The Escort Read online

  The Escort is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Loveswept eBook Original

  Copyright © 2015 by Laura Marie Altom

  Excerpt from Stepping Over the Line by Laura Marie Altom copyright © 2015 by Laura Marie Altom

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book Stepping Over the Line by Laura Marie Altom. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

  eBook ISBN 9781101883419

  Cover design: Lynn Andreozzi

  Cover photograph: © Cara-Foto/Shutterstock

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1: Nathan

  Chapter 2: Carol

  Chapter 3: Nathan

  Chapter 4: Carol

  Chapter 5: Nathan

  Chapter 6: Carol

  Chapter 7: Nathan

  Chapter 8: Carol

  Chapter 9: Nathan

  Chapter 10: Carol

  Chapter 11: Nathan

  Chapter 12: Carol

  Chapter 13: Nathan

  Chapter 14: Carol

  Chapter 15: Nathan

  Chapter 16: Carol

  Chapter 17: Nathan

  Chapter 18: Carol

  Chapter 19: Nathan

  Chapter 20: Carol

  Chapter 21: Nathan

  Chapter 22: Carol

  Chapter 23: Nathan

  Chapter 24: Carol

  Chapter 25: Nathan

  Chapter 26: Carol

  Chapter 27: Nathan

  Chapter 28: Carol

  Chapter 29: Nathan

  Chapter 30: Carol

  Chapter 31: Nathan

  Chapter 32: Carol

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  By Laura Marie Altom

  About the Author

  The Editor’s Corner

  Excerpt from Stepping Over the Line

  Chapter 1

  Nathan

  “I, Ella, take you, Liam, to be my lawfully wedded husband…”

  If I heard one more word of the happy couple’s vows, I’d fucking hurl.

  I stood on the fringe of their big event with my hands shoved in the pockets of the khakis I’d picked up at Goodwill. Why wouldn’t I want to look my best for the love of my life getting hitched to a billionaire who’s actually perfect for her, and can give her the kind of life of which I’ve never even dreamed?

  Everything about the beachfront nuptials was perfection.

  Gently lapping surf—check.

  Violet-streaked sunset kissing the ocean—check.

  Pillar candles lining the aisle and practically an entire freaking orchestra playing powdery-soft Vivaldi—check, check. Toss in thousands of white orchids and roses, wandering flamingos, a champagne fountain, a tent with tables heaped with food and a vodka-ice-luge carved into an enormous E & L, and the scene was straight out of a circus freak show of flashy wealth. Only the thing about Liam was that I truly believed not a bit of this was for show, or to prove he’d win a wedding-of-the-century dick-measuring contest, but because he loves Ella so much that in ways, he’d reverted to a little kid, eager to prove his love by buying her every single toy on her Christmas list—only it was July, and knowing Ella, the only thing she’d ever really wanted Santa to bring was love.

  In Liam, I knew she’d found that and more, and the fact was killing me.

  Seating for the hundred or so guests was an assortment of gold-toned sofas, love seats and chairs that had no business being on a beach, but somehow seemed as perfect as the rest of everything Carol—Liam’s longtime assistant—and a pricey wedding planner had thrown together.

  I saw her now—Carol—standing on the opposite side of the aisle from me.

  Her pale blue eyes shone with unshed tears. The barely-there breeze stole strands from her elegant blond updo, streaming them like golden seaweed across her mouth, but she stood stone-still, as though if she froze, maybe time would, too, and this wedding wouldn’t happen.

  She used to have a thing for Liam the way I did for Ella.

  Judging by her solemn expression, the way her full lips turned slightly down at the corners, I guessed she pretty much felt the same as I did—that this whole event sucked balls.

  The happy couple now delivered personally written, wholly heartfelt vows. Joy. I loved Ella. I should be thrilled for her, so why did I find myself gravitating toward Carol, then asking, “Want to get out of here?”

  For the longest time she remained motionless—a pale-skinned goddess whose gold-satin gown reflected the sun’s last gasp.

  “Carol?” The music swelled as if cued by Ella’s happy tears. How had Liam done it? Built riches so vast as to have his own wedding soundtrack?

  Carol finally looked at me. Her pain contradicted her beauty. Silent tears fell, polluting her cheeks with wavy black mascara trails. “Fuck me.”

  “No kidding, right? I’m happy for them, but for us, this whole thing seriously blows.”

  “Agreed—but I mean it, Nathan. Fuck me. Pound me so hard I forget tonight ever happened.”

  “Wait, what?” Gaze narrowed, I cocked my head. She didn’t flinch. “Oh shit, you’re serious.”

  She grabbed my hand, then dragged me down the shore, away from the wedding and toward the deserted house. After pressing the call button for the glass-fronted elevator that had been built into the Big Sur cliff, she shoved me against the nearest rock wall, slashing her lips across mine for a kiss far more brutal than erotic.

  But then I got into it, the whole anti-wedding, pissed-off spirit of the thing, and I returned her ugly kiss with bold strokes of my tongue. My dick roared, and I cupped my hand to her ass, tugging her against me. She was taller than Ella—a good five-foot-eleven with heels—and satisfactorily ground against my six-foot-two frame.

