by Adira August
Stew “Spider” Dwyer, nicknamed because he was quite tall with long gangly limbs and had habitually leaned over women's shoulders, as if looking at their monitors, trying to get a peek down their shirts. He'd finally managed to shoot his mouth off insulting Avia in front of J.J. and she'd fired him on Friday.
It sounded to Avia like he was looking for payback. So was Mackin, but her vendetta was against Ben, so why attack Avia?
"Dammit. We should get ahead of this but I can't do that without consulting Ben. It's the middle of the night where he is."
Avia's cell signalled. What now? She checked the caller. Hugo.
"You guys work impressively quickly," she said by way of greeting.
Eustace pulled up in front of the restaurant.
"Tell me," Hugo said.
She told him what Talli told her. "Hugo, we're starving, we're going inside. But I don't think we should do anything without Ben being advised."
"Agreed. Can your sister send me the video?"
Avia shrugged. "Sure. Are you hatching an evil plan?"
He laughed. "Just have lunch and don't worry. I'll take care of it. By the way, do you have a picture of you and Ben together. A - you know - a nice one?"
"A nice one? As opposed to what?" She snapped. Crap. "Nevermind - I'm sorry - no, I - oh!"
She suddenly recalled the pics she took on the terrace outside her room in the Keep. She and Ben in each other's arms, mountains in the background. Wasn't it sunset?
"Wait, I do. Several. I'll send them along."
"Great. And no apologies necessary. You've had a hell of a morning, I hear," he said.
"Yeah, but you didn't do it," she said. "Thanks, Hugo."
Les Cousins was an emergency room for the psyche.
The moment the women entered, they were surrounded by the comforting sounds of muted conversation, the occasional clink of a glass, and quietly playing classical music. The floor was carpeted, the walls were paneled, the lighting was subtle.
They were escorted to a large booth, the first of four along a side wall. The booth walls reached the ceiling, the richly upholstered banquette comfortable, the linen sparkling white. It was like entering a private room, with one wall missing.
When the server handed them their menus, Talia asked, "What do you have that's comforting?"
"Milk soup," he said, smiling when her expression conveyed more disgust than interest. "It's just chowder," he assured her. "Think cream of potato soup with ham and vegetables. Delicious and comforting. Warm cornbread on the side, but not the gritty kind."
Now Talia was intrigued. "How do you make cornbread not gritty?"
"Use masa instead of corn meal," he said as if imparting a state secret.
"Sounds lovely," Avia told him. "Bring lots of butter. Will you choose a white wine for us, please? And we'll have some fresh fruit for a dessert course, to assuage our guilt."
"Certainly," he said collecting the menus. "Would you like the fruit pureed, blended with some sugar and frozen?" The two sisters giggled.
"You read our minds," Talia said.
The meal was lovely and relaxed; they didn't have to hurry as Avia had nowhere to be. When they'd finished their raspberry sherbet, they dawdled over cups of delicious coffee, reminding Avia she had to ask where Alma got Ben's.
Their server came by to pick up their empty bowls. Avia reached out and put one finger on his wrist to stop him whisking away.
"I know Mr. Hart took care of the meal, but did he also take care of you?" Avia asked him quietly.
"He did, Ma'am, thank you for asking. Mr. Hart takes care of all of us," he said.
Talia sipped and set her cup down. "I've never seen people like this, you know?"
"Like what?" Avia asked.
"Avia, you've gone from crisis to crisis here surrounded by people who seem to not only be dedicated to taking care of you, but do so with amazing efficiency. It's like ..." She hesitated looking for a simile.
"Okay, it's like you could just think about what you want and it appears. Ready for lunch, your man is at the door. The car is at the curb. You need that Hugo guy, somehow he's on the phone. You need a haven from the world, you have a reserved table."
"What I need is a job," Avia said. "And the rest is just, I think it's just how rich people live. He's - he doesn't have time for inefficiency. Everyone has to be excellent at everything. All these people depend on him for their livelihood - " Wait. … "He takes care of all of us?"
