I laughed lightly but felt an ache stirring inside me. She really had no idea what this was doing to me …

“Stop it,” I said softly.

“What?”

“Aerin, please,” I pleaded with her.

She bit her lip and then shut her eyes. Again, she edged away from me.

We both turned to look at the sea.

“My family lost all its money seven years ago,” I said clearly, breaking the silence. “My dad had apparently been skimming money off of contracts that his firm was managing, and when he was found out, he was forced to pay off the whole lot to avoid a longer jail sentence. But he died before sentencing.”

She looked at me in stunned silence.

“I was about to become an associate in a big law firm in New York then, and, although the trial had taken place in North Carolina, where all of this had happened, my boss at that time, and with whom I’d done an internship with, advised me to go west, where this case would be less known. Before he could arrange for any interviews for me, he fell ill with a heart attack. But I made my way west, anyway, like he’d advise me to.”

I licked my lips and looked away from her to rest my chin on my knees.

“I’d double-majored in accounting, and when I got to Las Vegas, I was introduced to someone who said she needed advice about accounting stuff. I offered to take a look at it, and I pointed out the problems to her cash flow after studying the books she showed me. She paid me $20,000 for it, and told me she wanted me to advise her full-time. It was the most money I’d ever made for a single job, and I was broke, so I accepted.”

I turned to look again at Aerin, and I could see that she’d edged closer back to me, and gave me a small smile.

“Turns out she ran a high-class escort service and I became her business manager-slash-adviser. Implicitly, part of the deal, of course, was that I remained completely discreet about her prized client list, which I did. When I felt that I’d saved up enough of a kitty, I told her I wanted to leave, and pursue my dream of becoming a lawyer. She told me I could add to that kitty if I agreed to take a few jobs.”