  The elevator signaled its arrival with a discreet ding.

  The doors opened and we plunged this shit show inside.

  Now, I took the lead, banging her against the car’s mirrored rear wall. I gave her neck a rough nuzzle before pounding the up button, then helping myself to the deep vee of her gown. She wore no bra and when I grazed her nipple, it hardened beneath my palm.

  I dragged my lips up her throat and along the tender underside of her chin.

  She groaned, grabbing for my fly, but the car lurched to a stop.

  When the doors swished open, we tumbled out onto the hardwood floor of what typically was a combo movie/game room temporarily being used for wedding gift storage.

  An ornate pool table with a red-felt top had been piled high with wrapped gifts.

  I released Carol long enough to shove them aside. A few plummeted to the floor. Judging by the muted jingle of broken glass or clanging metal, they didn’t fare well. Fucking oops.

  Right now, all that mattered was blocking pain with pleasure.

  I barely even knew this woman, but for my purposes, she’d more than do. By way of returning her favor, I’d give her a fuck she wouldn’t soon forget.

  My hands on her hips, I hefted her onto the space I’d just cleared, then leaned her back, all the while shoving her silky dress up her smooth calves and thighs. She has dancer legs, long and lean and rising for miles.
She arched backward in an elegant tumble. Eyes closed, she was crying, and so I worked harder to stop her tears.

  Her glossy dress made it easy to glide her closer. She’d bent her legs, wedging the toes of crystal-covered stilettos against the pool table’s wall. But that was too easy for her, so I dragged her toward me until she gasped when her bare ass cheeks met the table’s cool wood frame.

  I knelt between her legs, resting the backs of her thighs on my shoulders while nipping her inner thighs.

  She raked her fingers deep into my hair and pulled.

  I punished her with a tongue-fuck that now made her cry for a whole ’nother reason.

  “Yes, yes…”

  Resting my hand on her waxed-smooth mound, I thumbed her clit.

  She came in about three seconds, so I did her again—this time, with my fingers so she was good and ready for the rest of the show. With her arching and bucking in answer to my every thrust, I shoved her dress high enough to give me access to her navel. I kissed and sucked her belly until she tensed and was yet again pulling my hair.

  Then it was my turn.

  I stood, fumbled through my wallet for a condom, rolled it on, then had my hands back on her hips to drive this thing home. She held her arms over her head and gripped the pool table’s far wall. As she’d requested, I pounded her until neither of us could recall our own names, let alone those of the people who’d rejected us and found us wanting. I pounded her until for these few all-too-brief moments, the two of us were king and queen and no one else existed outside our fragile, angry world.

  Needing her closer, needing this to be about more than just sex, I eased my hands under her back, urging her upright to wrap her legs around my waist and arms around my neck. I buried my fingers in the silken fall of her hair, angling my lips atop hers for what I hoped she took as a more tender moment of thanks.

  She tasted delicious. Sweet—of champagne and maybe a stolen taste of frosting. I loved that possibility, that streak of rebellious defiance. Even though I had no definitive proof, from what little I knew about this woman who had faithfully served and concurrently, I suspected, loved Liam for nearly a decade, she might have performed one last act of protest by secretly defiling the happy couple’s cake.

  Our kisses took a curious turn toward desperation—as if the sheer act of dragging out our inevitable parting would somehow make the night yet to come okay. Of course, we both knew it wouldn’t. If healing broken hearts were that easy, there would be no more sad love songs or fleeting moments like the one Carol and I had just shared.

  The act we’d committed had been selfish and raw and all about one very specific thing—revenge. Only the joke was on us, because on the shoreline beneath this wondrous house, my Ella and Carol’s Liam had by now completed their vows. If they somehow learned of our mutual betrayals, the news would be nothing but an amusing side note to their otherwise flawless night.

  Plain and simple, Carol and I were on the most pathetic of all possible rebounds. Her past with Liam was ancient history, and mine with Ella was nonexistent save for a lone kiss I’d stolen and for which I’d subsequently been slapped.

  I hugged Carol, breathing her in. She smelled like orange blossoms—I knew, because when my mom was dying, I’d bought her a little orange tree. She’d loved it, but it died not long after her. Because of that, I usually shied from the scent, but on Carol, the lush sweetness laced with a crisp edge somehow seemed right.

  “What now?” I set her back on the table’s edge and pondered how to save face while performing the awkward business of disposing of a used condom with no tissue.

  She leaned backward,tearing a chunk of pearlescent white paper from the nearest gift. “Here.” She nodded toward my shrinking cock. “This might help.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” She arched her head back and sighed. “Think they’re done?”

  “With the vows?” I nodded.

  “It really was awful, wasn’t it?” She fluffed the ribbon atop the nearest gift. “I thought I was prepared, but there’s no manual for seeing the man you love marry another woman—don’t get me wrong. I like Ella—a lot. I just…” She glanced down at her dress, the way the fabric bunched around her waist and one of her breasts had sprung free. Laughing, she hopped down to cover herself. “Christ, would you look at me. I’m a hot mess. No wonder he wanted her over me.”

