by Nolon King
“Mind if I ask you a series of questions?”
He shrugged. “Shoot.”
“Okay, answer them fast. Don’t think. First question: What’s your favorite ice cream?”
“Cookies and cream.”
“Have you ever been to Milwaukee?”
“No.”
“Thick or thin crust?”
“Thin.”
“Sword or gun?”
“Sword.”
“Breakfast, lunch, or dinner?”
“Dinner.”
“Book or movie?”
“Movie.”
“Have you ever wanted to visit Australia?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever wanted to sit courtside at a Lakers game?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever wanted to sleep with someone other than your wife?”
“Yes.” And then he stopped, having realized what he just admitted.
“Don’t feel bad,” I soothed him. “That’s human nature. We’re supposed to fuck other people, and if you don’t buy that, then we can at least agree that it’s a normal desire.”
Ryan said nothing, as expected.
So I pressed. “Do you agree?”
A reluctant nod, then, “I guess.”
“So stop worrying. I shouldn’t need to remind you that privacy is our top priority. If we can keep secrets for the city’s elite, then we can sure as hell keep them from you. Your wife will never have to know what you’re up to. Just tell her that you’re managing human resources for Shellter, which in a way, you are.”
But unbelievably, Ryan still hadn’t given me his Yes.
“I don’t know,” he said, his eyes telling me No.
But I really, really needed him. More than I wanted to admit.
Ryan Monroe was the only one who could do this right, who could do everything that Dominic and I would need him to do. I couldn’t afford to lose him.
“Fair enough. But how about we do one job just to find out if it’s something you’re interested in permanently?”
Ryan nodded his head. “Maybe. Just give me a couple of weeks to go home and reset. Then we’ll talk.”
I couldn’t afford to let him walk out of there before he’d talked himself into a Yes.
So again, I laughed. “You know we move faster than that around here. No pressure, but I think you’re right for this, and I wouldn’t want to start looking elsewhere until I have a firm no from you. But on the other hand, I know Dominic won’t want me sitting around waiting. I’ll make you one final offer, and if you like it great. If not, no big deal.”
His eyes were curious.
My heart was pounding.
“Okay,” he said, carefully. “What’s the offer?”
“Like I said, one small job to see if you like it. I want you to assess Jess Lindley.”
Ryan was already shaking his head. “Wasn’t she recently in the hospital for an OD? She might be too fragile. Even if I agreed to enter a ‘relationship’ or have a one-night stand with a woman under false pretenses, that doesn’t mean I’m willing to inflict permanent damage. It just isn’t ethical. I do need to maintain some professional standards.”
He was getting indignant. I didn’t like that.
I leaned forward. “Oh, please. I think we blurred the boundaries beyond what’s considered ethical months ago. With your method. You wouldn’t want that getting out now, would you?”
I stared at him, waited for Ryan to shake his head, then continued.
“A hundred thousand dollars for the assessment, then a 250 thousand dollar signing bonus if you want a contract after that. But you keep the first six figures regardless.”
He stared at me, unable to believe the offer. Exactly as I’d hoped.
So I brought it home.
“The offer expires in five minutes.”
But Ryan didn’t even need one.
Chapter Eight
Monday Evening …
NATALIE
I was helping Lena with her homework before dinner, trying to pretend I hadn’t forgotten how fractions work while also ignoring my burner phone, which was — and had been — constantly buzzing for the past half hour.
“Who keeps calling you?”
“It’s spam,” I told her.
“Like what you get in your email?”
“Yes, but these people are using the phone.”
“To sell you things?”
“Right!” I sounded excited, but only because I’d just figured out how to reduce the fraction in front of me.
“What do they want to sell you?”
“Health insurance.”
“Are you going to buy some?”
“No, honey.” Someone’s going to buy me.
I had done two more jobs since Bennett, with another seven to go. Apparently word had gotten out that Victor had a new MILF on staff, and I guess people were into the mom thing.
Neither of the other two clients had matched the bliss of my encounter with Bennett. I almost wish he hadn’t been the first. But he’d taught me the most important lesson that a girl in my new profession needed to master: Never get emotionally attached to a client.
Speaking of people I was no longer emotionally attached to, Ryan walked into the living room and joined us.
He looked down at the math and said, “Need any help?”
“Nope, we’ve got it.”
“Sure, Daddy!”
Ryan smiled and sat on the other side of Lena.
I suddenly wanted very much to answer that last text. Or be anywhere my husband wasn’t.
I couldn’t even look at him.
He was such a phony, practically smothering me in affection ever since coming back home. Almost like he was a new man. I don’t know when was the last time I’d seen him so relaxed and happy. But my skin crawled every time he touched me.
Ryan felt like more of a stranger than the men I was letting inside me. At least my clients weren’t pretending to care about me. My time with them felt more honest than my marriage did.
If my clients were cheating, then they were doing it to someone else. Not me.
“Perfect,” I said, sliding the homework over to Ryan. “I need a break.”
