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  Once off the bus, I stand in front of the large building and look up, telling myself I have to do this. I have to know why. Why him out of all the people in the country? It’s that need that moves me forward. The office I’m looking for is on the forty-second floor. I’ve stepped foot in it exactly twice. If I am fortunate it will be quick. I don’t allow myself to think about what will happen if I’m not fortunate.

  I probably should have told Isaiah that starting a church in Vegas was a bad idea. Especially in a lounge. This is Vegas: Sin City. No one is interested in attending church.

  Cheap prime rib and easy women? Yes.

  Church? Not so much.

  My breathing is calm by the time the elevator reaches the floor I need. I take a deep breath, and pretending I’m not scared or worried, I open the door that has MIKE RANDOLPH in harsh gold lettering.

  I throw a smile I don’t feel at his secretary, Cybil. She was here the last two times I came, and she doesn’t like me. I don't have a chance to speak before she’s looking down her hawkish nose at me.

  “Athena.” She’s not even trying to keep the contempt out of her voice. “I don’t see you on Mr. Randolph’s schedule this morning.”

  I play up the Southern accent I can bring out when needed, drawing out my syllables as far as they can go. “Now Cybil, Sugar, Mike always told me to stop by anytime. Why don’t you be a dear and see if he’ll see me?” I wiggle my fingers at her phone.

  Her nostrils flare, but she snatches up the phone and punches two buttons. I give her an exaggerated wink and an air kiss.

  “Mr. Randolph.” She gives me the evil eye while she talks. “Athena Hamilton’s here to see you. She doesn’t have an appointment.”

  There’s a pause, and I pretend to examine my nails. It’s all an act. I’m fucking scared to death, but damned if I’ll let her know.

  “Go on in,” she finally says.

  I’m sure she sees the way my body is trembling as I pass her, and I hate that she probably gets some sort of satisfaction at my fear. To counteract that fear, I don’t hesitate as I push the door open and step inside.

  His office is cold. That’s the first thing I notice. I don’t have the opportunity to look around because my attention is drawn to the man standing in the middle of the room, waiting.

  He’s wearing an Italian suit, and his shoes boast a spotless sheen. He looks like a Greek god: flawless dark hair, gorgeous olive skin, and piercing dark eyes. Every woman’s version of Prince Charming is standing before me, but all I see is my worst nightmare.

  “Athena, love. It’s been too long. What brings you by?” He moves forward to embrace me, and though his words are warm, his voice is not.

  I do my best not to flinch at his touch, picking imaginary lint off his coat as a distraction. “I can’t stop by just because?”

  “Of course you can. I’m only surprised you’re up this early.”

  I normally sleep until noon. Nervous energy woke me today at eight. “Baby,” I purr. “You know I have energy to burn.”

  “Really?” He leans close and his breath is warm against my neck as he whispers, “Would that explain your tardiness last night?”

  Harris.

  He laughs at the way my body tenses. “You really think I wouldn’t hear? Go sit down.”

  My seat choices are a couch or a delicate modern chair in front of his desk. I head for the chair that looks like the air conditioning should have knocked it over. Mike moves to sit at his desk, and once he’s there, he sits and temples his fingers.

  “Tell me why you’re really here.”

  There’s no use in pretending there’s any reason other than the truth. I take a deep breath and try to act like I’m just shooting the breeze. “I ran into Isaiah Martin last night. I know him. From before.”

  “Oh, dear. I thought I’d taught you. There is no before. And there is no later unless I allow it. You only get now.”

  Coming today was a very bad mistake, and I look at my hands folded neatly in my lap. I try to think of how to get out of the office.

  “Of course, Sir. How silly of me to forget.”

  “Look at me.”

  He smiles at the fear I know is in my eyes. “Isaiah Martin is a man of God,” he says. “What makes you think he wants anything to do with a whore?”

  “I don’t think —”

  “That’s right, you don’t. You’re good for one thing, and it’s not for what’s between your ears.”

