Boyfriend for Hire: A Stand-Alone Contemporary Romance (Escort Files Book 1) by Nina Strych Page A

without Amy. How much gall does a person have to have before they can walk up to a stranger and say something like that? It wasn’t like he wore a sign that said what his profession was. And if it was that easy to tell what he did, then he’d been doing it too long.
    Back in his room, he gazed out at the sea as the sun set over the calm water. It was glorious, but all he could think of was that woman and how cheap she’d made him feel. Running the numbers in his head, he realized he was at least a year and a half away from freedom. Eighteen months before he could get far enough ahead that he could stop this and go for a regular job in his field. And even then, he likely wouldn’t have enough to get new source stock, new seedlings to take the place of all those burned trees.
    And he wanted to re-engineer the orchards too. Drought and a more careful use of limited water had to be accounted for. Gone were the days of spraying precious—and diminishing—groundwater into the air like rain. He wanted to make his family’s place sustainable, yet productive.
    He was nowhere near that in terms of earnings. His parents had been good people. They had been the kind of people who would be appalled at what he was doing, but they had also wanted those orchards to carry on and be there for him to make his life on. He couldn’t do the latter without the former.
    But how much more could he take? Being with Amy had been such an eye-opener. He hadn’t been able to look at a woman the same way he had before he took this job. She was different, and even if that unpleasant encounter in the restaurant hadn’t happened, he might be thinking like this. He wanted something real and even after just two days and one brief round of drinks and chat before that, deep inside he knew he wanted that with someone like Amy.
    Exactly like Amy. With Amy?
    Sinking down onto the bed as the sun said goodbye for the day, he sighed. She had hired him too. No matter what he wanted, she wouldn’t want him. It was hopeless. This wasn’t a movie and there was no happily ever after in real life. Not for guys like him. She would no more want a relationship with someone as well-used as him than she would with a giraffe.
    Actually, she’d probably think better of the giraffe.
    Without even undressing, he pulled the clean white sheet over him, letting the air trapped inside sooth him as it fluttered down. That clean laundry smell, of sunshine and heat, brought her vividly to life inside him. Earlier on the trail, when he’d held her close, things had been perfect. Even if he was only assisting her down from the trail, it had been perfect. The way her cheek brushed against his, the sound of her laughter as it vibrated from her chest to his back and connected them, that curl of hair bouncing against his shoulder as he carried her down the trail.
    Even if she rejected him outright, Mike knew he would try to win her. Not as an employee with a very particular set of duties, but as a man who was rapidly falling in deep like with a woman.
     

Fourteen
    Room service was probably a bad idea, Amy thought as she surveyed the disaster that was her suite. Two half-eaten dinners, a bowl of ice cream that had not a drop left in it, and cold pots of tea and coffee lay scattered about like she’d had a party.
    There were even chip crumbs in her bed.
    Marion had been no help at all. Her advice was consistent, if rather single-minded. Fuck him! As in, go right now and jump him and fuck the holy bejesus out of him.
    Can’t say that girl didn’t have a healthy appetite for something other than food.
    The coffee was also a bad idea, because she was wide awake and it was already past nine in the evening. Throwing a jacket on over her pajamas, she decided a walk on the beach might be what she needed to finally unwind and hit the sack.
    Her feet had bruises along the sides, up near her little toes. They were sore when she walked, but not so bad that she couldn’t do it at all. A