He took the paper and immediately began working out the problems, while I asked about his trip to New York. I’d avoided the conversation so far — because I knew how much it would piss me off — but I was finally ready.
“So how did the assessments with the startup go?”
He answered without looking up from the fractions. “Really great, actually. The boss for this project is really smart. She has big plans, and she appreciates my work.”
“The boss … it’s not Ambrose?”
“No.” He shook his head without looking up. “Not for this project.”
“So who is it?”
“I’m not supposed to say, but it’s a woman.”
It’s a woman?
Was he baiting me?
“Did you have much time to see the sights?”
He laughed. “No. Not at all.”
“Remember when you took me to New York for our anniversary? I had so much fun. All the restaurants. You didn’t have time for anything?”
“The project is intense, Natalie.” There it was, the edge finding his voice. “There wasn’t free time for anything. I never got out of the hotel.”
“Didn’t you grab dinner with the CEO?”
“Yes. In the hotel.”
I had to give Ryan credit. He was good, answering every one of my questions with ease. If Olivia hadn’t shown me those pictures, I never would’ve suspected.
He would keep lying. Because if Ryan was to tell me even one truth, then I could pull at the string and unravel his whole ball of yarn.
He finished another fraction and slid the paper to Lena. “Now it’s your turn. Follow my example to solve it, but I need to see your work.”
“Okay, Daddy!”
Fuck you, Ryan.
A
lec entered the room, looking shy like he did when he wanted to ask something.
“What’s up?” I asked.
He looked from me to his father, then his shy eyes settled somewhere in between us. “I was just wondering if we could have a family movie night.”
“Of course,” Ryan responded before me. “But why are you asking like that?”
I was wondering the same thing. Alec sounded like the saddest child alive.
“It’s just that you’re always traveling, and Mom’s been out a lot more recently. Since you’re both home …”
My stomach dropped.
I really wish he hadn’t said that.
Ryan’s eyebrows bunched together. He turned to me while still speaking to Alec. “You mean at nighttime? During or after dinner?”
“Yes,” I answered before either of the children could. “I’ve been spending a lot more time with some of the moms from school.”
Ryan was much too observant. Now he was suspicious. So I had to turn the screw.
Conspiratorially, I whispered, “Sometimes it’s fun, but usually it’s the worst.”
“Then why do you go?” Ryan asked.
I shrugged, acted like I didn’t really want to express myself or admit this particular truth, then waited a beat and said, “I guess their company really helps me to deal with the loneliness. Like Alec said, you’re always traveling.”
That hit him for sure, but I couldn’t tell exactly how. Ryan seemed to be studying me, and he was definitely processing. It looked like guilt, and that would make sense, but what did I know? He’d been cheating for a year at least, and it had taken an old frenemy wanting to manipulate me into indentured servitude for the truth to come out.
Ryan had seemed so happy since coming back home this time, or at least he’d held the facade. But now he looked visibly upset.
“I’m sorry I’ve been gone so much,” he said, sounding like he meant it. “Things will be changing soon.”
You bet your cheating dick they will be.
“You’re gone so much, it’s getting harder for me to even keep the calendar straight,” I said, figuring that I might as well keep turning the screw, maybe buy myself a little more leeway if he noticed something else. “I know you have another trip coming up, but I’m not even sure where it is, or how long you’ll be gone.”
“Wednesday,” he reminded us. “I’ll be assessing for a firm in Atlanta, but I’ll be home by the weekend.”
He still seemed suspicious.
Fine with me, I’d been more than that for a while.
And fuck him with his phony trip to Atlanta. This time I was going to follow him, and see exactly where he went.
Chapter Nine
Wednesday Evening …
OLIVIA
Natalie was leaning against the door to my condo.
I saw her a second before she saw me and had just enough time to wonder what in the fuck she was doing here.
Natalie turned toward me, or toward the sound of my clacking heels. She half-smiled, but it didn’t keep her from looking pathetic. Quite the opposite, really.
She was dressed like a total mom. Not even a MILF, just a regular old juice box-packing, carpool-driving, PTA-attending mom in jeans, flats, and a cardigan, her hair pulled back like she just got back from her weekly book club, where all the idiot housewives were discussing something insipid like Fifty Shades of Suburban Bullshit.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, because she didn’t deserve a hello.
“I need a favor,” Natalie said, though I’m not sure it was too early in the exchange to use the word beg. She sounded so goddamned needy.
There was a part of me that loved it, seeing her so low.
“A favor?” I laughed. “Sorry honey, but I don’t do favors.”
I went to unlock my door, hoping she would just go away, knowing she wouldn’t.
“Please, Ol—”
“Aren’t you supposed to be with a client tonight?” I stepped inside, but blocked the opening. No, she couldn’t come in. I had to admit, the girl was already proving herself to be an excellent earner. According to Victor, Natalie’s clients were thrilled, and that extra ten percent was adding up to a nice little bonus for me.
But none of that meant I was going to let the betrayer into my home.
