Total pages in book: 21
Estimated words: 19994 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 100(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 67(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 19994 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 100(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 67(@300wpm)
“I like to have fun!”
“Says the virgin.”
I scowl at her.
“So how many times have you done this?”
Bianca blushes and looks away.
“Bianca…”
“Three,” she says quietly.
I blink, trying to take this all in as we just stare at each other across the tiny, crappy living room-slash-kitchen.
“Simone—”
“Look, I’m not judging—”
“You kind of are.”
My mouth twists. “Sorry,” I say quietly. “Maybe I am a little.”
“Look, it’s not the job I was looking for, but they approached me, and it pays insanely well. Like, ridiculously well.”
“How ridiculous?”
“One-hundred-thousand a job.”
This time, my jaw pretty much does hit the floor.
“What?!”
Bianca’s phone—a brand new, very fancy one, I notice—dings loudly, and she looks down.
“Oh, fuck, my Uber is here.”
“I mean, can you wait?”
She twists her lips, pouting. “I have a… uh… I have something later.”
“Work?” I say flatly.
“A date, yeah. Look, I’m really sorry to just cut out like this, Simone. There’s… well, there’s more to it than what I can really get into right now. I promise, we’ll catch up soon. This weekend?”
“Yeah, uh, yeah…” I mumble.
Simone shoulders two of her new bags and grabs the handle on the wheel-y one before she heads past me for the door.
“This weekend, for sure.”
I just nod, still blinking and trying to process everything, when I hear her call my name from behind me, on the stairway landing.
“Simone.”
I turn, and Bianca takes a deep breath before she puts her hand out and passes me this little black business card with metallic red-gold lettering.
“I’m only allowed to refer one friend, and they have to vet you first. And I know you’re… you know… inexperienced, but the money is crazy, crazy good. If you want to try it out and stop working at that fucking coffee shop you hate so much, give the number on that card a call, and mention me.”
“Oh, Bianca, I… I don’t know.”
“Then don’t call it,” she says with a small shrug before she grabs her bags again.
“I really do have to run, but let’s for real catch up this weekend and I’ll try and give you more information.”
I swallow, nodding slowly as my pulse skips a little bit inside.
“Think about it though, okay?”
“I’ll… yeah. Yeah, I’ll think about it.”
3
Simone
Tonight’s the night. I’ve been coming to this club all week—eyeing him, watching him, studying him. “Recon,” The Agency calls it, and it’s part of the job.
…The job, despite every single voice inside of me screaming no, I took. I’m not even totally sure why, though the money was certainly a big part of it. I mean, even with Bianca’s check for a few months’ rent—plus way more than she owed me, which was so incredibly generous, I’m still in a hole.
New York City for me was my ticket out of the shit-show that was my life before. Louisiana seems like a million years ago, even if it’s only been six months at this point. But I graduated high school, went directly home from the ceremony, grabbed the bag I already had packed, walked six miles to the bus station, and I have zero plans on looking back.
The details aren’t important. My life was always basically the most tear-jerker of a country song you’ve ever heard, but real. Drunk and strung out mom, and a dad who’d mastered the disappearing and reappearing when he needed money act by the time I was five. Jack, my older brother by ten years, was always my hero, but then he went and played hero in Afghanistan when I was twelve and never did make it back.
So, for six more years, I just fought to survive, and when it was time to go, trust me, it was time to go. Why New York? Honestly, who knows. Maybe it was the glamor of it all—the lights, the glitz, the whole “city that never sleeps” thing. The goal was, make some money and eventually go to fashion school. And of course, in my fantasy, I’d simply go on to become the biggest thing in women’s fashion since Coco met Chanel. After all, if you can make it in New York City, you can make it anywhere, as they say.
But then, of course, reality set it. And the reality was that New York was dirty, mean, cold, and fucking expensive. Finding Bianca through a roommate wanted sign at my coffee shop job was a miracle, but even still, forget putting money away for fashion school.
So, okay, yeah, “money” was maybe one of the biggest reasons I finally called the number on the card Bianca gave me. But after money, it was the intrigue, and this sexy, illicit sort of danger that came with the offer. But whatever it was, here I am—eyeing him, and watching him, like I’ve been doing all week. Because tonight, I’m making my move.
The Agency has a dossier on him, but I’m here to figure him out, figure out his habits, and figure out how to seduce him.