She lifted her head to look for their server. He appeared almost instantly.
"Yes, Ma'am?"
She noticed he wore a very discreet nametag. "Jonathan, does Mr. Hart own this establishment?"
He hesitated. "I'm just a server," he shrugged.
She cocked an eyebrow at him. "You thought I knew," she said. "Because this table wasn't reserved, it's his."
He smiled. "Can I get you something else? More coffee? A liqueur?"
"Can you at least tell me if Eustace ate?" He shook his head very, very slightly.
"Okay," she said. "Have the kitchen pack him up something nice, anything you think he'd like. And a lot of it. Include the chowder. Deliver it to the S.U.V. and wave or something as you go outside. We'll be right behind."
"Yes, Ms. Rivers," he said.
"Thank you, Jonathan."
Talli looked impressed. "Wow, listen to you going all Countess of Grantham."
Avia waved her comment away. "I know, it's just that I seem to live in constant fear of being taken as the billionaire's booty call."
"Has anyone said that?" Talli looked fierce.
"No, put your hackles down. They never say anything that isn't perfectly correct. I just don't know what they think."
"Does it matter so much?" Talli asked.
"Not if he was a plumber," Avia said. "But we're about to go public, maybe in a big way, and all these people can be approached for comment. Trashing me is the same as trashing him. Trashing him, affects his business."
Ohhhhh! That's why Irene Mackin is after me.
"C'mon," she said. "We have to get back to the penthouse."
"Is Eustace going to get fed?" Talia asked.
Shoot. She sat back, but just then, her text alert chimed. It was a link to Eonline. From Eustace, of all people. She put her cell on the table so Talli could see, too.
The first thing she saw was a big picture of Ben and her - just their heads, staring into each others' eyes, the setting sun behind them. The second thing she saw was the picture right next to it of Irene Mackin walking away while flipping the bird.
"Whoa," Talli said.
The headline read THE BILLIONAIRE GETS BAGGED. Under the pic of Avia and Ben: HART TO HEART. Under the picture of Mackin: THE ONE HE THREW BACK.
Talia was scrolling. She stopped to read aloud: "The eRom publisher confirmed exclusively to Eonline that he was, indeed, off the market and Rivers is the reason. 'You don't keep shopping once you find what you're looking for.' He said."
She found another picture of Avia, the one from The Week's website. "'The stunning honey-blond Rivers, award-winning journalist …'"
Avia looked around for Jonathan and found him near the door with the take-out. He nodded and she reached for her bag.
"Let's get out of here before somebody else sees it."
But even as they walked to the door, she saw two servers with their heads together over their phones.
Talia looked up from the cell. "Holy cow, Avi, you're trending."
Friends and Lovers
"She's young enough to be my daughter!"
"If you had a baby when you were fourteen! And if she was, she isn't young enough to be my daughter. And if she was, this still wouldn't be any of your business!"
"You promised!"
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"I told you the morning she interviewed you that she was very attractive and keep hands off and you agreed!"
"I said I was hardly going to make a reporter a Companion. That
doesn't constitute a lifetime commitment!"
"It wasn't even a three-hour commitment, apparently!"
Ben Hart stopped and took a breath. At this moment, he hated everything around him. He hated the place he was in, the people he was dealing with, the food they'd served him, the images he saw that made him sick to his stomach. Sick to the depths of his soul.
And he hated this phone call and having to deal with J.J. about Avia. Maybe he should just hang up. Maybe he should stop shouting and try reason.
"She's your best friend, J.J. and you fired her. Are you having a breakdown? Why would you do that?"
He heard her sigh. "She's just so damned arrogant, Ben! I am the boss, you know. Well, she needs to know, too."
"She's not arrogant, J.J., she's just … Alpha."
