Before midnight

  Before Midnight

  Kristel Ralston

  Before Midnight.

  ©Kristel Ralston 2017

  Original title: Antes de medianoche (2016)

  All rights reserved

  All of the author’s works are copyrighted and registered on the SafeCreative platform. Piracy is a crime and is punishable by law.

  Cover design: Karolina García Rojo / Images @Shutterstock

  Translation (Spanish – English): D. Singer.

  Editor: M. Sarr.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express permission of the copyright owner.

  All the characters and circumstances of this novel are fictitious, any similarity to reality is a coincidence.

  INDEX

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  “Did the heater break down again?” asked Lauren grudgingly while she closed the door to her apartment to the silence of the night. She took off her scarf and left it on the brown sofa. Her pointy boots tapped over the dark wood floor until she stopped in the kitchen and then she started to heat her teapot.

  She sent a text to her landlord while making herself comfortable in her chair, next to the breakfast table. Ellias Groen was a cheap, seventy-year-old man who was extremely unwilling to spend a dime on a new heating system for the six-storey building that he rented to different tenants.

  The only thing that stopped Lauren from moving was the low rental cost; two hundred euros a month was a great bargain for such a well-located place. She lived in Schaepmanstraat, Westerpark, approximately forty minutes from Amsterdam’s Central Station and only a ten-minute walk from all the places tourists visit throughout the whole year. She was close to everything and this was another reason to endure Mr. Groen and his unwillingness to implement a functioning heating system.

  During winter, Lauren had decided to leave her bike inside and take the bus because freezing her legs while pedaling wasn’t such a good image. Buying a car wasn’t even close to being possible in the short term. She had barely been five months in Amsterdam but the city already felt like hers. The vibe of the upcoming Christmas could be felt in every corner and smiling wasn’t hard at all.

  Lauren was American and she was used to everyone going at their own pace. When her planned three weeks of vacation in Holland were about to end, she called her parents and told them she was going to stay, look for a job and fix her immigration papers. Being the only daughter of the Wades, they were reluctant to her idea. In fact, they gave her a four-month period to find a job and start to miss her native town Omaha, in Nebraska, but Lauren had surpassed it.

  Unfortunately, her work permit was at risk because a week back she had lost her job as a receptionist in a bed & breakfast, as well as her dream of opening her own company. The fact that she was unemployed during the busiest month of the year wasn’t the Voseen’s fault. Since Lauren started working with them, they were already toying with the idea of selling their business, which had been in the family for several generations. With the current world crisis, it wasn’t hard to understand the reason why the Voseens decided to sell their business to the highest bidder.

  She was grateful to the couple because Titus and Fanny were the ones who, without complaint, took care of her G.V.V.A, the three years’ work permit for foreigners in Holland. Plus, that was the time period Lauren had set for herself to save some money and set up a little office. But now everything was going down the drain because she no longer had an employer who sponsored her in order for her to keep working legally in Holland, a necessary step to get her legal residency. The last thing she had in mind was coming back to live in the U.S. She wanted to stay in Europe and absorb all the possibilities the continent had to offer her as a businesswoman.

  A while back, she graduated from a university with a degree in international business and she was desperate to see the fruits of the economic investment she had made to be able to study. She had work experience in her native state of Nebraska and at twenty-eight years old, working for others wasn’t her biggest expectation in life, but she had to put that aside in order to get her work permit overseas.

  What did she have on her side?

  The friends she had made during all the months she lived in Amsterdam were trustworthy people without a doubt, but she couldn’t just burden them with her personal problems, after all, they were all adults.

  Any job would be good for Lauren given the difficult circumstances she was going through. The real problem was that a temporary job wasn’t going to solve the mess that had been keeping her awake ever since the Voseens sold their bed & breakfast and laid her off: once again, she had to start the process of getting her G.V.V.A. sponsored by a new employer.

  “Lauren!” someone yelled, while the doorbell rang insistently at the same.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming!” she said before opening the door. She already knew who that voice belonged to her friend Emke Van deer Gaart. “What brings you over here?” she asked with a smile while the green-eyed blonde made her entrance.

  Unlike Emke, Lauren had brown eyes and brown hair. They were both a physical and intellectual contrast but due to that fact, they tended to complement each other very well.

  “Certainly not the wonderful heater you have here.” the Dutch girl replied shivering “Good God! When are you actually going to ask that jerk to fix this once and for all? You don’t pay much, but Groen will have to pay a very expensive lawsuit once you get pneumonia. Some of my best friends are good lawyers, they owe me a few favors and I’m sure they won’t mind repaying me by suing a bad landlord.” She took off her wool hat and threw it on the couch.

  Laughing at her friend’s comment, Lauren went to the kitchen and grabbed an extra mug for her. She served some of the steaming tea and came back to Emke.

  “Here you go,” she said as she gave her a mug of black tea, “this will unfreeze you. How was your day?

