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Chapter 1Janet Buck didn't mind being a call girl. In fact, she liked her job. Across the globe, millions of women were doing the same kinds of things, but with one very important difference. They weren't getting paid to do it.
She figured that she had a cushy life, when it came right down to it. She had a flashy apartment overlooking Miami Beach, gorgeous clothes, and loads of expensive shoes. She drove a restored red Camaro. She had a boyfriend who understood her profession and a boss who treated her well.
What more could a girl want? At twenty seven, she was in her prime, business-wise. Her long blonde hair, big green eyes, and to-die-for body made men wild. She was lucky in that a surgeon's knife had never touched her skin. No, everything she had was all hers.
"Gotcha. Eight o'clock, at the Mambo Room. Tall, blonde, and wearing a black jacket. William Bentley. Sounds like a preppie. Sounds rich," Janet said. The voice of her boss, Bruno Tagliatelli, assured her that tonight's appointment was wealthy.
As she snapped her Nokia shut, she wondered if there'd be a fat tip in her future. Most times, though, the rich ones were the lousiest tippers.
She spent the rest of the afternoon getting ready. She lay on her balcony in the nude for an hour. Tan lines were a definite no-no for a woman in her profession.
In the well-lit bathroom, she stood in front of a full-length magnifying mirror and examined herself critically. She tweezed a half-dozen stray hairs from between her legs. Her Brazilian bikini wax kept her mostly hair-free, but every once in a while they popped up. Not something she could afford to ignore.
She took a minuteand inserted a Reality into herself. Between the forget-about-it copper IUD and the easy-to-use Reality female condom, she was certain that she'd be disease and pregnancy-free. In the call-girl business, these were Janet's realities--ones that couldn't be ignored.
The appointment at the Mambo Room, a popular club in one of the classy hotels along the beach strip, called for an outfit that would tantalize yet not overwhelm. She didn't want the guy shooting his load on the dance floor. That had happened to her before, more than once. It was both messy and hard to collect a fee from a guy that had just given himself a dry cleaning bill.
She stood in front of the deep closet and surveyed her wardrobe. She pulled out a body-clinging, black dress. It was short enough to give a brief glimpse at what she concealed beneath, but not so short that it showed everything if she sat down.
With one last look in the large mirror, she walked toward the door and downstairs to her car. She was ready to begin her night.