“My next client is tomorrow, and I’ll do what I’m supposed to, but tonight I need you to help me.”
The way Natalie said that last part actually hurt, the emphasis on you serving as a stiff reminder of how close we used to be, before she seduced Ryan away from me. “What’s the favor?”
“I need to get into Cameo.”
I laughed, long and hard. I wasn’t even trying to be unkind. Sure, I could get Natalie inside, but fuck her for asking. Cameo was one of the most exclusive clubs in LA. It was always swarming with celebrities, the kind of place where entry was impossible unless you knew someone.
“I hate it when you laugh at me like that. It’s really condescending.”
“What do you expect, Natalie? You’ll never get in looking like that.” I gestured to her sad little outfit. “You do know you’re an escort, right? Maybe it’s about time you start dressing like one. The soccer mom act isn’t fooling anyone.”
Stupidly, she said, “Neither of my kids play soccer, which you would know, if you cared.”
“Well, clearly I don’t.”
I stared her down, expecting her to retreat. But instead, she whispered, “Please. Let me come inside, just for a minute?”
Hating myself for relenting, I swung the door wide and invited her inside.
Things got better after that, and I wondered why I didn’t realize that it would be fun to watch Natalie realize how outclassed she was.
A grand chandelier poured a million points of light into the living room, which was decorated in white and black, chrome and steel, with splashes of color from all of my overpriced art — one of my accountant’s many ways of managing so much cash. There was nothing in crayon, and no cheesy family photos either. It was a far cry from Natalie’s suburban wasteland.
“You live here?” Natalie asked, clearly awed.
“I sure do, and I’m smart enough to pay for the things I buy with cash, so all of this is actually mine.”
Natalie looked slapped.
Get to the point, I said with my hands.
“Ryan said that he was going to Atlanta, but I followed him instead. He’s at Cameo right now and—”
“Oh, isn’t that too bad? Would you like to know how I found out that he was cheating on me? It’s a really good story.”
“He wasn’t cheating on you, Olivia. You two were—”
“Really, Natalie? You’re going to make that argument? Here and now?”
She looked near tears, and I couldn’t believe how bothered I felt, annoyed that Natalie couldn’t conceal her sadness, and that I was feeling an empathy she didn’t deserve. This was why I no longer dated. Or had many friends.
I sighed then said, “Finish your story.”
“He left for the airport, but I followed him to the Indigo. It’s a luxury hotel in—”
“I know the Indigo.”
“Twenty minutes later, he walked out wearing a suit. Then he took a FASTr to the club.”
“And why should I help you?”
Apparently Natalie didn’t understand the mechanics of betrayal. Once you sold your best friend down the river, you lost all the benefits of that friendship. I’d eventually recovered, of course. I’m a strong woman, but she ruined me for a while with what she did, sleeping with Ryan in college, when he was the only person I had ever loved, and she knew it.
So no, people who shit on their best friends didn’t get to make demands, no matter how far in the past their betrayal might have been. I couldn’t imagine a single reason that would get me to agree.
But Natalie didn’t even try to give me one. Instead she just looked at me with her big brown eyes and begged.
“Please. I don’t
have anyone else.” Pathetic. Vulnerable. Desperate.
Why was I feeling any sympathy toward this person who had hurt me so much?
I couldn’t answer that question. But I did.
I needed to make sure that I got something for helping her because otherwise she’d sense that weakness in me and exploit it again.
“Fine. I’ll help you. But I have two conditions. First, once you’re finished with your first ten clients, you’ll re-sign with Victor for another three months.”
She looked horrified but said nothing.
“Second, you’ll take over one of my regulars. He insists on meeting in the afternoons, which is inconvenient for me, and he likes the Broadway, which is closer to you.”
He’s also the worst of the worst, and someone who could really throw a wrench into Natalie’s life, but I had no obligation to warn her.
She shook her head, looking like a beaten dog. Probably couldn’t talk without crying.
“So do we have a deal?”
“No!” Natalie blurted, shaking her head. “No way. I’m doing my ten, and then I’m out. There won’t be eleven, and I’m sure as hell not taking one of your ‘inconvenient’ regulars.”
“Fair enough.” I walked to the door, then held it open for Natalie. “Have a great night. Enjoy never knowing when your husband is going to leave you for another woman.”
Natalie braced herself. She was fighting some sort of internal war, and even though my conscience was tugging at me, I couldn’t deny that I was enjoying the show, watching her wrestle with herself, and losing the battle on both fronts.
Her jaw set and her fists clenched, shoulders rolling forward as she said, “If Ryan hadn’t chosen me, you’re the one he’d be cheating on right now.”
She was right, of course. But she’d already pushed me to the limits of my mercy.
“Two conditions. Take the deal or get out of my condo.”
“I accept,” she said with a waver in her voice.
Good. Now we were getting closer to even.
NATALIE
Even in my tiny black dress and matching heels, I felt totally out of place standing next to Olivia.