  “It depends,” she replied while looking at Lauren over the rim of her porcelain mug.

  “Uh-oh, that tone can only mean trouble”

  Emke smiled but in this case, it was an apologetic smile. That tiny detail freaked Lauren out just a tad.

  “I applied for a job on your behalf. The interview is tomorrow at noon.”

  Laurent let out a deep sigh. “You scared me. That’s great news…”

  “As a companion for events” The other girl added hastily.

  “What kind of companion do you mean exactly?” Lauren asked, putting her mug on the coffee table. Suddenly, the last thing on her mind was the cold.

  Lauren’s friend was unpredictable and that trait made her company a great joy. In this particular case, however, when Lauren find out she had been enrolled to work as an escort, Emke’s company didn’t make her feel too joyful.

  “They pay three thousand euros a night just for going arm in arm with a millionaire, make good conversation and come back as a happy camper with a huge improvement in your bank account; it’s just that, Lauren.

  “They’d pay me to be a prostitute?”

  “No! It’s not that kind of company!

  “Well, whatever. You’re truly nuts, Emke. I need a job but I’m not that desperate. I can survive a little while longer.

  “Your work visa in Holland is hanging by a thread. You need something urgently. I’m a psychologist, I don’t need an assistant in m
y office right now but I could…”

  “I can find something else,” Lauren interrupted, “the last thing I want is for you to get involved in something that could complicate your already crazy social life.” Emke roared with laughter. “It’s true! Anyway, I appreciate it. If by the end of the year I don’t have a job that grants me legal status in this country, I won’t have any other choice but to go back to Nebraska.

  Emke stared at her and crossed her arms.

  “I feel it’s absurd to be thinking about quitting when you could multiply that money by hundreds in only one night. You don’t have to have sex with them!”

  “Emke…”

  “As far as I know, the client signs a confidentiality agreement and there are clauses clarifying the fact that he knows the type of service he’s hiring, that is, a companion for an event, that’s it. It’s an immediate solution for an immediate problem.”

  “I didn’t study my ass off to become somebody’s companion and…”

  “What if you introduce yourself, ask all the questions that come to mind and at the end, if it’s neither convenient nor convincing… you forget about it! There’s no harm if you just go and ask some questions, right? I would never put you in a dangerous situation. I have friends who have worked for that agency.

  “Being a psychologist really suits you well,” replied Lauren ironically referring to her friend’s profession, and then took big sips of her hot tea.

  Emke huffed. “I won’t insist, but here,” she gave her a small business card, “this woman is the executive who handles the recruitment process. It’s one of the most prestigious agencies regarding high-level services and everything’s legal and above board,” Lauren nodded and put the card next to the vase near her. “For now,” Emke continued while getting up from her seat. She went to her bag, looked through her things and took out a small hard drive, “I want you to check some wonderful decorative designs created by Pierre Fuagers for my partner’s office.”

  “You mean the child psychologist?” Lauren asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “Mmm… that might take a little while, Emke. What if we go out to eat? That way I could stop worrying a little about what’s going to happen to me this December. Besides, I can’t think straight with an empty stomach.”

  “It’s a deal! You can’t get through these holidays without a double shot of tequila, Lauren; it’s my treat.”

  “For the free therapy you’re going to give me in the restaurant?”

  “Ha-ha, for the new job I got you.”

  “I already told you I’m not interested…”

  “I’ll persuade you with a few glasses of wine,” she said with a laugh. “Come on! Don’t be such a pain! You have nothing to lose,” Lauren was about to say something back but Emke anticipated. “Let’s go eat, we’ll talk some more on the way.”

  They put their coats on and went out to the streets that were already full of lights, pedestrians and tourists starting to fill the city. They got to a place serving Thai food where they talked almost until midnight and then they shared a taxi on the way home.

  Lauren entered her apartment feeling like someone had lifted a weight off her shoulders and she was also a little bit less cold because apparently, Ellias had been reasonable enough to fix whatever it was that had been broken a few hours back.

  She checked her answering machine to see if she had any messages and she had two: one of them was from the electricity company and the other one was from the gas company.

  Nothing interesting there, she thought.

  She went to her room and took off her clothes to put on some hydrating lotion. It wasn’t a shallow move but a smart move, at twenty-eight years old, her skin wasn’t the same as when she was fifteen.

  With a long sigh, she put herself into bed. Lauren knew she had until December twenty-six to renew her work permit. It was a race against time and she was determined to win it.

  ***

  Smiling was the last thing Caleb Bescott wanted to do in that cold December morning in the Big Apple, New York.

  He hated travelling across the Atlantic and it was even worse at such a complicated time of the year, but he had no other choice than to please Sylvinna, his paternal grandmother. Caleb adored her and she would usually use guilt trips with the excuse that she would surely die soon and she missed him.

