by Nolon King
“I heard.” He sounded concerned, and the beat before he continued felt pregnant and long. “But I have a job that you might be interested in, anyway.”
I made a sound, but he cut me off.
“Before you say no, this job will pay you twenty thousand dollars.”
Everything stopped.
My heart stopped pumping blood and my stomach stopped digesting its food.
The world might have stopped turning.
Twenty thousand dollars.
It wasn’t enough, but it was enough.
Quitting Victor’s had been the right thing to do, and I was grateful to Olivia for getting me out, but I was still trapped in my marriage to cheating Ryan.
But now it sounded like I might have a way out.
“What would I have to do?”
“Nothing you haven’t done before.”
That didn’t sound quite right.
“You’re going to pay me twenty grand to sleep with you when you’ve already had me for free? I appreciate the offer, but that sounds a bit generous, Bennett. And while that is consistent with your nature, I feel like there’s a piece of this I’m missing … something I would be agreeing to beyond the norm.”
Bennett laughed. “This job isn’t for me, it’s for a friend of mine. You remember Melinda?”
Of course I remembered Melinda, and I did like her. A lot. I envied her, totally in awe of how put-together she was.
But I’d never had a female client. Even though two of my parties had been with couples, I hadn’t interacted with the other women much, since that wasn’t really the point with either client and all of us knew it.
I was willing, but also concerned, because what made me great at being a friendly neighborhood geisha was the ability to tap into my genuine desire. I wasn’t interested in women like that, and was worried that my lack of passion might show.
“I’m not sure I know how to be with a woman,” I admitted. “And Melinda seems like the kind of person who knows exactly what she wants.”
“No, Elle. She doesn’t want to hire you for a one-on-one; she wants to hire you on someone’s behalf.”
“No,” I said, almost on instinct. “I need a direct line to the client.”
“I understand.” And it sounded like he did. “But you can trust Melinda. She would never, ever put you in harm’s way. That’s the whole point. It’s what she’s trying to build …”
It sounded like he might want to say more, but he didn’t.
“Is there anything more you can tell me?”
“Yes. After you agree to the job.”
“Twenty thousand dollars,” I said, more for myself than Bennett. “How long do I have to be gone?”
“It’s one job, Natalie. But the Shellys like to 10x their offers. If you’re used to getting two grand, then they’re going to give you twenty.”
I couldn’t stop crunching the numbers. What I still owed, and what I needed to escape.
Every equation pointed to Yes.
“Okay,” I finally agreed.
“Great,” he said, sounding pleased. “Melinda wanted to make this easy for you. Be at the Broadway penthouse, seven sharp.”
“Wait. What? This is tonight?”
I had agreed only seconds ago, and I was already regretting it.
“Believe me,” Bennett said, and oh sweet Lord did I want to. “You don’t want to let this opportunity go.”
“But it’s last minute,” I argued, because I needed to have a say in something.
“Most chances of a lifetime are.”
I trusted Bennett, and Melinda, as much as that was possible in the scant time that I’d had with her. I didn’t get the feeling that either of them would want to see me in harm’s way.
There was just one more thing.
“It isn’t with Frank Wilder, is it? You can pay off my house and I wouldn’t fuck him.”
“No. It isn’t Frank Wilder.”
I needed backup. Someone to intervene if anything seemed off. Olivia would have to do it.
She would make me give her my cut because even though she saved me twice in one night, we hadn’t spoken since. We weren’t in the business of being friends. She didn’t even call to ask if I was cool with her giving Bennett my number.
“Fine. I’ll do it.’
“Excellent. Like I—”
“But you need to call Olivia and tell her to meet me in the lobby.”
“I’ll do that right now.”
“Thank you, Bennett.”
“Of course.”
“Can I ask you one more thing before we hang up?”
I was dying to know, though it killed me to ask.
“Anything.”
“Why haven’t you booked me again?”
“I heard you retired.” He sounded sweet, almost wistful.
So I said, “There’s always room in my schedule for my favorite client.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Friday Evening …
LYNETTE
I’d been following Natalie all week, in what had turned out to be five of the most boring days of my life.
I’d fantasized about doing something like that before, but never seriously. Just the sort of silly things you think about while trying to fall asleep. But after that scene at the coffee shop, I couldn’t sit around anymore. I had to do something, figure this out. Get behind the wheel instead of sitting in the back seat and waiting to see where we were going to go.
I was looking forward to seeing what Cherry Hill’s hottest mom did every day. What kept her calendar so full of color that there wasn’t ever any whitespace left for me — even though Slut Mom had apparently earned herself a block, and more than one, judging by how chummy the two of them were.
It was also great to spend a week away from Frank. He’d been working from home a lot more, and now that I knew what he was doing for a fact, he had never been more repulsive. A big, fat, cheating, slovenly ogre of a man. It was painful to realize how much I hated him.
But it looked like I might have been wrong about Natalie. By all accounts, her life couldn’t have been any more mundane. All week, she had dropped her kids at school, then either went immediately home or done something tedious.
