She eyed the dark-skinned beauty who now wore her thick black hair straight and long. She would always be the ghetto girl who made good but never forgot where she came from. Proudly.
Jessa had cared for these women as friends and then blown up their lives like enemies.
“One of you deserves to know the truth about your relationship,” Jessa said.
All three women flung up their hands in disgust.
“Is everything okay, ladies?”
Jessa didn’t bother to turn and eye the waiter who came up to the table behind her. Instead she reached in her bag and pulled out a folder, putting it atop the place setting in front of her. It was a dare to be ignored. All three sets of eyes dropped to the folder. Curiosity always killed the cat.
“Not this bullshit again,” Aria snapped.
Renee waved the waiter away.
Jaime was the first to sit.
Jessa’s eyes shifted to her. That day Jessa sent the message, Jaime had left Eric. Through her surveillance via Mistress, Inc., Jessa knew all about her six-month relationship with Graham Walker, also known as Pleasure, the man-whore she used to pay for sex. That came to an end two years ago, and the last she’d heard, he was living out of the country, so the fear in Jaime’s face confused her.
Jessa had once paid Pleasure for oral sex just to embarrass Jaime. Hell, if his dick game is half as good as his tongue game, then she might still be dicknotyzed.
“Listen, I know I am the last person this info should come from, but I’m here in person with proof, doing the Lord’s work,” Jessa said plainly, picking up the file.
“Did this bitch say she doing the Lord’s work?” Aria said, her voice cold and incredulous as she took a seat.
Jessa paused. “So once again you’re doubting me, Aria?” she asked. “Once Marc died, suddenly the best friend who happened to be pretty became the bitch not to be trusted around anyone’s husband.”
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Jaime asked, the words almost running together. “You do remember that you slept with my husband—”
“Who eventually stalked and tried to kill me,” Jessa inserted.
All three women shook their heads at her, completely dumbfounded.
“And don’t forget killed himself and left me to raise his child alone,” Jessa added. “I think I’ve been punished enough. Trust me, I regret fucking with all that crazy.”
Renee finally dropped down onto her seat. “Something is seriously wrong with you, Jessa, but you don’t even know it,” she said, her voice soft.
“No, something is seriously right with me because I am trying to make amends and do what’s right,” she explained.
“The Lord’s work. Right, bitch?” Aria drawled with an exaggerated eye roll.
I thought motherhood would calm her ratchet ass down some.
“Look,” Jessa said loudly, holding up her hands. “I’m trying to hip one of y’all to getting played by your man . . . and no, I’m not the mistress this time.”
“I ain’t even got time for this shit. Not again, trick,” Aria said, reaching down to grab her Gucci tote. “I’m out.”
Jaime reached out to touch her wrist and stop her. “You’re not the one who should leave,” she said, giving Jessa a hostile stare.
Renee reached out and scooped up the file, opening it.
“Don’t fall for her shit,” Jaime said, reaching across the table to grab at it.
“It’s me,” Renee said solemnly, dropping the file to the table. “Again.”
Photos of her husband, Davin, in bed with another woman slid across the table. Jaime and Aria both gasped in shock.
Jessa felt regret. Had she made the right decision to involve herself in the lives of these women again? Renee’s last marriage did end with her ex-husband Jackson’s affair, and it drove her to drink. Could she even handle another deception? Shit. This can’t be right.
Renee stared off into space before she closed her eyes, and her shoulders slumped as she released a long heavy breath. “Damn, Davin,” she whispered.
Aria shoved the photos back into the file and slammed it closed. “Hell to the no, ho, you gots to go,” she coldly said, rising to point her finger toward the exit. “Bounce before I bounce you.”
Jaime eyed Jessa, taking the file crushed in Aria’s fist. “Where did you get this?” she asked.
Uh-oh. I hoped no one would ask that.
Renee now looked at her as well.
The truth shall set you free.
“I’ve been checking up on all you,” she admitted. “Hoping that you weren’t still suffering after I sent that message that day.”
“You sued me,” Jaime stressed.
“For what was owed to my daughter from Eric as her father,” Jessa countered.
Aria lunged across the table, sending their glasses of water tumbling. Jaime and Renee jumped to their feet to restrain her.
Jessa didn’t move. Not even a flinch.
“My intentions were good,” she said slowly and firmly, hoping that would help her words break through to them.
It did not.
She nodded in understanding as she picked up her tote and rose to her feet. All eyes of the patrons of the restaurant were on them. “I promise you I am not getting any pleasure from this, Renee,” she said earnestly.
“Go to hell,” Renee said, her eyes as chilled as her voice.
Jessa turned and walked away from the table, notching her chin higher as she left the restaurant.
Interlude
I met my bitch of a mother . . . and she didn’t even know it.
She couldn’t even recognize the child she gave birth to. I saw parts of me I inherited from her, and still she registered nothing of herself in me. Each time I encountered her, I yearned for her eyes to see me—really see me—and claim me and give me the love I had been denied all these years. And each time, I was disappointed.
It hurt.
It was fucked up.
