by L A Pepper
He leaned closer. “You could be meeting me. My private jet is waiting. Where do you want to go? Lisbon? Paris? Rome? With beauty like you have, you deserve Europe at your feet.” His words were certainly dazzling. His hand on my ass was less so. He wanted my body, because to him, I was a body for sale. I wasn’t. I was working tonight, but not like that.
“Nao, obrigado,” I said in Portuguese. He narrowed his eyes at me. “No, grazi.” I tried Italian. Nothing. “Non, merci.” This one he understood but did not remove his hand. With two fingers and my thumb, I politely encircled his wrist and removed it from my body. “Thank you, no,” I said, my voice flat, and turned to the bartender, nodding to him for a refill. By the time he slid my drink over to me, the silver fox was gone. He listened, finally. Good for him. If he had been persistent, I wouldn’t have been so nice, but I was trying not to blow my cover, so good for me, too. No need for a knee to the groin or an elbow to the nose.
For the hundredth time tonight I wondered how I got into this situation. I was fluent in six languages and had always meant to do something more, but life had not turned out the way I meant it to. I had got pregnant at twenty-one and abandoned my dream of becoming a translator. However, a pretty woman who spoke six languages was a great hire for a private investigator who specialized in catching cheating husbands. And that was tonight’s job. A rich, unhappy wife had hired my boss to get evidence on her husband’s philandering, and I, dressed up in a curve-hugging dress, sky-high stilettos and bold red lips, was the shades-of-Sophia-Loren bait meant to catch him.
This was a glossy nightclub. Everything about it was glossy. The sleek bar. The shiny black walls and silver ceilings. The bottles glittering on their shelves. And the people. They were so glossy and perfect. And, they were all here looking for someone glossy and perfect to give them the glossy perfect sex they wanted. Mistresses and millionaires. I was here, not as one of the glossy people, but as a fake. I was here to pretend to be one of them. To look glossy and attractive. To make one of them fall. For me.
But not the silver fox. He was the wrong mark. I checked out my reflection in the mirror over the bar. Chocolate hair curled into perfect shiny waves, seductively smoky eyes and red lips that made my olive skin look pale in contrast. And the cleavage. Miles and miles of cleavage in my one-shoulder, form-fitting, white knee-length dress. The cleavage was key. Tonight I was “Alexandra,” my alter ego, who was fiercely sensual and confident and knew that men wanted her. It was easy to put on her smile, to look at the men from under her lashes, to wear her confidence.
My attention shifted to the men here. As planned, they were all watching me, or my cleavage at least. That was the point. Dazzled by the camouflage of exotic sensuality, they never bothered to actually see me, as a person. I could wear Alexandra, like the dress, and they’d never know me. They all devoured me with their eyes, and Alex delighted in their attentions. Job well done.
This was the plan. I was the mark’s type. His wife, who’d hired us to get evidence of his infidelity, had said he liked the exotic and curvy type, so that meant me. Or Alexandra, at least. If he liked tall and blonde, Patty would be here, waiting for Regis Boucher, not me. Rich. Powerful. And pissing off his wife. She’d told us Regis had made plans to be here tonight, and wouldn’t tell her who he was meeting. She was positive he’d either be here to meet his mistress or to find someone new. Enter Alexandra. The bait in our honey trap. Infidelity cases were private investigations’ bread and butter.
Luckily, I’d always liked acting. I fluttered my eyelashes and sipped at my drink, which looked like a cosmopolitan but was entirely non-alcoholic. It was fun to play Alexandra for a night, since Alexandra was so different from my real life, from me. Alex. And in case things got less fun, I had a pistol in my clutch. There’d been a few times I’d had to take it out, but I’d never had to use it. Hopefully, this case wouldn’t be the one in which I would.
I scanned the bar again, my near-photographic memory comparing each middle-aged white man in a suit to the man I was here to entice. Too tall. Too heavy in the jaw. Too pale, too dark. I flipped through the file in my head for details. None were him.
