Free Pleasure Seekers by Rochelle Alers

will contact you.”
    Pleasure Seekers’ payroll listed six employees. Astrid Marti, her booking-agent executive assistant and a private investigator were integral to the company’s ongoing success. Victor Payton, a retired FBI special agent with links to police departments, the Bureau and the IRS more than earned his annual six-figure fee.
    Astrid had proven herself invaluable because of her fluency in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and German. The daughter of a Haitian mother and Dominican father, she’d come to the United States on a student visa as a language major. After graduation she worked with the United Nations as an interpreter; she’d found herself a victim of workplace sexual harassment and contacted someone at the Haitian consulate, who’d referred her to Enid. Instead of bringing a suit against a man with diplomatic immunity, Enid hired Astrid as an executive assistant for Pleasure Seekers.
    Bartholomew Houghton hadn’t blinked when Astridquoted a fee for the services of Faye Ogden, Alana Gardner and Ilene Fairchild. The three women were different—in looks and temperament, their potential earning power incalculable to men where the asking price for companionship was infinite.
    “Are there any more questions?” Enid asked.
    The three young women shook their heads.
    Lowering her gaze, Enid stared at them through her lashes. It was a look of supreme satisfaction; a look she usually gave a man whenever she set out to seduce him, and a look she’d learned and studied from the young women who’d worked for Darcie Richards; the coy glance of an experienced courtesan who’d never had to use her body to get what she wanted from a man or a woman.
    Pushing back her chair, she rose to her feet. “Thank you, ladies.” Enid walked out of the room, leaving the subtle scent of a classic perfume in her wake.
    Within seconds of her departure the door opened and a man and woman entered, pushing a serving cart filled with cellophane-covered trays. Reaching for a bottle of water, Faye twisted off the cap and filled a goblet with mineral water. She didn’t want to acknowledge that she’d just committed to becoming an escort to wealthy men who thought nothing of spending thousands to have her entertain him with her presence.
    It sounded almost too good to be true, but if what Enid Richards professed to be true was, in fact, true, then there was no doubt she would be able to earn enough moneyby the end of the summer to retain the best appeal attorney in the Northeast.
    “What do you think?” Alana whispered close to her ear.
    “It sounds good,” Faye whispered back.
    Alana leaned closer, her shoulder touching Faye’s. “Do you really believe we don’t have to sleep with these men?”
    “It doesn’t matter because I don’t plan to sleep with any of them,” she said through clenched teeth.
    Alana filled her glass with bottled water, her thoughts going into overdrive. If she saved the money she earned working for P.S., Inc., then she and Calvin could marry as soon as he returned from Europe. She had three weeks’ vacation leave coming to her, and instead of spending that time with her mother or working on the book she’d been writing for the past two years she would work as a social companion. There was no doubt she would earn enough to buy the house in the suburbs Calvin wanted. A knowing smile parted her lips. She’d just turned thirty-three and she was about to realize her dreams.

CHAPTER 20
    I lene hadn’t done it in a very long time, but today she prayed her urine wouldn’t show traces of the cocaine she’d snorted three weeks ago.
    She’d dabbled in recreational drugs for half her life and cocaine had become her drug of choice because she could either snort or smoke it, and it kept her thin. The times she smoked marijuana she couldn’t stop eating, and the result was that she’d lost a major modeling assignment because she couldn’t fit into the designer’s creations.
    A few models Ilene