PERMANENT HOLD Falling for a Billionaire

10: What Hope Was Like-A Peak into Aspen's Past

How the hell does he think we're going to do that?

I sit there staring at him while dumbfounded.

"I thought he was supposed to be the smart one," Ymir mutters while eyeing her plate suspiciously. I can't blame her, I feel like he might be delusional.

Yeah, how did he build a company anyway? Guy's obviously got some screws loose.

Well, he is breathtakingly gorgeous to look at. I'll give him that. His smoldering, unforgettable dark brown eyes that sometimes hide behind straggling pieces of his jet black hair, and his tanned skin that makes him look like a Greek god. Especially with those muscles...

Sure, he can join our brigade of prostitutes, Myra says with heavy sarcasm in my head.

She was always willing to bring anyone on—being the little parasite she is.

There have been a lot of things in my life that I've hoped for. When I was little, I used to hope for things all the time. Hope is a wishful thing. At least it was; especially when my dad was around. After he left, I had a little less of it. And once my brother died, I lost it all.

I didn't have the strength to hope for something so strong in my life only to have it ripped away from me.

And getting away from Myra and this hell hole is what I've always dreamed of but ultimately knew would never happen. In other words, staying prisoner here my entire life seemed like my inevitable future.

{six months ago...}

I had just finished my seventh gig in a stripper bar. It wasn't glamorous, and it certainly wasn't something I ever thought I would be doing, but I had arrived at a sort of understanding where I knew I didn't have any other options.

I didn't have the money for a house, and without a home address, just about every employer turned me away. I was trying so hard to make money, it was wearing my sanity thin. Finally, I had run across a bar that seemed pretty lenient about who they hired.

I guess all of your absolutes begin to dissolve when you're trying to find a way to live.

Just seven nights and I had already made a substantial amount of money. The other girls in the bar said I was pretty good. I guess I was getting lucky. I didn't use to think I was that pretty, anyway.

I still didn't have a place to live; so once I'm done with my gig, I change back into my street clothes and head back out on the streets, waiting for my next meal and my next shift.

"What's your name?"

I look up for the first time today.

I hadn't been doing a lot of that lately. People walking by don't like to meet your eyes when you look like a homeless beggar, and I can't blame them for being intuitive of my current circumstance. If I knew they'd give me a dollar for begging, I'd be on my knees.

My clothes haven't been washed since the day I walked out of my father's house a month or two ago, and I haven't taken a real shower in that time either.

Sometimes I can freshen up in gas station bathrooms, and I also use the bar's facilities to wipe the grime off my skin before I start dancing, but that's about it. I'm in and out of the shelters overnight, but they usually don't have enough beds to keep me.

I've also been learning about the way people deal with other people in my circumstances. For instance, when I walk into a fast food restaurant everyone eyes me warily. I'd never experienced this discrimination first hand before, but I understood it all too well now.