Page 10 of Master of Pleasure (Lessons From the Rack 3)

“I don’t care what his middle name is. It wasn’t him,” Ronnie said. “Let this be a lesson for you to not believe everything youread on the internet.” Her phone beeped with an incoming call. “Someone else is calling, I’ll talk to you later.”

She ended the call with Charity and thankfully glanced at the phone’s display before answering the new one. Her father. Yikes. No way was she talking to him. Not this year. Maybe not the next one, either.

She turned her phone off and shoved it to the bottom of her tote bag. Matter of fact, she wasn’t going to talk to anyone at the moment. If what Charity said was true, she needed a plan of action before she did anything.

Though she would never admit any such thing to anyone, Charity included, she couldn’t help but wonder if it had been Terrence Knight she’d played with. Charity wasn’t one to jump to conclusions on a whim. Whatever had been on social media must have looked fairly legit.

Ronnie pulled down the UCLA ball cap she had on, hoping to hide her eyes and hair enough for her to glance around the coffee shop she was currently sitting in. It didn’t appear anyone was paying her any attention at the moment. But who knew how long that would last?

Typically, she was able to move around LA and the surrounding areas of California unrecognized. After all, with so many celebrities around, who cared about the daughter of a senator?

A group of three older teens sat down at a table nearby, their conversation so loud she had no choice but to overhear.

“I’m just saying it’s funny,” one of them said, taking a seat out of her line of vision. “Senator Lewis is always so high and mighty, going on and talking the way he does about morality and such. All the while his daughter is hanging out in sex clubs. Kinky sex clubs.”

Ronnie sank down farther in her seat.

“Bet he won’t be able to be so holier-than-thou after tonight,” the girl finished with.

“I don’t know why anyone cares what she does,” one of the other teens replied with. “So she likes kinky sex? Good for her.”

“You’re missing the entire point,” the first teen replied. “If it wasn’t for her father, no one would care. But it makes Senator Lewis look like a hypocrite for pushing abstinence-only sex ed while his daughter waves her kink flag and hooks up with one of Hollywood’s hottest men.”

“I wonder if Terrence has a big dick?”

Ronnie took a deep breath and made herself sit as still as possible at the question asked by the third teen. People never ceased to surprise her, though she always thought that was borderline ridiculous considering all the things she’d heard and seen as a senator’s daughter.

“She goes to school around here somewhere,” the first teen said in a by-your-leave manner that nonetheless left Ronnie’s heart racing. “Probably out somewhere. I’m sure the paparazzi are already staked out wherever she lives.”

Ronnie swallowed the gasp that instinctively reached her throat and was thankful the table of teens didn’t notice. A feeling that disappeared instantly at the sound of someone on her other side clearing their throat.

With dread, she turned to find a cafe employee cleaning a nearby table, and her stomach sank at the recognition in the other woman’s eyes. Ronnie glanced to the front of the cafe, trying to judge how long it’d take her to make it to the door. The crowd wasn’t too heavy yet, she might be able to leave unnoticed.

She bit her bottom lip. Probably not though.

Determined, she pushed back in her seat.

“No,” the employee said in a whisper. “Not out the front. Come with me.”

Unwilling to trade one bad exit for another, Ronnie narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

“An exit the press don’t know about. You think you’re the only one who’s ever wanted to leave here without anyone seeing?”

She supposed not.

Another glance at the front entrance confirmed she’d have to walk past the teen trio. She was certain they’d both see and recognize her if she left that way.

The cafe employee at her side waited quietly, and Ronnie got the impression she wouldn’t try to stop her if she decided to ignore her offer. And that was enough to convince Ronnie to nod and reply, “Lead the way.”

Five minutes later, Ronnie was in a cab and headed out of town. She’d given the driver the address for a hotel she’d been to earlier in the year for a girlfriend’s wedding. While attracting enough big-name clients for the employees not to bat an eye at her arrival, it was not well enough known for the paparazzi to stalk. She’d be able to hang out for a few days undisturbed. Surely a few days would be long enough for her to work out a plan on what to do next.

After numerous attempts to close her eyes and reclaim the postplay feelings she’d experienced earlier, she gave up and pulled her phone out of her tote. Once on, as expected, it beeped and buzzed for an obnoxious amount of time, alerting her to the calls, texts, and messages she’d received.

The texts were all from friends who wanted to know if she was okay and asking if she’d really been with Terrence Knight. She didn’t reply to any of them, but moved on to her other notifications. Her father had left a voice mail. Might as well go ahead and listen. It wasn’t as if it would go away if she pretended it didn’t exist.

“Veronica Dorthea Lewis,” his message began. She hated that no matter how old she got, something inside her always dreaded hearing her full name spoke by her father.

“You are to come home and come home immediately,” he continued. “I knew letting you go to school in California would be a mistake, no matter how strict the conduct requirements were. However, even I was unaware of how much shame you could bring to our family in one night. We’ll talk more when you arrive home.”

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