CHAPTER SIX

“Hey, Dr. Janison,” I called as I flagged her down with my hand. “Good morning. Those are some kick-ass shoes.”

Dr. Janison was my favorite professor at Waterford, and not just because she knew a damn fine Jimmy Choo when she saw one. I loved her teaching style too. She knew how to make Early British Literature interesting when I was not a fan of that particular period in the least.

She gave me a vague nod. “Good morning,” she said in that polite, distant way that told me she didn’t know I was one of her students. Then she glanced at her pumps. “And thank you.”

I was opening my mouth to explain which class of hers I attended when she glanced toward Mason and instantly paled.

Face blanched of all color, she skipped a step back as if she was about to take flight in her four-inch Jimmys. “Mr. Lowe,” she nearly whispered, sounding terrified as she gaped at him with wide eyes.

He didn’t make eye contact, merely mumbled, “Dr. Janison.”

Realizing the professor had probably heard rumor of his reputation—and didn’t approve—I felt suddenly protective.

Gah, just because he was a gigolo didn’t mean he had the plague.

I set my hand on the arm he had resting on the tabletop. I only wanted to banish some of her worries, assure her he wasn’t diseased. But when Dr. Janison’s gaze darted to where my fingers sizzled against his skin, she didn’t appear reassured. She looked even more disturbed as she glanced between us.

Not sure how to kill all the awkward floating around us, I forced a bigger smile. “I found a pair of knock-off Jimmy Choos similar to that style online one time, in a silver pump, and I wanted them so bad. But even the replicas were more than I could afford.”

If the pair she was wearing was original, then the woman was easily standing on eight hundred dollars.

But instead of revealing the secret to me about whether they were knock-offs or not, she sent me a knowing kind of smile. “I do have expensive taste.”

When her gaze flittered back to Mason, all the muscles in his arm under my hand tensed.

“Is our meeting to discuss your class schedule still on for this Thursday, Mr. Lowe?” She looked pointedly at me as if she expected any negative answer from him would be my fault.

Understanding, I suddenly forgot how to breathe. Oh, my God. ~Dr. Janison?~ And Mason? No way.

His voice wasn’t tight or strained as he answered, “Of course,” but I could’ve sworn he was talking through clenched teeth, and he still refused to look at her.

She gave a single nod. “Good.” I swear she looked relieved by his answer. With one last glance at me, she murmured, “I look forward to seeing you then.” Turning away, she strolled off in her kick-ass shoes, which I suddenly had the urge to boot out from under her.

I whirled to Mason. “You don’t have any classes with her, do you?”

He popped his jaw as he clenched his teeth. “No.”

I shut my gaping mouth. “Oh.”

Hissing something under his breath I couldn’t quite catch, he snapped his messenger bag off the table with vicious force. “This was a mistake. I never should’ve sat beside you.”

My heart thudded against my chest. “Well, thanks a lot.” I forced my voice to sound offended instead of hurt, when honestly, I was a whole lot of both. “I had a sucktactular time talking to you too.”

~Jerk face.~

“I didn’t…” He closed his eyes and fisted his hands before sitting back down. “Reese, I didn’t mean it that way. I swear.”

“Then how exactly did you mean it? Because it sounded pretty rude from every angle I heard it.”

His lashes fluttered open before he pierced me with one of his intense, paralyzing stares. “Don’t you get it?” He glanced around the courtyard. “I just doomed you. By talking to you in public, by sitting with you at this table…” He whooshed out his arm to motion to our surroundings. “Everyone here thinks we’ve had sex.”

I snorted out a laugh. “Oh, whatever. I seriously doubt that. I barely even touched your arm. People do not…” But my words faded off as I glanced around. Everyone really was stealing speculative glances in our direction and talking behind their hands. I sank lower in my seat, feeling instantly ostracized. “Or maybe they do.”

Holy salted tomatoes, Batman. He must have a mighty heavy reputation if simply sitting beside him automatically made me a slut. “So…uh, Dr. Janison is really one of your, umm, clients then?”

He snorted but didn’t answer.

I groaned and closed my eyes. “Wow. This is going to make my next Early British Literature class way awkward.”

“Wait.” He grasped my forearm, and I swear I felt his touch explode out the tips of my toes. Maybe it wasn’t so farfetched to think he had such a heavy reputation. “Are you saying you have a class with her? With Dr. Janison?” When I nodded, he closed his eyes briefly. “Shit.”

Well, that didn’t sound good. “What? What does that mean?”

