The Triple-Agent Sugar Baby

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I grew up in the kind of suffocating Appalachian rust-belt town where people spoke with a heavy, unpolished drawl.

Keith Crawford treated me like a ghost he was paying to haunt his own bedroom. When you're with me, he would command, his voice dropping to a glacial whisper, don't make a sound.

He hated my voice. The moment I opened my mouth, the illusion shattered. I sounded absolutely nothing like Cecilia, the untouchable golden girl he had spent his entire life pining for.

But if I actually managed to stay perfectly silent, hed find ways to punish me for it.

Often, right at the breathless precipice of things, his hands would bite into my hips. "You might be a cheap imitation of her in every other way," hed murmur, his breath hot against my skin, "but you definitely know how to pull a man under in bed."

Then hed ask, "Is this your master plan? F**k me so well I can't let you go?"

Id just roll my eyes in the dark.

I was working three jobs a day. When you hustle that hard, your "technique" naturally gets pretty flawless.

I had two other patrons just like Keith.

One was Theo Gilbert, the gentle, universally beloved A-list actor.

The other was a walking taboo. He shared Keiths last name but sat a generation above him on the family treeKeiths uncle. The man rumored to play the stock market like a grand piano, Gideon Crawford, the youngest guest professor of finance at Kingsley University.

All three men were roughly the same age, and all three shared the same agonizing heartbreak: Cecilia DuPont, the award-winning actress who had fled to Europe, leaving a trail of shattered egos in her wake.

That was the only reason a girl like me could hold down three lucrative arrangements at once.

Among them, Keith was the billionaire CEO, yet somehow the most remarkably stingy.

He only required my presence once a month. The compensation? Thirty thousand dollars. A drop in the bucketbarely a tenth of my total monthly income.

And for that, I had to jump through hoops. I had to bathe in specific oils, burn a certain incense, and cater to a laundry list of his ridiculous, neurotic demands.

If his garbage personality wasn't bad enough, his performance in bed was... fine, at best.

Honestly, if I didn't have the phantom ache of poverty etched into my bonesif I didn't treat every dollar like a lifelineI wouldnt have bothered with him. I gritted my teeth and viewed it as a character-building exercise.

When it was over, I selfishly rolled myself into the Egyptian cotton duvet.

Keith, however, refused to let the moment end. He yanked me back against his chest, burying his face in the crook of my neck.

"What, are you still sulking about what happened this afternoon?"

"Bianca is just a kid. She broke a bracelet. Is it really worth all this attitude?"

His tone was dismissive, laced with that lazy, post-coital softness.

"I don't even remember when I bought you that thing. Why are you so hung up on it?"

Bianca was Keiths spoiled younger sister.

When she found out her brother was keeping a blue-collar canary in his gilded cage, she made it her personal mission to make my life hell.

With my back turned to Keith, I let out a massive, silent eye roll.

Keep flattering yourself, buddy.

That vintage Cartier emerald tennis bracelet? Gideon had bought it for me at a Sotheby's auction for three million dollars.

If that dark, controlling psychopath found out his gift had been smashed into pieces, I didn't even want to imagine what kind of psychological torture hed inflict on me.

When the bracelet shattered, I had practically shoved the certificate of authenticity into Bianca's perfectly contoured face.

But Keith, the absolute bastard, had intercepted it.

"It's just a cheap bauble," he had said, waving it off. "I'll buy you another one."

Gee, thanks.

As long as he was willing to write the check, I didn't care. It saved me the retainer fee for a lawyer.

Sensing my utter lack of enthusiasm, Keiths mood darkened.

"Maeve, have I been spoiling you too much lately? Is that why you've forgotten your place?"

Me: ???

Psycho.

What was my place?

I was a nobody. A trailer-park kid who dropped out after middle school to scrape together money so my deadbeat brother could pay off his gambling debts and get married.

If I hadn't gotten lucky and bumped into Keith while picking up extra shifts at an upscale nightclub, I probably would have been married off to the sleaziest mechanic in my hometown by now.

When I agreed to be his little secret, he laid down the law.

"Don't harbor delusions about things that don't belong to you. Be a good girl, do as you're told, and I'll make sure you're comfortable."

I had nodded so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash.

"Don't worry about it! Knowing our place is a core value where I come from."

I pride myself on my professional ethics.

Besides, the man only said I couldn't fall in love with him. He never explicitly forbade me from finding other investors.

Carrying a heart full of gratitude, I held onto Keith even after I secured my two premium upgrades.

My master plan was simple: stockpile cash for a few years. Then, use that war chest to finally get my education.

"Knowledge changes your destiny." That phrase is practically grafted onto the DNA of every kid who grew up wearing hand-me-downs.

For the past two years, I had been teaching myself the high school curriculum.

