THE JOURNAL

The man I was flying to Italy to see wanted to introduce me to his friends as his girlfriend. For reasons known only to him, he also thought it would be useful to mention that I was the daughter of my country’s consul.

A car and driver were waiting for me at the airport. It was already late when we pulled up outside his home.

That was how my most recent booking began.

We First Met in Monaco

He booked six hours. A perfectly classic first meeting, with no elaborate plans.

We had a drink, walked from the hotel to the casino, had dinner and eventually returned to the hotel. The conversation flowed naturally, neither of us was in a hurry, and the entire evening felt easy.

Still, I had the sense that, for him, this was about more than a few pleasant hours in Monaco.

Some clients want a clearly defined experience. They arrive, enjoy their time and return to their lives. With him, however, I could tell that he was already wondering how I might fit into his world beyond a hotel room.

He was not only paying attention to the way I looked. He noticed how I spoke to the staff, how I behaved over dinner, whether I could hold a conversation naturally and whether he felt comfortable being seen with me in public.

We stayed in touch after that first meeting. Some time later, he contacted me again.

This time, he did not want another six hours in Monaco. He invited me to Italy to accompany him to a social event celebrating the launch of a book.

That was the moment an ordinary booking became an invitation into his real life.

What a Companion Packs When She Does Not Know Exactly Who She Will Need to Be

Before a trip like this, I need to know at least the outline of the programme. Not because I want every minute planned in advance, but because an evening event, a business lunch and an afternoon by the pool are difficult to manage in a single outfit.

I pack for situations, not for days.

An evening dress. Something elegant but understated for lunch. A blazer in case the event is more formal than the client expects. Shoes that allow me to do more than stand beautifully—I may also need to walk through a historic city centre. A swimsuit, because in Italy you never quite know where the evening will end. And at least one backup option for when the programme inevitably changes.

The programme did, of course, change.

The following day, my client took me shopping. That evening, we travelled to another city for the book launch. It was shortly before we left that he explained how he intended to introduce me.

I would be his girlfriend.

And, apparently, the daughter of my country’s consul.

It was not the first time I had received a request like this. On another occasion, I accompanied a client to his brother’s wedding, where I was expected to appear as his partner. To someone outside this world, that may sound strange. To me, it has simply become another part of the job.

A client does not always book only my presence. Sometimes he needs me to fit naturally into a particular part of his life for a while.

That does not mean turning myself into an entirely different woman. I did not need to learn a new accent or create an elaborate biography for the fictional daughter of a diplomat. I simply needed to understand the environment, behave naturally and make sure my client never regretted bringing me into a room filled with people whose opinions mattered to him.

At events like this, the goal is not to be the loudest or most noticeable woman in the room. It is far more important to know when to join a conversation, when to ask the right question and when to let the client take the lead.

A woman can have a beautiful dress and perfectly styled hair, but if she cannot read a room, everyone will know within ten minutes.

The evening went extremely well. I spoke to people I had never met before, listened to stories I did not always fully understand and behaved as though standing beside him was the most natural thing in the world.

Honestly? I enjoyed it.

A Night at a Castle and the Meeting I Had Not Been Told About

After the book launch, we spent the night at a castle. I assumed we would have a relaxed breakfast in the morning and then make our way home.

Instead, I discovered that we had an important business lunch to attend.

I found out about it while we were already on our way.

This is precisely why I bring more options than the original programme appears to require. A few hours later, I was sitting at a table with people discussing serious business with my client, behaving as though lunch at a castle had been part of our plans from the beginning.

Clients sometimes surprise me with the places they take me. What surprises me even more is the level of trust those invitations represent.

Spending a private evening with a woman in a hotel is one thing. Taking her to an important meeting, introducing her to people you know and allowing her to see a part of your world that most outsiders never experience is something entirely different.

After lunch, we walked through the historic centre. Suddenly, we were simply two people exploring a city together. There were no formal conversations, no social roles and no need to impress anyone.

That evening, we visited some of his friends at their villa and spent time by the pool.

In the space of a single day, I moved between a castle, a business lunch, a walk through the city and a private villa. In one setting, I needed to be elegant and reserved. In another, sociable and engaged. By the pool, I could finally be completely relaxed.

Yet I was always myself.

Just a different side of myself each time.

What the Client Had Really Booked

When people imagine a meeting with a companion, they usually picture a hotel room. That may be part of the experience, but sometimes it is only a very small part.

