Mrs. Silva gave a little huff and shook her head. “Sorry, sweetheart, but sex is intimate no matter how you try to slice it.” Mrs. Silva no longer struggled to calm her breathing. She was back at sad.
I made a non-committal shrug. It had been so long since I’d had “intimate” sex, I forgot what it felt like. I’d forgotten how it felt to fall apart with someone I loved. “Not the kind I have. Sex for me is like a French kiss with a bit more skin and sweat.”
She closed her eyes, almost cringing at my words. “I’ll take your word for it.”
Okay, time to shift the conversation. Avoid talking about the actual seducing and sexing of the Target.
“Once I’ve sent you the time and location where I’ll final—” Mrs. Silva flashed me a quick look of warning. Fine. She wants it straight, I’ll give it to her straight. It wasn’t me I was softening the truth for. “Where I’ll be fucking your husband”—to her credit, Mrs. Silva didn’t flinch—“get ahold of your private investigator, detective, photographer, or whoever it is you’ve got lined up to catch us in the act, and make sure they’re there. You’ve got one chance. Make sure the Contact you’ve hired will be there because I will not be happy, and G will not be happy, if you drop the ball.” I paused, hoping she’d look me in the eyes so I could impress upon her the seriousness of our conversation. She wouldn’t look anywhere but at that ring of hers. “I’m the person who does their job. Make sure you are, too.”
After a few moments, Mrs. Silva tightened the belt on her bathrobe and sat up taller. “Anything else?”
Ah, there it was. We were almost done. She’d almost reached acceptance. Once we were there, I was out.
“Yeah, there is,” I said as I snapped my briefcase closed. “I’m sure G pounded it into you already, but in case you missed any of the keep-quiet-or-else speech, here’s a recap. Don’t. Say. Anything. About. The. Eves. Not to your Contact, not to your mother, not to your B.F.F., not to your priest, and not even to your little fee-fee dog. We help you now, you help us by keeping silent in the future.” To date, not a single Client had slipped, but if one ever did, the fallout would be disastrous.
Mrs. Silva almost smiled, although it wasn’t a particularly friendly one. “Not to mention I help you out by paying you.”
Look who was playing the moral high-road game now? I hadn’t seen that rebuttal coming from the mostly sad and silent Mrs. Silva, and I could usually spot a holier-than-thou show before I stepped foot into the Meet room.
“Not to mention we’re helping you come out on the other end of a divorce with fifty percent of your husband’s worth.” I made my way to the door. I had a file to study, and Mrs. Silva had legs to be waxed. “I’d say that’s the gift that keeps on giving for the rest of your life. Wouldn’t you, Mrs. Silva?”
She laughed tightly. “You and G aren’t nearly as intimidating as you think you are.”
Oh, dear god. Right after the actual act of screwing the Target, the Meet was my least favorite part of the whole gig. “That’s because you just met us. This isn’t a threat, and it’s not a warning. It’s the truth. Get your divorce, take your money, and forget about us.”
“Just don’t forget to pay you, right?”
I knew she was trying to ruffle my feathers. So many had tried before her, and like her, every one of them had failed. To ruffle my feathers, they had to have some sort of emotional pull over me. My Clients didn’t. Neither did my Targets.
“You can forget if you want,” I said, giving her a tilted smile. “But G won’t.”
Mrs. Silva chuckled again. Not quite as much ice but still enough to make the room a bit chilly. “My husband’s careful—discreet,” she said, and there it was: acceptance. I saw it in her eyes after she’d finally managed to look me in mine. I was out. “He won’t just tumble into bed if you bat your eyes at him. I hope you’re good.”
No wife ever wanted to know just how good I was.
“You and I wouldn’t be here now if I wasn’t.” Before I slipped out of the door, I worked up a small smile. Less than five minutes we’d ever speak to one another, and yet, two lives were affected by that handful of minutes. It had taken me some getting used to at first, but eventually, the goodbye smile came naturally. The smile that said I’m sorry, Good luck, and Nice doing business all at the same time. “Goodbye, Mrs. Silva.”