Even right after getting railed, I didn't miss a beat. I pulled out my heavy Princeton Review SAT prep book and started running drills.

I was staring daggers into a multivariable calculus problem, my brain completely blank.

Beside me, Keith let out a condescending scoff. "I don't understand why a girl with your... limited capacity wastes her energy on this."

I was about to snap back, but he reached over, took my pencil, and slashed a single, elegant auxiliary line across the graph.

Instantly, the entire equation unlocked in my head.

"I got it!"

I looked up at him, a genuine, unguarded smile breaking across my face.

Keith blinked, clearly caught off guard by the brightness of it. He turned his head away and cleared his throat.

"If you get stuck again, you can ask me."

He had been his prep school's valedictorian. To him, this was elementary math. He couldn't fathom what this foolish woman was so thrilled about.

Seeing him offer an olive branch, I immediately pushed my luck. I crawled over, draped my arms around his neck, and gave him my best sultry gaze.

"Does that mean I can see you more often?"

I didn't care about the romance; I just wanted a free Ivy-league tutor. Private tutors in the city charged eight hundred bucks an hour.

Keiths Adams apple bobbed. Whatever he imagined I meant, it made a dark flush creep up his neck.

He abruptly shoved me away. "Stop using these cheap, low-class tricks on me."

Fine, be a jerk about it.

If he didn't want to help, Id just find someone who would.

Speaking of my first meeting with Theo Gilbert, I actually had Keith to thank for playing matchmaker.

Back when I first became his kept woman, Keith purposely paraded me around high-society galas.

The goal? To make the exiled Cecilia insanely jealous.

While Keiths juvenile tactics yielded zero results with his ex, they did allow me to learn that Cecilia had left behind an entire roster of broken-hearted admirers.

I smelled a business opportunity.

So, at one particular charity gala, I cornered Theo Gilbert while he was standing alone by the terrace.

The man was tall, lean, and breathtakingly gorgeous. He possessed this warm, magnetic aura that effortlessly drew the entire room's gaze.

He was a movie star, after all. God, he was beautiful.

I marched right up to him and delivered my opening pitch:

"Hey handsome. Are you in the market for a stand-in?"

Yes, my Appalachian roots made me brutally direct.

Theo, clearly having never been propositioned with such bizarre bluntness, froze.

I doubled down on the sales pitch. "If you're not, no worries. I've got a list to get through."

Cecilia had plenty of orbiters; I wasn't going to starve.

When he didn't speak for a solid ten seconds, I pivoted to leave, ready to hunt down my next target.

Suddenly, a hand clamped down on my wrist.

Theos eyes flickered with a dark, unreadable emotion. It took him a long time to finally speak.

"Yes," he said.

And just like that, I secured my second job.

Compared to Keith, Theo was a dream. Generous, gentle, an absolute saint.

Every single transfer was exactly $52,000.

He always asked for my consent before coming over, and he treated me with borderline reverent care.

In bed, he catered to my every need. If I even shifted uncomfortably, Theo would immediately stop and check on me.

There was only one catch: he always tied a black silk ribbon over my eyes.

Because the one feature I absolutely didn't share with Cecilia was her eyes.

Hey, the customer is always right.

If a guy this generous and considerate has a blindfold kink, who am I to judge?

Keith only summoned me once a month.

That left me with an abundance of free time, all of which I dedicated to Theo.

For convenience's sake, I started hosting Theo at Keiths sprawling penthouse. Keith never showed up unannounced, so it was the perfect way to save on hotel fees.

I was quite proud of my little logistical triumph.

But if you play with fire long enough, you're bound to get burned.

One evening, I had just kissed Theo goodbye at the elevator. Not twenty minutes later, the front door clicked open, revealing a heavily intoxicated Keith.

It was the very first time he had ever broken our schedule.

The air in the living room still hung heavy with the sweet, damp scent of sex, and I hadn't even bothered to cover the fresh red marks blooming across my collarbone.

Thank God Keith was practically blind-drunk. He didn't connect the dots.

Instead, he just stared at the bruises on my neck, his brow furrowing in irritation as his thumb dragged over the sensitized skin.

"Are the mosquitoes getting worse?"

He stumbled over to the nightstand, grabbed a bottle of soothing lotion, and began rubbing it into my skin.

For a fleeting second, his expression mirrored genuine concern.

"You need to be more careful. Why didn't you plug in the repellant?"

The lotion was cool against my flushed skin, but Keiths fingers were burning hot.

The atmosphere suddenly shifted, growing dangerously intimate.

I caught his wrist. "Mr. Crawford, are you in a bad mood?"

"Is it because of Cecilia?"

Reading a patron's emotional state is the baseline requirement for this line of work.

