by A. S. Green
“Chill out. You’re not hopping in the sack with him.” I clench my teeth at the thought and exit the highway onto the beltway. “I only need you to distract him so I can get possession of his phone and download his recent contacts, photos, et cetera. His wife has tried on her own, but he keeps the thing locked. He tells her it’s because of all the confidential work information he’s got stored on it.”
“And she thinks that’s a lie?”
I give her a short nod.
“So you want to get evidence off his phone that he’s cheating, then go back to his wife with the intel?”
I don’t respond, because her question tells me she already knows the answer.
“And then she divorces him and gets a shit-ton of alimony,” she says, connecting the dots. “Wait. Do they have kids?”
My eyebrows come together in surprise, but I don’t take my eyes off the highway. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It does, too. Divorce can screw with a kid.”
I tip my head to the side in acknowledgment. We both know this from personal experience. My parents split when I was five, and I know Natalie’s were on the verge of splitting for years. She told me she took credit for keeping them together. I’d comment on that, except that’s not the kind of detail that shows up in a background check.
“If there are kids in the picture, they’ll be fine,” I tell her, glancing over again. “Fenton’s a multimillionaire. Same with the rest of the guests; some of them billionaires. That’s the only kind of people who could even consider preserving the Johan Lenz mansion. We’ll be…”
I stop talking. Her face has taken on an expression I’ve never seen before. Something between exultation and terror, but the kind of terror some people get off on. “Whoa, Natalie. What’s wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Did you say the Johan Lenz mansion?” she asks, her voice going up an octave.
“Yeah. Why?”
She gives her head a little shake as if she doesn’t understand why I’m acting so blasé. “They featured that house on the last season of Ghost Hunters.”
“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean. All I know is—”
She slaps her hand down on the seat. “It means the house is haunted. Where is the dinner being held?” She looks so happy I think she might cry.
“At the mansion, of course.” What is the big fucking deal?
“We’re going to be working in a haunted house?”
I give her a look of waning patience. “It’s not haunted.”
She laughs at me. “Why would they do an episode of Ghost Hunters in a house that wasn’t haunted? Those people are professionals.”
I glance over. She’s got to be kidding.
She blinks once, still waiting for my response.
Jesus, she’s not kidding. “Natalie. It’s not haunted, and I don’t want you freaking out and hopping around all nervous. Real life is not the same as whatever crap you’ve been watching on TV, trapped on that island of yours.”
“Ouch,” she says, confirming I touched the nerve I intended to hit. Then she adds, “But who said I was freaking out? This is amazing! I’ve always wanted to see a ghost.”
“This dinner is serious business,” I say. “You need to be serious. Serious and sexy.”
“I am being serious. If I get Fenton’s phone right away, can we go exploring?”
I give her the side-eye. “The guests are all real estate moguls. Most of them are interested in tearing the house down and building an office tower. The preservation committee and its supporters believe that if their opponents fall in love with the house, they’ll figure out a way to preserve it and still make it profitable.”
“How is that an answer to my question?”
“All the guests are spending the night at the mansion. So are we.”
She makes a little squeal of excitement.
“But we’re not exploring anything.”
She smiles like she thinks she’ll be able to change my mind. “Y’know, this is another one of those details you could have shared with me before we left. I would have come to my decision sooner.”
“Maybe I would have,” I say slowly, “if you’d thought to ask…me…any…questions.”
“Oh, like I was supposed to know to ask if we’d be sleeping in a haunted house.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I mutter. “Nothing’s going to go bang in the night.”
“Who’s being ridiculous? And it’s bump. The expression is ‘things that go bump in the night.’”
“Ah. Well, good thing,” I tell her. “We wouldn’t want any banging. The poor ghost of Johan Lenz might feel left out.”
Her body goes rigid, and I realize just how inappropriate that joke was. It was totally unprofessional. She’s my business associate now. Get that through your head, asshole.
Natalie seems to agree, because she mutters, “You’re a bastard.”
“At last,” I say on an exhale. “Something we can both agree on.”
Chapter Fourteen
Natalie
About two hours later, after grabbing lunch at a McDonald’s drive-through, I’m snoozing hard. We go over a hard bump, and my head smacks against the window. I suck air into my lungs and sit up, groggily looking around to get my bearings. “Is this Chicago?”
“Not quite.” Jax pulls into a parking spot. I realize we’re at a shopping mall, and then I remember the dress. “Let’s make this quick,” he says.
“I can’t do quick.” I check my phone. I have one more text from Kate with a funny photo of Delilah; two from my mom. There’s one from Elise, too; she wants to know how to reset the date on the postmark machine, because she’s afraid to ask my dad.
“You can do quick,” Jax says as he sets the brake. “You don’t have a choice.”
“Obviously you’ve never been a woman.”
“Obviously,” he says.
“Or shopped with one,” I add as I quickly answer everyone’s questions, then slip my phone into my pocket.
“Nope.” We both climb out of the SUV and meet at the back before heading for the entrance.
“Seriously? You’ve never gone shopping with a girlfriend?”
“I’ve never really had a girlfriend.”
