No Strings Attached (The Escort #1) Read online

  No Strings Attached

  The Escort, Book One

  Kristen Strassel

  All rights reserved.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please do so through your retailer’s “lend” function. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at [email protected]

  No Strings Attached, (The Escort, #1) Copyright 2015

  Cover Model: Grigoris Drakakis, Design by Sotia Lazu

  Edited by Julie Hutchings

  No Strings Attached

  Leah Godfrey has almost everything she could ask for—

  She’s got an interior design business with an A-list clientele, a weekly spot on a national morning TV show, and a great daughter—but she doesn’t have a date for her twentieth high school reunion. It wouldn’t be a big deal, but her ex-husband was her high school sweetheart, and now he’s married to the slut Leah caught him with in bed. She won’t let the biggest failure of her life overshadow her success.

  When her best friend suggests she hire a date, Leah thinks the idea is scandalous. But for one weekend, she wants to forget her mistakes and pretend she has everything her ex took away from her.

  Jagger Holiday makes women’s fantasies come true—

  But working as a male escort leaves him feeling empty. He turns to photography to fill the void. When Jagger gets a call from a lonely single mom who needs the same thing he does, he wants more. He wants her.

  Leah and Jagger have no problem convincing everyone at the reunion they’re together. She should’ve known better than to think there’d be no strings attached.

  After all, he’s a professional.

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  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Thank you!

  Excerpt of Secondhand Heart

  Excerpt of Work for It

  Other Books by Kristen Strassel

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Leah

  “I’m Not Going.”

  “Like hell you’re not going,” Kari said before dropping her head on the table. Oh, the dramatics. My best friend was one of the fiercest prosecutors in the country, but there was one thing that could reduce her to acting like a teenager. “You’re not making me go to this reunion alone, Leah.”

  I lifted my chin, it was hard not to laugh at her with her usually perfect chestnut hair splayed on the table. Tonight was our Wine and Netflix Night, so instead of the stick-straight clip-in extensions she usually wore, her hair was falling out of a messy ponytail. I wasn’t giving in to her outburst. Not that easily. “I don’t have a date.”

  Just the thought of high school had a way of making us all regress. Going to this thing would be worse than that recurring nightmare everyone has about showing up at school with no clothes on.

  We were all going to this reunion naked. There was no hiding what we’d become.

  “You can be my date.” She picked her head up, wiping her hair out of her face and refilling her wine glass with a sigh. “Listen, I don’t want to go either. But as president of the class of 1995, I’ve spent way too much time planning this to pull a no-show.”

  “You can totally no-show. The only reason you got elected is because the rest of the class was too lazy for student government.” I could count how many people voted in the election without taking off my socks. “And Rich already accused us of being in a torrid lesbian affair when I moved down here. I’m sure he’s told everybody. If we show up together...”

  “Good!” Kari laughed. “If I thought it would’ve gotten you away from that asshole sooner, I would’ve put the moves on you years ago.” Kari was a definite upgrade from my ex-husband. The only good things he gave me in fourteen years of marriage were our daughter and a reason to leave. Our shotgun wedding ensured I would’ve had Raven anyway.

  Speaking of Raven, she rolled her eyes when she walked through the kitchen. She had a knack of walking in on the wrong bits of conversation. The divorce uprooted my baby in the middle of her sophomore year, and she was never going to forgive me or Rich. “When are you going back to Scituate?” Raven asked.

  “Next month,” Kari answered before I had a chance to say when hell freezes over. “For our twenty-year high school reunion.”

  “Really?” Raven raised her eyebrows as she did the math. The subtle movement was enough to make me feel ancient. “Can I come? I’ll see if I can stay with Kenzie.” Neutral ground. Smart girl.

  “Absolutely.” Kari stood up, putting her arm around Raven and ushering her out of the room. “Text her now and let her know you’re coming.”

  Raven headed back to her bedroom to tell her best friend she’d see her soon, and I glared at mine. “You bitch!” I laughed. “You used my daughter to get your way.”

  Kari sat back down, looking satisfied. “Damn straight I did. You can always tell her no.”

  “Right. Which will somehow turn into Rich saying I won’t let him see her.” I finished my wine and resisted the urge for more. Too much red would bring a mariachi band marching through my brain in the morning. I had a long day of filming ahead of me tomorrow and I didn’t want to do it with a hangover. “I know it sounds pathetic, but if I show up to this thing without a date, I feel like he wins.”

  The day I found Rich with his head between Shelley’s legs felt like the end of the world. I’d been helping my sister all day, exhausted, and all I wanted was to crawl into bed and make all the bad things go away. That didn’t happen because they were in it. Fucking. On my favorite sheets, no less. Trust me, I burned those things in the backyard first chance I had. Rich and Shelley are lucky they’re both still alive because it took everything I had not to wring their necks. But that turned out to be my Independence Day. Rich didn’t think he could love me anymore? Best of luck to you, buddy. You’re going to need it. It was time for me to start loving me.

