What We Do in the Night (Day to Night #1) - Stylo Fantome Page 0,31

guy here, he's gonna skin me alive,” Del chuckled. “You must have that magic puss, Valentine, the guy is gaga for you already.”

She shook her head and struggled to remember how to breathe.

“Ari ... I mean, Mr. Sharapov,” she said in a soft voice. “He said he wants to be my exclusive client for the next two weeks?”

“Bingo.”

“Jesus, how much did you charge him?”

Del waved his hand in the air before spinning his chair away and opening a cabinet.

“I don't like talkin' money, you know that,” he said. A bald faced lie. “But this wasn't a normal contract, you understand. A lot of negotiations had to be made, security had to be called in, I had to mediate and shit. That all comes at a price, kiddo. So the deal between you and I has changed, as well.”

Valentine narrowed her eyes as he started doing the combination on a safe.

“I didn't even get to be involved in a discussion that was about buying my time and potentially my body,” she snapped. “And now you're gonna try to take money out of my pocket?”

“Watch your mouth, little girl,” Del warned her, but his tone had no bite to it. “I may be a sleazeball, but I do right by you guys, and you know it. Hence why I didn't give that USB to your little boyfriend when he demanded it.”

Valentine glanced down at her lap. Ari had 'demanded' the footage? It hadn't even occurred to her to ask for it, and he'd gone and demanded it.

“Whatever. How much money are we talking?” she grumbled. “And that doesn't mean I'm accepting this deal, just so you know. I just want to hear how much he was willing to pay.”

Del swiveled around and her eyes bulged at the cash in his arms. He dropped a couple bundles on his desk, then shoved all but one back into his safe. He peeled a couple hundreds off the last bundle and tossed them onto the desk, then dropped the rest of the bundle into his shirt pocket.

“Alright, so, here's five-thousand two hundred for you,” he said, shoving the large pile of money across to her. “That's a forty percent take – generous by anyone's standards.”

There was a slight ringing in Valentine's ears. Five-thousand two hundred. Together with the money in her lap, that meant she could potentially bring home six-thousand five hundred dollars that night.

That's rent until summer. That's a new car. That's a month of nursing for Gam-Gam. That's twenty percent of my yearly tuition. That's ... money I'm getting paid to fuck somebody.

“I'm a prostitute,” she whispered.

“No,” Del responded quickly. “I mean, if you was, there ain't no shame in that, baby. But you know old Del here always has your best interests at heart, and I informed your guy that paying for your time in no way meant he was paying for your snatch. That was never for sale, as far as I was concerned, and he has been told that if he ever demands it or tries to force you, I'll have him gutted like a fucking fish.”

His words were coarse, but they did make her feel better. If Del had really said those things – and she had no doubt he had, and if Serge had been in the room, the words had definitely been believable – then Ari must have understood them. This money didn't mean sex had been promised. It just meant her time had been promised. Her company.

Whether or not sex happened was completely unrelated, and completely at her mercy.

That makes it different. That makes all this okay. That means I can take this money home and I won't cry myself to sleep like I'd planned. That means that for a little while, everything will be okay, thanks to Ari. And maybe it also means that finally, finally, someone else can be in control for a little while.

“Okay, so tell me exactly everything that was said between you two,” Valentine asked.

And Del told her. By the sounds of it, immediately after she'd gone to take her shower, Ari had sought out her boss. He'd been very discreet about their activities, and had made it very clear that he wanted to be the only one receiving any kind of services from her. He'd also offered his own professional skills as part of the deal. Then he'd paid cash for the USB, which Del refused to fork over, claiming that since the footage was legally his, he deserved the