During this trip, my client did not need a woman who would simply sit beside him and look beautiful. He needed someone he could confidently take to a social event, a business lunch, a walk through the city and an evening with his friends.

Someone who would not ask him every ten minutes how she was supposed to behave.

Someone who could understand the situation, adapt to it and still never appear to be playing a rehearsed role.

Perhaps this is the part of my work that people understand the least.

The greatest intimacy does not always happen in bed. Sometimes it begins when a man allows you into his real world—among the people he works with, inside his friends’ homes and in places where a beautiful photograph and an elegant dress are no longer enough.

As the car took me back to the airport, I thought about how many women I had been over those few days.

His girlfriend. A consul’s daughter. His elegant companion at a book launch. A quiet presence during a business lunch. A woman in a swimsuit beside a private pool. And finally, myself again, sitting in the back of a car with a suitcase full of clothes that, only a few days earlier, had represented nothing more than possible scenarios.

My client had originally booked six hours in Monaco.

When he contacted me for the second time, he was no longer looking for just another meeting.

He wanted me beside him during moments that belonged to his real life.

And that may be one of the greatest compliments a companion can receive.

Certain circumstances and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of everyone involved.

There was nothing unusual about him.

He was calm, perfectly dressed, and completely composed. During dinner, his phone rang several times. Each time, he looked at the screen, declined the call, and continued the conversation as if nothing had happened.

We talked about work, travel, and people we both knew only from the media.

He was funny, attentive, and confident.

The kind of man who makes you think he has his life completely under control.

Later that evening, when we were finally alone and there was no one left to perform for, he told me that he was seriously ill.

At first, I assumed his family knew.

They did not.

His closest friends?

No.

His business partners, the people who sat across from him every day and made important decisions with him?

They had no idea either.

I knew.

A woman who, not long before, had been a complete stranger to him.

Why did he tell me?

I do not think he told me because I was more important to him than the people closest to him.

Probably the opposite.

Telling your family something like that means watching them become afraid.

It means questions, appointments, test results, treatment, and conversations about what happens next.

And even if they try not to show it, they may start looking at you differently.

Telling people at work can create a different kind of uncertainty.

What happens to the company?

What happens six months from now?

In everyday life, the truth often has consequences.

With me, it did not have to.

He could simply say it out loud.

He did not have to comfort me afterwards.

He did not have to explain what would happen next.

And for a few minutes, he did not have to be strong.

I did not try to make him feel better

I did not know what to say.

And I think that was okay.

I did not tell him that everything would be fine.

I did not know if it would be.

I did not tell him to stay positive, to fight, or to be strong.

People going through difficult things probably hear enough of those phrases already.

So I listened.

I did not ask for more than he wanted to tell me.

I did not change the subject because it was uncomfortable.

And most importantly, I did not suddenly start treating him like a sick person.

He was still the same man I had been laughing with over dinner an hour earlier.

He had simply shown me a part of his life that nobody else knew about yet.

Discretion is not just about keeping names private

When people hear the word discretion, they usually think about the obvious things.

No names.

No photographs.

No details about where we met or what happened.

Of course.

But the longer I have done this work, the more I have realised that real discretion goes deeper than that.

It is also about knowing that you can tell someone something without immediately being judged for it.

Men have told me about sexual desires they were embarrassed to admit.

About marriages that looked perfect from the outside.

About loneliness.

Fear.

Money.

Family.

Decisions they regretted.

And sometimes, about things much more serious than any of those.

I do not have to agree with everything someone tells me.

I do not even have to fully understand it.

But I can listen without immediately deciding what kind of person they are because of it.

And I think that matters more than people realise.

Sometimes it is easier to tell the truth to someone you barely know

There is a strange paradox in that.

The people we love the most are sometimes the hardest people to tell certain things to.

Not because we do not trust them.

Because we know our words will affect them too.

A stranger is not part of your family.

They do not work in your company.

They do not know your friends.

There is no fear that what you say today will become a topic of conversation somewhere else tomorrow.

Sometimes that makes honesty easier.

You say the sentence.

Nothing changes immediately.

Nobody panics.

Nobody starts making plans for you.

Nobody asks what happens next unless you want to talk about it.

For a moment, the truth can simply exist without creating consequences.

I carry a lot of other people's stories with me

Sometimes that feels strange.

