Boss, Does Being a Pretty Vase Really Work? - Chapter 1

The man raised his eyelids and stared at my face. After a slow appraisal, he said in a crude, vicious tone, “I don’t sleep with filthy things who’ve been used by half the town.”

His words were brutally direct. Heat flooded my cheeks, but I forced myself to explain. “I-I’ve never done this before…”

He shrugged. “I’m sure you tell every customer that.”

He tried to pull free and leave, but my bloodless fingers clung stubbornly to him. Once he was gone, I would be alone on this deserted street, while the serial killer watched me from some dark corner.

A cold gust swept past. Every hair on my body stood on end.

“Sir.” Fighting down my shame and battered pride, I stepped closer and lifted the hem that barely covered the tops of my thighs. “I’m clean…”

“You can inspect me yourself.”

His gaze lingered for a moment on the tears at the corners of my eyes, then drifted away with studied indifference.

His mixed heritage gave his features a sharp, striking cast. Faint contempt colored his unhurried voice. “So? How much is your precious first time? Do you think I’m as easy to fleece as those brainless animals ruled by their cocks?”

My face went pale. My reply was almost inaudible.

“No money, sir…”

At last, he looked at me properly. “Why?”

I pressed my lips together.

He could have driven away without sparing me a glance, yet he had turned off his engine and stopped. Leaning against the lamppost across the street, he had smoked his cigar as though he had all the time in the world.

Even with a road between us, I had sensed that covert gaze roaming over me from head to toe like a hunter sizing up prey. I could not define it, but it certainly had not been innocent.

Pretending to be calm, I lied.

“Because you’re Mr. Holt, the man everyone in town loves and respects. I-I’ve admired you for a long time.”

Holt’s eyes darkened. He studied my face for a long while.

The next second, I gave a startled cry. He had suddenly seized my slender wrist and shoved me roughly into his car.

The door slammed shut.

Holt smiled without quite smiling. “From this moment on, it’s too late for regrets.”

Holt’s home was an imposing villa.

Before we took off our clothes, he stood over me and conducted an interrogation. After working his way through three generations of my family, he finally asked, “Why are you selling yourself?”

Assuming his professional instincts had kicked in, I answered honestly.

According to the game’s setting, the player character’s parents had died years ago. He still had a chronically ill younger brother who needed medicine every day. Without it, the boy would fly into rages and smash things.

“The herbs are too expensive.” I lowered my head in embarrassment. “What little I earn as a carpenter can’t cover medicine every few days…”

Someone had told the player character that streetwalking was quick money. After agonizing over it, he had taken their advice.

Holt sighed almost soundlessly. He pinched my cheeks, forcing me to raise my face, and wiped away the tracks of my tears with his thumb.

“You’re letting me have you for free. If you don’t want money, what are you after?”

His stare was razor-sharp, as though it could cut straight into my thoughts. My heart inexplicably skipped.

Then I remembered a detail from the synopsis. The killer had marked the player character on his first night out and would disguise himself as an ordinary resident, roaming near the player character’s home until he found an opportunity to strike.

My lashes trembled. “There have been so many murders lately. I heard no officers patrol Oak Street at night. Everyone there is terrified.”

That was where the player character lived.

If Holt assigned patrolmen to the area, my chances of facing the killer alone would fall dramatically.

He understood my implication and sneered. “You’ve done something shameful, and now you’re afraid the killer will punish you?”

My little scheme had been exposed without mercy. My cheeks warmed, and my fingers twisted in my hem. “I-it’s all right if you can’t…”

My next words were no louder than a mosquito’s hum.

“But I truly do like you.”

Holt’s pupils contracted. His fingers tightened slightly around my chin, his expression unreadable.

Under my bewildered gaze, his throat bobbed.

“Hah. You’re very good at this.”