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“Come home with me,” I said. “Tonight. After. Forget the money.”
Jade stopped moving.
She didn’t get off my lap straight away. She just stopped, and looked down at me, and something in her face closed like a door.
“Ah,” she said.
“I didn’t mean it like…”
“You did, though. You all do, eventually.” She lifted my hands off her waist and put them back on the couch. “I’m not a girlfriend, Owen. I’m not an escort. I’m a dancer. I dance, you pay, we both have a nice time, and then I go home alone to my cat and my telly. That’s the deal.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just don’t ruin it.” She climbed off and reached for her top. “You were doing so well.”
“Can we finish the dance?”
She considered it. Then she shook her head, kindly enough. “Not tonight. The mood’s gone, babe. Happens.”
She didn’t refund me. I didn’t ask her to.
She walked me back to the bar, kissed my cheek for appearance’s sake, and went straight to a group of lads on a stag do by the stage. Within a minute she was laughing at something one of them said, head thrown back.
I finished my whisky alone.
On the drive home I kept replaying it. Her warm skin under my palms. That one moment where she’d looked genuinely turned on. And then my mouth opening and ruining everything.
Ending 19 of 25: Not For Sale. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.