Page 29 of Escorting the Bodyguard
That stops her cold. Rae stares at me for a long moment, then slowly sets down her purse. “Why?”
So I tell her. Everything. Ford, the safehouse, how close we got, the pregnancy, his complete shutdown and disappearance. By the time I’m finished, Rae looks like she wants to hunt Ford down and make him pay in very creative ways.
“That absolute piece of shit,” she snarls, pacing around my coffee table. “Who abandons a woman when she tells him she’s pregnant? Especially a goddess like you!” She stops and throws her hands up. “This is exactly why I refuse to date younger guys—they run the second things get real. What kind of coward?—”
“Rae.” My voice is quiet but firm. “He’s gone. Screaming about it won’t bring him back.”
She stops pacing and really looks at me. “Do you want him back?”
The question hangs in the air. “I don’t know.” But even as I say it, I know it’s more complicated than that. “Maybe I did. But not like this. Not after he walked away when I needed him most. He made his choice.”
“Fuck his choice. And fuck him for making you think you weren’t worth staying for.” She sits down beside me, some of her anger giving way to concern. “So what’s the plan? Baby, money, life, how are we handling this shitstorm?”
I shrug, my mind a mess of questions with no answers. “Figure it out. I always do.”
Rae is quiet for a moment, absorbing everything I’ve just told her. Then her attention shifts to the lingerie scattered around my apartment. She gets up slowly, moving toward the emerald green bra I finished this morning.
“Holy shit, Gem. Did you make this?”
“Yeah.” I watch her turn the piece over in her hands, studying the delicate detailing.
“This is stunning,” Rae says, her voice filled with genuine awe. “I’ve spent a fortune on lingerie over the years, and this feels better than anything in my drawer. The silk, the way it’s puttogether... This is La Perla-level stuff. Hell, this is better than La Perla.”
“It’s just a hobby?—”
“This is not a hobby.” Her voice is sharp with excitement. “This is fucking art.” She moves to examine a matching pair of panties draped over my sewing machine, then a black lace teddy hanging over the back of my chair. “Wait. You made all of this? In the past few days?”
“I needed to keep my hands busy.”
“So you’ve been making runway-quality lingerie while your world imploded?” She’s moving around my apartment now like she’s in a gallery, examining my work with growing amazement. “Gem, your breakdown sewing has produced some seriously professional-level work.”
Before I can protest, she’s pulling out her phone.
“Would you make some pieces for me?”
I blink at her. “I mean... maybe? I haven’t really?—”
“Are you taking orders?” she barrels on. “Because I need this quality in my life.”
“Rae, you’re just being?—”
“I’m being smart.” She cuts me off with a wave of her hand, still holding her phone like a weapon. “This is incredible work.”
She snaps a photo of the green set. “I’m texting this to Aria. You remember her from Elite? She’s always complaining about how hard it is to find good lingerie that actually fits.”
Rae’s phone buzzes thirty seconds later. She grins and shows me the screen—a reply from Aria:WHO MADE THIS AND HOW DO I GET ONE???
Rae grins at me triumphantly. “See? You’ve got your first two customers.”
“Rae, stop.” I reach for the bra, suddenly panicked. “This isn’t a legitimate business. It’s just me coping badly with a sewing machine. I was going out of my mind and neededsomething to do with my hands. This isn’t... I can’t just suddenly become a lingerie designer because I made a few pieces while falling apart.”
“A few pieces?” Rae gestures around my disaster of an apartment. “Gemma, look. You’ve got inventory, you’ve got demand, you’ve got talent. What more do you need?”
I watch Rae’s face, the absolute certainty in her expression. She’s not just being nice—she genuinely believes this could work. For the first time in days, something that isn’t exhaustion or heartbreak stirs in my soul.
Hope.
“I don’t know how to run a business,” I say quietly.