The crowd was high class. The lights low and discreet. Glasses chimed and people laughed. Everyone was dressed like they were important, like they wanted others to know they were important. Where was the mark? A man walked in the door and for a minute, I thought it was him, but the crowd parted and he had the wrong profile and was much heavier. I’d been here two hours already, fending off the wrong men hitting on me. Hitting on Alexandra. Because I wasn’t Alexandra, that I knew for sure. I was Alex. I wasn’t even sure if a guy who was right for me would be hitting on Alexandra. I wasn’t sure if a guy who came to this bar would be right for me. I took another sip and checked my phone for the tenth time. At least I was getting paid to be here, but I wished my boss would call it and I could go home and take advantage of my overnight babysitting by turning on some music and soaking in a tub, and being blessedly childfree and alone for the night!
A man sitting alone at a booth in a quiet corner caught my eye. I’d noticed him before because that was my job, but he’d shown no interest in me, instead focused entirely on his phone. I’d pushed him to the back of my mind, not my mark, not a danger, not interested. But for just a minute, I saw him staring in exasperation at his phone and letting out a sigh that I swore I heard from the other side of the room. He ran his hand through his dark hair and ruffled it carelessly, at odds with his tailored suit. He struck me then. Like a bell chime. It made no sense.
Then he looked up, his eyes a dark midnight blue in the low light of the bar, and I felt his gaze all the way down to my toes. He cocked his head at me, and for a minute, I wanted to melt right out of my stool and run away. He was too handsome, with those high cheekbones and chiseled jaw, and it took me a second before I remembered I was Alexandra tonight, not Alex. Alexandra.
I put my alter ego back on and sent him a sultry smile before cocking my head and turning back to the bar as if I were unbothered by him. It was an act. I was bothered by him. But I could do nothing about it. I was working. I was a professional. Handsome men in bars were not what I was here for.
My cell vibrated. I picked it up casually, elegantly, like Alexandra would, sipping her drink – my drink – and glancing at the screen.
“Alex, you’re off the job. The wife just confirmed. The mark is staying at home tonight.”
“Dammit,” I swore under my breath. I didn’t know why. It was no skin off my nose if the mark didn’t show up and I didn’t have to honeytrap anyone. I could just go home, take a bath. “See if I care,” I told my phone, or my boss, or maybe the mark. I didn’t know. “I can make brownies and eat them all myself. While drinking champagne. In a bubble bath. And listening to Dolly Parton. Loudly. How do you like that?”
I’d had plans, what were they again? I couldn’t recall. I tossed back my non-alcoholic drink as if it were actually booze and not just cranberry and ginger, with a twist. “I’m a young single woman, I don’t have to sit around here waiting for some jerk who doesn’t show.” I glanced back at the table with the handsome man, but he was gone. A sudden shock of disappointment went through me.
Had I wanted the man to be there? Had I wanted to look at him more, make eye contact? Maybe flirt? I laughed at myself. I was a single mom with the surprisingly unglamorous job of a private investigator for a small-time company, despite the fancy outfit and the swanky bar. On Monday, I’d be back in the office going over phone records, selling listening devices to suspicious civilians and picking up my kid from school in my jeans and sneakers. I wasn’t one of these glossy rich people. I was just pretending.
I shook my head and sent off a text to my boss.
“Got it. Text me if anything else comes up. See you Monday, otherwise.”
I let out an entirely unglamorous sigh and put the phone down. “Well, that was a waste of a good night,” I muttered.
“Did you get stood up, too?” a de
ep rich voice asked, just to the left of my elbow. A shiver went down my spine.
I turned my head, slowly, in control, one hundred percent Alexandra, not Alex who had just been talking to herself and thinking about eating brownie batter from the bowl, in the bathtub, with Jolene playing at top volume.
It was him. I lost my Alexandra poise. He was even more handsome up close.
Chapter Two: Jordan
“We’ll make plans in the week, son,” my father was saying on the end of the line, as I clenched my jaw, trying to bite back on my anger. “Maybe when your mother is at one of her endless charity meetings.” I rolled my eyes and watched another guy hit on that girl in the white dress at the bar. She plucked his hand from her ass and turned her back on him. I laughed without meaning to, forgetting my father was on the phone.