  Live for me. I looked down at the tattoo on the inside of my wrist, the last words my little sister Lisa had said to me. I’d been taking care of her when Rich started bringing that slut into my bed. I always thought we were too young for things like breast cancer, but I’d been wrong. She fought with everything she had but didn’t live to see my divorce finalized. Those words had become my rally cry.

  “You have a phenomenal career and you look amazing. You have no reason not to walk into that reunion with your head held high.” Kari still frowned. “But I understand why you feel that way.”

  Kari was the only person who kept hours as crazy as mine. She was a federal prosecutor, and I was an interior designer. When Raven was little, I worked as a sales associate at Design Spot. Two years ago, once the divorce was final and I was free from my past, I moved from Massachusetts to Georgetown and finally joined a design firm. That had been my plan after I finished college, but instead I had a baby. Raven grew up, but I stayed at Design Spot. In DC, I found a funky boutique agency that encouraged me to push beyond my comfort zone because that’s where the magic happened. Soon I was able to take my own clients and do the kind of work I only dreamed of doing when I was stuck at Design Spot. No more shades of beige for me. Now my work was in magazines. My clients included rock stars, actors, and artists, and I had a weekly spot on a national morning show. I’d achieved more than I dreamed was possible.

  But Kari constantly had a man around. And I did not. “How do you meet all these guys?”

  “I hire them,” she said with a completely straight face. I expected a punch line, but it didn’t come.

  “What did you just say?” Because I couldn’t have heard her right. No more wine for me tonight.

  “I hire them,” she repeated, and this time I spit red wine all over the table. “They all come from an agency.”

  I squinted in confusion. “You’re dating models?” There was another alternative, but I refused to let myself believe it. Kari had government security clearance. There was no way she was hiring…

  “They’re escorts.” Still no punch line. “I call the agency and hire them when I want a date.”

  “All of them?” I’d met some of these guys. I’d had no idea. “I can’t believe you’d keep this from me! An
d now you tell me like it’s no big deal?”

  “Because I felt the same way you did at first. Dirty. Like I was doing something wrong.” She leaned forward, her face lighting up. “When I moved to DC, I gave it a try. I don’t have time for all that relationship bullshit. Most guys piss their pants when I tell them what I do for a living. They turn it into a competition, which is a shame because the only person they’re competing against is themselves. I don’t care what they do as long as they can take care of themselves and they’re happy. And they have something to talk about. Out of desperation, I tried this. I only wish I did it sooner. There’s no pressure. These guys know why they’re there. To provide a service. If I want them to come to a work function with me, they do. If I want to take them to the Pancake House, they’ll order a short stack and a side of bacon. And if I want them to fuck me until the world stops spinning, they’re more than happy to oblige.

  “They aren’t prostitutes. They’ve been screened and chosen for this, and they aren’t cheap. They’re smart, interesting, open-minded, they’ve got bodies built for sin, and Jesus Christ can they fuck.” Kari exhaled and smiled. It was the softest I’d seen her look in a long time. “There are certain things a woman should not be ashamed to pay for: comfortable shoes, a therapist, and a lover.”

  “Maria Karina Gomez, I thought I’d heard it all and here you go and shock me.” My mouth was still hanging open as she grinned.

  “You haven’t heard it all yet, girl. Not by a long shot. I’ve been watching you struggle with those Right Match guys and I’ve been itching to tell you about this. It made it so much easier that you asked me.” She leaned back in her chair.

  “You bring them to your work stuff? Did I hear that right?” I still wasn’t convinced this wasn’t the wine talking and she’d be horrified with me tomorrow when I brought it up again.

  “Your tax dollars hard at work.” Kari laughed. “I have to spice up those parties somehow, or else I’d die of boredom. You remember Jason, right?” She’d brought him to the barbecue party I threw for Raven’s birthday. “He’s also a golf pro. He gave the vice president some tips on his game. I need to watch out. I smell a bromance brewing. I think they played a round together recently.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “Have you ever…” the thought felt childish, “had feelings for any of them?” Here Kari was on the leading edge of the feminist movement and I wanted to bog her down with convention.

  Her eyes hazed over, and I knew the answer before she said a word. “I have my favorites.” She quickly snapped out of it. “Stop thinking of this in terms of a relationship, Lee. It’s a business transaction. Trust me, it’s a relief. Especially after you’ve been slogging through everyone else’s leftovers on those damn dating sites. I was there, too. It didn’t work.”

  “That’s for sure. Right Match is like the used car lot from hell.” My metaphor wasn’t lost on Kari. Rich managed his dad’s car dealership. I was trying to keep an open mind with my online dating prospects, but these guys weren’t making it easy for me. “But this escort thing. It’s just fucking scandalous.”

