“You can’t tell.” I ran the silky material through my fingers and looked to her with glassy eyes. “Are you sure?”
“Look at me.” She rubbed her hand over her enlarging midsection. “Wear it.” She lowered her voice. “And with the crystals, it’ll look good with those shoes.”
I sucked in a breath. “I have them packed. But shit, I can barely walk in them.”
“You have time before the party. Keep practicing.”
“You’re a lifesaver. I’ve scoured every thrift store on the South Side. I mean, Mason didn’t mention clothes, but a ball,” I exaggerated the word. “I don’t know what he thought I’d wear.”
“Hey, your brother is hot, but he’s a guy. Guys don’t think about shit like clothes.” She scoffed. “Most guys are only interested in taking them off.”
“Ladies, there are toilets to clean,” Anna’s voice rang like fingernails on a chalkboard as she entered the locker room. “Oh.” She came closer, eyeing the dress. “What is this?”
“A dress,” Jane replied dryly.
Anna grabbed the hanger from my grip. “Sleazy.” She looked from Jane to me and lifted her eyebrows. “Lorna, have you decided to make some extra money working the street corner, following in your mom’s footsteps?”
Jane snatched the hanger back. “It’s pretty and won’t look sleazy on Lorna.”
Anna laughed. “Opinions are like assholes.”
I shoved the dress into my locker, and after making sure it was hanging straight, I slammed the door. “And some people are only assholes.”
“Oh, Lorna,” Anna said, “you have the third floor. An old man croaked in 334. The firemen took him away, but you’ll need to scrub the mattress. He pissed all over himself.”
Exhaling, I turned and walked away.
Once Jane and I were at the elevator, she whispered, “Why do you put up with her shit? You could get a job anywhere else.”
“I keep telling myself that she’s jealous...and I owe her.”
“Damn, I mean, she should be jealous, but you don’t—”
The elevator doors opened.
I peered inside, thankful there were no mice or bags of half-eaten food. Together we entered and arranged our carts. I hit the buttons for floors two and three. “My mom was, or is, a cunt. As you know she lived with Anna’s dad. I lived there for five months and seventeen days.”
“Who’s counting though, right?”
“Right,” I said. “I always thought her dad was a creep. A year later, Anna had a kid. She was fourteen.”
“Yeah, she has three now.”
“The first one was her dad’s,” I said softly. “I know it because I walked in on them once. She’s hated me ever since.” The elevator stopped on two. “She hated me before, but after that...”
The elevator doors opened.
Jane’s eyes were wide. “Fuck. That isn’t your problem. I don’t want to lose you, but you could work anywhere.”
“So can you.”
She ran her hand over her growing midsection. “Right. Who will hire me?”
“I guess I feel like I owe her for not telling someone what he was doing.”
Jane turned once she was out of the elevator. “Girl, your debt is paid.”
The elevator closed and took me up to three.
* * *
At nearly seven at night, my phone dinged with a text message from Mason.
“I’LL MEET YOU WHEN YOU LAND AT LAGUARDIA.”
I texted back.
“SEE YOU SOON.”
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. I’d hoped Mason would fly with me, but apparently, he and his inner circle flew to New York on Thursday. It was something about being prepared, chess, and fires.
Removing my apron, I entered the quiet locker room. Unsurprisingly, Anna’s desk was empty. She rarely stayed past six p.m. As I opened my locker, my heart seized and my circulation dropped to my toes.
Tears filled my eyes as a wave of nausea weakened my knees. I reached out to the lockers for support.
The dress that Jane had graciously allowed me to borrow was no longer hanging on the hanger. I didn’t need to lift the pile of rags to know what happened, but I did. With more tears accumulating in my eyes, I lifted the black material. The skirt was now shredded with long vertical cuts. Beneath the remains of the dress was a note.
Show off more leg, sis. Your tips will be higher.
The note wasn’t signed. It didn’t need to be.
