Page 33 of The Player's Club

Elodie sucked on her bottom lip, which nearly did me in. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“I won’t touch you.”

Do you even believe yourself? I pushed the thought aside.

“I know.” She stroked my arm as if soothing me. “But I still need to think about this whole thing. So if you could give me a ride back to my car . . .”

“Of course.”

But I didn’t make a move to get up, and neither did she. She gazed into my eyes, and when I moved to kiss her again, she didn’t push me away.

Our lips touched, this kiss softer but just as passionate. She melted into my embrace. I gripped her shirt with a clenched fist, hoping against hope that she’d change her mind and stay the night.

ELODIE

I woke up late the following morning. Luckily, I wasn’t expected in the office. I climbed from bed with a groan, feeling hungover yet I hadn’t gotten inebriated last night. Maybe I was just drunk from Mac kissing me.

I collapsed back into bed, my mind replaying the night. I didn’t know how I’d had the strength to go home instead of staying the night. It hadn’t helped that Mac kept kissing me, seducing me with every brush of his lips, every slide of his tongue—

And his throbbing hard-on, which he very intentionally made sure I’d felt? Gah. That thing felt huge. I buried my face in my pillow. God, I was in trouble. Despite my insistence that I needed to think about the contract, I knew I was going to sign it. I didn’t have the willpower to resist Mac anymore.

And why should I? There was no shame in enjoying this arrangement. Especially now that I’d ended things with Todd. The fact that Mac had been so thorough in drafting the contract showed that he knew what he was doing.

That made me wonder how many other women he’d entered into similar arrangements with in the past. I shook that thought from my head. It didn’t matter. This was about us. And I knew deep in my bones that he wanted me to feel safe. Even as the thought of letting him do all those things we’d discussed last night would drag me out of my comfort zone.

I shivered but finally dragged myself out of bed because my stomach was rumbling for food. As I got some food, though, reality smacked me in the face as the stack of bills sitting on my table seemed to scream at me.

What was I going to do about my job? I had an assignment, and to get paid, I had to complete it. Which meant not being honest with Mac about who—and what—I was.

I picked up the bill on top and opened it. It was for my car, again. It warned me that if I didn’t make a payment in the next thirty days, they’d start the repossession process.

“Fuck,” I muttered, feeling sick to my stomach. I lived in LA. I had to have a car, unfortunately.

I sat down and stared at the bill. My brain whirled in what felt like a thousand different directions. I knew that even if I signed Mac’s contract, I couldn’t quit my job either.

Was I naive? Thinking that I could figure out a way to have my cake and eat it, too?

After eating and showering, I glanced at my phone. I frowned when I saw a text message from a number I didn’t recognize.

Hi, Elodie, this is your uncle Jose, your mom’s brother. We’re having a party next month at my place. Let me know if you can make it.

The text made me sit down. I hadn’t seen or spoken to my mom’s side of the family since she’d died. Jose and his wife, Maria, had attended Mom’s funeral, along with their four kids, but that had been it. Mom also had a sister back in the Philippines, but I’d never met her.

My grandma Esmeralda hadn’t approved of my father. She especially hadn’t approved when Mom had gotten pregnant with me outside of marriage. My parents only got married because they’d had to. After, poor Mom had been abandoned and left to raise me on her own.

I picked up a photo of my mom from before she’d had me. She’d been a beauty queen back in the Philippines. In the photo, she wore her tiara and sash. She looked beautiful. Young and hopeful.

She’d never once said that she regretted having me, never acted like I was a burden in any way, but I’d always wondered. She’d ended up alone in Los Angeles, working three jobs at a time to keep food on our table since her family essentially abandoned her.

It’s just you and me, baby, she’d say to me all the time when I was a child. We don’t need anybody else.

I didn’t remember much about my dad. He’d left when I was only four years old. For a few years, he’d send a postcard from wherever he ended up, but even that had stopped by the time I was in middle school. I remembered Mom sitting at our kitchen table, her head in her hands and a pile of letters scattered across the table.

Dad had returned all of Mom’s letters. When I’d tried to read them, Mom had freaked out, telling me to get out. She’d scrambled to collect all the letters. I’d always wondered what she’d done with them. Had she kept them hidden, or had she destroyed them? I never did find them after she was gone.

Although I was half Filipina, I’d never felt all that attached to that side of my heritage. Maybe it was because I’d been born and raised in the US, or because Mom had never wanted me to speak Tagalog. The few times she’d spoken it around me, she’d get annoyed when I’d repeat the words back to her.

You’re American. Speak English, she’d tell me.