“Goodbye . . .”—interrupted by a long sigh—“Eve.”
I closed the door and headed down the hall. Clients never knew our names. Our real names or the names we took on for the Errand. It was easier when there wasn’t a name. Names were personal. Even fake ones.
After navigating my way down the wax “wing,” I headed past the aquarium counter and red-silk-kimono girl again. Plastering on a smile, I folded my hands beneath my chin, made a small bow, and said, “Namaste” in as saccharine a way as I could.
If not for the guests milling about the waiting area, I was certain kimono girl would have flipped me off or tried scratching my eyes out. I couldn’t be sure, but her brand of pissed was especially impressive.
Since it wasn’t past three o’clock yet, guess who was first in line when I whisked out of the spa doors?
“Hey, Romeo,” I said, totally unaffected by the panty-melting smile he gave me. I was too jaded by men to be affected by a smile. A smile was never just a smile. “Anytime today.”
Grabbing my keys from the valet box, his smile jacked a little higher as he jogged by. “Anytime, any day.”
I withheld the eye roll that wanted to follow. The guy had a pick-up line for everything. I was sure if I told him to go get bent, he would turn it around into some sort of illicit proposition.
As he ran toward the valet lot, I took the opportunity to check him out. Really, he had one of the finest asses known to woman. The rule was I couldn’t touch, not that I couldn’t look and looking was the only male satisfaction I got these days.
Valet Look-Can’t-Touch was just about out of sight when someone else whisked out of the spa doors. I had to do a double-take because, other than being a little shorter, she looked an awful lot like I did. Or I had before I’d become an Eve. After five years of being dyed, weaved, cut, sculpted, molded, nipped, and tucked, I’d almost forgotten what I’d started out like. But forgetting was impossible with that woman pacing beside me with her cell to her ear.
The resemblance was . . . uncanny.
“You know my situation, Mar,” clone girl said into the phone, not exactly trying to be discreet. “Unless I want to lose everything, I’m going to live, wrinkle, and die with that sorry excuse for a man.”
Even when I was “off the clock,” I never really was. More than half of our business came from these kinds of happenstance encounters. Blatantly wealthy woman bitching on the phone, or to her hair stylist, or to the poor waiter, et cetera when an Eve or G was in earshot.
I was already unlocking my briefcase when she paced my way. “Why don’t I just leave him? Why. Don’t. I. Just. Leave. Him?” she practically shouted into the phone. “Because, Mar, I signed a little piece of paper before I walked down the aisle. In case you’re not familiar with a pre-nup, let me give you a quick run-down. In the event of a divorce, I get nothing. Noth-Ing.”
I slipped the black business card out of the holder and clutched it. Judging by the way she was decked out and that her handbag alone cost what a middle-class family made annually, I knew this one would be a solid Eight. Maybe, just maybe, a Nine.
And if eery-look-alike girl did come to the Eves for help, G better toss it my way since I’d brought the business in. That’s generally the way it worked, and I sure as hell wouldn’t give “generally” a break when it came to an Eight, possibly a Nine, Errand.
“He was worth a lot when I married him, but now?” she continued, either not noticing or not caring there was a stranger close by. “You’ve seen the articles. You know how much that son of a bitch is worth.”
At least an Eight.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll thin
k of something.” After a clipped goodbye, she slid her phone into her purse.
When opportunity knocks, I don’t keep it waiting.
As I approached the woman, I held out the card. The matte, black card was blank expect for The Eves scrolled in elegant white lettering on the front and a number on the back.
The woman studied the card for a few moments before studying me in the same way. With skepticism. “What’s this for?”
I saw my car coming around. I had less than thirty seconds to get the card in her hand before the opportunity was gone. “For your husband problem.”
She lifted a sculpted eyebrow. “I’ve got an attorney. A bunch of them, in fact. If some of the best lawyers in the industry can’t help me, I doubt you can.”
“I’m not a lawyer,” I said. “I deal with the gray area in between the laws.” I had her interest. I saw it in her eyes.