  “Knock it off. Liam being with Ella has way more to do with him than you.” I cupped my hand to her cheek, brushing the mascara trail with my thumb. “You’re smart and beautiful, and any guy would be lucky to have you.”

  “Things guys say when they want a Get Out of Jail Free card after an awkward fuck?”

  I kissed her. “Things I say when I’m sorry for taking advantage of a woman I never meant to screw, but am damn glad I did.”

  “Idiot. I took advantage of you.” Her laugh caught me as off guard as her original proposition. “Look, what’s done is done. No harm, no foul. We’re good. Let’s get cleaned up, get this god-awful night behind us, then be on our mutual merry ways, so we can spend the next fifty years pondering how to complete our lives without them.”

  I winced. “Think it’ll take that long?”

  She shrugged before turning for the bathroom at the end of a short hall.

  I stood with my dick out, staring at the view—or rather, the lack of one. The sun had long since set, and now, where the ocean had once been there was only my faint reflection superimposed on darkness. I worked myself back into my boxers, then closed up shop.

  I still tasted Carol—and craved more, only she was as far out of my league as Ella.

  Even if she hadn’t been, she deserved more than to be some guy’s rebound.

  She emerged from the bathroom, backlit by soft incandescent light. Her hair was once again upswept and her gown appropriately clinging to her curves.

  “You’re beautiful.” I gazed upon her reflection rather than directly at her.

  “Thank you.” Head bowed, she smoothed the front of her dress. “Lately, I’ve felt anything but pretty—especially inside. You know Ella’s pregnant, right? That’s why they had to fast-track the wedding.”

  Pregnant? I clamped my hand over my mouth.

  No. I hadn’t known. Now that I did, I wished myself back to when I hadn’t. Over the coming months, watching Ella’s belly swell with Liam’s child would be brutal. Up until this moment, I hadn’t realized how much I’d secretly wished her marriage to fail.

  “She didn’t tell you.” Carol’s radiant heat warmed my back as if she were a cold night’s bonfire. “I’m sorry—for both of us. But hey, at least now that we know any hope we might have had with them is well and truly gone, we can get on with our own lives, right?”

  “What life?” I clasped my hands over my forehead. “I stock grocery store shelves and take a few hours online at a community college. Yay, me.”

  “If you’d ask, Liam would give you a scholarship to any—”

  “Screw that. There’s no way in hell I’d ask him for a goddamned thing.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “I’ve gotta get out of here,” I said more to myself than her, already heading up the winding redwood staircase leading to the upper floor. The news about the baby wasn’t sitting well. I felt cold, hot, clammy-sick. I loved Ella, but now—once and for all—it was time to let her go. Only the real pisser was the fact that only in my imagination had she ever been mine.

  Chapter 2

  Carol

  After the first dance and toasts, petite filets and lobster and cake-cutting, Liam crushed me in a hug. “I can’t thank you enough for helping Annie pull all of this together.”

  “You’re welcome.” I ignored the pang of guilt stemming from when I’d earlier dredged my middle finger through the backside of his cake. Annabelle Hargrove was the wedding planner. She’d crap pearls to hear Liam call her Annie. But then for what this wedding cost, she might not object too terribly much.

  “She looks
beautiful, doesn’t she?” He nodded to Ella, who laughed while dancing with Liam’s best friend’s youngest, five-year-old Darcy. Ella and the little girl shared a special bond since weathering the ordeal that had finally severed Ella’s ties to her psycho ex.

  “Radiant.” Ella did look especially beautiful in the candlelight. The crystals on her custom Vera Wang shimmered with her every turn.

  Liam’s wedding surprise—as if he hadn’t already given her enough—was a post-dinner acoustic set by the Dave Matthews Band. I wanted to hate Liam’s new bride—I really did—but when she dashed straight from the dance floor to give me a hug, I returned the gesture and meant it. She’d been through so much, and deserved her happiness.

  “I can’t imagine how you pulled this off,” Ella said. “Liam, you’d better give Carol a raise or you’ll lose her when she opens her own wedding planning shop.”

  “That’s not a half-bad idea,” I teased, wishing I were brave enough to leave Liam, yet knowing I never would.

  “Done.” Liam grinned at me before slipping his arm around his wife, pulling her close for a kiss I felt in my gut. “Before meeting you, I didn’t know it was possible to love this much.”

  “I feel the same about you,” Ella said softly, as if the two of them were the only ones in the tent. In the whole world. When they melted into another heated kiss, I discreetly backed away, helping myself to more cake and Dom.

  Darcy had plopped onto the sand with her seven-year-old twin sisters, who built a castle from champagne-dampened sand. I suppose I should have stopped them, but why? At least their antics were entertaining.

  Yvonne—Ella’s former boss at the Sausalito Christmas store—danced with her husband, Peter. They looked every bit as in love as the newlyweds.