“You’ve never had a girlfriend,” I deadpan. I guess that makes me chopped liver. Even if he doesn’t remember or doesn’t count me, that still has to be the biggest load of crap. Just look at him, for God’s sake.
“Not one I’d shop with.” He picks up the pace to the point I have to trot to keep up.
“Shopping doesn’t require any particular level of commitment,” I say as we make it to the curb.
“If it requires more than a few hours, it’s a commitment.”
As we cross the large slab of concrete on our way to the doors, I can’t hold back a half-amused smirk.
“What?” he asks.
“You do realize we’ve already spent eight hours in a car together.”
“Yeah.”
“By your standards, I guess that makes me your girlfriend.”
He glances over at me and grimaces. “Knock it off. We’re wasting time.”
“Right,” I say. “Wouldn’t want to drag this out any longer. You’d have to propose by the time we hit the checkout.”
“You’re starting to piss me off.” He opens the first door and holds it for me while he hangs his sunglasses from the neck of his T-shirt.
“Well, then, I guess we’re even.” He shoots me a questioning glance, but I don’t answer it.
Once we’re inside, the fluorescent lights take a second to get used to. I’m looking left and right with no idea where to even begin. Jax grabs the first salesperson he sees. “Black cocktail dresses,” he says.
She smiles, then leads us to a circular rack.
Jax starts riffling through the overwhelming number of choices, scraping the metal hangers around the rack. After a few moments he says, “Here,” and shoves one into my arms. I hold it
up so I can see the whole thing.
“This one?” My mouth twists.
“Yes.”
“But there’s no bling, no…anything. I’m going to look like a nun.”
“You don’t need bling to look sexy. Save your rhinestones for your next AC/DC concert.”
Shows how much he knows. Brian Johnson’s already retired.
“Who’s paying for it?” I look at the price tag. Shit, this dress could buy nearly five hundred beers at Paddy’s.
“I am,” he says. “Consider it your work uniform.”
“Fine,” I say with a little shrug. “If this is what you want.”
“It’s what I want.”
His tone makes my eyes jerk to his. He’s looking at me like he used to, once upon a time, when we were curled up in the back of Aaron’s van, telling each other all our secrets.
Just like before, my mouth pops open to tell him everything. Unfortunately, before I can get out more than an “Um, I… I…” he’s pushing me toward the dressing room.
Yeah, that’s probably for the best.
Chapter Fifteen
Natalie
I’m standing in the dressing room looking at myself in the mirror and smoothing my hands down over my hips. Jax is pacing outside the door. I would imagine him wearing a path in the carpet, except that I can’t take my eyes off my reflection. Jax was right. Completely and utterly right.
The dress, now on, isn’t nearly as conservative as it looked on the hanger. The cut is totally sexy: sleeveless, with a narrow but ridiculously deep V neckline, and a bodice so fitted it holds the girls high and prominently on display without even needing a bra. The black fabric has the tiniest bit of stretch and just enough sheen to emphasize every curve. The whole thing skims my body with the skirt forming perfectly over my ass. I’m like a modern-day Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, except with big red hair and now the appearance of some serious implants.
It’s fucking righteous. I doubt many men could take their eyes off this peep show, so if this John Fenton is lurable, this dress should do the trick.
I glance toward the dressing-room door. But shit, will Jax think it’s too much of a show? Sure, he wants me to look sexy, but it’s still a formal dinner with wealthy real estate investors. Not exactly the Grammys. Maybe he’ll want me to find something else.
“What’s taking you so long?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I say. Oh, God, I love this dress. “It’s on.”
“How does it fit?”
Like perfection. “It fits.”
“Come on out, then.”
I open the door and cautiously step out. His eyes land on my hard-to-miss chest area, and he sucks in his breath. He takes a half step back, then his gaze drops to my legs. He makes a little twirly gesture with his finger, so I give him a spin. By the time I’m facing him again, he looks like he’s in pain. A good kind of pain.
He runs a hand over his face. “You don’t look like a nun.”
“I don’t?” I ask innocently, batting my eyes like I think Audrey would. “How ’bout now?” I give him a little shimmy.
He clenches his teeth, then checks his watch. “We should get the hell out of here. We still need shoes. Take it off and throw it over the door. I’ll pay for it while you get dressed.”
“So we’re buying it?” Hooray!
“Can’t exactly steal it.”
I make a little “Yes!” gesture with my fist and arm, then dodge back into the dressing room before he can change his mind.
I reach behind my neck to get the zipper started, but it only goes down a few inches before it stops. I pull it back up to the top, then tug it down again. This time it goes a little bit farther, but not nearly enough.
I twist around to look in the mirror to see what the zipper’s caught on. Maybe loose threads? But my hair keeps blocking my view, and I left my hair tie in the car. I try the up-and-down thing again with the zipper, but it still won’t budge.
I try to get it up over my head, but I can’t get the tight waist up past my boobs. Dammit.
“What are you doing in there?” Jax asks.
“The zipper’s stuck.”
“Want some help?”
