Chapter 12: Selena

Selena Aldous chose a corner table in a Newbury Street cafe that smelled of burnt sugar and expensive tea.

She sat with her back to the wall, in a gray coat.

A leather folder lay in front of her with both hands folded on top of it.

I came in alone.

Ephraim was across the street in the doorway of a bookstore.

He had said he wouldn't come inside, and I had said he could stand where he liked.

I could see him.

I sat down.

Selena looked at me for a long moment.

She looked tired, and a little ill.

"Thank you for coming," she said.

"You said alone."

"I didn't know if you would."

"I didn't either." I put my hands in my lap. "Why am I here, Selena?"

"Because Saturday night you stood in the middle of my father's floor and told forty people what you'd done."

"You didn't look ashamed." She said it slowly.

"I've watched people be humiliated in that house my whole life. Nobody ever looked like you."

"I was terrified."

"It didn't show."

"It never does," I said. "It's one of my worst habits."

A corner of her mouth moved.

It wasn't a smile, but it wasn't the cold thing she'd given me at the door.

She opened the folder.

"I do the accounts for my father's foundation," she said. "It's a small job, and it's mine."

"A charge came through from Aldous Capital to a company called Evening Hours. Twelve thousand dollars."

"The category said client entertainment."

My heart thumped.

"Evening Hours is an escort agency."

"I looked it up on Sunday." She slid a printout across the table.

"I asked Lawson about it. He said it was a gift for one of the partners."

"Which partner?"

"He wouldn't say. So I looked at the booking dates."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Fated To My Billionaire Call Boy from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.