Chapter One - Chloe
Rich men think they’re paying for my time. Really, they’re paying for my feet. I sit on the edge of my tiny bathroom sink, one leg hiked up in a way that would horrify any chiropractor, carefully painting a glossy nude polish over my toes. I swirl the polish brush, watching the color level out smooth and perfect. It’s a shade I special-ordered from a tiny brand in Paris after one of my regulars complimented my “impeccable presentation” and tipped five grand just for dinner. “Two-hundred-dollar toes for a five-figure night,” I murmur, blowing lightly on my nails. “Seems like a reasonable return on investment.” My feet are my money makers, I moisturize them more than I do my body, which probably says enough about my priorities.
My phone buzzes on the counter.
Jonathan: You at the pickup spot?
I roll my eyes.
Me: Almost. Finishing touches. You know I don’t show up with rookie feet.
The typing bubble appears, disappears, then: Jonathan: Don’t joke. Text me when Vanderbilt arrives and when he drops you off. And keep your location on.
Me: Yes, Dad.
Jonathan: I’m serious, Chlo.
He always is.
I cap the polish, massage oil into my arches, then slide my feet into the ridiculous heels Jonathan picked out last week—strappy gold stilettos that make my legs look ten miles long. My ankles feel like they’re carrying bowling balls. The rest of me gets the usual treatment: smoky eyes, liner just thick enough to look expensive, lips in a shade that says I’m listening, not I’m available. My hair—dark, wild, always doing its own thing—I tame into soft waves that spill over my shoulders.
I study the woman in the mirror. Twenty-two. High cheekbones courtesy of my mom, big brown eyes courtesy of my unknown father, and a body I learned to use like currency the day life got too expensive.
“Okay, Chloe,” I tell my reflection. “Time to go be arm candy.” I grab my small clutch—lip gloss, compact, emergency cash, and a key to an apartment that’s more “strategic choice” than “total poverty”—and step into the dim hallway. The building isn’t lovely, exactly, but it’s not a total dump either. The brick out front is old and a little tired, the stairwell smells faintly of someone’s questionable cooking, and the metal door rattles when the wind hits it just right. I could afford better by now. I just choose to funnel most of my money into my mother’s medical bills and a secret savings account labeled Out Of This Life instead of granite countertops.
The city is cold tonight, the kind of sharp, clear cold that makes the stars look closer. I pull my coat tight as I hurry down the block to the pickup spot Jonathan insists all his girls use—a well‑lit corner by an upscale hotel, with security cameras and lots of foot traffic.
Safety, but make it fancy.
A black town car is already waiting at the curb. The driver, a man with silver hair and a permanent polite smile, steps out and opens the rear door when he sees me.
“Good evening, Ms. Chloe,” he says.
“Evening, Luis.” I smile back. Mr. Vanderbilt has used the same driver since I started seeing him. In my world, familiarity is rare. It makes me a little too warm inside.
I slide into the back seat, smoothing my dress over my thighs. It’s deep green silk, slit high enough to show off my legs but not so high that I can’t pretend I’m just someone’s date and not an escort.
“Chloe,” a rich, steady voice says. “You look stunning as always.”
I turn, offering him my practiced, flirt‑lite smile. “Mr. Vanderbilt. You clean up pretty well yourself.”
He laughs, low and genuine. At fifty, Harold Vanderbilt is in better shape than most guys my age. His suit probably costs more than my college tuition would have, if I’d ever made it that far. His hair—more steel than gray—is neatly cut, his jawline still sharp.
He is also, thankfully, one of the least creepy men I’ve ever been paid to spend time with.
“Tell me, Chloe,” he says as the car pulls away from the curb. “How is your mother?”
There it is. The question that slices straight through the silk and the makeup and the role I play.
“She’s… the same.” I force my voice to stay light. “Still asleep. Still ignoring my excellent taste in bedside flowers.”
His eyes soften. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not easy.”
It isn’t. It hasn’t been easy since the night my mom drove home from the late shift at the diner and didn’t see the truck running the red light. Since the phone call at three a.m. Since the sterile smell of the hospital and the word ‘coma’ were delivered too calmly, like it wasn’t a bomb detonating my entire life
But I shrug. “The bills aren’t any easier either, so here I am.”
