Page 5 of Playing By His Rules

Biting her lower lip, she scrutinized the one and only little black dress that she owned, which she’d purchased at a department store on a clearance rack a few years ago. Since she couldn’t afford to buy something new, she was grateful that she had at least one sexy dress in her closet amidst her more conservative work attire, and that it still fit, even if it was a bit snug in places—like the way the stretchy fabric molded to her full breasts, the swell of her hips, and over the curve of her ass. Her shoulders were left bare by the thin spaghetti straps, and she supposed the low-cut bodice that showed a good amount of cleavage, along with the thigh length hem, was appropriate for someone trying to attract a man’s attention.

Yeah, that thought only compounded her unease, because she wasn’t the type of woman who was confident in her ability to entice a man. Mostly because she’d had little experience doing so. Sure, she’d dated here and there, and had even been in a year long relationship with a guy until a few months ago, but she hadn’t lived the kind of self-indulgent life that had allowed her to really express herself as a woman, or to practice the fine art of how to tempt and tease a man.

No, even before she’d turned a teenager, she’d been too busy taking care of her family to enjoy being a carefree girl who went through the normal rites of flirting with boys, attending school dances, and stealing kisses with a cute guy she had a crush on. At the too-young age of thirteen, she’d become her mother’s caretaker as she’d battled breast cancer and lost the fight. Julianne’s death had sent Madison’s father into a destructive spiral of alcohol and gambling, leaving her as the main chaperone to her younger sister, Andrea, who’d been eight at the time.

Since Tom Corbin began spending more time at the casinos than at home, to the point that he’d even lost his job, all responsibilities had fallen on Madison, forcing her to grow up much faster than other girls her age. Her father’s occasional windfalls hadn’t been enough to pay the mortgage and bills, and after the bank foreclosed on her childhood home, her dad had moved them from one dump of an apartment to another, until at the age of eighteen Madison was able to apply for guardianship of her thirteen-year-old sister and finally give her a semblance of a normal life, even if they’d struggled for a few years financially.

Madison made sure they had food on the table and a roof over their head while attending college and working full-time in order to support them. By the time Andrea graduated high school, Madison had managed to scrape together enough money to pay for her sister to pursue her passion as a graphic designer with specific online courses that had led to her freelancing for ad agencies.

Despite them working toward a better future, that hadn’t stopped their father from begging, borrowing, and stealing from Madison to fund his two addictions . . . right up until two months ago when he’d died of a heart attack. Madison thought the mania and madness had finally ended, but her father had left her and Andrea with two last stomach-churning surprises that had turned their lives upside down all over again.

The first, finding out he’d somehow gotten into Madison’s savings account and wiped it clean of the ten grand she’d meticulously squirreled away for any emergency expenses. And the second came a few weeks after his death, when she’d discovered that their dad had opened numerous credit card accounts in her and Andrea’s names and had maxed out every single one of them to fund his gambling habit.

A familiar anger twisted through Madison. It was difficult to tamp down her outrage when she and her sister were now drowning in over thirty thousand dollars in debt, but not a goddamn dime of it was theirs. Just the burden and liability of paying off all those bills had become their responsibility.

If that shocking revelation hadn’t been enough to blind-side the two of them and send Madison reeling, the hits had kept on coming. The previous week she’d been unexpectedly let go from her job as a design consultant for a home builder because of corporate downsizing.

With the rent, car payment, school loans, and other bills coming due, and without any reserve in her bank account or a steady paycheck coming in, she needed a quick infusion of cash to replenish her savings. She was desperate enough to do something unconventional and risky to make sure her car wasn’t repossessed, and that she and Andrea didn’t get evicted from their apartment. Even if that meant getting paid five hundred dollars to spend a few hours with a stranger making small talk as a companion.

According to her friend, Tammy, who’d helped Madison through the strict process of being hired as an escort at The Penthouse where she’d worked the past few months, there was a whole lot more money to be made if Madison were willing to be a bit more daring and adventurous. But Madison had spent most of her life playing it safe and being cautious, and this situation wasn’t any different—even if the increase in money was tempting if she agreed to have sex with a client.

God, this wasn’t how she’d envisioned her life at twenty-five, but she was determined to find a way out of this mess for herself and her sister. And five hundred dollars for a few hours of her time a couple of nights a week would at least help toward that goal until she found another real job.