It made me want to get fucked up. But I didn’t.
I’d been clean for more than six months, and that was major. That last overdose scared the shit out of me. I checked myself into a thirty-day drug rehab. Plus, revenge was my new high.
A few weeks after I got home from rehab, I was about to enter my building on the Upper West Side when Eric Hall Sr. first entered my life with news of my mother’s identity. Jessa Bell. Then for the longest time I would just say her name, seeing how it felt on my lips, trying to evoke some other emotion than rage from the stories he told me of her losing custody of me because of her neglect and abuse.
That day, my world was truly shattered. Up until then I could fantasize about who she was and why she gave me away. He offered a reality that was painful. I went numb for days. Craved weed and cocaine. Pills. Wanted to get so high that I flew above the pain.
But I didn’t.
My life has been hell at times, growing up in a world where I didn’t belong because I was born to a mother who didn’t need me to belong to her.
I wanted to know more about her. My mother. My abuser. I had to be sober for that.
I researched her. There was plenty about her online. I knew it all and was ashamed. I understood that high-end life she led and was angry. I learned I had a baby sister that she was raising and was bitter.
I read her book, The Mistress Memoirs, and then burned it in my fireplace. There was no mention of me. I had been erased from her life and probably her memory. A fucking afterthought. A mistake. A regret.
I hated Jessa Bell.
I knew nothing of my father, but that didn’t matter. Any man can bust a nut, but a woman carries her child inside her for many, many months, and to turn your back on that connection, to injure the child you bore, that was beyond low.
To me, she was as evil as she was beautiful.
I took delight in being near her, in her space, invading her life under the cloak of a false name and identity. Working for her in this ridiculous business that just glorified
the mess she’d made of her life. To give me away, and the most she could accomplish was fame for being a whore? A sidepiece?
Humph. That shit pissed me the fuck off.
It’s okay, though. I did it. I made it into her world. Although I didn’t know just what I would do to wreck her life the way that she wrecked mine, it felt good knowing that, ultimately, I was in control, and with that upper hand, when the shit hit the fan, it would be my way.
That bitch won’t even see it coming.
Chapter 4
One month later
“You ready to talk about it now?”
Jessa paused in lightly stroking the soft hairs on Hammer’s chest as she lay beside his nude body in the middle of his king-sized bed. “Talk about what?” she asked, knowing it could be a myriad of topics she considered taboo for them.
“Your affair with Eric and everything that happened because of it.”
Jessa became pensive. Three years since they first hired him as the investigator for Mistress, Inc., nearly as long since they’d first become lovers, and this was the first he’d asked about her salacious past.
Why the hell didn’t he leave it that way?
“Haven’t you read my book?” she asked, rolling away from his warm body to rise from the bed. They had spent lunch making love. “It’s a New York Times best seller.”
“Jessa.”
“It’s available in audiobook if you’re not a book reader,” she said with a brief glance back at him over her shoulder before walking across his loft-style apartment into his modern glass-walled bathroom. Not much of a hiding place. Shit.
She turned to leave, but paused with her hand on the sliding glass door as she watched him stride over to her. Her eyes took in his nudity even as she felt anxious that he would not relent on his line of questioning. She took a step back as he filled the doorway, blocking her exit.
They eyed each other.
“No, Hammer,” she said, crossing her arms over her bare chest.
“Yes,” he insisted, raising his arm above his head to grip the top of the door frame.
“Why?” she asked in annoyance.
“Because I want to know more about you than how to make you cum,” he answered without hesitation.
Her heartbeat sped. She felt light-headed from the intensity of his stare. He was daring to cross a line and wanted her to join him on the journey.
“I have known pain from an early age,” she said to him in a whisper, her tears welling at the thought of her daughter Georgia and the cruelty of her creation. “I would like to forget the person I became because of it.”
“To forge ahead and be better—do better—I have to tell the truth about my role in this scandal with which everyone is so fascinated. It began before the sending of that message from a mistress to a wife,” he said.
Jessa’s eyes widened in surprise. It was the first line from her book. “So you did read it,” she said, not sure how she felt about that.
He nodded.
“When?” she asked, her heart pounding with the ferocity of a racehorse’s hooves across a finish line.
“Before my first interview with you,” Hammer admitted.
Humph.
“Don’t you want to know more about me?” he asked, his voice deep.
She shook her head. “To know more is to love you more,” she admitted.
He tilted his head to the side, his beautiful eyes squinted, as he lowered his arms and came to stand before her in his charcoal slate bathroom with its bronze hardware. “So, you do love me?” he asked.
Jessa closed her eyes and released a breath. “I meant—”
“Because I love you,” Hammer said, leaning down to breathe the words against her lips.
Shit.
Jessa’s eyes dropped to his mouth before rising to get lost in his gaze. Her heart was elated. Her head was afraid. She leaned toward him, resting her forehead against his chest. “I been through too much, Hammer, for some bullshit from you,” she said.
“And I been through too much to give you bullshit,” he said, enfolding her in his strong arms as he pressed kisses to the side of her face.
