She bit her lip. When she spoke, it was in a quiet voice. “I didn’t know that it started so young, but I always knew something was wrong. Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

Her eyes gleamed with a bit of hurt.

I shook my head. “You don’t understand. He manipulated me. He told me I wanted it—that if I loved him I would have sex with him, that it was what good girls did. When that stopped working, he threatened to kill me, or himself. So, I did whatever he said. Then he had me under complete control and there was no need for threats. Sometimes, I could feel my body responding to him and it absolutely sickened me, because I hated him so much. I felt ruined and worthless.”

I waited for the tears to come, but they never did. I think I exhausted my ability to cry over the Kramers in the Chicago mansion. Another small victory.

Natalie’s face was frozen in that pitying, horrified expression that I loathed. “Jessica, you should turn him in. Go to the police.”

“No,” I said in a sharp voice. “I don’t want to relive everything. I don’t want to go through all of that only to see him walk. I don’t have any evidence.”

She looked like she wanted to argue, but she closed her mouth under my glare. “What about Luke?”

Suddenly, I was a lot less willing to discuss him. “What about him?”

Natalie rolled her eyes. “What happened between you guys?”

“He broke up with me,” I snapped.

She threw her hands up. “Geez, Jessica. I just wanted to know.”

My hands gripped the splintered edge of the crappy kitchen table. “He was the best thing in my life. When we first started out, I thought he was just going to be a typical spoiled rich boy, but he’s not at all like that. Luke made me feel like I was normal. He made me feel cherished, and I’ve never felt that in my life.”

There was a rattling sound as Natalie reached into the cupboard to grab two mugs. “I knew he would hurt you. I know that you think that he was great, but he still dumped you over a bit of money.”

“It wasn’t a bit of money,” I said hollowly. “His father’s worth five billion.”

She whirled around with the two mugs and one of them careened out of her grip to smash on the floor. She didn’t even look down.

“Natalie!”

“Five billion?” She ignored the smashed mug as a wistful look came over her face. “There’s no way his father would give him that much. Rich people always leave a portion to charity, to people in their lives—I don’t know.”

As Natalie sank to the floor, I traced a circle into the table with my finger. Maybe I was a bit ridiculous to assume he would choose me over all that money. “Anyways, his dad called and demanded that he stop seeing me, or Luke would never see a cent of that money. So he did.”

She looked up as she heard the tremble in my voice. “How are you holding up with all this?”

I covered my face with my hands. I tried to shrug it off, but my breath choked and Natalie sprang to her feet with broken bits of ceramic in her hands. The truth was that it hurt a lot to be passed over for money. I told him I didn’t care. I didn’t want to take his money. Ten grand a month was nothing compared to the amount that his father would leave him. If he left him any money at all.

I love him. I thought of the old saying, “Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” Whoever came up with that was full of shit. It was far worse to have a brief taste of true happiness, only to have it ripped away forever. Ignorance is bliss.

Natalie’s gripped my shoulders and hugged my back. “Jessica, you deserve better. You will find better.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Yes, you will. I don’t care how much money it was. Do you think that money would make a difference in his hedonistic lifestyle? He already has millions. What’s the difference? Is there a super exclusive club for billionaires only, or something? Or maybe he wouldn’t be able to buy the private tropical island he always wanted. Cry me a goddamn river.”

My heart blazed because she was right, but then I remembered what Brandon told me. “It’s not about the money, it’s—his legacy.”

“You make your own legacy.”

My heart kept flip-flopping. It was a lot of money and Luke barely knew me. I gripped my hair and pulled. Whatever. It didn’t matter. It was no good to keep obsessing over him. The best thing I could do for myself was move on.

* * *

I spent the next day in a jet-lagged stupor. I felt like shit. The best thing I had in my life was gone, and the money in my bank was dwindling. I sat in my computer chair, staring at the four-digit number in my bank account. My eyes blurred. I would give it all to have him back. More than anything, I wanted to fall into his arms. His hands sliding up and down my body was a greater balm than any drug I ever took. I opened my phone, hoping to have a voicemail expressing his sincerest regret and begging me to come back, but there was nothing.

I should just Google him. I promised Natalie I wouldn’t, but it was too easy for me to type his name into that white bar and hit ‘enter.’

Luke Pardini takes red-eye to Chicago without blonde escort

I balked at “blonde escort,” but at least they weren’t mentioning me by name. I clicked on the link as my stomach fell through. He left already? There was a picture of him dressed in the same clothes I’d seen him in yesterday. His suitcase was in his hand as he dashed across SFO. Another picture showed him arriving in Chicago. Had his father taken a turn for the worse? Is that why he left so abruptly? Maybe he changed his mind.

“If he changed his mind, he would have told you. He’s done with you. Get over it,” I said to the empty room.

My email suddenly blinked and I realized I had several unread emails. Recognizing neither, I clicked on the first. Holy shit! I quickly scanned it and realized I had an interview at one of the places I had applied to before I left to London. The interview was in a few days. I hastily shot them an email, agreeing to the interview.

Finally! I tried not to get my hopes up, but I couldn’t help but grin as I reread the email. Suddenly, a horrifying thought popped in my head: What if they Google my name and find all these escort articles?

I headed to the bookmarked sugarbaby website and typed in my username and password. I was determined to delete everything, but something happened.

Error: that username does not exist

What? Of course, it exists! I tried it again. Nothing. I tried to log into the email I created for the account and that was gone too. Finally, I tried searching for myself on the sugarbaby website. Then I looked for Luke’s. Nothing. It was as if everything vanished.