“I’m sure I didn’t.”

Micah shook his head, incredulous. “And, what, this is what you’ll pay me for my services every month?”

“Every week,” Damon corrected.

This man was crazy.

“You can’t be serious,” Micah denied. “What’s the catch? I could understand if this was a one-time payment for some weird sex thing” – a muscle in Damon’s jaw twitched – “but you want to pay me this amount to what, go on a few dates?”

“You’ll have to be available to me on short notice in addition to every other weekend and every Wednesday evening,” Damon explained. “At least, those are the days I put in the contract – I’m open to switching the Wednesday evenings to another day if it better fits your schedule.”

Micah blinked, mind spinning. An actual contract? Damon had clearly put a lot of thought into this.

“I… but I can’t just quit my job,” Micah said, grasping for an excuse. “I’ll lose loyal clientele.” There, that sounded like something a prostitute would be concerned about, right?

“The pay is largely to compensate for that,” Damon pointed out tersely. (Someone ought to tell the man that prostitutes didn’t make a whopping 10,000 dollars a week.) “You’ll also have to sign an NDA,” he added.

“An NDA?”

“A Non-Disclosure Agreement. It’s to protect both of our best interests,” Damon explained. “I won’t be able to tell anyone anything I learn about you that you want to keep under wraps, and you won’t be able to reveal any of the… sensitive information,” he decided on after a moment, choosing his words carefully, “you might overhear when you’re with me.”

Micah frowned, his investigative instincts pinging. “What kind of sensitive information?”

“Nothing that concerns you,” Damon replied, immediately shutting Micah down.

It was a tight-lipped response, but Micah supposed everyone deserved their privacy, as long as their secrets weren’t hurting anybody.

Misreading Micah’s contemplative silence as upset, Damon eventually added, “It’s nothing to worry yourself over. I would never let anything happen to you.”

“I’m tougher than you think,” Micah bit back. He’d been trained in hand-to-hand, after all, and he had one of the most accurate shots on the force. “I can take care of myself.”

Damon looked like he wanted to argue, but after a moment, he only offered a nod. “Well?”

The answer should have still been “no”.

A ridiculous 10,000 bucks a week or not, Micah’s justifications for denying Damon hadn’t changed. Yet, for reasons he couldn’t fully explain, Micah found it harder than he should have to turn the man down again.

Which is why instead of a firm rebuff, Micah only feebly protested, “I doubt I have anything appropriate to wear to these fancy events you need a date for.”

Damon’s eyes sharpened, recognizing Micah’s weakening willpower like a shark sensed blood in the water. “That’s fine. In fact, I already figured a complete wardrobe overhaul into the offer. We can go shopping as soon as you’ve finished breakfast. I’ve cleared my entire schedule until this evening.”