapter
Ten

I step back silently,
allowing her to pass through, and follow her into my living room.
She walks around it, her eyes examining every last detail, her
heels snapping against the hardwood floor.

I fold my arms across
my chest and pin her with my stare. “What are you doing here?”

“You’re a hard woman to
find, Dayton Black. Or is it Mia Lopez? I’m not sure if there’s a
difference between the two.”

“Don’t fuck around,
Naomi. Say what you have to say or get the hell out of my
house.”

She pushes her bangs
back from her face and perches on my sofa.

“Please, take a seat.
Make yourself at home.” I wave to her. “Perhaps you’d like to
remove your shoes and have a coffee while you’re here?”

Naomi smirks. And it’s
not a kind one. It’s a malicious twist of her lips that makes my
skin crawl. “Does Aaron know?”

“Does Aaron know what?”
I ask, feigning ignorance.

“That his precious
Dayton is a common whore.”

“Oh, please. Give me
some credit. I’m at least an upper-class whore.”

Her tongue flicks
across her bottom lip. “I’ll guess he does.”

“And this matters
why?”

She sighs and stands
again, resting her hands on her hips. “I’m wondering how
problematic it would be for you if your little…alter ego…was forced
to step from the shadows.”

I straighten. Every
nerve on my body is on high alert at her discreet threat.
Adrenaline is buzzing through my veins, and I hit Naomi with a
sharp stare that would make any other woman shrink back.

“What exactly are you
insinuating?”

“Could you imagine the
repercussions of your identity being revealed?” She runs a
fingertip along my windowsill. “The effect that would have on Aaron
and the business… The CEO of Stone Advertising dating a call girl.”
She tsks, shaking her head.

I step toward her,
anger making my hands tremble, and stare at her dead-on. “I’m not
sure what kind of manipulation and mind games happen in the
modeling world, but you should be aware that I’m not a
face-scratching or hair-pulling kind of girl. If I were you, Naomi,
I’d get to the point quickly. I’m not the most patient woman in the
world, and you’re wearing what little patience I do possess down
rather fast.”

“The fashion world is
fickle. If it was to be made public that Aaron was dating an
escort, virtually every designer in existence would boycott the
company. That would be followed by their remaining clients. You’re
a taboo subject, Dayton. Your existence is a cause of disgust for
many people… Including me.” She looks at me with that disgust
written over her face in the curl of her lip.

“I can safely say the
feeling is mutual.”

That smirk appears back
on her face.