Chapter 7
Scarletta
Istand in the lobby staring through the glass security door at the black limousine.
It's real.
This is actually happening.
The car is sleek and black and waiting. Engine running. Exhaust clouding in the freezing air.
I don't have to do this. I could turn around. Walk back up four flights. Lock myself in my blanket fort and pretend I never clicked that link.
Right. Back to your thrilling, adventurous existence filled with all those incredible opportunities and bright prospects stretching out before you.
My inner voice is particularly vicious tonight.
You've written about this exact scenario sixteen times. Every single one of them had a limousine. Remember "Claimed at Midnight" Chapter three? The car waiting in the snow while she decides whether to run?
She got in the car.
She surrendered.
It was the best decision she ever made.
Right. But that was fiction.
This is?—
This is what you've been begging for in forty-seven stories. And now that it's here, you're going to chicken out?
My intellectual side kicks in, calm and rational and utterly unconvincing.
You're on step eleven. You gave them your entire sexual profile. Your address. Detailed sexual preferences. You got in the car three hours ago. You're already committed. Turning back now doesn't make you safe. It just makes you broke AND stupid.
The limousine idles.
Snow falls.
For the money, I tell myself.
Not for the sex.
For the money.
I push through the security door.
The cold hits me like a punch in the face. Wind. Snow. Idaho in December, brutal and unforgiving.
I take three steps toward the car and the driver's door opens. A man gets out. Forties, maybe. Clean-cut. Dark suit. He walks around the front of the limo with practiced efficiency and opens the rear passenger door.
He smiles at me. Warm. Professional. Like I'm a client, not a girl being delivered to?—
Don't think about it.
He doesn't speak. Just holds the door and waits.
I gather what's left of my courage—which isn't much—and climb inside.