  I have one chance, and I take it. “You’re right, of course.” I start to stand. “I’ll just be going.”

  “Sit. Down.”

  Chance gone. I sit down and brace for the inevitable. He reaches for the phone, and I try to stop my legs from trembling.

  “Cybil,” he says into the handset while keeping his eyes on me. “Clear my calendar for the next two hours.”

  He locks the office door, and my breathing returns to normal.

  “You will forget Isaiah Martin.”

  My mind has shut down by the time he walks to stand in front of me.

  “You need a reminder of who you belong to.” He unbuttons his shirt with deliberate slowness and takes off his belt. “Move to the couch, Athena.”

  Chapter Four

  It’s hard for me to remember much after that. The parts I do recall have nothing to do with Mike, but with a soft voice that’s rough around the edges. The owner of the voice lifts me up and when I whimper, he murmurs reassuring things gently into my ear.

  I think I make out something that sounds like, “Get you out,” and I laugh in my sleep because if there was a way of doing that, I’d have found it by now. But just as I think that, I’m tucked into bed. It feels so good, I want to curl up in the sheets and never leave.

  When I wake again, the shadows have grown long, and I hear bits and pieces of a one-sided argument.

  “fucking insane.....really necessary? ...didn’t file charges.”

  I almost risk a peek, but I fear making it a reality. It is so much better to imagine the one with the rough voice is Isaiah and he’s going to save me. But whoever is on the phone isn't getting very far with his argument. He’s sighing and sounds resolved.

  Finally he hangs up the phone and his footsteps approach my bed. The fingers that brush my cheek are reverent. “Little longer,” he says and is gone.

  My body aches all over, and I could weep for the loss of the voice. But I’m too weak to do anything but fall back asleep.

  ***

  I’m not sure how long I sleep. I wake feeling achy and sore, and I moan.

  “Are you awake?”

  I remember Isaiah being in my room while I slept. Or at least I thought it was Isaiah. Either way, I’m shocked at the sound of my friend Vicki’s voice.

  She’s peering over me, her long dark hair almost brushing my face. I want to come back with a snarky reply, but when I open my mouth, all that comes out is another moan.

  Her perfectly shaped eyebrows furrow. “Someone slipped a note under my door that you needed help. I used my key and oh my God, who did this?”

  She’s genuinely worried, and that freaks me out a bit because I must look like shit. I need to see what I look like, and I struggle to sit up.

  “Let me.” Vicki pulls me into a sitting position and passes me a glass of water.

  I gulp it down in a matter of seconds, probably not the best decision because I end up choking and almost spew it all out.

  “I was going to say small sips, but I guess it’s a bit late for that.”

  I give her a weak smile. “Slightly.”

  She pours more water and sits on the edge of my bed, watching to make sure I drink this glass slower. We simply sit in silence until I finish and she says one word.

  “Mike?”

  Vicki is another one of Mike’s girls. Originally from New York, she started working for Mike shortly after I did. We’d become close in the last nine years, and her apartment is a few doors down from mine. She has gorgeous long, black hair and is d
elicately beautiful. But more than that, she’s my only friend.

  I nod in reply to her question. “It was my fault. I provoked him.”

  Her sigh is sad. “Girl, you know better. What were you thinking?”

  I balance the cup on my knees and run a finger along the rim. “Have I ever told you about Isaiah Martin?”

  “Not that I can remember.” She reads my mood too well to ask where in the world I’m going with my question.

  “Isaiah and I grew up together. He was my first kiss. We were twelve.”

  “You were twelve when you had your first kiss?” she asks as if I’d told her I’d been born to royalty and lived on the moon for my first three years. “And you ended up here at seventeen?”

  “Yes,” I say. “It’s really not that late you know.”

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean anything by it. Besides.” She kicks off her sandals and tucks her legs underneath her. “This, I gotta hear.”

