At the rates she charged her guests Rose could afford to stay young and gorgeous for the rest of her life. I wasn’t in paradise to get a complex about my looks though.
I returned my attention to the ten men I’d singled out so far. For two weeks—a package deal for twenty grand—the man I chose would be my companion, at my beck and call, to do anything I asked. Anything. No one would rush me with this decision.
Rose glanced at her watch after another minute passed although she didn’t say anything. I narrowed it down to five, eliminating the men with facial hair, and with no hair on their chests. Again, my personal preferences. I wanted perfection to join me in paradise, and at this price, I would settle for nothing less.
But that still left five to choose from. Damn. No wonder Rose was a self-made millionaire. Who could choose from the selection of men who stood before me, all of them made of stuff a lady would fantasize about?
Of course it would be nice if I could see them without the loincloths. You know, get the chance to look under the hood before I bought the car—or lease it as the case may be. But that was on page one and page twelve. The men always remained dressed in public. Rose had her reputation to consider.
Finally, after another few minutes, I narrowed it down to two. It was the best I could do. One white man, well more like brown with the perfect tan he had. And the other a dark black man. Both all muscle and drop-dead gorgeous.
“I’ll take those two.” I pointed to my choices.
Rose smiled. Her tone was gentle and soothing, like she never cared how long it took for me to make my selections. “Perfect choices. Tomas and Nicolas are two of my favorites.”
Did Rose get to enjoy all of these men? Like I would ask her that.
“Tomas?” Rose held her hand out and Tomas, the white guy, stepped forward. “And Nicolas,” she said, beckoning to the black guy.
They approached her quietly, both barefoot and walking with controlled steady paces that made them look more like predators than studs just pulled off an auction block.
Both stopped when they stood on either side of her. Rose smiled at them and then looked at me like I was her best friend. “This is Natalie Green. She just arrived here on the island and is my special guest for the next two weeks. Please escort her to room three. I’ll stop by shortly to make sure your accommodations are to your liking.”
And so that I could sign the contract. The handbook made it very clear. All business matters were tended to promptly as soon as the guest arrived. Then for the rest of my time here, I wouldn’t be bothered with anything pertaining to money. Made sense. They would run my credit card for the additional sum of $35,000 within minutes of my settling in. I had no doubts.
One thing about being alone in life, I didn’t have to explain my actions, especially when they turned insane. But I had the money. It would serve me nicely in my old age, or give me the memories and adventure of a lifetime, which would also serve me nicely in old age.
Either way, I’d cashed in a few bonds, transferred money, and used my debit card. The transaction was complete before I even touched foot on this tropical island. Of course now, with my additional man, they would charge it again. No regrets. No looking back. My life wasn’t exactly anything close to exciting. In fact, there were days when I wondered if I quit existing how long it would take before anyone noticed.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suicidal. Not even close. Working in my father’s law firm for the past ten years, when all my father and grandfather wanted was for me to marry into an acceptable family, didn’t exactly fulfill me. They never let me work on any of the good cases, but instead insisted that I present myself at all the charitable functions that they claimed were on behalf of the law firm. Which meant, until I became someone else’s trophy to place on the mantle, my father and grandfather didn’t have a problem making me their trophy to display. Being placed on display with nothing else to do is boring as hell.
Spending this kind of money to escape my life, to exist as someone else for just a couple weeks, without anyone back home knowing what I was doing, sounded better than perfect to me.
And I hadn’t been the only person on the plane. There were other people on this planet just like me, willing to pay a small fortune to indulge in a life that they could never have any other way. Not that I said a word to any of them. No one spoke at all on that plane. One couple and two men walked past me when they boarded the charter plane. But it was obvious on their faces—that dismal, over-worked, humdrum expression slowly faded the closer we got to the island. By the time we landed, I was so enthralled by the captivating surroundings and the young man who escorted me to Rose to choose my companion, that I didn’t pay any attention to where the other guests went.
Although I didn’t see anyone else from the plane as my two men walked silently alongside me up the wide marble steps toward the huge mansion on top of the hill, I knew there were other guests around somewhere. I didn’t mind the privacy. I couldn’t help mentally calculating how much money this island might bring in monthly. I also pondered what laws the island would fall under, since it wasn’t part of the United States, and appeared to be privately owned.
God. I closed my eyes briefly and gave myself a mental shake. Here I was in paradise, walking with my two men, who were damned near naked, to my private room to enjoy any pleasure I could imagine, and maybe even a few I couldn’t. It was just like me to get lost mulling over the legalities of something. No wonder I was stuck on permanently boring and humdrum.
“Are we allowed to talk to each other?” I looked at Tomas, the white guy.
“Sure.” He smiled warmly at me.
Nicolas chuckled on the other side of me and I gave him my attention. “We can talk, or do anything else you’d like to do,” he said in a deep baritone.
I could listen to Nicolas talk all day. He had that deep sultry black man’s voice that would curl any woman’s toes as she melted like warm butter at his feet.
“I guess talking will work until we get to our room,” I decided.
“What would you like to talk about?” Nicolas asked.
“Well.” I thought for a minute, or tried to make it look like I was thinking. My mind was suddenly blanker than the pale blue cloudless sky above us. “Do you two like working here?”
“We don’t work.” Tomas gently wrapped his fingers around my arm, just above my elbow.
“Good answer,” I conceded. If he acknowledged any of this as work, it would fall under the line of prostitution. The handbook must have been looked over by a fleet of lawyers before being published. Nothing in it could be construed as illegal. “I guess I should ask if you like it here.”
“Trust me, this is paradise. Your room is this way.”
The stairs ended and the men led me along a path surrounded by beautiful gardens on either side.
“You’re right about that.” I breathed in the thick perfume coming from the variety of flowers. Maybe touching on a lighter subject would force the men to sway from their scripted answers. “I’m not an expert, but aren’t those orchids?”
“Among other things, the island is known for its gardens.” Nicolas’s hand was so warm when he pressed it between my shoulder blades. “Those are oncidium orchids,” he informed me, pointing at bright yellow flowers that grew in a thick patch to our left. “And the lavender ones over here are dendrobium orchids.”
“You know a lot more about flowers than I do,” I offered, laughing easily at my ignorance.
The men chuckled but they weren’t laughing at me. Years of analyzing people taught me when someone was relaxed or not. And Tomas and Nicholas were perfectly at ease as they escorted me along the wide sidewalk with the vibrant flowers and ivy bordering either side.
“Feel free to