“You know I love you, Aud, but any problem of Reina’s is a problem of mine.”
And that right there tells me what I need to know. What I already knew, but didn’t want to fully believe; Matt will always choose Reina. Over me, and everyone else, too. He truly loves her, risked his life and company for her, and would do it over and over again if he needs to.
“I’m sorry,” I say to Reina.
“As am I. I do have a job offer for you, if you’d like to come back to my office and hear it.”
“Yes, I’d like that.”
Audrey walks out first, and I follow her. Matt squeezes my shoulder as I walk by, and I don’t turn back to see what he’s doing to Reina. It’s at least a kiss, and while I’ve resigned myself to accepting what they have, I don’t want to see it.
She walks in less than a minute later, and takes her seat again. “Now, about that job.”
I don’t even know what to say after I hear everything. A secret spy group called the Society has been working out of this building since it was built, and in Chicago before that. It explains so much, and I believe her, because she has no reason to lie, but it’s just well, crazy.
“You know my background.” I don’t ask it, because I think she probably knows everything about almost everyone. Or at least she has that information at her fingertips.
“Yes. I know you grew up in a middle-class family in Greece, fell into prostitution when your family threw you out as a teen, got hired by Matt when you were barely 20, and used the substantial amount of money he gave you, along with what you’d saved, to reinvent yourself.”
“You also know he gave me my internship here.”
“I’ve seen your college transcripts, Camari, and while Matt may have given you the internship without an interview, I believe you earned it.”
Wow. “Um, thanks.”
“You’ve done a great job here,” Audrey adds.
“Thank you. About my past—it really doesn’t matter to you, Reina?”
“No, it really doesn’t. I am going to tell you that sometimes when our single women are on missions, situations arise, and it may seem like you have no choice but to sleep with someone we’re watching, or someone you want information from. I want to stress that you always have a choice. I certainly don’t encourage the women who work here to sleep with someone we believe is hurting others, and information can be retrieved in other ways. It’s always up to you.”
“I appreciate that,” I tell her, and mean it. I slept with many men I had no interest in over the years, and I don’t enjoy faking it in bed. I mean, really, who does?
“I can give you some time if you need to think about everything.”
“No. I don’t need the time. I would love to work with you, and having Audrey as a mentor is like a dream come true.”
“You say that now, but trust me, she’s not as nice as she seems.”
“She lies,” Audrey says, dryly.
“Not to my women,” Reina admonishes her.
“I think I’m going to like it here.”
Several months ago
“We’ve got your test results back, Camari,” Reina says as I settle into one of the chairs in her office.
I’ve spent over a year working with Audrey at the Foundation, and waiting for the time to come when the Society would be ready for me. All of the current Society women have gotten married in that time, including Reina and Matt. They had a “real” wedding in the Mexican town Reina grew up in, and it was beautiful.
If there was ever a doubt they didn’t belong together, or that they didn’t truly love each other, that wedding made me a believer. Time is a great thing and I can honestly say I’m over the crush I had on Matt, which I now realize was just that—a crush—and not love. I still think he’s amazing, but we’re friends, and nothing more. Sometimes, I still see Reina look at me with jealousy when he hugs me, but she hasn’t brought anything up again, and neither have I.
“How did I do?” I ask, nervously. Audrey told me not to worry, but I don’t want to be kicked out before I’m even in.
“You excelled at languages, which is no surprise, given your European upbringing. You also did well with fashion, technology, etiquette, and blending in. Even weapons and hand-to-hand combat weren’t a problem for you, which I believe is due to your background as well.”
“Yes. I learned to protect myself, even though I worked for a high-class agency. They had protections in place, but I didn’t trust anyone but myself to keep me safe.”
“Understandable. As for the other subjects, you were passable in those as well.”
“Great! So, what happens next?”
“You need to learn empathy.”
“What?”
It’s Audrey who answers me. “You have forgotten where you came from Camari, and it comes across in the way you hold yourself, and interact with others.”
“I’m not rude!”
“Not intentionally, no, but you have an air of superiority.”
“I will never go back to what I was. Who I was. My family didn’t want me like that, and I didn’t like myself.”
“Do you like yourself now?” Reina asks.
No. “Yes.”
“Lying to me—and yourself—is not going to help you in the Society. We all have faults, and fears, Camari.”
“What are you afraid of?” I ask, not thinking she’ll answer, but needing more time to process what she’s saying, and how I can fake my way through it.
“Losing Matt again,” she says, without even a moment’s hesitation.
“Being the unpopular girl no one wants to date, or be friends with” Audrey says. “Every time I walk the red carpet with Blake, I have to fight away a panic attack, because I know everyone’s judging me. Lucky for me, Stella would never allow me to be on a worst-dressed list, but I’m still afraid.”
I take a deep breath, and tell them my greatest fear, the one I’ve never told anyone. I know it’s the right thing to do, but that doesn’t make it easy. “I’m afraid of being the overweight girl who couldn’t find a boy to be interested in her, so her parents threw her out. I don’t want you to throw me out because I don’t meet your standards.”