  “Isaiah’s family lived next door to mine,” I say. “We grew up together. Our mothers used to get together and joke about how we’d grow up and get married. I guess they just assumed nothing would ever change. Mama wouldn’t get cancer and die. Dad wouldn’t go off half-crazy and leave me all alone.” I shake my head. “But life happens; things do change.”

  “You gonna spill about the kiss, or not?” she asks. “Because I can do depressing all by myself.”

  “There’s not much to tell. We were twelve and at some middle school dance. A slow song came on and he asked me to dance. I remember his hands were so sweaty. He kept wiping them as he asked me.”

  “Ah, sweet. Sweat.”

  I roll my eyes. “Anyway, we were dancing. I don’t remember the song.”

  “Wait,” he says, when the song comes to an end. He keeps his hands on my shoulders and looks at me all nervous-like. “I want to kiss you. Can I?”

  Tears spring to my eyes at the sweet memory of a boy asking to kiss me. No one asks me if they can do anything anymore.

  “I said yes, of course.” I blink my eyes to keep the tears at bay. The gym had been all stuffy and sticky and smelled like a hundred nervous preteens. “His lips were chapped. Funny, the things you remember.”

  “My first kiss was Frankie MacDonald.” Vicki squints her eyes. “He was ten. I don’t remember his lips.”

  “I remember Isaiah’s.” But it’s not Isaiah’s twelve-year old lips I remember, rather his soft smiling ones from days before. “I don’t think they’re chapped anymore.”

  “Whoa! Hold up. What do you mean you don’t think they’re chapped anymore?” She looks at me closer. “Have you seen his lips recently?”

  I notice my hands are shaking. I only hope Vicki doesn’t see them, or if she does, that she attributes it to my meeting with Mike.

  “Yes,” I say. “I saw him the day before yesterday.”

  “Oh, no. Was he a job?”

  My mind spins at the implication I’d ever do that with Isaiah. That Isaiah would ever do that with me. Then I nearly laugh at the fact that I’ve been a prostitute for nearly ten years and call what I do that.

  “No,” I say. “He wasn’t a trick.”

  “That’s a relief. ’Cause that would be really awkward. So, what were you doing looking at Isaiah Martin’s lips if he wasn’t a job?”

  I blow a long stream of air across the top of my water to watch the waves it makes. “He’s a preacher. Mike’s letting him start a church in Playmakers.”

  She almost swallows her gum. “You’re kidding?”

  I smile a bit at catching Vicki off guard. She normally hears all the gossip before I do.

  “Would I kid about something like that?” I ask.

  “No,” she finally agrees. “I don’t think you would.”

  “Isaiah’s starting a church,” I explain. “He said Mike was a really nice guy. I went up to Mike’s office to ask him about it and, well, here I am.”

  “That was your first mistake. Going up to Mike’s office.”

  “That was my third mistake,” I correct her, counting with my fingers. “My first one was talking to Isaiah in the first place. The second was keeping Theo waiting. Going to see Mike was most definitely third.”

  She looks over my various bruises. “Mighty big third, though.”

  “Agreed.”

  Her eyes flicker over to the clock on my nightstand. “I have to go. I’ll come back and check on you tonight, okay?”

  I nod. “I imagine I’ll still be here.”

  I spend the rest of the day in my apartment. I soak in my tub. Redo my nails. And even read a bit. I think about Isaiah and what I’m going to do about him. Try to decide if I should attempt to see him again. Vicki brings pizza when she comes back to my apartment hours later. We don’t often have enough time to sit and talk, and she has plenty to say about Isaiah and me.

  She lets out a low whistle and shakes her head when I bring him up. “Girl, I don’t know what alien’s taken over your mind, but you better find a way to get them out.”

  “My body hasn’t been invaded by aliens,” I said. “I just thought I could see him one more time...”

  Vicki continues shaking her head. “Oh, no.”

  “What?”

  “Let me summarize,” she says. “Your old boyfriend comes to town. He’s a pastor. You’re a hooker. That enough for you?”

  “He doesn’t know I’m a hooker.”