On Monday she went to Provisions, leaving with only one small bag, before driving to Ralph’s and coming out with a fully loaded cart. Tuesday, straight home and she never left. Same for Wednesday, but she went out and met Theresa at two. That was annoying. She went to yoga on Thursday and Friday. Weird that she didn’t go the other three days, then did two in a row. Maybe she was starting the habit back up.
But she didn’t go to the salon. No massages, or shopping sprees.
I wondered what she did all day at home.
It was the opposite of what I’d expected. I’d imagined that I’d be driving around, keeping two cars back to stay unnoticed. I even bought a pair of binoculars. A good pair, too. Zeiss Stabilization. I didn’t know anything about binoculars, so I went to Forage, did a search for “best binoculars,” and paid eight thousand dollars based on their promise that if there was something to see, I would definitely see it.
Unfortunately, there had been nothing to see.
No excitement. No mystery. Not anything.
I thought maybe something might happen on Friday night, but was ready to give up when I’d spent my usual hours in total boredom. I had a sitter for Drew, but this was getting silly. At five-thirty, I told myself that I’d give it until six. Then at six, I told myself, ten more minutes.
And thank God that I did.
At exactly ten after six, the garage door opened, and Natalie’s silver Volvo backed out into the street.
No surprise as she turned right onto Leviathan, passing the Parasol and the rest of the hopping shops in that overpriced but beautifully landscaped strip mall. But after five minutes, Cherry Hill was behind us, and if Natalie was picking up either Alec or Lena at a friend’s house, then we had already passed them.
Maybe she wa
s picking them up at a birthday party.
Her Volvo merged onto the freeway and that seemed a little less likely.
The theory took another hit when she was off the freeway and barreling down Avalon.
Then it was dead when she pulled in front of the Broadway and handed the valet her keys.
Natalie got out of the car, and I suddenly couldn’t breathe.
She was stunning. I always thought she was beautiful, and maybe the warm lights hanging over the valet stand were helping, but her hair had never looked so luminous, her skin so flawless, her arms so lean and defined, sloping into gorgeous shoulders, all of it framed like flowers in the vase of a lacy black dress. She walked toward the lobby in heels like a goddess.
This was at least interesting. And probably something better.
I parked in the general lot, so we wouldn’t both be stuck waiting for the valet, then hurried back to the entrance, entering the lobby just in time to see Natalie bypassing the bank of elevators, heading to the private one that shot a select few directly to the penthouse.
The glass doors closed.
I watched Natalie press a button, then reach into her purse and emerge with a lipstick.
She raised it to her lips and I knew.
“Fancy running into you here.”
I turned toward the voice and nearly choked. It was the blonde whore who was fucking my husband. Casually sipping a martini. Looking at me as though I was the one who was doing something wrong.
But if this woman was a whore, then so was Natalie. Frank wasn’t in the penthouse tonight, but someone was up there waiting for her. And I’d bet any one of our cars that she was heading up there to sleep with him for money.
It was disgusting. Natalie was disgusting. This whole thing was disgusting.
This woman in front of me was responsible for it all. She was the one who was screwing my husband. She was the one who had corrupted my friend. And she was the one who would be the container for all the rage I was feeling and had no other place to pour it.
“I know what you two are up to!”
“Do you now?” Olivia just smiled, sipping her martini.
“Oh, you think this is fun?”
Olivia shrugged.
“You just wait until the school finds out about Natalie’s extracurricular activities. Do you think I won’t tell them?”
“I don’t know, Lynette? Will you?” She finished her martini then let her hand and the glass fall to her side. “Do you really want everyone to know that your husband has been paying me to fuck him? Does that seem smart to you?”
We stared at each other. She looked like she might hate me as much as I hated her, but I didn’t really see how that could be possible. She wouldn’t look smug much longer because if that was the worst that she had, letting the world know that Frank paid women for sex, she didn’t have nearly enough.
Let people find out. It would be humiliating, but more for Frank than for me.
I would reclaim what had been taken from me.
“You just wait,” I told her, refusing to blink. “And you can tell Natalie that she’s going to wish she never met me.”
Then I turned around and left, certain that Olivia was still standing dumbfounded behind me.
NATALIE
I dropped the lipstick back into my purse, tapping my feet, not knowing whether I wanted the doors to ding open or stay closed forever. Maybe the elevator would get stuck, and I’d have to spend the night on the floor of this glass box. I’d be like an exhibit: Behold the Gilded Hooker!
Twenty thousand dollars was a lot of money, and I still didn’t know what I would have to do to earn it, or who I’d be doing it with. My faith was in Bennett, and Melinda by association.
Ding!
I stepped out into the hallway and was at the penthouse door before the elevator closed behind me.
I checked myself in the mirror before knocking, then surprised myself with a smile.
I was glowing. This last month had changed me. Shaped me into someone capable of being so much better than I was. What I did with that new energy was up to me, and even though I had to wonder if I was making the right decision, I had to admit that I liked what I saw.