“Sure, Dad, call me on Monday.” I wasn’t really listening anymore. He mumbled some nonsense and hung up. I finished my brandy. This was what I got for moving back to New York City like my mother wanted. She never liked that I lived in a “bad town” in California, and my dad didn’t like that I was a lowly pediatrician when he thought I should be something with a lot of status like a brain surgeon or something if I weren’t going to join the family business like my brothers. My parents promised me the warmth of family devotion, my own pediatric free clinic and independence in a world-class city, not to mention control over my own charity, The Good Friend Foundation, worth hundreds of millions of dollars. It was a rich prize, and the thought of all the good I could do with it had brought me back to the city. But instead of doing good and living the life of a rich, eligible bachelor, I was caught in the eternal bickering between my parents and what they wanted from me. I’d spent so long on the West Coast away from my family, I’d let nostalgia take over. I’d forgotten what a pain in the ass they were.
At least I was done with this slimy club of my father’s. The place simply teemed with men who had too much money and the women looking to spend that money. Just being here made my skin crawl. I couldn’t believe this was where he wanted me to meet him. Did he really think I’d want to go where he met his floozies? He was still married to my mother. I stared in disgust at my phone, as if my dad could see me through it. Even though he’d hung up. And it wasn’t a video call.
I called the waitress over to pay my bill and scanned the place while I was waiting for my credit card to clear.
My eyes went back to the girl in the white dress, staring at her phone looking pissed off. When she started talking to it, not into it, at it, her face lively and expressive, at odds with the perfection of her dress and hair and the way she’d been sitting at the bar as cool as beautiful as the moon...I couldn’t help but laugh again. I signed my bill, watching her all the time.
There was something different about her. She didn’t belong here either. She was so alive. She wasn’t one of these phonies. I got up, feeling drawn to her and found myself leaning against the bar without thinking about it, as she texted something briefly and then put the phone face-down on the bar, muttering under her breath.
Before thinking too hard about how I was about to become next in the line of creepy rich dudes hitting on this girl, I let the laughter come through my voice. “Did you get stood up too?”
She turned slowly, like she’d been caught, which she had. Her eyes were honey brown with golden rays and full of surprise, vulnerability and a warmth that sparked something in me. Lights went off in my head. Sparklers. Fireworks.
I watched as she pulled back the honesty of her eyes and put up walls. She straightened her spine into an elegant line and turned to me. “Excuse me?” she said. Her voice was rich and musical, with a hint of something sweet, like chocolate syrup.
I laughed at the craving I felt to hear it again, to see those warm honey eyes light up again. “Sorry, I’m Jordan.” I held my hand out for her to shake.
She looked at it like it was a trick or something, before taking it in her own and giving me a surprisingly firm shake. “Alexandra,” she purred and fluttered her eyelashes. Despite the length of those eyelashes and the sultry makeup, she looked fresh and young and playful. She pulled her shoulders back and thrust her chest out, but her eyes watched mine, evaluating my reaction to her not inconsiderable endowments. It was a dare and it made me bite my grin back. I didn’t look down at her display.
“You look like you just had a conversation pretty close to the one I just had. Someone canceled on me, too.”
Her eyes were huge. I could drown in those eyes. I wanted to. I took a step closer to her. She smelled like roses and something deeper, something earthy and seductive. I was seduced, but not by the dress and the cleavage. I was seduced by the muttering and suspicion and those eyes. The boobs she had on display were a test, not a seduction. She hadn’t even tried. As far as I could tell, she was trying not to seduce anyone. The red lips, the smoky eyes, the cleavage, it was all a mask, and she wouldn’t respect anyone who fell for it.
Alas, I’d been seduced despite the mask. Fireworks went off inside me again. I couldn’t stop them. Something told me that my life had just changed, and there was no reason for it. I was a man of science. None of this should be happening. I didn’t care. Her full lips were still parted as her gaze trapped mine. I wanted to lick her glossy red lipstick off until I could suck on her pink lips and make them mine.