“We have no standards when it comes to clothing size, or body type,” Reina tells me, and I know she means it.
“Rationally, I know you don’t, but fear isn’t rational.”
“No, it isn’t,” she agrees. “I will do everything I can to make you realize you are good enough for us no matter what, but I can’t change how you think and feel. You are the only one who can do that.”
“I know you have a plan for me.”
“Honestly, I don’t. You’ll take all of the classes with the other recruits, but your true test will not be one of the subjects you will be learning. I don’t know what it will be yet, but I’m sure something will come to Audrey and me.”
“Okay.” I’m not really okay, because I like to have a plan, but what else can I say?
“Don’t stress about it,” Audrey says, placing her hand on my arm. “We want you to succeed, so we’ll do everything we can to help you.”
I nod, because I know they want me, but I don’t know what they’re going to make me do, and that’s what scares me. Ever since I’ve had control of my life, I’ve made sure to always keep it. Giving it up won’t be easy, but I know I have no choice if I want to be in the Society, and I want that more than I’ve ever wanted anything else.
Prologue
Camari
I’m in Hell. Beer, wings, and sports bar, Hell. Not everyone’s version of a bad time, but for me, it’s pretty much the worst. I’m a wine and salad girl, through and through.
“Isn’t this place great?” my new neighbor, Lennon asks, smiling at me.
I smile back, because he’s not a bad guy, and if I blow my cover, Reina might actually kill me. “Yeah. Thanks for bringing me here with you tonight.”
Lennon’s a 911 operator. He’s been looking a little too closely at all th
e calls involving the Society, and we can’t have that. After looking into his background, Tegan determined that he wouldn’t be impressed with anything we could offer him, including the truth, so I was sent undercover to distract him. I have to dress in t-shirts and jeans, pretend I like sports, and take him to bed if I’m so inclined.
Rose should’ve been sent, because she actually likes beer, wings, and NASCAR, but I was chosen instead, and I know exactly why. Reina will never admit it, but I’m here because she wants to show me she’s in charge, and that Matt won’t interfere, and stand up for me against her. Even if he did put a ring on my finger, long before he put one on hers.
One month ago
I’m once again meeting with Reina, and Audrey, although this time it’s in Reina and Matt’s apartment. My classes are going well, and I’ve been helping Audrey with PR at the Foundation so she can spend more time with her family, but I still haven’t been told what my final test will be. I think I may be about to find out, and it both excites me, and terrifies me at the same time.
“I’m going to be very blunt with you,” Camari,” Reina says, and I can’t help but smile because she’s always blunt with me, and everyone else who works for her. “We have a problem that’s not going away, and I’m hoping you can help.”
“Oh, I thought I you were assigning me my test, but of course, I’ll help with whatever you want.”
“This is your test,” Audrey tells me with a smile. “We need you to go undercover, and help to protect the Society.”
“I can do that!”
“I know you can,” Reina says.
“You already know the subject from our numerous briefings on him,” Audrey informs me.
“Lennon Chase?” I ask, doing my best to hide my distaste.
He’s a handsome man with light red hair, and piercing brown eyes, but he’s definitely not my type. Where I’m designer clothes, and champagne, he’s flannel shirts and beer. I don’t see how this will work, although I know why we need to stop him; he’s a 911 operator, and he’s noticed too many instances where women from the Foundation have been at the scenes of crimes in Las Vegas.
“You’re going to be his new neighbor, and get him to invite you into his circle.”
“We’re not exactly compatible,” I remind her, looking down at the clothes on my body, which cost more than he makes in a month.
“You will be once Stella helps make you over.”
“Wouldn’t someone else be better suited for this?”
“Yes, but that’s the point. We told you your test would be about accepting the time before you were wealthy, and this is the perfect opportunity for you to do just that.”
She doesn’t mention that I’m wealthy because of Matt, but it’s there, hanging in the air between us. No matter that I’m over him, and he was never into me like that, I don’t know if Reina will ever fully get past it. She says she has, but I feel it sometimes. Not often, especially now that she’s pregnant, but I’m feeling it now. She’s punishing me, and I can’t do a damn thing about it.
1
Camari
“Hey, Cam,” Lennon says to me as I walk out of my house at the same time he walks out of his next door. I manage not to wince at the nickname I never gave him permission to use, and pretend this is just a happy coincidence.
“Oh hi! Are you headed off to work?” I know he’s not, but I ask anyway.
“Softball,” he says, and I hold my breath, both wanting an invite, and really, really not wanting one. “Hey, do wanna come with me?”
Why yes, Lennon, I do want to come with you, but not to your game. “I’d hate to impose. You already let me hang out with you and your friends last week.”
“Never a hardship to hang out with a beautiful woman.”
Down girl, I tell my pussy, which tends to gush when Lennon opens his mouth, much to my brain’s dismay. “You’re too sweet.”
“Is that a yes?”
