Page 73 of Mine

“Ruby here is popular, and the men love her,” Beau said, always lifting me up, but this was the last person I wanted to appeal to.

“I’m one of your biggest fans,” he said, putting a hand on the back of my chair. “I make sure to be on for all of your lives.”

“Thank you,” I said, hoping like hell this was a coincidence.

“Beau! Oh my god!” Someone yelled, capturing Beau’s attention, leaving me with the last person I wanted to be with. Four years later and I still felt like that naive woman.

“Are you taking clients today, could we get a room?” He hadn’t changed much, and that air of confidence was still present, like the world owed him something. Like I owed him something.

“Nope, this is actually just work for Beau and I,” I said, willing my voice to stay even.

“Just tell me how much and I’ll pay whatever you want,” he said, sliding closer to me.

“Sorry, not tonight,” I said, watching Beau talking to a few women. “Work meeting.”

“Doesn’t look like it since he is chatting away instead of here with you,” he said, glancing back at Beau.

“Well, you did interrupt us first and he’s probably being nice and giving us space,” I said, hoping Beau would turn around.

“Oh, well I didn’t know.” His tone had taken on an edge.

“I’m sorry, we are working on collabing together again and we are running through ideas getting inspiration from here,” I said, grabbing my drink and staring at Beau.

“Collabing again?” he growled. “Is that a wise choice?”

He was still aggressive it seemed. A part of me wanted to become the girl he knew, but he couldn’t hurt me anymore.

“I think it is. We had many fans say they loved it and begged for more,” I said, gaining some confidence.

“Well, I know a lot of people who wouldn't appreciate it,” he snarled.

“Well, I’m sorry you feel that way, but if you don’t like it, maybe you shouldn’t watch it,” I said, smiling as sweetly as possible.

He turned red from, what I assumed, not getting what he wanted.

“I would think you’d want to make sure all of your fans are happy,” he clipped.

“If I did that, then I would have stopped doing this business a long time ago,” I said, enjoying his reaction. “I don’t think if I ever did what everyone wanted that would please everyone. Anything I do is going to receive criticism and I've accepted that not everyone is going to like me, and that's ok.”

“But… but your fans,” he sputtered.

“There are thousands of cam girls and I’m sure that my fans can find exactly what they are looking for if I can't give it to them,” I said, getting up. “It was lovely to see you, I hope you have a great rest of your day.”

I smiled, grabbed my drink, and walked away from him with so much swagger. Beau immediately left whoever he was talking to and came up to me.

“Are you ok?” He looked over my shoulder quickly before looking back at me.

“I’m fine, just an asshole fan,” I said, feeling exhausted.

“He looks like a fucking douche,” he said, his voice full of venom, but he still looked extremely sweet.

“I’m gonna head out, I’m beat,” I said, feeling eyes on me and I hated it.

The gaze left me uneasy, and I hated that I felt dirty.

“Me too,” he said, walking me to the area they had put our things.

“Oh, hello!” Genevieve greeted us. “I was hoping to catch you before you left because I wanted to run a few things by you.”

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