HIS QUEEN

L E N A

I don’t know how the hell I let you talk me into this,” I said into my cell phone to my best friend, Callie.

“You didn’t exactly need much persuasion when you heard that one week’s work would bag you a hundred thou‐ sand dollars,” Callie reminded me. “And it’s barely evenwork.”

"I know, but when I agreed to it, it was just an idea. Now it’s real and I actually have to go through with it,” I said.

“Ok, Lena, breathe,” Callie said. “Remember what I said?

All the guy wants is a pretend fiancé in public so his family stay off his back and his old grandmother thinks he’s found the one and can die happy.

That’s it.

He’s not the sort of person who needs to pay for sex. Honest, he’s smoking hot, just your type. You’re basically going to have a nice week in a nice hotel with good food and decent people. And you get paid for it.”

“You’re starting to sound like you regret offering me the job,” I said with a soft laugh.

“Girl I would take your hand off for this one, but you would never handle the other client. He’s … messier shall we say,” Callie said. “Now I have to go. Remember, you’re just playing a part like an actress.”

Callie ended the call before I could say anything else. I knew she was right, but I was still so nervous. I blamed the wine we drank the other night, three bottles of the stuff between the two of us, for me saying yes to this.

I was always the straight-laced girl that played by the rules. I wasn’t the sort of girl who dated for money.

But Callie made being an escort sound pretty glamorous and if this deal was half as sweet as she had led me to believe it would be then I was all good. For years I had craved being able to drop the miss perfect persona and just be me. Maybe this was my chance to make it happen. I checked my watch. Five minutes until we were due to meet. This moment was my last chance to back out of this if that’s what I was going to do. But I wasn’t going anywhere, and I knew it. One week, one hundred thousand dollars, no strings, and no sex stuff? I would have to be mad not to do it.

And there was no law to say I had to use the word escort, right?

“Miss Rogers?” a deep male voice said from behind me.

I took a deep, calming breath and turned around and forced myself to smile despite my disappointment. The man behind me must have been almost sixty and although he looked clean and well groomed, he was nothing like my type at all.

And then I could see why this guy was paying for company. Not, as Callie told me because he wanted no strings and no mess, but because this guy would struggle to find a twenty-five-year fiancé that he wasn’t paying. I felt as though I could already hear the judgement in his family’s voices when I was introduced to them. He might as well just say this is Lena, my gold digger.

“That’s me,” I said, hoping I sounded happier than I felt.

“Please come with me,” he said, returning my smile. “Your plane is almost ready for take-off. We just need to get your luggage loaded and you seated.”