I was terrified he was going to start making a habit of dropping by unannounced. Where I come from, getting caught cheating in the very bed your sugar daddy pays for is generally considered bad form.

Keith didn't like the question. He grabbed my chin, his grip tightening.

"Don't try to play mind games with me. Remember what you are."

He squeezed harder, and a small gasp of pain slipped past my lips.

A second later, he shoved me back onto the mattress.

The red marks on my collarbone made his eyes darken, and he leaned down, biting right over the same spot.

"Stop using her face to do these cheap, dirty things."

Keith was urgent and vicious that night. Considering I was now working a double shift, my legs were physically trembling by the time morning rolled around.

Seeing the state I was in, Keith actually looked a flicker of guilt.

He reached into his tailored suit jacket, pulled out a velvet box, and tossed it onto the blankets.

I opened it. A massive, blinding pink diamond stared back at me.

I instantly recognized it. It was the ten-million-dollar diamond Keith had won at an auction a few weeks agothe one he intended to give Cecilia for her birthday.

Looked like the gift had been rejected.

No wonder he was drinking.

But what did I care?

It was ten million dollars.

Overjoyed, I practically launched myself at him, planting a massive kiss on his cheek.

"Thank you, Keith! You treat me so well!"

Keith sat there, stunned, his fingers brushing the spot I had just kissed. He watched as I treated the diamond like a holy relic, carefully sliding it onto my finger.

The corner of his mouth twitched upward before he forcibly yanked it back down into a scowl.

"You make a fuss over nothing. So uncultured."

He didn't buy it for me.

But Cecilia didn't want it, so the scraps fell to me.

After that night, Keith didn't contact me for a long time.

I honestly thought the gig was up and was already drafting plans to find a replacement for his time slot.

Then, the incident with Bianca and the shattered bracelet happened.

I had raised such hell about it that Keith was forced to step in and handle the mess personally.

When I saw him, he seemed to be in a surprisingly good mood. His lips were permanently fixed two millimeters higher than usual.

In bed that night, he was uncharacteristically gentle, whispering soft, coaxing things into my ear.

But the moment a soft, contented sigh escaped my lipsjust like it always didhe froze.

We both stared at each other, eyes wide in the dark.

Wait a minute. Has it even been ten minutes?

We laid there in absolute, agonizing silence.

I couldn't tell if the look on Keith's face was sheer humiliation or violent rage.

Whatever it was, he clamped his hand over my mouth.

"From now on, when we do this, you don't make a sound," he warned, his voice tight.

"The second you open your mouth, you ruin her."

Oh. A wave of realization hit me. I was being too loud and it was ruining his concentration.

Tears welling in my eyes, I nodded frantically.

For the rest of the night, I bit my lip and stayed completely silent, but Keith couldn't quite shake off the awkwardness of his early misfire.

When a man is embarrassed, he tries to look very busy.

Keith put in overtime that night, and he was unusually chatty.

"You don't hold a candle to her, but God, you know how to work a man in bed."

"Tell me, is this your grand strategy? F**k me so well I can't leave you?"

...

By the time Keith got out of the shower, I had already fallen asleep clutching my SAT prep book.

In the hazy space between sleep and waking, I felt someone carefully slide the heavy book out of my arms.

I heard Keith whisper against my ear, "Maeve."

"I am never going to fall in love with you."

His words were cold and absolute, yet the way he pulled me flush against his chest was incredibly practiced and natural.

I instinctively snuggled deeper into his solid chest and smacked my lips.

Whatever you say, buddy. Your pecs are warm.

I slept in until noon the next day, long after Keith had left for the office.

When I checked my phone, the very first notification was a $520,000 transfer from Theo.

It was his bat-signal. I hummed a happy tune as I took my time getting ready, putting extra effort into my makeup.

Honestly, out of my three patrons, Keith was the most emotionally taxing and stingy.

Gideon was the most generous, but he was a terrifying, unpredictable predator.

Only Theo was gentle, empathetic, and took genuine care of me.

Out of the three of them, he was easily my favorite.

Sure enough, by the time I glided down the stairs of the penthouse, there were four steaming dishes laid out on the dining table.

All my favorites.

Theo was just walking out of the kitchen, carrying a bowl of soup.

The moment he set it down, I practically threw myself into his arms.

Theo caught me by the waist, his strong hands stabilizing me so I wouldn't fall.

"Careful, wild thing."

His words were a scolding, but his eyes were melting with absolute adoration.

I buried my face in his neck, breathing in the crisp, clean scent of cedarwood.

"It smells incredible. I'm starving."

Theo effortlessly lifted me and set me down on a dining chair.

"The food is ready. Let me just clean up a bit and we can eat."

He reached back to untie the little pink apron he was wearing, but I hooked my arms around his neck and pulled him down.

"Theo," I whispered. "I'm not talking about the food."