Ryan had really blown it, because he was a great guy who could have had the girl in that mirror, if he hadn’t been stupid enough to throw it away. All those years together, and he’d never seen me like this.
Now he never would.
I raised my hand to knock on the door, but it swung open and there he was, mouth open in a wide O, big enough for little Lena to fit her fist into.
My husband was the client?
For a second I thought that maybe he’d set me up, but he looked more set up than me. His mouth finally closed, but then it just fell right back open like a hinge was busted. He swallowed and snorted, then swallowed again.
“Natalie …” But that word was hard, and the next few even harder. “What are you … how …”
Apparently, this was up to me.
I swallowed my panic, pushed past Ryan into the penthouse, and shut the door behind me, trying to put pieces in my mind together, knowing that I didn’t have enough to assemble whatever this was.
I scanned the room for clues. Saw nothing. The place looked just like it had every other time I’d been here.
“I thought you were working,” I said.
He looked flummoxed. His brow was beaded, even though Ryan rarely ever sweated.
“Ryan? You told me that you were working tonight. So tell me, what is it that Conquest is having you do on a Friday night, in the Broadway?” With a sudden fury rolling through me, I added, “In the penthouse?”
“I know it looks odd,” he said, raising his hands, palms out as if to ward off intruders. “But I am working.”
I looked around the penthouse, then out the window at the glittering city below. “Sure looks like it, Ryan. I’ll ask you again, what are you doing here?”
“I’m here to talk to someone. Assess them. Sorry it’s in a penthouse. I didn’t decide on the place. How did you—?”
“You quit working for Conquest last year.” I didn’t take my eyes off of him. “Imagine my surprise when Nora gave me the news.”
His face went white and his skin seemed to wither as his shoulders hunched forward.
“Nat … please. We should talk.”
He thought I had tracked him down, followed either his car or his scent to this hotel. He had no idea that I was the woman that he had been waiting for.
I was angry, humiliated, and everything else.
I took a deep breath, drawing him in for the few seconds I still had before our world turned upside down. This was the night our marriage ended.
I gave it to him straight.
“I came here to fuck a stranger for twenty thousand dollars.”
Ryan looked unsteady – not just surprised, but like he was going to fall right over onto his ass. Clearly that’s not where he expected the conversation to go. I gave him seconds to respond, counting down in my mind. Three … two … one:
“I’ve been doing it ever since Olivia showed me all those pictures of you with other women. I didn’t do it because you weren’t enough, Ryan. I did it because I needed to save up enough to escape.”
“You’re lying.” His voice cracked after lying. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?” I was antagonizing him and liking it. I’d waited a long time for this conversation. “What is it that I’m supposed to stop, Ryan? Did you stop cheating on me? Did you pay back all the debt you took out in my name? Where’s all your money coming from, huh? How can you possibly afford to fuck someone like me?”
I laughed at the irony, and his expression. Then I kept going.
“Did you think I was going to wait for you to get tired of screwing around behind my back? That you could buy me a nice house and that would make it all okay?”
He firmed his feet and straightened his shoulders. Finally found something to say.
“I’ve gi
ven you a good life.” Indignant now. “A great life.”
“And that makes this all okay?” The absurdity had me laughing, then laughing harder, until I was doubled over and practically crying.
He waited for me to stop laughing.
I finally finished, caught my breath, and uncorked the bottle.
“Fuck you, Ryan! For all of it. For cheating on me, for seeing Olivia in Cameo then pretending that you hadn’t seen her in years. Just so you know, she’s a whore like me!”
He flinched again, I kept on going.
“But you did this to us. You left me without anywhere to go. I cheated on you because I had to. But you cheated on me because you wanted to.”
A punch to the gut as I swallowed an image of Bennett, there in the Cameo restroom. Okay, I wasn’t completely innocent, but I never would’ve met Bennett if Ryan hadn’t already turned me into a whore.
“You’ve made a career out of assessing people psychologically? What do you think I felt when I discovered that you’ve been cheating on me with at least half a dozen women — and worse, to find out that we owe a quarter of a million dollars that you never told me about?”
“Why didn’t you—”
“Why didn’t I ask you about it? You mean, like I asked you about your job over and over again, without ever once finding out that you’d quit it nearly a year ago?”
“I didn’t want you to worry.”
“You didn’t want me to tell me one truth because you were afraid I’d find out the rest.”
“That’s not fair, Natalie. You can’t—”
“That’s what I thought at first. I can’t. I can’t leave Ryan because we’re broke. I can’t support my kids because a stay-at-home mom isn’t qualified to do anything that pays enough to live on. I can’t let my kids suffer in poverty because I couldn’t make my marriage work.”
I was ranting and I couldn’t stop.
“Olivia offered me the power to save myself, save the kids. I took it.”
“No.” He’d had enough. Ryan shook his head, then sounding resolute he said, “Everything I’ve done has been has been for you and the children, whether you believe it or not.”