He nods, understanding more than most. “And how’s Jonathan?”
I snort. “Annoying. Overprotective. Bossy. So, you know. Normal.”
“Good,” he says with a smile. “Someone has to look out for you.”
Jonathan Colton is not my biological brother. But if DNA were the only thing that made family, I’d be an orphan twice over.
He was twenty‑six and already running girls for rich men when he found me. I was nineteen, hunched over a calculator in the hospital cafeteria, trying to make numbers do something impossible.
Mom’s bills. My part‑time coffee shop paycheck. Rent for our small apartment.
It didn’t add up. It never did.
I knew what he did. Everyone in our neighborhood knew Jonathan’s “business.” You didn’t talk about it, but you didn’t have to. I also knew he’d slipped envelopes of cash under our door more than once when Mom’s hours got cut at the diner.
So when I marched into his office—if you can call a converted storage room above a bar an office—and told him I wanted in, he’d stared at me like I’d grown a second head.
“Absolutely not,” he’d said, voice flat. “You’re a kid, Chloe.”
“I’m nineteen.”
“And you look sixteen.”
“I need the money.”
He’d run his hands through his blond hair, paced, and cursed under his breath. Jonathan pimps girls, yes, but he protects them, too. Rules, drivers, security, check‑ins. No drugs, no minors, no rough clients.
And most importantly: nobody touched his Chloe.
It took a month of begging and bargaining, of showing up after my coffee shifts with spreadsheets of costs and insurance statements, before he cracked.
“Fine,” he’d said at last, slamming his hand on the desk. “But we do this my way.”
He’d laid out the rules one by one, jaw clenched like he was signing a deal with the devil.
Rule one: No sex. No “we’ll just see what happens,” no “just this once if the money’s good.” None. Kissing, flirting, letting them hold your hand, sure. But once clothes start to come off, you walk away.
Rule two: You quit the second you’ve got enough saved to pay your mom’s medical debts, buy yourself a decent place that isn’t held together with duct tape, and cover college if you still want it.
Rule three: If at any point you want out, you’re out. No questions. No guilt.
He’d looked me dead in the eyes. “I’d rather work four extra jobs myself than watch some old bastard lay a hand on you. You hear me?”
I’d heard him. I’d followed those rules. I still do.
Three years later, I’m still a virgin, and my feet are famous among a tiny, very strange group of wealthy men who prefer their intimacy impersonal and their obsession directed at something that doesn’t talk back.
In the back of the car, Mr. Vanderbilt reaches for the bottle of red wine chilling in a silver holder.
“May I pour you a glass?” he asks.
“Just a splash,” I say. I rarely drink on the job. It dulls the edges that I need to be sharp.
He pours and hands me the glass. I swirl it like I’ve seen people do in movies, pretending I can tell the difference between a fifty‑dollar bottle and a five‑hundred‑dollar one.
“So,” he says, settling back. “Have you thought any more about what we discussed? The position with my friend’s children?”
I take a tiny sip to buy time. The wine is smooth, rich, tastes like expensive grapes, and crushed expectations.
“I don’t know if I’m cut out for that,” I say, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. “Babysitting a billionaire’s kids? Plural? Sounds like a lot.”
“You told me you used to help with the kids at your church,” he says. “You volunteered at the community center.”
“That’s different,” I protest. “Those were normal kids. Sticky hands, runny noses, mild chaos. Not—” I wave a hand, searching for the right word. “Not billionaire spawn.”
He chuckles. “They’re just children, Chloe. They don’t know what’s in their father’s bank account.”
Easy for him to say. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be the hired help in someone else’s house, one mistake away from being called trash and told to get out.
I watched my mom get fired from a fancy restaurant once because she spilled water on a customer’s designer shoes. The manager yelled at her in front of everyone. She came home with red eyes and a forced smile, saying, “It’s okay, baby. We’ll figure it out.”
We never did. Not really.
Now I’m supposed to walk into another rich man’s world and trust he won’t destroy me with a single bad mood?
“I appreciate the offer,” I say carefully. “I really do. But I’m fine.”