She leaned back to look up at him. “You swear?” she asked, her fear present and obvious in her eyes and tone.
“I swear.”
Jessa rose on her bare toes and pressed her hands to his handsome face, kissing him as she felt the door to her heart open wider to let him in.
* * *
Hours later, Jessa parked her Porsche in her spot in the office building lot and climbed from the car to make her way to the elevator. She was running late from lunch and Keegan was blowing up her phone. It wasn’t until she had finally left Hammer’s apartment that she took her phone off “do not disturb.” Only calls from her nanny and mother were allowed.
Ding.
“Hold the elevator, please,” Jessa called out just as the door began to close.
The door halted and reopened.
She smiled as the same sexy blond man in the nice suit stuck his head out. He smiled at her as well, flashing perfect white teeth. She couldn’t deny he was the epitome of white-boy fine. Like Paul Walker, rest his beautiful soul, or Brad Pitt. Hell, Paul Newman and Robert Redford in their prime kind of fine. Like, I understand why Lisa Bonet can’t get enough of her husband, Jason Momoa, level of sexy.
“We keep meeting this way,” she said, as she stepped on the elevator beside him.
He smiled again. “I would say it’s fate if . . .”
“I wasn’t married,” Jessa finished for him.
“Right,” he agreed.
“Right,” she copied.
They rode up in silence, and when he reached the twelfth floor, he gave her a respectful nod before striding away. Again, her eyes drifted over the fit of the suit on his fit physique, but she forced her eyes away. “You’re with Hammer now,” she reminded herself softly, looking up at the ceiling until the door closed and clocked temptation.
I’m with Hammer.
Jessa eyed her reflection displayed on the metal elevator door. She smoothed her hands down the length of the light denim skinny jeans she wore.
Am I really trying my hand at love again?
The elevator came to a stop, and just before the door slid open she saw the doubt in her own eyes. She made her way down the hall to their office. As soon as she pushed the door open, Keegan and Felisha looked up from where they both stood at the reception desk.
“You have to see this bullshit,” Keegan said.
Felisha nodded, her eyes wide.
Jessa approached them, shifting her Saint Laurent bag to her side. “What is it?”
“Perv alert,” Keegan drawled, scratching her scalp with the rubber end of a pencil. “Big-time, honey. This one is two slices of bread short of a sandwich.”
Jessa’s steps paused. She had been friends with Keegan long enough to still be slightly confused by her Southern sayings but land somewhere in the ballpark of what she was colorfully expressing. “Do I want to see this?”
“Hell naw,” Keegan admitted. “But get your ass over here anyway.”
“Ready?” Felisha asked, looking at Jessa over the rim of her glasses when she reached them.
Jessa gave her a stern look, as if to say, “Little girl, don’t play with me.”
Felisha restarted the video.
“This is my third time watching it,” Keegan admitted. “Listen carefully.”
Jess gave her an odd look before locking her eyes on the screen.
The video was blurry and shaky at first, but soon it was clear and steady as it focused on a couple sitting at the end of a bar.
“My wife doesn’t have the same . . . taste as me.”
Jessa bent down to peer at the screen at the familiar background. “Is that the Plaza?” she asked.
“Sure is,” Keegan supplied.
The video zoomed in on a tall and handsome redheaded man sitting at the hotel bar with a woman. She could only make out her profile, but it
was clear she was beautiful and dressed for business. The woman she didn’t know, but the man was a former client. “Warrington Sachs,” she said in a surprised whisper.
She fell quiet as he continued to talk.
“I have needs,” he said, taking a sip of some brown liquor.
“And I love to please,” the woman replied.
“But for what price?”
She smiled and stroked his chin. “Depends on what you need.”
Jessa was confused and held up her hand. “Pause it,” she demanded, sharing a look with Keegan. “Didn’t he hire us to catch his wife?”
Felisha handed her a red file.
Jessa took it from her, quickly reading through Hammer’s notes and photographs proving his summation that Mrs. Helen Sachs was a loyal wife with no reason to be suspected.
“I had someone in place to . . . satisfy me, but she relocated a few months ago.”
“Slick bastard,” Jessa muttered, closing the file.
“Lucky for me,” his date said.
“Is she a pro?” Jessa asked.
Keegan shrugged one shoulder. “I think so, because she’d have to be to agree to this crock of shit.”
“I want you to defecate on me.”
Jessa froze. Jessa frowned. Jessa felt her lunch go in reverse. “HuhSay What?” she asked, with a little tilt of her head.
The woman slid her hand from his, and it was clear from the sudden stiffness of her back that his request shocked her as well.
“He wants her to shit on him,” Keegan said in a loud voice as if Jessa’s hearing was failing her.
“I liked it smeared on my chest while you ride my dick.”
“No,” Jessa said, holding up her hands. “Nope. Nada. Not gone happen. Nah. Never. Hell to the no. No way. Negative.”
Felisha stopped the video.
Keegan chuckled. “Hell, you missed the big finale. It was a shit show.”
Mistress for Hire Page 5
