PERMANENT HOLD Falling for a Billionaire

5: Questionaire from a Billionaire

"I want to know more about you," he says. "Like what your last name is." He begins gently, trying to get me to open up.

"O'Neil," I answer. The answer comes past my lips way to fast for me to stop, and I blush. I shouldn't have told him that. But his blinding smile is too much of a reason to not be upset about it.

"That's a good start," he says. He leads us over to the couch and we both sit down. I get the feeling that he's made a list and he plans to ask me all about my life. "I have a few other questions I'd like to ask."

I was right. I prepare myself for a hard hit, and he rightfully delivers one.

"Did you want to service me?"

What? I think about what the reason might be that he would ask this question. Does he think that I tried to get out of having sex with him by saying I was a virgin? Did he not believe me? Maybe this was his way of finding out if I was a liar. What can I say?

I decide to go with the truth. I hadn't lied to him yet about how I felt that night, and I wasn't going to start now. "I was scared," I pause and wonder if I should continue. "I knew I didn't have a choice—"

"Why?"

This was a painful truth that I wasn't very eager to give to him. It was something that was a part of every sex-worker's life. I had a job to do—for someone who employed me. And if I didn't do that job, I was in big trouble. In this case... "Myra is kind of like our pimp." I wait, knowing that he had met with her before, and when he doesn't say anything, I continue. "She owns us. Every part of us. We answer to her."

He sighs. He looks at a loss for words for several moments. His hair is still wreaked from sleeping on it last night, and he wrings his hands together like he's thinking hard about something. So I start thinking hard about things as well.

And then the lecture in my head starts. He comes from money and I am a cheap whóre. I can't forget who I am or what I come from. We're so much different. Our lives don't work in the same way.

Besides, Myra's probably going crazy right now, not knowing where I am. And when Myra gets crazy...

"Uh..." Carefully, I unwind myself from him and stand up to gather my own thoughts. I don't really have any suitable clothes. I'm still wearing my dress from last night, and although it seems to have held up through my sickness, I really don't want to walk downstairs like this. "I-I don't really—"

"I know," he says as he stands up.

His dark, messy hair falls into his eyes when he looks down, and he reaches to open a drawer in the dresser near the bed. Rows of folded clothes lay inside. He hands me a dress shirt, and I take it just as the familiar sound of Beyoncé's voice in Dance For You echoes around the high ceilings of the penthouse.

I wanna make that body rock, sit back and watch
Tonight I'm gonna dance for you (ohh ooh ohh ohhh)
Tonight I'm gonna dance for you (ohh ooh ohh ohhh)
Tonight I'm gonna put my body on your body
Boy I like it when you watch me, ah

"That's my phone," I say, quickly slipping the shirt on over my dress and instinctively rushing around the corner where the noise is coming from. I grab my cellphone from the kitchen counter and answer it immediately.

"Asp? Asp, you there?" Esther's voice comes on the line.

I put my hand over my ear and look down at my feet, blushing and feeling awkward once I hear one of my best friend's voices—a best friend who didn't even know I was here. The girls probably had no idea what happened to me last night. Was everything away? What did Myra do?