His mouth presses into a line. “Fine is not the same as safe, Chloe.”
I shrug, aiming for light. “Safe is overrated.”
He sighs, but lets it go for now.
Outside the window, city lights thin into darkness, and the occasional gas station glows. We’re headed to some exclusive hunting lodge in Montana, because of course, rich people fly to other states to drink, shoot at things, and reassure themselves they’re still rugged despite never pumping their own gas.
“Remind me why this event can’t be a Zoom call?” I ask.
“Because drunk men with guns don’t mix well with Wi‑Fi?” he offers dryly.
I laugh. “Touché.”
The lodge is a cathedral of wood and money. Antlers on the walls, fireplaces big enough to roast an entire cow, waiters gliding by with trays of champagne and tiny appetizers that look like art and taste like nothing.
I walk a step behind Mr. Vanderbilt as we enter, my hand resting lightly on his forearm. The heat from the fireplace kisses my bare shoulders, mixing with the cooler draft from the open double doors.
Eyes turn toward us. They always do.
The men look at me first. The women look at him, then at me, then at their husbands. Judging, calculating, dismissing. I can’t tell if they know exactly who I am or just file me under “inappropriate guest."
Either way, the looks feel the same.
I straighten my spine, tilt my chin, and pretend I don’t care. If I start caring what these people think, I’ll crumble.
We make the rounds. Mr. Vanderbilt stops to greet another man in a suit and introduces me as “a friend.” I smile, shake hands, murmur polite nothings. Names slide past me; only a few stick. Most of these men care more about elk antlers and profit margins than about the girl on Mr. Vanderbilt’s arm.
Which is fine. I prefer it that way.
“Lovely shoes,” one guy comments, his gaze lingering a second too long on my feet.
“Thank you,” I say, angling my foot so the light catches the gold straps. The movement flexes my calf, drawing his attention up, then back down.
He clears his throat and looks away, cheeks flushing.
I bite back a smile.
Footmen are easy to spot. Their eyes slide down, quick and guilty, as if they’re looking at something taboo instead of literally the thing that keeps me upright. It would be funny if it weren’t so profitable.
Mr. Vanderbilt leads me to a table near the massive stone fireplace. Most of the wives cluster at another table, their diamonds throwing sparks into the air whenever the firelight hits them.
One woman, all sharp cheekbones and sharper eyes, looks me up and down like I’m a stain on the rug.
I meet her gaze and give her a small, polite smile. Her mouth tightens. She looks away.
“What did you do to her?” I murmur to Mr. Vanderbilt as we sit.
He lifts a brow. “Who?”
“The woman in the red dress who’s trying to kill me with her eyeballs.”
He follows my gaze, then chuckles. “Ah. Mrs. Calloway. I suspect she disapproves of my choice in company.”
“You mean she disapproves of your escort,” I say lightly. “It’s okay. I disapprove of her dress.”
He nearly chokes on his drink, covering it with a cough. “You’re terrible.”
“I’m honest.”
A waiter appears with a tray of wine. Mr. Vanderbilt accepts a glass for each of us. I cradle mine, letting the warmth from the room and the stem seep into my fingers.
Hours blur—speeches, backslapping, laughter that’s too loud. Men wander in and out of the enormous doors to the back deck, where the “real” hunting talk happens. I nod when I’m supposed to, laugh when Mr. Vanderbilt makes a joke, and pretend to sip my drink while keeping a steady eye on exits, faces, and hands.
Being an escort is more like being your own bodyguard than people realize. Only I’m guarding myself.
At one point, Mr. Vanderbilt leans toward me, voice pitched low. “You okay?”
I blink, dragged out of my head. “Yeah,” I lie automatically. “I’m great.”
He taps two fingers lightly against my knee, a quick, almost fatherly gesture. “You drifted off.”
“Just thinking.” I force a smile. “About how many deer have died so men can feel powerful?”
He huffs a quiet laugh. “Too many.”
We sit like that for a while: him sipping his wine, me pretending I can’t feel the weight of a dozen female stares on my bare shoulders.
Eventually, the night winds down. Men stagger out, laughing, clapping each other on the back. Someone starts singing off‑key. I resist the urge to check the time every two seconds.