“Look.” He sighed, sounding incredibly tired. “If she starts giving you a tough time, or failing you or…anything, let me know. I’ll talk to her.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Why…why would she fail me just for sitting next to you on a public bench?” And setting my hand on his arm as if we were dating, and…oh, crap.

But wait. “That makes no sense. Even if we had…you know, had sex or whatever, she has no reason to get jealous. Doesn’t she know she can’t possibly be your only…customer?”

“Of course she knows. But you’re obviously ~not~ a customer. She might feel slighted if she thinks I gave you a…” He glanced away and waved his hand. “You know, a freebie.”

“Wow. Okay. But wow. Not only is this the strangest conversation ever but, wow. A ~freebie~?”

Mason sent me a dark glance as if he didn’t think I was taking the situation seriously enough. “You know what I mean.”

I barked out a laugh, because okay, yeah, the whole conversation did feel incredibly ridiculous. “Just convince her I paid for it then, that I’m, you know, a client too, just like her.”

He blinked. “What? You don’t want me to tell her we’re not fooling around at all?”

Flushing hard, I cleared my throat and glanced away. “Or that. That…I mean, sure, the truth would probably be best. Yeah. Let’s stick with the truth.”

Mason shook his head, looking entertained and frustrated in equal parts. “Except she won’t buy it. And she knows you can’t be a client.”

“Hey. Why couldn’t I be a client?”

Was I too young? Not classy enough? Not his type?

His lips tightened as if he was trying not to smile. But his eyes lit with amusement. “Reese, you just admitted you couldn’t afford the same kind of shoes as her. There’s no way you could afford me.”

Oh, now he sounded like Eva.

I didn’t want him to know it, but that kind of offended me.

“Really?” I arched an eyebrow and set my hands on my hips. “Just how much do you cost, Mr. Ego?”

Leaning in close, he whispered an amount in my ear. My mouth dropped open. “Okay, yeah. I couldn’t afford that. But…wow, I don’t know.” I flailed my hand. “Don’t you have a payment plan or something? Reduced prices for the lower income?”

He sputtered through a startled laugh. “No, I do ~not~ offer payment plans. Are you for real? I play the expensive way, or I don’t play at all. I don’t do this for my health, you know.”

“Then why—”

“Because being a decent, moral ~upstanding~ citizen didn’t keep the eviction notices away,” he snapped. “It didn’t get my sister a new wheelchair, and it didn’t put food on my mother’s table, or keep the electric company from turning off our power in the middle of the hottest day of the year. And it sure as hell didn’t get me enrolled in college this semester. This is all about the money. ~Only~ about the money. Got it?”

“Got it,” I said in a small voice. Then I offered him a smile. “Actually, that explanation makes you sound kind of noble, you know, with you falling on the sword of absolute depravity to save your family. You’d probably make a good Saturday afternoon movie.”

There. I hoped that sounded frivolous enough, like I really didn’t care what he did with his life.

But Mason blinked at me. “You’re…insane.”

“Only on Thursdays.” I wrinkled my nose since he was counting my nose-wrinkles and all.

He grinned—unwillingly, I think, but hey, at least I’d managed to ease some tension from the moment.

Popping a salted tomato between his perfect lips, he chewed with vigor…until I went and asked, “So, you don’t give out freebies? Like ever?” That just sounded so bizarre to me. I would’ve thought a gigolo would be a complete man-whore, even off the clock.

But when his jaw went dead still as he stopped chewing and he said, “Are you…asking for one?” I wanted to smack myself on the forehead.

Crap, I hadn’t meant to make my question sound so hopeful. “What? No!” Then for good measure, I made an incredulous sound. “~God~, no.”

He gaped at me, telling me he didn’t believe me.

I flushed and looked away. “I’m not—” It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him sleeping with him would break my heart. But admitting that couldn’t end well, so I repeated, “No!” just to be clear. “I’m not like that. I need to be in, you know, a committed, monogamous relationship, and…in love, and stuff, before I…sleep with someone.”

Shifting closer and setting an elbow on the table to study me until I squirmed on the inside, he softly asked, “Have you ever been in love?”

My mouth fell open. “Are you asking if I’m a virgin? Because I’m not—”

Lifting his hand, he waved it softly to stop my flow of embarrassing words. “That’s not what I’m asking.”

“Oh.” I cleared my throat and glanced away. More self-conscious than I’d ever been, I bit my lip and winced. “Well…I don’t…” I shook my head. His question was too complicated to answer with a simply yes or no. “I’m not sure what I was, if it was stupid, too-young-to-know-better infatuation or what, but it definitely wasn’t love. And I’m not about to make the mistake of not knowing the difference ever again.”