“What . . . gray area?”
My car pulled up the circular driveway, so I extended the card again. That time, she took it. “Give this number a call, and it will all be explained. And that’s for your eyes only. No one else sees it, and you don’t tell anyone about it. If you choose not to call us, burn, shred—basically, destroy—that card. Got it?” Usually I preferred to ease potential clients into the fine print, but I didn’t have time for easing.
The woman flipped the card over and back again before sliding it inside her purse. “Got it,” she said, giving me a once-over. Standing taller, she asked, “How do I know you’re for real?”
“How do I know you are?” I lifted a shoulder. “Life’s a sequence of gambles. You’re going to win some. You’re going to lose some. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t play the game.”
The valet had that same smile on when he leapt out of my car. He flashed me a wink and waited outside of the door for me to climb in. “Have a nice day,” I said to the woman.
“I will now.” She patted her purse.
I handed another twenty to Valet Romeo before sliding in. “See you around, ma’am,” he said with a wink before closing the door.
Tomorrow, I’d look different, and next month, I’d be in a different city in a different state. People never just saw me around. I sighed before punching the gas. “No, you won’t.”
MY HOTEL FOR this Errand was smack in the center of Ocean Drive in South Beach. G had gone all out and rented me a suite. She wanted me comfortable and happy, which meant the job was an important one. Not that all of them weren’t, but some were more high profile than others. Some jobs were high profile because of the risks involved, some because the Client, the Target, or both were public figures, and some were high profile strictly due to the money involved.
Other than his last name, where he lived, how much he was worth, and that I’d be in his bed within the month, I didn’t know anything about Mr. Silva. That would be different come morning, though. I’d know his shoe size, the day he was born, his preferences when it came to women, and what he liked in the bedroom. I’d have all the knowledge I’d need to work my way under Mr. Silva’s skin so I could work myself into his pants.
But tonight, I had a date with a heavy manila folder and a cherry Coke with extra cherries. I crashed onto the chaise and punched a quick text into my phone strictly for my interaction with G. On any given Errand, I carried around three phones. One for Client communication, one for G communication, and another that was used for the Target. At the end of each Errand, the Client and Target phones were destroyed, and I was given two new ones at the start of the next. It was a pain in the ass, but I hadn’t been drawn to the Eves because it was easy.
I suppose, at first, I wasn’t as much drawn as I was intrigued, but G helped me change my mind. Our meeting had seemed totally happenstance, but I’d realized after a while that G did nothing by happenstance. Everything was painstakingly strategized, especially when it came to selecting her Eves.
Five years ago, I’d walked into the mall back home with one goal in mind: I would sit in a booth at my favorite little cafe, order a mocha and a bagel, and prove to myself life could go on even when it didn’t feel as if it could.
By the time I was standing outside of the cafe, my body betrayed me. I simply couldn’t step foot inside of it. It wasn’t just my favorite place. It had been our favorite place, but there was no more our. There never would be again.
So instead, I collapsed onto one of the mall benches and stared at that cafe for the rest of the day. Staring at the couples going in and out, glaring at the ones smiling and laughing.
At closing time, a woman took a seat beside me. She was older, but she was one of the most stunning women I’d ever seen. The kind that almost make you want to reach out and touch them to see if they’re real.
She sat in silence for a few minutes, then said, “You can spend the rest of your life missing him. Or you can move on and never look back.”
I went with G that night, and the rest, as they say, was history. G offered me the move-on part of her promise. But there were times when I slipped and looked back. If there was a way to train myself not to look back, I hadn’t figured it out yet, but I’d never stop trying.
G never knew who the guy from my past was, and she didn’t know about any of the other ones either. She didn’t do backstory. She cared about our present and our future, that was it. Her only rule regarding our past was that we leave it there—behind us—and that we cut off all and any ties to it.
My phone pinged with G’s response, bringing me back to the present. Nothing but a G. That was how we communicated. To anyone else, our one-letter messages made no sense, but we knew the whole story behind that one letter.
I dug a cherry out of my soda and popped it into my mouth. I went for one more before opening the file. These things took hours to sort through.
