The Billionaire's Hidden Heir

Chapter Four

Mia’s POV

"You've got to see this apartment," Brianna said, spinning in a slow circle in the middle of her new living room like she couldn't quite believe it belonged to her. "Look at this floor. Real wood. Not that fake laminate garbage."

"It's nice," Mia said, standing near the door with her arms crossed, taking in the leather couch, the flat screen television mounted on the wall, the bottle of wine on the counter that cost more than Mia made in a full shift.

"Nice? Mia. This is the good life. This is what I'm talking about." Brianna flopped down onto the couch and patted the cushion next to her. "Sit. Have a glass. Stop looking at me like I robbed a bank."

"Did you?"

"No." Brianna laughed, but there was something careful underneath it, something Mia had learned to recognize over years of friendship. "Nothing like that. I told you, it's a hustle. A good one."

Tasha came out of the bedroom in a robe that looked silk, real silk, the kind that catches the light differently than the cheap stuff. "She still hasn't told you?"

"She hasn't told me anything," Mia said. "Just that it's easy money for the right kind of girl. Whatever that means."

Renee appeared behind Tasha, examining her nails, the little gems on the tips catching the lamp light. "It means you're pretty and you're broke and you know how to keep your mouth shut when it matters. Which, considering you've kept our secrets since the fifth grade, I'd say you qualify."

"What secrets are we keeping now?"

Brianna exchanged a look with the other two, one of those looks that passed between people who had already had this conversation without you. "There's a man. Dominic Vance. He runs a club, The Onyx Room, real classy place, not what you're thinking. Rich clients come through, businessmen mostly, guys who want company for the night. Somebody to dance for them, sit with them, make them feel like somebody in the room actually cares whether they exist."

"That's it? Dancing?"

"That's it," Tasha said, a little too quickly.

"And it pays what?"

"More than Duffy's pays you in a month," Renee said. "For one night."

Mia sat down slowly on the arm of the couch, not quite committing to sitting properly, like some part of her still wanted the option to leave. "And you three have been doing this."

"A few times," Brianna said. "It's fine, Mia. It's really fine. Nobody's hurting anybody. These men, they've got more money than sense, and they like pretty women telling them they're interesting. That's all it is."

"Why haven't you asked me before?"

Brianna's face did something complicated, something that looked almost like guilt if Mia squinted at it right, though it smoothed over fast. "Because I know you. You'd have said no before I even finished explaining it. You've got that thing about you, that whole pride thing, like taking help makes you less than."

"It's not pride to not want to dance for strange men for money."

"It's exactly pride," Renee said, not unkindly. "Pride's expensive, Mia. You can't afford it. None of us can. That's the whole point."

Mia looked around the apartment again, at the wood floors and the leather couch and the bottle of wine that cost more than a day's wages, and she thought about the lights going out in her mother's apartment when she was twelve years old, about the wall that never moved no matter how hard she pushed against it.

"How much," she asked quietly, "for one night?"

Brianna's whole face lit up, and she leaned forward, reaching for Mia's hand like she was about to hand her a gift instead of an invitation into something none of them fully understood yet themselves.

"Enough that you'll never have to ask that question about rent again," Brianna said. "Vance has got somebody lined up already. Big client, real money, in town for business. He's been asking for someone new. Someone who doesn't look like she's done this a hundred times already."

"Someone like me."

"Someone exactly like you." Brianna squeezed her hand. "Just say yes, Mia. Just this once. Let us take care of you for a change."

Mia looked at her friend's face, so bright and so certain, and she didn't see the thing underneath it yet, the thing that was already being planned in rooms she hadn't been invited into.