My skin crawled. The very thought of being Bob’s paid lover sent a flurry of emotions through me that I could scarcely control: disgust, anger, repulsion, hatred—towards him for suggesting it and a little towards myself that my life had come to this. I tried to shake the last of these off and remind myself that it was not, in any way, my fault.
It was his. All of this was his fault.
“No,” I said firmly and clearly. “No, I will not be your lover, even if you weren’t about to be married, and there is no amount of money that you could pay me that could convince me otherwise.”
“What about $100,000 a month?” Bob asked. “Or $150,000?”
I was appalled by the mixture of stupidity and arrogance he was showing in his persistence. Could the man not take a hint, or was he truly that guided by his d