There was a silence. "Alpha?" J.J. finally said. He heard the incredulity in her voice. "Are you saying you're involved with a woman who's not a submissive?"
He felt the heat flare up in him. He was never like this, never impulsively emotional. But now? First jealousy. Now, protectiveness. What the hell is happening to me?
"I am saying," he answered, controlling his tone. "That my sex life is none of your business."
Silence.
"And I'm also saying ..." Ben went on, "... as your friend and someone who knows the way things work in business, the last thing you want is for anyone to find out you fired her. Get her back now, or tomorrow morning, or the one out of a job will be you."
"You don't have that much influence," she said. "Not in New York."
He rubbed his eyes. "What I have is information you do not. And I would never try and have you fired, J.J., how can you think that? Go check Eonline. Then call Avia. Let me know."
He clicked off and tossed the phone onto the coffee table.
"What are you going to do?" Nick asked from the doorway to his connecting suite.
Ben ran both hands through his hair and walked to the plate glass wall overlooking the Cotai Strip.
"There are 316 rooms in this hotel worth twenty-five grand a piece to us plus restocks on a ten-year exclusive contract," Ben said. "Cheong wants us to cover 204 more suites in his other hotels, here in Macau. As a start. He'll pay in advance for exclusive rights in Macau to our videos, sight unseen. This is a two billion-dollar deal, minimum, and all we have to do is sign and ship."
Ben made this speech without turning his head to look at his brother. He noticed the sun was coming up. It's light failed to rival the man-made illumination of the strip.
"And we'll be able to employ hundreds with the increase in demand. On the mainland. Build a whole town. Give them hospitals and schools. Change their lives for the better."
He turned away, carefully not looking at the giant TV monitor that had been showing pictures and prices of available prostitutes in the hotel's "video catalogue." Stop on one and you could order right on screen.
Prostitution was legal in Macau, under certain guidelines. Guidelines no one followed too closely.
The prices on screen kept rising. The pictures became more suggestive, if not more nude. The prostitutes were various genders and ethnicities, but mostly Asian women.
The pictures got younger as the prices went higher. They included more and more crude sex devices being used in various ways. The prostitutes being restrained, strung up, whipped, caned, clamped and penetrated were sometimes happy and sometimes crying and sometimes hooded.
Mr. Cheong had told Ben anything he and his brother wanted was at their disposal. Any time. Anyone in the catalogue. Any way they wanted. Free, of course, to such important guests.
Cheong thought they would enjoy seeing his vision for how Hart products would be marketed and used. A complete inventory in every room. He was very proud of his ideas.
The pictures got younger.
A great deal younger.
"Your opinion?" Ben asked.
"I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit," Nick answered.
"They'd just rebuild it," Ben said, tears tracking crooked paths down his face.
"Yeah," Nick said.
Ben picked up his cell.
Eustace reached the elevator before them.
"Wait," Avia said, stopping him from inputting his code. "You sent the elevator back up for Talli to use, didn't you?"
"Right. When I took you to the courthouse," he replied.
"If you hadn't, how would she get down here?"
"She couldn't. You need a code to call the elevator. It's a security precaution," he explained.
"Yeah," Avia looked at the keypad and then at Eustace. "And if somebody blows your ass away while we're upstairs, then what?"
He didn't even blink before he answered. "Then the last thing Mr. Hart would want is you on the elevator when the door opened on this level where my killers would be waiting for you."
"And if they get to the terrace from the outside?" She asked.
"The doors only open by remote. The glass is bullet resistant." He answered.
"But the doorframe isn't. And the glass itself can be breached with repeated shots, even from a handgun." She said. "It would be enough delay so I could get out, but not enough time for you to reach us. And they might have taken you out, already."
He thought about it and nodded. "I'll talk to Devers. In the meantime, do you want me to spend the night in the penthouse foyer? Or ask Mr. Hart to authorize a personal property code for you?"
"Hang on," she said, wondering isn't that what the note said? She went to the security pad and, blocking it with her body, entered 787478. The elevator opened. Ben.