“No. I can get it.” I take a deep breath and exhale. Sucking in my stomach, I pull up the right shoulder of the dress and snake my elbow down and inside until my entire arm is folded and straitjacketed against my chest.
Then, with a little bit of stomach sucking, wiggling, and contortion, I get my arm up and through the neckline. I exhale and take a couple cleansing breaths.
But I’m starting to lose circulation, and with all my hopping around I think I’m getting a bruise on my hip where I keep crashing into the door.
“Are you okay in there?” Jax asks.
“Yep,” I say, trying to make my voice sound normal. “Just one second.” Or hour, I think miserably.
“Should I get the sales clerk?”
I don’t answer because I’m too busy making odd grunting noises as I hop around on one foot. I just need to…uff…get my other… I squiggle around and somehow, God, I don’t know how, manage to get my other arm up through the neckline and now…yep…my boobs have completely escaped, but at least I can get the dress to rotate around my body.
Except that it’s too tight, and I’m starting to get light-headed from holding in my stomach. “Shit!”
“Natalie?” Jax asks, now sounding genuinely concerned.
“Shit!” I jerk at the fabric to get the back of the dress to rotate to the front.
“That’s it. Let me in.”
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean, you can’t?”
“I mean no. Do not come in here.” I’m probably going to have to rip every seam in this dress, and then Jax is going to make me pay for a ruined one while he prays there’s another size eight on the rack.
I turn my back on the door in case he manages to finagle a key from the sales clerk but, despite my best intentions not to give him an eyeful of toplessness, everything goes fantastically awry when I sense movement down around my ankles.
“Fuck!” I scream, because all I can think is that it must be some kind of animal (illogical, yes, but there’s barely any blood making it to my brain at this point).
I twist around and stumble over Jax, who has crawled under the door and is now on his knees getting ready to stand. My body crashes down on top of him, and I hear his sunglasses crack between our chests.
He lets out a loud grunt, then his eyes go wide. It takes him a second to realize what’s fallen on top of him.
I have no time to apologize.
When he gets a look at my face, my breasts, and the expensive dress wrapped around my tortured body like a tourniquet, I think he’s going to yell at me for making us late. But instead his gray eyes slam shut, crinkling at the corners. His lips pinch closed in tight control as his chest vibrates with silent laughter that suddenly explodes out of him and fills the tiny room with the most beautiful sound.
Even when he tries to stop, he opens his eyes, sees me again, and the whole thing starts all over again.
There’s a knock on the dressing room door. “Can I get you anything?”
“Maybe a crowbar,” Jax says, the words intermixed with his hysterical hissing.
Ah, fuck it. I smack him on the chest and buck my hips, which immediately sobers him up.
I narrow my eyes at him. “If you’re done laughing, maybe you could do the decent thing? Close your eyes so I can get up, then you can crawl back out of here. I almost got the zipper problem fixed.”
His eyes sparkle with tears and department store fluorescent lighting. “So you don’t think we’ll have to cut you out of it?” His full lips quirk at the corners.
“God, I hope not,” I say with a sigh.
He tucks his chin and takes another unapologetic look toward my boobs, which, fortunately, are crushed flat between us. “Yeah, me neither. ’Cause I really like this dress.”
�
��You like it? Despite its sadistic homicidal tendencies?”
“Yeah,” he says, and his voice is low. “Despite everything.”
“That’s good, and y’know what else?”
“What?”
“Told you I’d make you laugh.”
Chapter Sixteen
Natalie
“Oh my God, it’s huge,” I say, drawing out the word.
Jax gives me a knowing look. “It’s a little bigger than your average.”
“No, really. I’ve never seen anything like it.” I’m completely in awe. “I mean, I’ve seen pictures in magazines, of course, but the real thing is so much more impressive.”
“It’s Chicago,” he says, as I lean forward so I can get a better view of the skyline through the Escalade’s windshield. “But it’s still tiny compared to New York.”
I can’t imagine.
Jax exits the highway entering downtown. I thought the traffic would lighten up, but it’s still bumper-to-bumper. In fact, at this moment, there are more cars within fifty feet of me than I might see on the island all day.
I roll down my window and lean my head toward the humid air. It’s scented with a surprising concoction of car exhaust, cooked beef, and…chocolate?
Jax signals and turns around a corner, and then again, before pulling up in front of the mansion. “This is it.”
It looks the same as it did on Ghost Hunters. The corner entrance has at least three rounded arches that I can see, framed in heavy, rough-cut stone and squat columns. The dozens of windows seem to sink back into the house, like dead eyes into a skull, and above it all are shingled peaks and turrets, dwarfed by the modern city surrounding it.
“This is ghost paradise. Their ideal habitat,” I say, nearly a whisper. I tip my head even farther out my window and look up at the turrets. “How can you say this place isn’t haunted?”
Jax leans toward me and whispers conspiratorially, “Because I can’t afford for it to be haunted. I’ve got a job to do. So do you. And Natalie?”
“Yeah?” My eyes are locked on a stone carving of a cherub in one of the roof peaks. It might be cute if there weren’t grimy black stains streaming out of its eye sockets.