  “Right,” she says. “Have you given any thought to what this patron saint of All Things Perfect is going to do when he finds out his old childhood friend is a whore?” She’s been talking rather calmly, but as she’s continued, her voice has gotten higher and higher. By the time she gets to the end of her sentence, she’s basically yelling.

  I squint. “I’d rather hoped to avoid that issue altogether.”

  “And just how did you envision doing that?” She sits with her arms crossed.

  I feel like I’m a teenager, getting the third degree from a parent before heading out for a night out. “I don’t know,” I say.

  “Listen to me, Athena,” she says, leaning forward. “I love you like the sister I never had, and I’m closer to you than probably any person on earth. I don’t say that just because I’ve seen you naked more times than I care to remember. But this has got to stop. I don’t know what’s been going on with you the last few days, but snap out of it.”

  I stand up. “Thank you so much for your opinion, Sugar, but I think it’s time you left.”

  She doesn’t budge. “Don’t pull that Sugar crap with me.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She stands up and glares at me. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. This Southern Belle/Sugar thing you do when you try to hide what you’re really feeling. You forget I’ve known you way too long. I see right through you.”

  She’s right, of course. I know she is, but it just hurts. It hurts that Isaiah’s not going to want anything to do with me once he knows the truth. I just have to make sure he never finds out.

  “I’m tired,” I say. “I think I’m going to go to bed.”

  “When it all turns south — and it will —” She walks to the door. “I guess I’ll be here to help you pick up the pieces. But keep in mind, I won’t be here forever.”

  I crawl into bed, but I’m not able to sleep. I keep trying to remember if it was really Isaiah I heard while I was out. Was it real or my imagination? Parts of that time seem so vivid to me, almost as if I can reach out and touch them. But others are fuzzy, and I can’t separate fiction from reality. I finally give up and fall into a restless sleep.

  A loud, steady pounding on my door wakes me the next morning. I groan and look at my alarm clock. Eight-thirty. Much too early to be awake considering it had been after four by the time I was finally able to fall asleep last night.

  This morning. Whatever.

  The pounding continues.

  “Just a minute,” I yell. I jerk my robe on, punching my arms through the holes, a
nd belt it around my waist. Another pounding knock. “I said I’m coming!”

  I don’t bother to look out my peep hole. It has to be Vicki and I’m going to kill her. I fling the door open. “What?”

  Mike stands there, hand raised to knock again, and looking like the devil himself. “About time.”

  I belt the robe around my waist tighter. Why the fuck is he here?

  “Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know it was you.”

  He raises an eyebrow.

  “Sorry, Sir,” I correct myself.

  He nods, and I move aside so he can enter my apartment. I can’t imagine what would bring him here. I can count on one hand the times he’s stopped by in the last few years.

  “Can I get you something?” I ask.

  He ignores me, walking instead around my couch, looking closely at my bookshelves and running a finger along the books. His finger drops to my collection of movies. “Don’t happen to have Pretty Woman here, do you?”

  “No, Sir,” I say, still irritated and tired and not thinking straight at all. “Never much cared for fantasy.”

  He gives a low laugh that sends warning signs through my body. “Still a bit cheeky, are we?”

  “Just honest.” I hope I’m not pushing his buttons. It’s just so early and I’m sore, and if I could just sleep a little bit longer. . .

  My head jerks up to look into his eyes. Mike wouldn’t come by just to chit-chat. He has a purpose for being here. I vaguely remember the person I thought was Isaiah bringing me home. What if Mike meant to kill me that day and now he’s here to finish the job?

  Fear seeps into my spine and trickles down. I can’t find the words to ask him. After our last meeting, I’m not sure I’ll ever ask him anything again.

  Mike, of course, knows this. “Ask me,” he says, his eyes dark and dangerous.

  I straighten my shoulders, blow a strand of hair out of my face, and refuse to give him the satisfaction of knowing just how much he scares me.

  “What can I do for you, Sir?” I ask, my deadpan tone matching his.