“I want that too,” she breathes out. “So if I ask again, refuse.”
“Will do.”
“I want to be proposed to, anyway. I want to see how and when you’ll do it. But nothing too grand or public.”
“That’s not my style.”
“I know. Just making sure you know it’s not mine, too.”
“You think I don’t know you, freckles?”
She looks up at me with loving eyes, looking so fucking perfect my heart might combust. “I think you know me better than I know myself, actually,” she says.
We move in unison to kiss. It’s soft, and tender, and languid. By the time we pull away from one another, I’m tempted to take this further, but I don’t. We’ve spent two months together, and tonight, I must share her.
“Go spend time with your friends, my love,” I say.
“I will. But first…”
Her reddened lips trail up my throat, following the path of my jugular where she can probably feel my rapid heartbeat. When she reaches my ear, she gives the lobe a tentative lick and then a soft suck, making my cock throb with need. But she doesn’t take it further, lifting herself just a little higher to whisper, “Will you marry me, Lex?” right into my ear.
The grin that spreads on my face is involuntary, but it helps soothe the “No” I force myself to answer.
She pulls away, but instead of being offended like earlier, she’s smiling as broadly as I am. We’re both perfectly aware that I’ll marry the fuck out of her one day. But for that to happen, we need to be safe again.
That’s why we need to find out what Becker’s dirty little secrets are. And just so I can one day be married to this incredible woman, I’ll have no rest until we give that man the reckoning he deserves.
Andrea’s friends stay a little longer than intended. Kate was always meant to sleep over, but not Mason, Tamika, and Mouly. Andrea seems delighted by the change of plans, though, and we all share a massive brunch that they all cook together. Once they’re all gone, I’m quick to go to the hidden office and get the search started on our blonde friend.
While the program looks for her across several databases, we clean up the mess and return my apartment to its usual state. We’re having lunch together when Iris tells us the software found something. A match. Two, actually.
We leave our plates to check on the results. One of them is Lorelei Madsen, a student at Columbia University in New York City. It looks like she’s on her way to becoming a brilliant environmental scientist, top of her class, and assiduous. Our second result is Lola Wilde, a high-end escort whose services are reserved for the wealthiest of men. Both are clearly the same person, so we immediately gather she’s found a way to finance her expensive studies in one of the most expensive cities in the world.
She seems to be a remarkably private person, which makes her valuable in her line of work. Her professional website is minimal, with a black-and-white picture of her lingerie-clad body, and a contact form over it. On top, the “About” button leads us to a page where she explains her services. Her strength is her brain, and she prides herself on being more than arm candy. She’s an escort in the original sense of the word, a pretty and cultivated woman to bring to high functions and look good, rather than an expensive prostitute.
We spend the rest of the day repurposing Andrea’s Trojan horse virus to use it on Lorelei Madsen, and we send it through an email disguised as a Columbia University notice. Then we wait for her to open it and download the documentation attached.
Lorelei does it the next day, which gives us an in. Luckily for us, she uses the same computer for her moonlighting persona, which allows usto find out more about who Lola Wilde is. It’s clear to us that this is the version of her who was with Becker that night, and this is a better way to put pressure on her.
She’s a very selective and very pricey woman who has the luxury of choosing which clients she can accept or refuse. During her courses, she seems to reserve only two evenings a week for her side hustle, and the rest is dedicated to her studies. But since it’s summer break, she’s working full time. Or at least, she intended to. It looks like she cancelled three weeks of clients, including a trip to Dubai with a man who wanted some time away from his wife and kids.
“What do you think happened there?” Andrea wonders.
“Could it be whatever Becker did to her?”
“That would explain why she cancelled it all right after being with him.”
We easily find the email she received from Becker to set up their encounter, but there’s nothing of value in it. He asks to have her for an evening, and they agree to meet at a lounge bar near his penthouse. It looks like he made her sign an NDA beforehand, which means she’ll likely be unwilling to talk to us.
“Do you think she’d accept a phone call?” Andrea wonders.
“For the right price, yes. Especially since she’s had to cancel on her clients since Becker.”
“You could pretend to be interested in hiring her. Get her guard down. And then, when she doesn’t suspect it, you ask what Becker did to her.”
“The problem with a phone call is she could hang up at any time.”
“Not with all the information we have. We have her clients’ list. I saw the names of politicians there. Married men. If you threaten to leak the list, she’ll talk. It’s either that, or her side gig is over, and her name will forever be tainted.”