Pushing her nerves and anxiety down deep, Madison noted the time. She was meeting Tammy in the lobby at Reign in half an hour so that she didn’t have to walk into The Penthouse alone on her first night. With an Uber taking fifteen minutes to arrive at the hotel from her apartment, she summoned a driver on her app, then put on a pair of strappy black heels that would undoubtedly pinch her toes and give her a few blisters by the end of the evening. Picking up her small black purse, she made sure she had lipstick along with her security key card as an employee of The Penthouse, then dropped her cellphone inside before settling the long strap on her shoulder.

Out in the small living room, Andrea was sitting at a second-hand desk in the corner where she did her graphic design work on her desktop computer. Her fingers typed over the keys and moved the mouse as she worked on a project from one of the ad agencies she freelanced for, creating a new logo for a company looking to rebrand their image.

“Hey,” Madison called out to her sister, who was engrossed in her design and didn’t seem to hear her come out of the back bedroom. “I’m about to leave for the evening. Don’t wait up for me, okay?”

Andrea saved the project she was working on, then swiveled her chair to face Madison, a small frown creasing her brow as she took in her too sexy attire. “Maddie, are yousureyou want to do this?”

The worry in Andrea’s voice made Madison’s chest ache, when she’d always tried to shelter her sister from the harsh realities of their life. But there had been no hiding the fact that their father had screwed them over and buried them in a mountain of debt, or the unexpected loss of Madison’s job, or the realization that Tom Corbin, at some point, had wiped out his daughter’s savings account and left her nothing in reserve.

Instead of glossing over the fact that she was offering herself up for paid companionship, or sneaking around to do so, Madison had decided that Andrea needed to know the truth and had opted for honesty about her new occupation—that was hopefully only temporary until she secured another full-time day job. Her sister was nearly twenty-one, an adult, and it served no purpose to keep trying to protect her like she was still a child—even if the truth of Madison being an escort had shocked her sister initially.

Madison sighed and addressed Andrea’s question. “Do Iwantto do this? No,” she replied truthfully, then managed to summon a smile to ease her sister’s worry. “I suck at flirting and coming up with sparkling conversation to grab a man’s attention. Hell, I may not even make anything tonight if I don’t find a man who is interested in paying me to just be in his presence for a few hours.”

According to Tammy, most of the men who frequented the club were looking for some variety of sex—which made sense considering the exorbitant cost of their membership—and they tended to bypass the women who wore the more chaste version of the bracelet they’d been given to signal what they were willing to allow physically.

“Oh, I have no doubt you’ll get offers,” Andrea said, standing up from her chair and approaching Madison. “What worries me is whatkindof offers.”

Madison had also been honest with her sister about the different tiers of companionship The Penthouse offered, and she raised her right hand to show Andrea what was already secured to her wrist in hopes of alleviating her sister’s concerns. “Hey, I’m wearing the pink bracelet and I have no plans to switch it out.” Which meant facing the possibility of walking out of the club as flat broke as she arrived.

Reach out a hand, Madison stroked her fingers gently along Andrea’s cheek to reassure her. “I know this whole escort thing is a bit unconventional, but right now, my options are limited until I find a steady job. I’ve got my resume out to a few design firms in the area, but you and I both know it could take weeks to hear back to even get an initial interview.”

“I know. You’re right.” Andrea crossed her arms over her chest and the old, worn sweatshirt she had on—the beauty of working from home instead of an office. “I just want you to know that I’m taking on as many projects as I can right now to help with the bills.”

Madison smiled. “Which I really do appreciate, since every bit of money coming in right now will help with next month’s rent and the car payment and getting us ahead again, but you’re only one person and you can only do so much.”

As much as Madison hated that her sister was taking on that added burden and stress, she had to remind herself that it was past time that she let Andrea really grow up and do her part. Madison had taken care of her sister for years, protecting her from as much of their harsh reality as possible, and as difficult as it was to stop that sheltering behavior, she also knew that she wasn’t doing Andrea any favors by not allowing her to be a responsible adult herself. Madison was just so used to taking care of everyone and everything, to the exclusion of herself, that it was difficult to let that ingrained sense of duty go.

“Right now, I really hate dad for putting us in this shitty position,” Andrea said, the pained look in her eyes matching the one pulling at Madison’s heart.

“I understand. I feel the same way,” she replied, especially since it wasn’t the first time their father had left them in such an extreme financial predicament. It was just the first time Andrea was completely aware of their father’s betrayal.

Wrapping her arms around her sister, Madison gave her a warm hug. “I love you, Drea. Like everything else we’ve been though since mom died, I swear we’ll get through this together and persevere.”

Once Madison released her sister from her embrace, Andrea stepped back and rolled her eyes. “You’rewaytoo positive about all this.”

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