Head On (Strength And Love)(11)

I don’t think she needs make-up. She’s gorgeous as she is but Ann pipes up.

“Oooh, a virgin!” Isla flushes and I bite my lip to stop from smiling. “I’d love to help you pop your make-up cherry. I love playing about with it all still, and you’re pretty, you’ll be fun to do some different looks for. How long are you staying?”

“We’re not sure.” I intercede, not wanting Isla to say too much. “I need to check some things out, and we’ll know more then.”

Ann nods and doesn’t ask any further questions.

I sit down across from Isla and watch her sip at her coffee. I’m a good judge of character, but this girl has me stumped. She’s gentle, shy almost, but then she has a real bite to her when she wants to. I sense underneath her soft exterior there’s a woman made of real steel. She survived the death of her mother, and a nasty accident. And she’s sipping coffee in a stranger’s house, not long after said stranger attacked her…or at least so she thought. And she’s not going to pieces. I’m impressed.

“You looked for any jobs recently?” Ann’s words drag my focus off Isla and I turn to scowl at my sister.

“Nope.”

“You need to.”

“Why?” I shoot back.

Ann holds her hands up and starts counting off on her fingers. “One, it’s dangerous, you could get beaten up by a jealous husband. Or catch a disease. Two, it’s not a long-term plan, and the longer you have a gap on your CV that you can’t fill, the harder it will be to get a real job. Three, it stops you having a relationship because who wants to be in one with a…sex worker. Four, at some point Katie is going to start asking what Uncle Ethan does for a living, and I don’t want to have to lie to her. Or for you to have to lie to her.”

I sigh. I’d been about to rebut all her points, but the last one is a killer. I don’t want to have to lie to Katie, either.

She turns to Isla and narrows her eyes. “Sorry for being blunt, but you don’t look like someone who’d hire…my brother.”

“Whoa.” I hold my hands up. “Enough of the judgemental shit. There’s no such thing as a typical client.”

“Yes, there is,” she shoots back. “Don’t forget I know a few of them, the mortification. They are generally aged forty to fifty-something. Well off, attractive, well groomed, and ignored by their husbands. You don’t look old enough to be married.” She turns her attention back to Isla.

“I’m not, there’s been a mix up.” She nibbles her lip, and I get hard watching her. Fuck my life, this woman is going to give me a nervous breakdown.

I wait for her to carry on, wondering if she’s about to let my sister know exactly what some of my jobs entail, but she goes on. “I didn’t book your brother, and we want to find out who did, as it seems they might be setting him or me up.”

“Wow. That’s fucked up.” Ann turns her worried face to me. “This is the sort of thing I’ve always dreaded happening. But maybe it’s not as bad as it seems. Maybe some friends thought it would be a nice surprise and did it for you?” Ann asks Isla, and I need to change the fucking subject.

“Do you want me to take Katie to school tomorrow? You can have a bit of a lie in and make Isla breakfast.”

Ann beams. “That’d be great, bro.”

I smile, until I realise I’ve given them an hour without me in the morning to put their heads together. Fuck my life.





Chapter Six



Isla



I get up the next day and Ethan is gone, taking Katie, who I still haven’t met, to school. I’m sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee with Ann, enjoying a companionable silence.

“So…You and my brother. A mistaken booking, he says.” Ann looks at me and her words jar me right out of the comfort zone I’ve got going on. “I’m thinking there’s got to be more to the story. I know what he does.”

I frown. Of course, she does, he told me as much and they talked about it together in front of me. “I understand that.”

“No.” She frowns. “I’m aware of exactly what he does for some clients. His…niche you could say. So, I’m a little bit worried. He says he went to you by accident.”

I’m at a loss what to do. He told me not to discuss his specific skills with his sister, and he still scares me a little, or a lot, and I don’t want to get on the wrong side of him.

“Did my brother hurt you?” She is serious and her eyes are scared.

He didn’t hurt me, but he did scare me half to death. I try to allay her worries. “He didn’t hurt me, and he realised quickly something had gone wrong. He erm…he thinks you don’t know. About the special niche, as you say.”

“I know. And I don’t discuss it with him. Bit embarrassing to be honest. But a friend of mine, her best friend hired him, and one night when we were all out and drunk they were talking about it, and passing around his picture. They don’t know he’s my brother. It’s one of the main reasons I want him to get out. Not because I disapprove in some sort of moral way, although I suppose I do, but because I don’t want him to get into trouble. Get stitched up. So, what happened with you?”

I don’t want to talk about it. When I think about it, it still scares me. The moment I awoke to see a huge shadow looming out of the dark of my room. Ugh. I shudder. I go for factual and unemotional in an attempt to distance myself from it. And from the frankly disturbing little thrills I get along with the fear whenever I think about it.