Morgun’s hand curled around her cup so hard that the lid looked like it was about to pop off. She imagined it happening, her latte spewing like a volcano all over the table.
“I’d even be willing to pay,” Laney went on, obviously misinterpreting Morgun’s silence. Then again, maybe she didn’t. Morgun had no idea how she was supposed to respond to that.
She wasn’t wrong about Laney Sterling being cold-hearted and mean. She’d suspected that she was basically just advertising for a date, but to hear her say it like that, just put it out there the second she sat down, with no preamble…what did she expect the other person to think?
Morgun was disgusted with more than just her latte. She was disgusted with herself for even showing up at the shop. For messaging Laney back. For even considering anything about Chelsea’s plan and for her own damn curiosity, which obviously refused to be satisfied after she’d seen Laney’s profile.
There was something magnetic about Laney that drew people in. Obviously, something like a vortex or a Medusa or another terrible phenomenon. Morgun could only imagine what getting to know Laney would be like. Did she even have friends? No wonder she couldn’t get a date the normal way.
“Um, I think you were on the wrong site then,” Morgun snapped. “That site is for dating. Not escorts services.”
She wished she could shove her chair back from the table and make a fast exit, or better yet, pop the top off her latte for real and let it spew all over Laney’s stunned face, but of course, her chair stuck fast when she planted her feet to push back, and she went nowhere. And the lid on her latte proved to be on much tighter than she thought because when she squeezed harder, nothing happened.
Laney appeared unbothered by the statement. She just shrugged. “I don’t want to bring an escort. It’s my brother’s wedding. I have my reasons. I figured someone would like to make a couple hundred bucks. It’s not for sex and it’s certainly not sugaring, since it’s not an ongoing relationship. We’d both benefit. I need a date. Someone else would get to go to a fun wedding with great food and make some extra cash. It’s Christmas. Everyone probably needs extra cash.”
“Who gets married at Christmas?” Morgun dropped all efforts to be polite.
“I have no idea.” Laney shrugged. “My brother, apparently. I knew we should have gone out for drinks instead.”
Morgun grunted. Did Laney just try to make a joke? Did she think this was funny? That having some weird sense of humor would make any of this better?
“So you’re assuming that because I messaged you as a normal person looking for another normal person to date, or at least do some fun stuff with and get to know, that I’d be willing to take cash to go to a wedding where I don’t know anyone and basically pretend that we’re dating?”
“You wouldn’t have to sell it too hard. The stipulation was that I bring a date. Not that I was dating.”
“Jesus. What stipulation?”
For the first time, Laney looked slightly off focus. She quickly glanced around and scowled at God only knows what. The tacky décor? Jim secretly listening in? Life? The world in general?
“It doesn’t matter. I just need a date. The wedding’s on Saturday. It’s one day. From two in the afternoon until it’s over, around one in the morning probably. I’m not in the wedding party. You won’t get left floundering on your own. It won’t be one of those horrible weddings where everyone hates everyone else and people get into quarrels. I’m willing to pay a thousand dollars.”
“A thousand bucks? You think if you pay someone a thousand dollars that they’ll just do whatever you want them to do? Sell out for a grand? How are you not treating me like I’m an escort? I’d be selling myself for payment!”
“Not that kind of selling yourself.” Laney appeared more annoyed than anything. “You’re taking this the wrong way.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, is there a different way to take it? I was expecting some pleasant conversation. Proof that you cared enough about me as a human being to take some kind of interest. You obviously just came here tonight seeing me as this thing you could use as a means to an end. You thought I’d just fall all over the place in a hurry to accept cash? That I’d be so desperate that I’d have absolutely no self-respect?” She laughed. “That’s so like you. Always stepping all over everyone else to get what you want.”
This time, Morgun’s chair did scrape back. She left her latte on the table as a final fuck you and stormed out the door. This time, she was the one who just about knocked the stupid wreath clean off its perch. At the last minute, she thought better of it and whirled around.
“Merry fucking Christmas to you too,” she spat in disgust, then she noticed a wide-eyed Jim leaning near the back wall, out of sight of the tables, but not out of sight from the door. “And you too, Jim. Have a good one.”
He nodded. “You too,” he called back, quite comically.
Morgun found herself forgiving Jim for listening in and for making her the worst latte in the history of the entire world. She gave him a tight-lipped smile, aimed another scowl at Laney, who probably hadn’t even blinked since Morgun got up from the table, and hurried out the door.
Chapter 5
Morgun
“I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t just sit there and pretend. I couldn’t even take it. She was so…horrible. Awful. Condescending. Mean. Inhuman. Unfeeling. Weird. Creepy. She wanted to pay me a grand to go to the wedding with her and she made it clear that’s all she wanted. She didn’t even ask me what my name was. She didn’t ask one single thing about me. It was like I was just this thing she could use and bend to her will and she never once thought that I’d have a different opinion about it or actual thoughts and feelings. You know. Like a normal human being.”
“That makes sense.” Chelsea’s voice crackled with sympathy over the phone. “She’s clearly a sociopath.” Then she laughed, which only pissed Morgun off further. “At least she’s direct, if nothing else. It sucks when people just beat around what they really want to say and make you guess at their evil intentions.”
Morgun had called Chelsea as soon as she arrived back at her apartment. “Come on! You don’t seriously think I could just sit there and listen to that, do you? Or that I’d sell myself out for her so easily?”
“No, not easily. You should have made her work for it. Negotiated. If you didn’t want to take advantage of her and act all schemy-scammy, you could have at least been honest about what you really wanted.”
“Oh, and what’s that? A list of contacts? A step up to where I want to be?”