"Cool," said Talli, stepping in.
Eustace looked astounded.
Avia joined her sister, pushing "5." "Goodnight, Hank," Avia said as the doors closed. "Go eat before it all gets cold."
When they reached the penthouse, Talli was still laughing with delight. "Wow, you're like a Countess/G.I.Jane morph!"
They went through to the kitchen area and Avia threw herself down on the black leather couch. She had fond memories of her first sensual spanking taking place there. Talli joined her.
"Okay, why did we rush back here?"
"Because Ben is likely to call and I have to do something first," Avia said. "Look, change into some veg-out clothes and look around the place. There's a DVD library in that area past the kitchen where the TV is." She waved vaguely in that direction.
"Unusual place to keep DVDs, but I'm with you so far, my Lady," Talli said.
"Shut it," Avia said. "Pick out something and we'll just hang and watch movies." She stood up. "And see if you can figure out how the TV works and all that. I never can. I bet he has like worldwide cable access to a billion channels. There must be something to watch out there."
"I never did see the last season of Downton," Talli said, headed for the TV room.
In her bedroom, Avia took the brown paper wrapped package and opened it carefully. Inside was a long, black velvet necklace box with "Weiss Jewelers ~ 1862" embroidered into the top in gold thread. They're just up the street, she thought.
She'd walked by the small but very exclusive shop many times, hovering in front of the window where they displayed some of their creations. Avia rarely salivated over jewelry, but what the Weiss family created was art rendered in precious metal.
She hesitated before opening the box, hoping she wouldn't find something with a lot of diamonds she couldn't wear every day. She took a breath and lifted the lid. … Uh-oh. She found the tiny catch and released it and lifted the lid, laughing at herself. So much for the big reveal.
Inside, there was a note.
"I designed this for you. It was made exclusive to us."
The collar, for that's what the choker necklace inside really was, was platinum, she thought. It was a series of stylized hearts, each connected to the next by two parallel "wavy lines" of platinum.
It was beautiful. Delicate-looking but solidly made, she thought.
Two short lengths of chain attached to the ends
allowed it to be adjusted for a close fit. Inside the box, under the collar, was a tiny platinum padlock, open, with a plastic cap over the shank end to keep it from being accidentally locked.
When she lifted the lock out, she found another note underneath it.
"The key is on a chain around my neck."
Just where it should be.
Avia laid the collar out on the bedspread. There was something familiar … oh my …. Those weren't just wavy lines, not simply some random design element. They were symbols common to Southwest Native Americans.
The two wavy lines one above the other meant "river." Other symbols existed for lakes or rain or water. Only this one meant specifically "river."
The stylized hearts were another symbol, slightly altered: deer tracks. A hart was a male deer. The collar was a word, repeated over and over: RiverHart.
Suddenly, she couldn't wait. She ran to the bathroom, and put the collar on, turning and adjusting until she had the exact links of chain identified that she wanted to slip the lock into.
She held them carefully together at the front of her throat and pulled the plastic cap off with her teeth. Then, carefully, threaded the open shank through the links, and pressed the shank into the body of the tiny lock where it made a satisfying click as it seated.
She moved the lock to the back of her neck, feeling the extra chain lengths tickling her nape hairs. She looked into the mirror.
A huge grin spread across her face as she hugged herself.
Safe.
"J.J.'s not speaking to you," Carson said when Avia answered her cell.
"J.J. fired me, so I'm not all that surprised."
"You're unfired," he said. "She says heat of the moment firings with arrogant, entitled, ace reporters have to be expected."
Avia laughed. "I bet she did. Sounds just like her."
"Can you file something tonight?"
"No. Being suddenly called into action by the absence of arrogant, entitled, recently fired reporters has to be expected. She can write it. My sister's in town, we're binge-watching Downton Abbey."
"Will you be there in the morning?"
"Will you?"