I held the black material to my chest as tears overflowed my eyes, cascading down my cheeks. Blinking them away, I looked at my watch. The last room on my schedule took longer to clean than I planned. I was due at the airport in less than an hour. I didn’t have time to go back to my apartment and grab any of the stashed money. If I could, maybe I could buy a dress in New York.
“Right. You can’t afford a dress from New York,” I spoke to the empty room.
As it was, I wouldn’t arrive in New York until nearly midnight. The party began early Saturday evening. This dress was ruined. At least I still had a plain black cocktail-length dress in my carry-on.
“Mace, I’m sorry,” I said with a sigh.
Fifty-eight minutes later, as I fought traffic on I-90, my nerves were as tattered as the dress. The plane ticket Mason sent instructed me to be at the airport two hours before flight time. I was still a ways away.
Once to O’Hare, I searched for a parking place in long-term parking, and caught a bus. By the time I made it to the airport, I was a hot, sweaty mess. My normally wild hair was a mass of curls, many sticking to my neck. Thankfully, with no checked bags, I could go straight to security.
Shit.
The digital sign warned of a forty-minute delay before accessing the terminal.
Mason’s declaration came back to me, urging me to keep trying. “There isn’t a woman alive I trust more than you.”
Finally, with TSA behind me, I grabbed my bag and ran to the terminal and gate. When I arrived—out of breath—two women stood at a tall desk. An elderly man appeared to be the last passenger as he showed his ticket.
“Hello,” I called. “Please, I’m supposed to be on that flight.”
“To LaGuardia?” one woman asked.
“Yes.” I fumbled for the ticket I’d printed.
After scanning it, the woman smiled. “Relax. You made it.”
“I was afraid you’d give away my seat.”
She looked at my ticket, her screen, and back to me. “No, Ms. Pierce. Your seat is waiting for you in first class.”
“What? My ticket didn’t say that.”
She shrugged. “It appears you’ve been upgraded.” She winked. “Take it as a good omen.”
“I could use one of those.”
“Have a good flight.”
Making my way down the long walkway, I finally arrived at the airplane’s entrance.
“Ticket, please,” a man in blue pants and matching shirt with the airline emblem asked.
I handed it his way.
“Miss, we’re about to take off, but since you’re first class, I can get you something to drink, if you’d like.”
I considered the amount of cash I had on hand. “Do you take credit cards or only cash?”
He grinned. “You’re in first class. Drinks are free.” He leaned closer and whispered, “That’s a misconception. You paid for them with the ticket.”
“I was upgraded.”
“Well, you must have a good fairy godmother.”
I sighed. “I wish.”
“How about a celebratory drink? We have wine, beer, and mixed drinks.”
“After the day I had,” I said, “I’ll say yes to that drink. White wine, please.”
“Coming right up.”
Chapter Five
As soon as I met Mason’s green stare on the sidewalk outside arrivals at LaGuardia, I gave my brother the bad news. “Mason, I tried, but I don’t think I’m prepared for this ball thing.”
Under the overhead lighting his smile glistened, a one-thousand-watt grin. I eyed him up and down. He was a long way from the poor boy growing up on the South Side. In brown leather loafers, fitted pants with a trim waist and crisp pleat, and a button-down shirt tucked into his pants and unbuttoned at the neck, he looked downright dapper.
In contrast, I was a rumpled mess after nearly nine hours of cleaning, fighting traffic, and a few glasses of wine on the flight. Thankfully, they also had food. I fidgeted with my messy hair as Mason lifted my carry-on. “You’re definitely not prepared,” he said, “if this is all you brought. Fuck, Lorna, don’t you know how to girl?”
My neck straightened, sucking in a haggard breath and pushing my breasts forward. “I don’t know, Mace. I’ve been doing it my whole life.”
“Whoa, tiger.” He laughed as a big black SUV stopped at the curb. “Our ride, sis.” We both climbed into the back seat. The driver barely acknowledged me as Mason told him the name of our hotel.
