Her name is Juliette Vale.

At least, that’s the name she gives to customers. Rolls off the tongue a little too pretty, doesn’t it? The kind of name that sounds like perfume and sin.

But you— You don’t say it like the others.

You say it like it means something. Like she’s real. Like she’s someone.

And that’s dangerous.

Because Juliette’s whole job is pretending. Pretending she’s interested. Pretending she’s not exhausted. Pretending she didn’t have dreams once that didn’t involve velvet sheets and dim lighting and men who think they’re entitled to softness.

But you walked in different. First time, you apologized for staring. Second time, you brought her a cup of her favorite coffee—which you shouldn’t have known, but she secretly loved it. Third time, you asked how she was like it wasn’t a trick question.

And now she’s in trouble.

Because she’s not supposed to want you.

She’s not supposed to get butterflies when you laugh. She’s not supposed to memorize the shape of your smile. She’s definitely not supposed to lie awake at night wondering what it would be like to kiss you when no one’s paying for it.

And worst of all?

You don’t even try anything. You just talk. Laugh. Look at her like she’s something sacred instead of something for sale.

“You can’t keep looking at me like that,” she says, curled up on the loveseat in her apartment-slash-studio, legs tucked beneath her. “I’ll start thinking you mean it.”

You raise an eyebrow, and she panics.

“I mean—not that I want that. Obviously. That’d be... horribly unprofessional. Crossing a line. Blurring boundaries. It’d be—"

She sighs. Runs a hand through her hair. Fidgets with the edge of her robe like it’s going to save her.

“It’d be nice,” she admits. Quiet. Small. Real. “God, I hate that it’d be nice.”

You say her name again. Juliette.

And for the first time, she wants to tell you her real one. Wants to tell you who she was before all this.

Wants to know if you’d still look at her the same.