13

Cadence

There’s something about Max. He is seriously like a puppy—tail wagging, tongue hanging out with big puppy eyes and a goofy expression. He’s funny.
He makes me laugh.
But puppies aren’t supposed to be sexy. Max Stonee is sexy and that assertiveness that peeks out has the potential to make my toes curl.
I’ve always been in charge in the bedroom. It’s how it always is, how it has to be.
It’s the only way I could have survived.
Even playing the submissive, I always know I am the one pulling the strings. I wonder if it would be that way with Max.
Going away with a man like him… going away with a man who isn’t paying me… This is a first.
The last time I was interested in a man was two years ago. We went on three dates over six months before I found out he got married during that timeframe. The time before that was when I was twenty-eight. I had to put out a restraining order on him.
I don’t date.
Max seems different from my usual admirers, but that doesn’t mean I’m interested. Or will become interested. Relationships don’t work for me.
Max tries to make small talk on the drive to the mall—shopping. I’m going shopping for clothes… for a man.
Back when I saw clients, they were wealthy and dressed in expensive suits. It wasn’t something I insisted on, but I did show my appreciation.
It always comes back to sex.
I know Max wants me. It was obvious the way he stared at me last night in the restaurant, and I… I didn’t dissuade him. It had been a long time since I had a man look at me like that—someone who didn’t see me as a possession for the evening. Arm candy. A sure thing after a long day in the office.
I check my emails on the drive, text Tatiana and Travis and explain why I won’t be back in the office until this afternoon without telling them exactly why.
Travis will think I’ve been kidnapped and Tatiana will wonder—
What will Tatiana think?
She’s always telling to enjoy myself. Take up a hobby, spend time with friends, relax. Exactly what Novi told me.
The sharp stab of disbelief takes my breath away. I can’t believe he’s gone. I Google his name to see if any information has been released. Because until it has, maybe…
He’s gone and there’s no sense pretending otherwise.
I have few friends, Novi being one of them. My neighbour, Malcolm. Tatiana, but I pay her, so does that really make her a friend?
I have no interests other than making money. I can’t relax unless I’m listening to my meditation podcast in the hot tub.
Even then, it’s hard.
Tatiana also tells me I should have more sex.
I just laugh when she comes up with that.

I’ve had enough sex to last several lifetimes. Sometimes I think I would be happy closing up shop—the shop being my vagina—for good. And then other times, I think I’d miss it.
I’ve been missing it lately.
Is that why I agreed to go away with Max?
I look up from my phone to see Max staring at me with that mischievous gleam in his dark eyes. It’s almost like he knows what I’m thinking about.

My cheeks heat at the thought of him reading my mind.
“Finished with your busywork?” he asks.
“I do more than busywork.”
“I’m sure you do, but I’m also pretty positive that you’re not yet totally comfortable with me and are trying to keep busy, so you don’t have to talk to me.”
It is possible that the man can read my mind.
I make a production of slipping my phone back into my purse. “What would you like to talk about?” I ask politely.
“Many things, but now you’re off the hook because we’re here. Time to shop.”
I doubt Max knows he just quoted Pretty Woman.
The driver pulls up to the mall doors and Max manages to dart out and over to my side to open the door before the driver.
I’m a little impressed by his manners.
He lets me walk through the sliding automatic doors of the mall as well. “Come here often?” he jokes.
“Actually, no,” I admit. “I don’t take a lot of time to shop.”
His gaze trails over me. “Someone does an amazing job making you look good, though.”
“Tell me how you know Marco,” I ask when Max is confined to a changing room trying on three suits, all of which I chose.
The salesperson helped, but I gave him the parameters—destination wedding in a warm climate, possibly on a beach—and I made the decision of the final three.
Max stood by with a bemused expression as I dealt with the salesman.
And now I wait outside the changing cubicle—not a great one for a store with such expensive clothes.
I have the money to buy everything in here, but I still can’t get past the feeling I don’t belong. That I’m still the little girl pulling up the cushions on the couch to find spare change to buy a snack after dance class. The young teenager doing math assignments and writing essays for her classmates, and charging them for it so she could buy new dance shoes.
The seventeen-year-old who first took her shirt off on stage so she could buy her little sister a new dress.
That girl is gone, but old wounds run deep and I still have a hard time fathoming that I can afford to be in here.
Trying to disappear from these thoughts, I check my email but Tatiana has everything under control. As a rule, I don’t use social media, so there is nothing to doom-scroll as I wait.
I watch the curtain that keeps the rest of the store from getting a glimpse of Max changing. A curtain that isn’t exactly pulled tight, leaving an inch-wide gap.
And when you stand where I am, you can see right through the gap.
Of course I look away, but not before I catch sight of Max’s boxer-brief-clad ass as he buttons the shirt.
There might be burritos on his ass.
I look up—over—anywhere but—