Page 128 of Filthy Hot Escort

Just the way he’d always been.

58

Days after Skylar ripped a hole in Julian’s heart, he sat on his sofa and stared at his haggard reflection in the large full-length mirror in the corner of his living room, hating everything he saw in his own eyes.

There were plenty of mirrors in his penthouse.In addition to the one in the living room, there was, of course, the mirror in the bathroom, the mirror above his headboard, the mirror in his huge walk-in closet, the mirrors in the guest bedrooms, and the mirror in the entryway.

He was, quite literally, surrounded by mirrors, and yet they were all useless, utterly and entirely useless.And if he was to look in all of them, each would reflect the man staring at him from the living room mirror.

A man who was just as pathetic as Skylar had accused him of being.

Because he didn’t even know who the hell he was anymore.

Maybe he never had.

He’d lost himself when he lost his parents, and in trying to find himself, he’d formed his identities. Julian Bauer, the college student who’d become an escort. Julian Bauer, famed reporter. And finally, Julian Bauer, Sex God of Manhattan.

But none of those identities left the room to be who he really was— they were just images he’d created to survive.

Survival wasn’t really living.

Survival didn’t allow in love. Vulnerability. Passion. Heart.

It wasn’t in surviving but surrendering that a person revealed their true authentic self.

He’d surrendered himself only once— to Skylar. And then she’d walked away.

Leaving him to his identities once again.

He stood and walked up to the living room mirror, searching, straining to see what was there beneath the surface.And suddenly, he saw himself all too clearly.

A man who had violated a woman’s trust, going behind her back to get what he wanted and concealing the truth from her.

A man who hid his loneliness and fear with women and fame.

A man who had finally found a woman who he loved and cared about and wanted to protect and hold dear.

And fucked it all up.

They were all him.

But he didn’t want them to be.

If his parents had lived, if he hadn’t ended up an orphan, would he have been a different man?

As a kid living in foster care, he’d ended up with most of his treasured possessions either lost or stolen. He had a few photos of his mom and dad, but that was it. With one exception: a book his mom used to read him every night when he was little:The Velveteen Rabbit. Somehow, despite all the moves from foster house to foster house, despite all the times his possessions were stolen by other foster kids or tossed by uncaring foster parents, he’d held onto that book.

Something compelled him to move. To get up off his ass and head to the hallway closet. Pull out the step stool. Grab the box at the back of the closet that he’d taped up right after college graduation and forgotten about. Haul it down. Go back to the living room sofa.

He ripped the tape off and opened the box. Inside was his college sweatshirt, his college yearbook, a few articles he’d written for the college paper, his graduation tassel. And at the bottom of the box wasThe Velveteen Rabbit.

Holding the book in his hands, he realized he was shaking. He flipped to the page that was his favorite and read,“Once you are real, you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

Somehow he’d put being real on hold. He’d had good reason. At fourteen. At sixteen. In his twenties. But that didn’t negate the fact that, eventually, he’d lost his real self entirely.

So who the hell was he?

He went through the book, page by page.

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