Free All I Want For Christmas Is You by Dahlia Rose Page A

Ileana grimaced, knowing full well that a day would come when she could not just say she was an escort. She would have to start giving them her body as well. Something she held sacred would be given away so she could make rent.
     
    The thought ran through her head again, and she felt tears sting her eyes. How the hell did I end up here? She knew how. The cost to even lease her apartment had skyrocketed after the damn recession hit. Losing her job, losing her man, everything just seemed to hit at once. With nothing else to lose at that point, Ileana’s friend suggested that she use her looks, and this persona was born. Cool, calm, and collected on the outside, while on the inside, she was dying with shame. If her mom and dad ever knew what she had to do to make money, they would hang their heads in disappointment. Not their daughter, not the one who had gone to college and had her degrees. Now, she was nothing more than a paid, kept woman, a prostitute, even though she never spread her legs.
     
    So lost in her thoughts was Ileana that she did not even see that the hours had ticked by, and now she was in the high-class area of
Connecticut
. The mansions gleamed like jewels in the darkness of the night. She wondered if she rolled the windows down to the cool night air if she would hear the sound of party merriment two days before Christmas. She never rolled the window down because she didn’t think she could bear hearing the sounds of happiness she did not feel.
     
    “We’re here, miss,” the driver called back to her coldly.
     
    “Thank you.” She could hear the disdain in his voice but chose to ignore it. He didn’t know what her troubles were, so his judgment meant zilch in her book.
     
    She turned her attention to the house as the car went up the winding driveway. The stone structure stood out in the darkness with its sandy-colored brick walls. No decorations lined its roof, no elves graced the snow, and only one light was on downstairs. Oh fuck , Ileana thought with dismay. She had the picture in her head of old Mr. Scrooge sitting there being grumpy and cranky. She had expected to be the arm candy for some kind of party, not sitting with all old man who hated life and the world around him.
     
    The car slowed and stopped in front of the big mahogany doors. The driver did not even get out to open the car door for her. Instead, he sat facing forward with a frown. Ileana gave a small, sorrowful sigh before she took the smooth silver handle of the car door and let herself out.
     
    “Whore.”
     
    She heard the word come from the chauffeur’s lips even though he tried to say it softly. Anger sparked inside her, and she walked deliberately and slowly around to his window and tapped on the glass. The mechanical whirl as the window rolled down by him just pressing the button was the only sound in the silent night.
     
    Ileana pinned him with a stare. “Do you have something to say to me?”
     
    He gave her a look that said she was nothing but dirt beneath his shoes. “No, miss.”
     
    “I heard what you said, and here is what I have to say to you. You don’t know me, you don’t know anything about me, and if I was a whore, you sure as hell couldn’t afford me.” With that, she walked up the driveway, and the crunch of the car tires was the signal that the car drove away. She stood in front of the door and pressed the bell. She could hear the deep sound from outside the thick door. Minutes passed, and she pressed the bell again. The cold breeze caught under her long coat and made her legs cold.
     
    “Great. I told off the driver who has to come back and pick me up who will probably make me wait outside in the cold until I freeze my buttons off,” she muttered.
     
    She was just about to press the button again when the door opened and the most gorgeous green eyes stared out at her. “Um, I’m looking for Mr. Casey?”
     
    “It’s just Casey.” The voice matched the face, smooth and sexy with a sexy