I come back from a trip.

I unpack my suitcase.

I open my laptop.

I answer emails, deal with work, make phone calls, and go back to my own completely ordinary life.

And at the same time, I may know something that could completely change someone else's.

I do not call a friend and tell her about it.

Not because I spend every day fighting the urge to share people's secrets.

I simply do not see them as mine to tell.

That story was not told to my friends.

It was not told to the internet.

It was told to me.

And that is where it stays.

At the end of the evening, he went back to his life

Before he left, he looked at his phone again.

Several missed calls.

He straightened up.

His expression changed.

And within seconds, he was once again the man the rest of the world knew.

Calm.

Confident.

In control.

He went back to his life.

I went back to mine.

And what he had told me stayed between us.

People sometimes ask what the most intimate part of this work is.

I think they expect a sexual answer.

Mine is different.

Sometimes the most intimate moment is when someone finally says something out loud that they have been carrying alone.

And they know they do not have to take it back.

Maybe that is why we sometimes tell our deepest secrets to strangers.

Not because they know us best.

But because they know when a story is meant to stay exactly where it was told.

If these stories make you curious about the woman behind them, you can get to know me a little better here.

[Get to know me]

At the beginning, I was afraid of this job.

Not because I was scared of getting on a plane, meeting a stranger, or walking into a hotel room alone.

I was afraid of what the job might do to me after a year. After two. After dozens of encounters.

I had the same image of it that most people probably do.

Sex. Money. Hotels.

And somewhere in the back of my mind was that familiar social judgment: this is beneath you.

I thought that if I stayed in it for too long, something in me would go numb.

That after everything I saw, I would start hating men.

That I would stop trusting them.

That every married man would become another piece of evidence that relationships do not work, fidelity does not exist, and people are much worse than they pretend to be.

But my biggest fear was probably about myself.

That one day I would look in the mirror and think:

What are you actually doing?

That I would start to disgust myself.

The job did change me.

Just in the opposite way I expected.

The more men I met, the harder it became to see them in black and white

Maybe that is the biggest paradox.

I thought this work would make me think worse of men.

Instead, I started understanding them more.

Not excusing them.

There is a difference.

Understanding them.

Because when you know someone only through one thing they have done, it is very easy to put them into a category.

Unfaithful husband.

Rich egomaniac.

Workaholic.

Man having a midlife crisis.

But then you spend six hours with that person.

Or two days.

And suddenly there are a hundred other things attached to that one label.

He tells you about his father.

The company that almost destroyed him.

His child.

The woman he may still love, even though they have not known how to talk to each other for years.

Something he is afraid of that, according to everyone around him, a man like him should never be afraid of.

And suddenly, you are no longer looking at a category.

You are looking at a person.

He may still do things you disagree with.

But you realise people are much more complicated than a single sentence about them.

The biggest surprise was not the sex. It was the conversations.

If someone had asked me years ago what this job would give me, I definitely would not have said that it would change the way I think.

But that is exactly what happened.

I found myself sitting across from people I probably never would have met in my ordinary life.

People from different countries.

Different cultures.

People running companies I might otherwise only have read about.

People with enough money to live in a completely different world of possibilities.

And, at the same time, with problems that money could not solve.

When you spend an entire evening with someone, the conversation rarely stays on weather and wine.

You start talking about business.

Money.

Power.

Relationships.

Divorce.

Children.

Decisions that made millions.

And decisions they have regretted for ten years.

And I listened.

Not because I was taking notes.

But some sentences simply stay with you.

I learned that people who “have everything” are still looking for something

This probably changed my idea of success more than anything else.

I used to have a simple equation in my head.

More money = more peace.

More success = more confidence.

More freedom = a happier life.

Then I started meeting people who already had everything other people put on their vision boards.

Money.

Companies.

Cars.

Houses.

The ability to wake up in the morning and decide they wanted to be on the other side of Europe by dinner.

And I realised something slightly uncomfortable.

You can have everything you are currently working towards and still feel lonely at night.

You can manage hundreds of people and still have no idea what to do in your own relationship.

You can look completely confident and still privately question the decision you defend in front of everyone else.

You can buy almost anything.

But you still cannot simply buy peace of mind.

Money solves an enormous number of problems.

It would be dishonest to pretend otherwise.

It just cannot solve everything going on inside a person.

My relationship with my own sexuality changed too

This was probably the part I expected least.

