3 Book Romance Bundle: "Loving The Bull Rider" & "Cowboy Down Under" & "The Escort Next Door"

  ***

  As it turned out, I didn’t have to wait two weeks. Just three days passed before I received my first email inquiry. I’d almost dismissed it as spam, feeling sure that I had no chance of generating interest so quickly. However, the subject line, ‘Looking for some company on Saturday night’, caused me to stop dead in my tracks.

  I was about to open the message, but a voice from the doorway caused me to jolt in surprise.

  “Mom,” Dylan said brightly. “Can I have some ice cream?”

  My head snapped around, as I shut the browser window. It was a nonsensical reaction, there was nothing revealing on the screen, my son couldn’t see it anyway and even if he could, he certainly wasn’t close enough to read. “How many times have I told you about knocking on that door before you come in,” I grumbled, pushing myself off the chair and moving toward him.

  “I did,” he replied.

  “Well, I didn’t say ‘come in’,” I said, coaxing him around with a light touch at his shoulder.

  He followed my silent guiding without hesitation or argument. “I’m sorry,” he continued. “Can I have some ice cream, though?” he quickly added, returning to his primary concern.

  “Not right now,” I responded, walking down the hall with him.

  “Ahhh, Mom,” he moaned loudly. “Please!” he begged, turning to me and pressing his hands together in front of his chest. “Please, please, please,” he rapidly added, his eyes taking on that dolefully expression he was so very good at.

  Shaking my head apologetically, I hustled him ahead of me and we descended the stairs. “Maybe,” I softly suggested, but before I could get the rest of the sentence out, my young son was already punching the air furiously.

  “Yes!” he yelled delightedly.

  “Maybe,” I repeated, stressing the word this time. “If you eat all your dinner and promise to go to bed on time, I’ll see what I can do about the ice cream.”

  “I love you, Mom,” he said, turning his big brown eyes to me and grinning broadly. It was his standard way of trying to keep me sweet. His father used to do something similar when we were younger.

  With the promise of ice cream, dinner was a much smoother affair than usual and I made a mental note to use bribery more often. All three children, even Kate, ate every last piece of their meal, including the greens that typically got pushed around until I got tired of trying to coax them into a mouth. Lizzie offered to help me clear away, which was no doubt a ploy to get an extra-large scoop, but it was appreciated nonetheless.

  Putting them to bed that night, I spent a little longer looking at their adorable, peaceful faces. They were growing so quickly, time had been passing me by and I’d been largely oblivious to it. The shock of Paul’s infidelity had caused me to put my existence into some sort of perspective. Almost thirty, and all I had to show for those years were the three kids who meant the world to me. Of course, they made me want to tear my hair out at times, but I couldn’t imagine life without their mischievous charm. I wouldn’t want to live in a world without them in it, my children were the only thing that made life make sense.

  Closing Lizzie and Dylan’s doors, and leaving Kate’s fractionally ajar so she still had a little light from the hallway, I walked slowly back to my own bedroom. With a renewed sense of purpose, I settled in front of the computer screen and opened the email I’d received earlier that evening.

  Hi,

  I’m David, I read your advertisement and wondered if you’re free on Saturday night. I know it’s a bit short notice, but I have an unplanned stop in the state and I hate to be alone. Would love to learn more about you, and maybe see a picture? If you’d like to know what I look like, just say the word.

  I leaned back for a moment, as the reality of what I’d done, and was planning to do, sunk in. Paul wasn’t coming home until Sunday afternoon, so I certainly had the night free. However, I hadn’t been expecting things to happen so quickly. I’d thought it would be at least a month, and probably much more, before I was actually working. I hadn’t really had a chance to mentally prepare.

  In retrospect, no matter how long it had taken, I know I would never have been prepared. It simply isn’t the sort of thing that can be prepared for. But, at the time, part of me was arguing that I just needed a few weeks to really adjust to the prospect of selling my body.

  However, something overrode that instinct, because I was already opening the many files of photographs we had stored on the computer. I managed to find a couple of me dressed in an evening gown at some fancy function Paul’s company had organized six months previously. Choosing the one I liked best, I carefully cropped my husband out of the image, before attaching it to a new email.

  I wrote a quick message, telling him that I was available if he was still interested and that I didn’t need to know what he looked like.

  As I clicked on ‘send’, I told myself his appearance didn’t matter. However, I knew that my subconscious choice had been more to do with ignorance being bliss. If he was in his sixties or seventies, with a beer gut and tobacco stained teeth, the anticipation of spending the night with him would be filled with even more dread than it already was. Sex, for me, had always been inextricably linked with love. It had never been purely physical, and because Paul was my first and only lover, it had always been with someone I trusted. The thought of giving myself to a stranger; a man about whom I knew nothing and who didn’t care about me, was entirely foreign and caused me to shudder.

  However, I was forced to remind myself that that wasn’t completely true. I no longer knew Paul and, for the last few months at least, he’d stopped caring about me. The last time we’d had sex was certainly evidence of that fact. Was offering my body to David really any different than the last time I’d been to bed with my own husband?

  It only took a few minutes for him to write again.

  Hey,

  Thanks for getting in touch. You’re a very beautiful woman, and I am definitely interested in enjoying the pleasure of your company on Saturday. You haven’t mentioned fee, but it’s not a problem. Whatever you charge, I’m happy to pay it.

  I’m staying at the Hyatt, room 405. If you could be here at about 8pm, that would be good. Let me know. Thanks!

  Before I had time to talk myself out of it, I wrote a reply confirming that I would be there at eight o’clock.

  Breathing rapidly, as I pushed the chair away from the desk, I realized that it was done. I was really going to go through with it. I had just two days to arrange a babysitter and get myself ready for what would be the most bizarre date of my life. I quickly made a list of all the things that needed to be done; my legs, although always smoothly shaved, would probably need waxing; my small, neat patch of pubic hair would have to go, too. I’d never favored the Brazilian style, but I understood enough about what was popular among men to know that the hairless look would be expected. My nails required a fresh manicure; hair needed styling; and my tan lines from wearing a bikini had to be removed.

  In short, I had to look perfect. There was a lot of work to be done.