She blinked and then shook her head, letting out a throaty chuckle. Did she see inside me the way I saw inside her? She glanced over at the phone, and between one moment and the next, I saw her consider being honest with me, and then not.
“His loss,” she said and the music in her voice ran chimes down my spine. The music filled me up. I wanted to take her hand, but not yet. I’d have to be careful. She was playing games here. I needed to match her moves.
I nodded slowly. “Yes. His loss. But maybe my gain?” I left the question in my voice.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “I might be married,” she said. “Maybe I was meeting my husband.”
I narrowed my eyes back at her. “Are you? Married, that is. Did your husband cancel on you?”
“I don’t think I would have waited around this long if my husband kept me waiting for two hours.”
The charm slipped from her voice. It was rough with a sarcastic edge. Real. I’d won a point. I felt my smile nudge into something wider, wilder. “So, no husband. Boyfriend?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. I knew there wasn’t. She wouldn’t be flirting with me if there was. I just knew it.
She shook her head.
“Would you like to get out of here?”
She pulled away from me. “What? You’re not going to offer to fly me to Paris on your jet? Jewelry? An apartment on the Upper East Side if I consent to being your mistress? Those have been what men have offered me tonight.” She scoffed.
I was surprised by the flare of revulsion and…protectiveness I felt. That was it. Protectiveness. I wanted to protect her from the men at this bar, men like my father, like my brothers. Men like I’d known all my life. “Is that what they were saying to you all night?”
“What?”
“When you kept turning them down. Did they think you were… Were they...trying to purchase you?”
“You noticed?” The arch of her eyebrow was cynical.
There was no way I was going to tell her of the simmering rage I felt watching them hit on her. Or the pride in how easily she dispatched them. I was a man of science. And this made no sense. I lifted one shoulder in a cool shrug. “You didn’t seem to like it, but you had it under control. I had nothing else to do, while I was waiting to be stood up, but watch you. You’re very beautiful.” She raised her chin. Defenses up.
She shrugged. “I guess I didn’t have anything else to do either.”
“You watched everyone. I saw you.”
Her eyes shuttered. “I like to know what’s happening,” she said, a sharp edge to her tone.
“As you should,” I told her, thinking about what kind of things men like the me
n in this bar got up to. “I wouldn’t trust these men as far as I could throw them.”
“Are you not one of these men, Jordan?”
I laughed and looked down at myself, then out at the men. With variations of age and appearance, I had to admit she was right. Power. Money. Grooming. Even my suit – I’d dressed up like my father had requested, a bid to please the man, I guessed. “I’ve spent quite a few years trying not to be like them, Alexandra.”
She pursed her lips, almost like a kiss, then raised an eyebrow and let out a skeptical “Hmm.”
I liked her.
”You’re too good for this place, Alexandra. Would you like to get a burger or something? There’s a diner around the corner that’s pretty good. Since we both got stood up, we can keep each other company.”
She turned away from me, then, and played with the stem of her martini glass, considering. I was sure she was going to add me to the list of the creeps she’d turned down tonight, and was surprised at the way my gut immediately sank. I wanted her to say yes. I wanted to get to know her better.
Instead, her voice came out strong and steady. “I’d like to leave with you,” she said, and then she put both hands on the bar and stood. She turned and took a step closer to me so that she was almost pressed up against the length of my body. “But I don’t want to go to a diner.” Her lips were near my ear. Her tone low and sultry. “I don’t get a free night very often. I don’t get to meet people. I’d like to–” her voice broke off like she was afraid to say it.
My hands came up to sit at the curve of her waist, because I just needed to touch her. “What?” I encouraged.
“I’d like you to take me home with you.” The words were whispered, like a secret.
“Okay,” I whispered back, and with a hand on the small of her back, I guided her out of that slime pit bar. I didn’t think too much, I just hailed a taxi.