  “Isn’t it?” Kari topped off her wine glass and refilled mine, too. Mariachi band, here we come. I knew I should’ve bought white. “It’s also efficient and practical.”

  She was right. But it was still fucking scandalous. “How does it work?”

  “I’ll show you.” I followed Kari into my office. Once I booted up the computer, she typed in the address for a plain looking website that could’ve belonged to any corporation in America. She entered a username and password and the page changed to pictures of men. “Here you go. Click on a picture and check out their profiles.”

  My cheeks burned. “This is how I shop for shoes!” I exclaimed. It wasn’t that much different than Right Match, it was just a sure bet. Kari got out of the chair and motioned for me to sit down. I didn’t right away; instead I leaned over the chair, looking at what seemed like an endless supply of mostly shirtless, but all gorgeous photos of the men I could choose from.

  A business transaction. No strings attached. I looked back over to her. “I’m scared.”

  “I know you are. That’s why I’m going to treat you to the first appointment so you can get to know the guy. You need a referral to get in, anyway. Now you just have to pick him.”

  Chapter Two

  Leah

  I Expected Something Much Raunchier, but instead this looked like a modeling site. I scrolled through the page. “There’s so many of them. These guys are all in DC?” There was a whole world out there I had no idea about.

  “A good number of them. Some of them are in New York and a few in Miami.”

  “And they’re not gay?”

  “They’re definitely all into women.” Kari spent enough time around politicians to know how to spin anything.

  “How many of these guys have you been out with?” I finally sat down, easing into my desk chair like it might bite me in the ass. I scrolled through the page. I had yet to click on any profiles. It was stupid to be so intimidated. I was just looking.

  “Quite a few of them.” Kari leaned over my shoulder. “Click on Jason’s profile. See if he’s available.”

  “Oh no. We aren’t sharing escorts. That’s where I draw the line.” I still clicked on his photo. Jason was a safe place to start. He mentioned the golf thing, and that he’d been a marine who’d served in Iraq. He talked about making people feel safe and comfortable, and being able to make conversation with anyone. Including the vice president, apparently.

  She laughed. “Okay, then you’ll want to avoid the whole top row and Simon. But he’s got a wicked English accent and a dirty mouth. You might want to reconsider.”

  I clicked on Simon’s picture. What the hell. He was a medical student, spoke three languages, and his full lips already had me fantasizing about his warm breath tickling my ear, promising to do absolutely filthy things to my body. It was almost enough to convince me to give Kari’s sloppy seconds a try. “He can’t be the only wild one. What about…” My hand froze as I scrolled down and saw a picture of the guy who made my heart pound more than the promise of Simon’s dirty talk. “This one?”

  His dark hair brushed his shoulders and his arm was raised above his head in the photo next to his profile. His name was Jagger (yeah, right), he was thirty-two, and a photographer. He’d traveled through Europe and Asia, said he had a passion for creating and loved beauty in all forms.

  Hopefully, he appreciated it in a thirty-eight-year-old, single mother, voluptuous package.

  Kari’s face paled. “I wouldn’t bring him to meet the vice president.”

  “How about your ex-husband at the high school reunion that your best friend is dragging you to?” I raised my eyebrows, barely able to keep my enthusiasm under wraps. Jagger was the polar opposite of Rich, who had thinning hair, a pot belly, and coached little league.

  Jagger was absolutely perfect.

  I’d always had a thing for guys who looked like that but never had a chance to do anything about it, mainly because I married my high school sweetheart. Not that it stopped Rich from finding his type, of course. Jagger looked like some of the musicians I worked with. Even if they were flirty, I’d brushed it off. I had a strict Don’t Shit Where You Eat policy. Sometimes I thought my policy was incredibly stupid.

  “No one’s going to believe that he’s your date.” Kari shook her head. She angled the computer toward her and clicked out of his profile, probably headed back to Jason. “He’s gorgeous, but once you get him to Scituate, you’ll realize you made a huge mistake.”

  “Why?” She was pissing me off. “I work with people like him all the time. He’s an artist, I’m an artist. I’ve changed since I left. Everything. You know that. I’m finally getting a chance to be me. If that doesn’t fit in the little box everyone put me in with Rich, they have Shelley for that now.”

  “You’re a mom. And he looks like some sort of sex god.”

  “Even better!” I laughed. God, I hoped he was. “Listen, your taste in borrowed men isn’t cheap. If I’m spending this kind of money, which eventually I’ll be footing the bill, I’m buying the fantasy. Yeah, I’m fucking it up by bringing him to my high school reunion, but I’m sure he’s been to worse. I need to make this night not suck. So what if people talk about me? Let them talk.”