His lips tilted up in a smile, almost as if he were proud of me. “Good.”

Huh? I wasn’t sure which part of that he approved of so much, but the admiring gleam in his eyes made me a touch too warm. I promptly turned the subject back to him and back to why I needed to stay away. “So, if it’s common knowledge around here that you’re really, you know, what you are, then how have you never been arrested before?”

“It’s not common knowledge. It’s a common rumor.” He squinted as if he wanted to say more on the topic but sighed instead. “You’re not going to leave this alone, are you?”

“Hey, it’s not every day I meet a gigolo.”

He choked on a tomato when I said gigolo aloud, because my vocal chords might’ve risen a touch too vociferously, but I kept going. More quietly, of course.

“Can you blame me for being curious? I have, like, a million questions.” I held up a hand, remembering how uptight it had made him last night when I’d gotten nosey. “But only if you’re cool with answering them.”

He eyed me a moment longer before shaking his head. “You read a lot of Nancy Drew mysteries when you were a kid, didn’t you?”

I wrinkled my nose. “No. I’ve never even read one. ~Harry Potter~ is more my style, and yeah, his curiosity got him into trouble a lot too. As you well know.”

“No,” he murmured, looking almost regretful. “I’ve never read ~Harry Potter~.”

Gasping, I set my hand over my heart and stared at him as if he were an alien. “Are you kidding me? But…~everyone’s~ read ~Harry Potter~.”

He shrugged and didn’t even have the grace to look ashamed or guilty. “Not me.”

“But…but…they’re so…amazing. Don’t worry,” I instantly reassured, reaching out to pat his arm. “I have all the books in the series sitting in my apartment. Next time I babysit Sarah, I’ll bring the first one over for you to see what you think.”

The muscles under my fingertips twitched as if my touch burned him. I noticed his expression then as he stared at my hand still resting on his forearm. I wanted to jerk my fingers away because he seemed so transfixed by our connection, but I couldn’t move. He just looked so…tempted.

I liked it.

Slowly, he slid his arm out from under my gentle grip, severing our contact. “I don’t do freebies,” he said in a throaty voice. “Ever.”

Wow. Okay, then. That had kind of come out of left field.

Had he really thought I’d been coming onto him to score a freebie?

Jeez, ~had~ I been coming onto him?

“But I wasn’t…” Scowling, I turned back to my lunch. “Whatever.” Then just as quickly, my snoopy ~Harry Potter~ syndrome struck again. Crunching on a crouton, I asked, “What about your personal life, though? What about dating and—” I broke off when he laughed. “What’s so funny?” I totally hated missing out on a joke.

He arched his eyebrows. “Dating? Personal life? Are you serious? The only girls who sniff around me are willing to pay or they’re looking for free services rendered, which only pisses me off.”

“But—”

“And all you monogamous, ~relationship-conscious~ ladies stay as far away from me as possible for obvious reasons.”

I made a face. “That can’t be true. I’m sure plenty of—”

“Reese.” He stopped me mid-word by lifting his hand. “Honestly, would ~you~ date a…person of my occupation?”

I gulped. Hells to the no, I would not. “Good point.”

“Yeah.” He let out a long, lonely sigh. “Exactly.”

“Well, that’s just sad,” I finally decided. “You can’t date or have recreational…fun, or even fall in love just because you went to drastic measures to save your family?”

Yes, I was feeling bad for a gigolo. Sue me.

He shook his head as if stumped by my sympathy. “I was eighteen when I fell into this. At the time, I was too young and stupid to think about how it would impact my future…so.” He shrugged. “There you have it. Now I’m stuck.”

“No. You can’t be stuck. Surely, there’s ~something~ else you could do to make money. Something ~legal~ and…and…”

“Moral?” he guessed.

“Yes, and moral. And...”

He chuckled and touched my cheek briefly. “You’re cute, Reese. Cheerful. Optimistic. Funny. But completely deluded.” Grasping his bag, he stood up abruptly, letting me know he was done talking. “Thanks for making my sister smile. And thanks for the tomatoes. I’ll see you around.”

As I watched him take off, I wanted to call after him and make him come back. He’d looked so lonely when he’d said he was stuck. The pain in his eyes had cried for help. It had cried for a friend.

And I could always use a new friend. But I’d have to be extra careful. Because that’s all he could be.