“Shit, Lorna,” Mason said as we drove the streets of New York. “I screwed up by not giving you more details. I’ve been too fucking busy. There’s some serious shit happening here and back in Chicago, too.”
My eyes went from him to the driver and back. Granted, the interior of the SUV was only lit by some weird blue ambient lighting and the occasional illumination of outside streetlights, but I was pretty sure he could see my concern.
“He’s a Sparrow. No one gets near any of us who isn’t.”
“I don’t even know what that means.” I turned toward the window as the SUV entered a highway.
Mason reached for my hand. “It means, I’m sorry if you’ve been worried about what you’d wear. I asked you here to save me from having a date. Now, get a good night’s sleep, and in the morning, you’ll find out what the Sparrow connection means.”
“What does it mean?”
My brother smiled. “It means, after tomorrow, I might have a better chance of convincing you to move to my new place.”
“I have to be back to work Sunday morning to cover for Jane.”
“Yeah, I know.” Mace handed me a paper ticket. “I booked you a three a.m. Sunday red-eye to O’Hare. There’ll be a car to take you from the masquerade ball straight to the airport. You’ll need to leave by midnight.”
I turn to him with my tired eyes widening. “Wait, what? You didn’t mention masquerade.”
“Hmm. I didn’t?”
“Shit, Mace.”
“So tomorrow morning,” he continued, “I’m sorry if you wanted to sightsee, maybe another trip. Your day is full. I have work I need to do with the Sparrows, so I probably won’t be around until closer to our departure for the party.”
I was trying to make sense of what he was saying. Maybe my brother was a linguistics expert, and instead of English, he was speaking another language.
He rattled off my schedule. “Your wake-up call will be at eight-thirty, breakfast will be delivered at nine. Then there is a fitting for your dress. Next, a masseuse and lunch. Oh” —his green eyes smiled my way— “I ordered your breakfast—standard fare—but just tell the server at breakfast what you want for lunch and snack. Lunch will be at twelve-thirty and the snack about an hour before we leave. Never attend one of these parties on an empty stomach. The champagne flows like water.”
“I-I can’t pay for any of this.”
“No one asked you to. You’re helping the Sparrows. The Sparrows help you.”
“Are you changing your last name?”
Mason inhaled deeply as the cords in his neck came to life. He pointed ahead. “Manhattan, sis.”
My eyes opened in amazement as I took in the buildings and the lights. It was absolutely stunning, like a picture or a photograph, not real life. “Wow.”
Mason nodded. “Moving on up.”
The SUV continued across a bridge.
Mason’s expression changed as his jaw tightened. “No, I’m not changing my name. I’m a fucking Pierce and so are you. That isn’t changing. Old Man Sparrow is a sack of shit, but maybe my father was too. Maybe yours and Missy’s were also. Fuck, we don’t know. We know Mom was—”
“Or is,” I interjected.
“I know without a doubt that the road I’m on with Sterling Sparrow is the right one,” Mason said. “Yeah, he can also be an asshole and was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. As annoying as those traits are, they open doors and make connections. Because of him, I’ve been places and in contact with people I’d never have met otherwise. I can’t tell you all that’s happening, but I can say that I’m one hundred percent behind his plans. So are the others.”
“What others?”
“I’ve told you about them.”
“In the mysterious inner circle third-person,” I said.
“You’ll meet them tomorrow. There’s obviously Sterling, call him Mr. Sparrow, and Reid and Patrick.”
“Do you call him mister?” I elongated the word.
“In public, for appearances. In private, it’s less formal.”
I tried to keep it all straight. “So is this like the military...but different? He’s what? Your captain?”
Mason laughed. “He’d probably say general, but for the record, I was a hell of a lot better soldier than he was, not that he’ll ever admit that.”
“Do all four of you have fake dates?”
Mason shrugged. “Sparrow and Patrick, yes. The women accompanying them are Sparrow employees. There’s no emotional connection. Like I said, we have too much other shit to worry about right now than to think about dolls.”