I bite my bottom lip, because I know men like it, and nod. “Okay. I was just going to grab some groceries, and that can wait.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll feed you,” he says, tossing his gear into the back of his truck, before opening the passenger door for me.
“I wasn’t worried,” I tell him honestly, although now I am.
I increased my workout time, but I can’t keep eating wings and fried foods, and drinking beer, or I’m going to go up a size or two. I won’t allow that to happen, but I don’t know if I’m allowed to decline. I haven’t had a lot of unpaid dates, and the ones I have had were in fancy restaurants with men who expected me to order a salad. Lennon doesn’t follow my rules, and I don’t like it.
I hold onto the grip inside the door to his truck, and pull myself up onto the seat. “You’re stronger than you look.”
If he only knew. “You don’t think I look strong?” I ask, once he gets in.
“You look like a strong wind could blow you over,” he tells me with a laugh.
“That only happened once, and it blew me around, and not over,” I correct him.
“You have to tell me.”
“I was in a parking garage when the wind picked me up, and turned me around. I had to run from post to post to get back to my car.”
“That is the best story I have ever heard.”
“I highly doubt that since you’re a 911 operator, and all.”
“I do hear crazy things on the daily, but not usually from friends.”
He looks over at me, and for a moment, I think he might want to be more than friends. The look passes from his face so quickly I convince myself I must have imagined it. In the past month, I’ve seen a few women leave his place early in the morning, and none of them looked anything like me. Most were blonde, where I’ve got raven black hair, and they all had breasts a man could hold in his hand. The one thing I’ve missed from losing so much weight are my breasts. I could get implants like my friend Harlow, but I don’t want to see that added number on the scale, even if I know where it’s coming from.
“Are we seeing the same friends I met the other night?”
“Yep. Tim, Mitch, Jack, and Brad will be there, plus some of the girls from work.”
“I didn’t know it was co-ed.”
“Most work softball teams are,” he says, looking at me curiously.
“I’ve never worked for a company that has a team,” I tell him, lying through my teeth. C&C has a team, but I have no interest in playing.
“I forget you just graduated recently. I still think it’s crazy your family bought you a house while you look for a job.”
“I paid my way through college because of the recession, but now that they’ve recovered financially, they wanted to help out.”
“Well, I’m glad they chose the house next door to me.”
“So am I.”
That’s one of the only honest things I’ve said to him, and it feels nice to tell the truth. I have no choice but to lie, and I thought it would be easy because on paper, we don’t fit together in any way, shape or form. The problem is, in real life, I kind of wish we did. I like him, when I shouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean I’ll act on my feelings. I can’t.
“Here we are,” he says, pulling in to a park I’ve driven past before.
He parks, grabs his stuff out of the back, locks the car, and starts to walk towards the field. It takes him a moment to realize I’m not with him, and when he sees me locked in the truck, he drops his bag, and runs for me, unlocking the doors as he approaches. I didn’t even think to open my own door, because it’s been a very long time since a man didn’t do it for me while we were together.
“I’m sorry, Cam. I had my hands full, so I thought you’d get the door yourself.”
“I guess I should’ve, but you opened it for me in your driveway, and I just assumed—which I know I shouldn’t.”
He surprises me by placing his hands on my waist and lifting me to the ground. “You had every right to assume, because I should have done it. My mom would smack
me upside the head if she was here right now. Forgive me?”
“Of course. It’s just a door, and this isn’t a date or anything.”
“No, it’s not.”
I smile easily, because it’s what I do, even though I want to go home now. I knew this wasn’t a date, but I wanted it to be. “Want” is starting to be my least favorite word in the English language, right up there with “need” and “Lennon”. All of them are driving me crazy in a way they shouldn’t be. A way he shouldn’t be, and I have a feeling it’s only going to get worse, and never get better.
Lennon
I cannot believe I locked Camari in my truck! What a fucking dick move! I wasn’t lying when I told her my mom would smack me for it, but I did lie about this being a date. I fucked that up, too, because I didn’t ask her in the way I should’ve, and yeah, watching me play softball probably isn’t the best first date, either.
I don’t know what it is about this woman, but she’s had me tied up in knots since I watched her move in a month ago. She was scolding one of the movers for putting something in the wrong room, and while it should’ve turned me off, it had the opposite effect. My chaos was drawn to her order, and that pull hasn’t diminished, even though she’s given me absolutely no encouragement, or reason to believe she wants anything more than a new friend.
Maybe it’s because she saw a few of my take home players leaving in the morning, but it’s not like we’re together, or anything, and she’s never said anything about it. Maybe I’m just not her type, because while she’s always in t-shirts with jeans or leggings, there’s a regal air about her. She’s out of my league. Or maybe she’s just gay.
That one I can’t overcome, but I’ve started working on the first one by not bringing anyone home in the last week. I’m never going to fit in at society functions, but I actually enjoy the cooking show channels, so I’ve been checking out the menus at the celebrity places on the Strip. The only problem with that is I’ve only been out with her once, and we just had wings. She never gets food deliveries when I’m around, so I’m at a loss.
Society Girls: Camari Page 2