The first few pages held all of the basics: full name, DOB, height, weight, education, career, hobbies, interests, etc. After a quick scan, I pulled another cherry out of my soda.
The next section, or as we Eves liked to call it, the Payday Section, was where I spent the majority of my study time. That section covered his likes and dislikes in and out of the bedroom. It went over his goals, ambitions, and dreams.
In short, it told me everything I needed to know to transform myself into the woman Mr. Daniel Silva couldn’t resist. It even told me what color, length, and style of hair he preferred. So after my salon appointment the next day, I’d (once again) be a long-haired blonde who wore her hair down with just a hint of a curl. In my line of work, blonde took the gold medal. Red was a close second.
I flipped to the next page, and there was Mr. Silva in all his mediocre glory. He looked his age—early forties—but had that confidence in his expression that conveyed he thought he was quite the gift. Dark hair and eyes, tall, medium build, handsome in a distinguished, George Clooney type of way, but not in the god-of-a-man way like he obviously perceived himself to be.
I turned the photo over and went to the next page. In the beginning, the next section had made me squirm. I didn’t squirm anymore. I’d seen it all when it came to sex preferences, positions, appetites, and fetishes. No Target could shock me. Not anymore.
Mr. Silva was pretty straight forward and in-line with my expectations based on what I’d already gleaned from his file. His preferred position was from behind, and his preferred quantity was once a day. No surprises there. I hadn’t run across a man yet who didn’t prefer sex once a day, and the from behind part I’d guessed once I knew what hair color he preferred.
Seduction was an art of statistics and probabilities. Every Eve knew a man who wanted a blonde liked giving it from behind, a man who lusted after a redhead liked the woman on top, and a man who liked a brunette preferred classic missionary style. The rules didn’t hold true one hundred percent of the time, but at least ninety-five percent, and that was close enough for me to stamp it into the book of truth.
What was surprising though, was that nothing had been filled out below the Sex Fetishes and Other Ki
nds of Miscellaneous Kinkery section. That section was rarely left blank. Most of the time, the Client ran out of space and had to add additional comments on the back of the sheet. Occasionally, the man who preferred a classic brunette and missionary sex would have a blank space, but never the man who liked a blonde from behind. There was always something else.
These questions weren’t meant to be insulting or obtrusive to the Client. We needed to dive down the rabbit hole of sex because that was how I finished my job and finished it quickly. When I knew a man’s turn-ons, turn-offs, and everything in between, my job was a hundred times easier. If Mr. Silva didn’t have any noteworthy fetishes, then fine. I’d close out the job and realize I still had a thing or two to learn. But if Mrs. Silva had purposefully left the space blank out of embarrassment, a desire for privacy, or because she just didn’t want to give me the nitty-gritty details, I would be pissed.
When I’d asked her if everything I needed was in the file and she said yes, she’d better have damn well meant it. I didn’t like to flounder my way through an Errand because the Client hadn’t done their simple assignment.
A few hours and a second round of extra-cherries cherry Coke later, I slammed the file closed. I’d read every note, pondered over every little clue I could use, and was exhausted.
I knew what kind of clothes to pick up; I knew what kind of makeup to wear. I knew what kind of smile caught his attention and how to shape my mouth to make him hard. I had it all.
Tomorrow I would transform into the blonde, bronze goddess Mr. Silva would come to know as Sienna Stevens. Tonight, though, I would go to bed and fall asleep as myself.
Whoever that person now was.
CHAMELEON DAY IS exactly what one would expect. It’s the day I pull out my credit card and didn’t stop swiping until I’d been dyed, tanned, styled, and primped into the ideal future MRTS. (mistress) of Mr. Silva.
It took most of the morning to get my canvas prepped and ready and most of the afternoon to paint it. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the streaking and plucking. It was a necessary evil of the job though. But once my canvas was ready to be painted, I savored the shopping. G gave us a generous stipend at the start of every Errand and let us use it as we saw fit. I used a good chunk of it on Chameleon Day.