“Dolls?” I repeated, my eyebrows arching.
“Women. Dates. Emotional or physical shit.”
I lifted my hand. “Fine, I get it. What about the other one—Reid?”
The SUV slowed. “Central Park is up here,” Mason said, lifting his chin toward the windshield.
For a moment, we sat speechless, the hum of the tires and soft music the only sounds as the driver took the SUV through a slice of nature smack-dab in the middle of a towering city. There were quaint-looking streetlights and horse-drawn carriages. The SUV turned left along a street running parallel to the park. On one side were walls and trees, on the other beautiful limestone and brick buildings.
“Reid,” Mace continued, “is probably one of the smartest men I’ve ever met. He knows shit no one else cares about. That guy can hack anything and shit, accomplish things with electronics and artificial intelligence that make our government look like preschool computer 101. Even in Iraq, he was able to intercept—” Mason shook his head again. “The short answer is no. He said he wanted to work on what he does best. Sparrow gave him a pass.”
“Will I meet the other ladies?”
Instead of answering, Mason continued reciting my schedule. “Your fitting for your dress is early so they’ll have it ready by one in the afternoon to do any final adjustments. Oh, and you can choose your mask. Then a makeup artist and hairdresser are coming.”
“Jeez, Mason. This feels too weird. Are the salons in the hotel?”
He shrugged as the SUV pulled under a roof and into a parking garage.
“I thought it would have some grand entrance,” I said, looking around.
“It does. We’re entering a back entrance, and there probably are salons. The people I mentioned are all coming to our suite.” The driver opened the door. Mason climbed out and offered me his hand. “For the weekend, you’re a Sparrow. Enjoy.”
* * *
I woke to the sound of a ringing phone as I stretched out upon a giant bed with the softest sheets.
“Hello,” I said into the receiver.
“Ms. Pierce, this is your wake-up call. Your breakfast will arrive in thirty minutes.”
“Thank you.”
Hanging up the phone, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes as I focused on the room around me.
The room Mason brought me to last night wasn’t a room. It was a suite, one larger than my apartment. There’s a small kitchen sto
cked with various flavors of coffees, a refrigerator full of drinks, and a basket of snack foods. There’s a living room with fancy furniture, a dining room with a table that seats six, and of course, my bedroom, complete with an en suite bathroom with a bathtub that made me drool.
If I hadn’t been so dead tired last night, I could have soaked for hours on end.
My bedroom wasn’t the only one. Mason also had one attached to the opposite side of the living room.
I reached for my phone, remembering something about a busy schedule for today.
“Thanks, Mace,” I mumbled, seeing that my brother had sent me an email with a complete breakdown of the day’s activities. The heading on the email read Enjoy Your Day of Pampering.
I stretched again, stepping from the soft bed. Unlike the carpet at the Motel 7, what was below my bare feet was plush, soft, and clean. I made my way to the window and opened the drapes. The material was heavy with no peeling rubber backing. I brought it to my nose—no stale lingering scent of cigarettes.
Before me was a gorgeous view of Manhattan, complete with blue sky and sunshine. Stories below, tiny people walked on sidewalks as tiny cars drove the streets.
Instead of thinking of all the sights I wouldn’t see, I decided to do what Mason said and enjoy a day of pampering. After all, tomorrow, I’d be back to reality.
Chapter Six
“Ms. Pierce?” Carlos, the makeup artist, asked.
I stared in disbelief at the full-length mirror. If I believed in magic, I’d say I’d been transformed from the blah housekeeper at a cheap motel into a princess.
Would that make my brother my fairy godmother?
I might look the part now, but in reality, I didn’t have a clue what was involved in attending a party of this importance and magnitude. Thank goodness, Mason, or someone from the Sparrows, did. They’d thought of everything. From the lacy panties and garter belt to the thigh-high stockings and corset. Never in my entire life had I felt as feminine and beautiful as I did at this moment.
Danger’s First Kiss Page 3