I assumed that working in an environment where sexuality is so present would eventually make me numb to it.

That sex would become less personal.

That I would emotionally detach from it.

That did not happen.

Instead, I started paying much more attention to myself.

What I like.

What I do not like.

What attracts me.

What exists only as a fantasy and what I would never actually want in real life.

What I do because I genuinely want to, and what I might do only because I feel it is expected of me.

I started understanding my own body and my own boundaries much better.

And strangely, I feel that my sexuality is healthier, more confident, and much more mine than it used to be.

I no longer see sexuality as something that simply “happens between a man and a woman.”

I see it as part of myself.

Something I get to make decisions about.

Something I can be curious about.

Something I can enjoy without feeling that I need to apologise for it.

And also something I can say no to at any moment.

Maybe that is why intimacy means something different to me now.

It is much less about what is technically happening and much more about whether I feel comfortable, safe, and like myself while it is happening.

This job completely broke some of my old opinions

I used to divide a lot of things into right and wrong.

I still do, in some ways.

But now I can see much more space in between.

When you spend your whole life around people who live similarly to you, it is easy to believe that your way of seeing the world is simply the normal one.

Then you sit across from someone who grew up in a completely different culture, with a completely different relationship to marriage, work, family, money, or sex.

And suddenly, their way of thinking makes complete sense within the life they have lived.

I do not have to agree with it.

But I started asking why much more often.

Why does this person think like this?

What happened to them?

What would I think if I had lived their life?

And how many of my own “strong opinions” only existed because I had never really known anyone from the other side?

That does not mean I have fewer boundaries.

The opposite.

Mine are much clearer now.

I just stopped believing that you can understand a person in five minutes.

From the outside, this work looks much easier than it is

Dresses.

Heels.

Hotels.

Flights.

Dinner.

On Instagram, you could make it look like a very beautiful life.

But between a photo from a five-star hotel and reality, there can be a twelve-hour journey, an airport before sunrise, a man you have never met before, and a situation you have to read within seconds.

You learn very quickly to read a room.

A tone of voice.

A look.

The moment the atmosphere changes.

When to continue.

When to stop.

And when to simply leave.

Being beautiful is not enough.

There are plenty of beautiful women.

Expensive clothes are not enough either.

Those can be bought in an afternoon.

What is much harder is knowing how to move naturally around people who are very good at noticing when someone is pretending to be something they are not.

And most importantly, you need to know who you are.

Because without that, boundaries become very difficult to protect.

Of course, not all of it was beautiful

I do not want to turn this work into a fairy tale.

There are encounters I would gladly erase.

Men I never want to see again.

Moments when I was exhausted.

Situations when I thought: no amount of money is worth this.

And moments when I had to answer one question very quickly:

Where is my line?

But some of the most uncomfortable experiences taught me one of the most important things.

You do not have to defend your “no.”

You do not have to write an essay explaining it.

You do not have to convince someone that your reason is good enough.

Sometimes “no” is the entire sentence.

And strangely, the job I thought might make me lose respect for myself taught me to demand more respect for myself instead.

And what about the fear that I would start hating men?

It never happened.

If anything, the opposite did.

I saw men in moments when most people probably never do.

Without status.

Without an audience.

Without the need to look perfect.

And I realised that many of them carry things the people around them know absolutely nothing about.

That does not automatically make them good people.

It does not remove responsibility for the choices they make.

It just means that the space between a “good” person and a “bad” person is often much larger than I once wanted to believe.

And paradoxically, this work did not make me more cynical.

It made me less naive, but also more understanding.

Sometimes I wonder who I would be if I had said no back then

My life would probably be calmer.

More predictable.

There would definitely be fewer airports.

Fewer suitcases packed at the last minute.

Fewer situations where I had no idea what was waiting behind the next door.

Maybe it would be simpler.

But I also think it would be much narrower.

I would know fewer kinds of people.

Fewer worlds.

Fewer ways of living.

And I would probably still believe many things I no longer believe today.

At the beginning, I was afraid this job would turn me into a woman I could not respect.

Instead, it forced me to understand what I actually need in order to respect myself.

It taught me to understand men better.

To understand my boundaries better.

And, unexpectedly, to understand my own sexuality better too.

That is not what I thought would happen when I started.

If these stories make you curious about the woman behind them, you can get to know me a little better here.

[Get to know me]