  As the business shark he was, he knew his sneaky grandmother was manipulating him but he also understood why. Two years ago she became a widow and, due to her health condition, her doctor had stated that long trips were off limits for her, although that didn’t stop her from running her business with a firm hand. She absolutely loved to travel and, despite part of the family living in Europe, Sylvinna couldn’t follow the pace of life she had fifteen years ago.

  Caleb couldn’t say no to her. The whole family seemed to have fallen under Sylvinna’s charm and once again, they had agreed to celebrate the holidays in the cold city of Amsterdam.

  With the power invested in him as the President and owner of Bescott Incorporated, Caleb decided to do the board’s end of year meeting before Christmas. The executives in his company had salaries excessive enough to agree to his demands, the main one was to do anything for the company and that included travelling out of the US for a few days, with all expenses paid, to wherever Caleb said. In this case, it was Holland.

  Jolley, his personal assistant, had the task of coordinating the logistics regarding plane tickets and hotel stay during such a complicated month as December; besides rearranging the entire schedule for all fifteen upscale executives that worked for the telecommunications company Caleb directed from the top of New York’s skyscrapers. He was going to give his assistant a great bonus for her impeccable work.

  So now, Caleb was making himself comfortable in his executive class seat. He was about to land at Schiphol International Airport, in Amsterdam.

  The company’s jet was being repaired so he had no other choice than to buy a plane ticket with a conventional airline. He couldn’t sleep at all during the trip. It was an impossible task when he had kids crying at the top of their lungs or an annoying flight attendant offering him snacks, drinks or anything he wanted. He absolutely hated commercial flights!

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we welcome you to Amsterdam. Our airline thanks you for choosing us and…”

  Caleb stopped listening to the captain’s words announcing they would be landing in fifteen more minutes. Through his window, he looked at the famous Dutch canals and meadows that were now white and lacking their usual greenness.

  He enjoyed visiting different places and understanding different cultures; his family was plagued with influences from different countries: Greece, United States, Germany and Holland. In fact, her grandmother was American but she fell in love with a Dutch man and they had three kids in Europe: Caleb’s father, Mark, married an American woman and stayed in New York; Amanda and Tarah stayed in the old continent and got married, one to a German and another one to a Greek.

  Caleb’s grandparents spent their last days as a married couple in the States. When Sylvinna became a widow, she chose to come back to the city where she had known the love of her life: Amsterdam.

  Caleb wasn’t at all romantic, and the idea of getting married someday wasn’t that far up on his list of interests. He wanted to have kids and give them the same happy childhood that he and her sisters had, however, his job took up all of his time. He adored living in his huge apartment in the Upper East Side, and enjoyed spending the summer in the Hamptons. However, the game of picking up beautiful and sexually uninhibited women, which used to sound so appealing to him, was starting to make him feel indifferent. It all seemed too boring for him.

  “Thank you,” he said to the customs officer once his passport was stamped and Caleb was out of the long, tedious line. He opened up the doors leading to the overcrowded room where friends and family were waiting for the arrival of their loved ones.

  Once he had his suitcases in his hands, the thoughts
about his life in New York dissipated, especially when he realized who was waiting for him: Spyros, his friend, partner in crime and dearest cousin. He was his Aunt Amanda’s son, the one who married a Greek man and the reason why everyone knew Greece from one end to another.

  Spyros, at thirty-four years old was the same age as Caleb, and during their youth, their adventures consisted of going to parties in the best clubs in Mykonos. When Spyros visited New York, Caleb returned the gesture by far.

  “You’re finally here!” The blue-eyed Greek exclaimed.

  “Spyros!” Caleb replied with a smile that illuminated his blue eyes, a legacy of his mother, Lythia. “It was just a delay, typical in commercial flights.”

  “A two-hour delay,” he said as he looked at his Chopard watch with gold hands and diamond inlay. “I think you owe me a couple of shots of something expensive.”

  Caleb laughed, “We’ll see.”

  “And you have to introduce me to a beautiful woman,” he added. “If you don’t give up and decide to keep her first.”

  Spyros laughed.

  “That could happen, yes”.

  They made their way through the airport. When these two men walked together, they piqued the interest of many women who immediately started straightening their clothes or hair. Separately, they were both very attractive, but together they were a lethal combination of pheromones. Caleb was blond and six feet tall, while Spyros had black hair, brown skin and only two inches shorter than his cousin. They oozed the natural confidence that only successful men could have and without the typical modesty of those who denied their physical and intellectual assets. They knew what they were made of, and they weren’t trying to hide it.

  “So grandma got what she wanted, right Caleb? She made you come all the way here during the most complicated time of the year for your business,” he gave Caleb a pat on the shoulder while they made themselves comfortable in the seats of a Maybach car driven by Sylvinna’s personal driver. One of Fredor Bescott’s legacies was the valuable collection of fifteen luxurious and classic cars, and his widow had now increased it with some newer models; none of their children or grandchildren could complain about not having a mode of transportation during their stay in Amsterdam.