Slow Hands

Because, as much as I might say I’m modern and hip and can handle anything, that would end up bothering me, too.”
    There was that pessimistic streak. He’d been wondering when it would return. The woman had been covered by it for so long, he was surprised she’d been able to get out from under the weight of her disdain for romance long enough to go to bed with him.
    “Goodbye, Jake,” she said, not even giving him a chance to respond. Instead, she spun around, walked into her bathroom and shut the door firmly behind her.
    Give it up. Come back for round three .
    But he didn’t listen to the voice in his head. Not this time. Instead, he finished dressing, put on his boots, then knocked on the bathroom door. “I’m leaving now. But I want you to know, this isn’t over.”
    Hearing the shower go on inside, he knocked harder. “Damn it, Maddy, at least tell me you’ll talk to me about this in a few days.”
    She didn’t come out. But she did answer. And what she said shocked Jake so much he couldn’t make his brain work for several long seconds.
    “No. I can’t do it. Once was enough. I can’t go to bed with you again, wondering whose bed you just left, and how much she paid you to be there.”
    Paid him?
    “I’m not criticizing you for the way you live, but frankly, Jake, I can’t afford you. Financially, yes. Emotionally, however, I don’t have that kind of currency to spend. Now please leave.”
    He stared at the door, his jaw falling open, staggering back into her room until his legs hit the bed. He collapsed onto it, still stunned.
    The woman thought he had sex for money. Despite what he’d said about wanting her from first sight, she truly believed he’d spent last night here as some kind of sick, twisted payoff for the cash she’d shelled out at the auction. She’d completely ignored everything he’d said, everything they’d shared. She hadn’t trusted that he’d actually felt something real and genuine for her.
    “What the hell kind of world do you live in, lady?” he muttered under his breath, still staring at the closed door. Then he glanced around the room—done in white and silver—cold and icy like the rest of the place. And remembered the kind of world she lived in.
    One where anything could be bought for a price…including people, including sex. Where love didn’t exist, or at least, didn’t last.
    One that absolutely had no place for somebody like him.
    * * *
    “C AN YOU PLEASE explain this to me? You had the best night of your life with a dreamboat of a man who could give lessons to the god of love, and you told him you never wanted to see him again. Does that about sum it up?”
    Maddy cast a quick glance around the quiet, upscale restaurant a few blocks from the bank. It was empty except for a few late-lunch–early-Friday-happy-hour patrons, none of whom, fortunately, appeared to have overheard Tabitha’s way-too-personal observation.
    She still glared at her sister, who, as usual, was impeccably dressed, perfectly groomed, not an ash-blond hair out of place. And looking every bit as put-together as Maddy felt torn apart.
    “Yes. That sums it up very well, to me and every other person in the place.”
    Tabby rolled her eyes, entirely unrepentant. “I think the stork mixed you up with a nun’s baby at birth.” The incongruity of that statement didn’t seem to occur to her older sibling, who shook her head, reached into her expensive purse and retrieved a jeweled cigarette case. “You’re just too demure to be my sister.”
    “Uh, madam?” a voice said from beside the table. The obsequious maître d’ had appeared like a vapor. “I’m afraid you cannot smoke here.”
    Tabby audibly growled, put the case away and muttered behind the retreating man’s stiff back. “Can’t smoke around Bradley, can’t smoke in public….” Then she snapped her long, red-tinted nails against the pristine white tablecloth, tapping out a beat in visible irritation. “Tell me why not.”
    “Why can’t you smoke? Aside from it being horribly unhealthy, and—”
    “Why you can’t be with him,” Tabby growled, not fooled one bit. And she was even more pissy now that she couldn’t light up.
    Maddy started with the obvious. “Well, he is a prostitute.”
    “So? You’re telling me most of the women we know haven’t essentially prostituted themselves by trading sex for the right size diamond on their finger?”
    “You included?” Maddy asked, hoping her sister was