I didn’t respond. Sasha was in trouble.

Or, if she wasn’t in trouble, she would be soon enough.

I stalked down the hallway toward room 8, fear and anger warring in my chest. Sasha was in there with a man who wasn’t me, and Kevin didn’t seem to think she was there under duress. And I had fucking paid her. She wasn’t supposed to be touching anyone’s arm but mine.

At the door to room 8, I stopped for a moment and tried to get my racing heart under control. It was possible that the situation was completely innocent. One of her regulars had asked to speak with her, and she had been too polite to refuse—

Who was I kidding? There was no fucking way it was innocent.

I flung the door open, and she and the man both turned to look at me, eyes wide.

“Get the fuck out,” I said to the man.

He drew himself up, face reddening, and said, “I absolutely won’t! I don’t know who you are, sir—”

“I own this club,” I said, hearing my own voice cold and hard. “Get out or I’ll call security.”

“That’s no way to treat a paying client,” the man blustered, but he grabbed his jacket from a chair and shouldered past me, muttering to himself under his breath.

And then it was just Sasha and me in the room, nothing between us but air.

The door swung shut behind us.

“It isn’t what you’re thinking,” she said, her face pale. She was so small, standing there, looking up at me. “His daughter’s sick, and he said he just wanted to talk to me about it, and—”

“You know it’s never just talking,” I said, her excuses fueling my rage. “You signed a contract. You aren’t even supposed to be here.”

“I just came by to hang out with Scarlet, okay? And then he saw me and he asked if we could talk for a few minutes. I didn’t fuck him,” she said, scowling at me, “and I didn’t intend to, and that’s the truth. You don’t control me. I can still talk to people—”

“Let’s be realistic about this,” I said. “You had no intention of merely talking to him.”

“That isn’t true,” she said, so small and furious that I couldn’t bear to look at her any longer.

“Sassy,” I said, a cold certainty settling within me, “you’re nothing but a whore.”

13

I went home that evening and drank myself into oblivion.

The only other option was spending the night interminably replaying my confrontation with Sasha, and I had no desire to torture myself like that. I knew, even as I was storming out of the club, that I had fucked up, maybe irrevocably. I didn’t actually believe that Sasha would have so blatantly violated the terms of our contract. And it seemed like something she would do—take pity on a client in pain and offer to spend a few minutes as his listening ear. For all her rough edges and bad temper, Sasha had a kind, open heart, and I knew she cared for people more than she let on. It wasn’t unreasonable to expect that she was fond of her regulars and wouldn’t want to completely alienate them while she was away.

Rationalizing her behavior didn’t do jackshit to ease the hard knot of anger and jealousy that had set up camp in my gut.

So I drank until I couldn’t think straight, and then I passed out on my couch, and woke early in the morning with a raging headache and nausea churning in my belly alongside regret and self-hatred. I drank a bottle of Gatorade, popped a couple of painkillers, and went to bed.

I slept again, deep and dreamless, and woke close to noon with a hangover, but not as bad of one as I expected or deserved.

Worse than my headache was the shame that no hangover remedy could cure. I had made an ass out of myself, and Sasha would be well within her rights if she never wanted to see me again.

But self-pity would accomplish nothing.

I sat on the edge of the bed, my aching head cradled in my hands, and tried to figure out what to do next. My skull felt like it was stuffed with cotton. I wasn’t in any shape to make decisions.

I called Sasha. Stupid, but I wasn’t thinking rationally. I was acting on impulse. The call rang over to voicemail. “Sasha,” I said, “it’s Alex. I fucked up. Give me a call.” After I hung up, I texted her for good measure.

She responded within a few seconds. Fuck off

Well. Sasha wasn’t one to mince words.

Christ. I would fix it; women always responded well to a little groveling. The question was how long she would make me grovel before she forgave me, and how many expensive presents I would have to buy her in the meantime.

My phone buzzed again, and my heart jumped in my chest. It was only Will, though. Lunch w the fam?

I thought about it. It was impossible to predict whether spending time with them would make me feel better or worse. I decided to go. It was better than staying home and staring at my navel, and my parents’ housekeeper was a great cook. And I wanted to see how Will was doing.

I took a cab to my parents’ penthouse on Central Park South. They had the entire top floor of the building, and an expansive rooftop garden overlooking the park. They had only moved into the apartment within the last year. My mother claimed they were “downsizing” now that Will and I were out of the nest. It was a nice apartment, but a small, juvenile part of me was still angry that they had moved out of my childhood home.

The doorman recognized me and waved me inside with a smile. I slid off my sunglasses and hooked them in the collar of my t-shirt. I entered the elevator and punched in the security code, and the doors slid shut and the car began to move.

My father was standing there when the doors slid open again, waiting for me. “Alex,” he said warmly. We shook hands, and he slung one arm around my shoulders as we moved into the apartment. “I’m so glad you could make it. Lumusi won’t tell me what she’s making for lunch, but it smells delicious.”

I smiled. Lumusi was my parents’ Ghanian housekeeper; she had been with the family since before I was born, and she was essentially a second mother to me. My parents ate West African cuisine almost every day of the week, because that was what Lumusi liked to cook, and nobody was willing to argue with her. “We’ll just have to wait and find out,” I said. “How’s Will?”

“Better than expected,” my father said. “I was afraid—well, you remember how he was before he went to rehab.”