Great Exploitations Read online

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.

  After paying the salon—the bill had been in the four digits—I set myself loose on an open air mall in South Beach. After a few hours and few thousand dollars, I had a good Mr. Silva/Miami wardrobe. Mr. Silva’s proclivity in the woman’s clothing department didn’t have any real surprises. Snug-fitting cocktail dresses and stilettos were most men’s catnip. I just made sure the dresses were tailored to his specific tastes: short dresses in shades of red that showed off a liberal amount of cleavage. Mr. Silva really was the stereotypical rich womanizer.

  Most of the men I worked with were “stereotypical.”

  By ten o’clock that night, I’d been up for sixteen hours. My day should have been done, but it was really just getting started.

  I handed the BMW keys off to the valet outside of The Pleasure Room, the club in Miami to be seen at on a Friday or Saturday night. The burlesque club was known for giving the audience “The Full Tease,” served innovative libations, and was the hangout for at least one A-lister every weekend of the year.

  It was the kind of place I’d avoid when I wasn’t working. Tonight though, I was making the Greet, and since Mr. Silva owned The Pleasure Room, it was the place to be for Sienna Stevens.

  Like all the top clubs in South Beach, The Pleasure Room had a line of bodies wrapped around the building, waiting for their chance to witness the full tease on stage or to bump into whatever Hollywood heart-throb or darling was in there. Me, though? I didn’t do lines. Not because I had an over-inflated sense of self, but because time was one of my most precious commodities.

  I couldn’t afford to wait in a line for hours when I had an Eight’s attention to catch. The sooner I finished with Mr. Silva, the sooner I could move on to the next job, the sooner I could reach the magic number in my bank account, hang up my Eve hat, and start enjoying that whole freedom thing.

  After finishing my homework the night before, I’d called G to give her the heads up that she might get a call from an unhappy wife to an Eight or a Nine in the next few days. I told her if she did call G, I expected her to assign the job to me since I’d drummed up the business. She told me to focus on Mr. Silva and she would focus on running her business. I might have lost the battle, but I wouldn’t lose the war. I wanted that Errand if the Eves got it.

  But G was right. I did need to focus on Mr. Silva. He was the Errand. Thinking of previous or future Errands did no good, so I shoved aside everything but why I was there. I couldn’t leave until I’d ingratiated my way into Mr. Silva’s head. I had to be the itch he couldn’t scratch. That would make me the woman he had to have, at all costs.

  I put on my game face and walk as I approached the entrance where a couple of men with chests as wide as a Hummer guarded it. One had a checklist, and the other was obviously there just to kick ass if needed. I had their attention, both of their attentions, when I was still fifty feet away.

  Those kinds of men—young, invincible, virile ones—could be read like a book. I didn’t need a thick manila folder to figure out their individual wants and needs. Men in their twenties were simple. They all wanted and needed the same thing: to stick their dicks in as many women as often as they could.

  My job was easy when young men were the gatekeepers to something I needed, specifically to skip the line and saunter inside of those doors in this instance. So, knowing what I did of their many/often needs, my job was to let them assume they could have me. I had to provide exactly the right amount of flirt, say just the right thing to lead them to believe they had a chance in this life and their next to bang me. It was an exact science.

  As I approached, I met each of their gazes, gave them a just-barely parted-mouth smile, and added a bit more sway to my step.

  The rope was open for me before I’d set foot on the black and gold tile leading up to the club’s entrance.

  Young men were so easy. Child’s play, really.

  Once I was inside the club, I understood what all the fuss was about. It was like Disneyland for adults. The Pleasure Room had two floors. The stage was a large square in the center of the room, sectioned off into four individual stages where different dancers performed. A bar area was set up at each end of the room. The rest of the space on the first floor was dance floor, while the second floor looked to mainly be for seating.

  Everyone had a smile on their face and a drink in their hand. Everyone was dancing and celebrating like it was the party to end all parties. Everyone was there for a good time. Everyone except for me—I was there to work.

  I milled about the room searching for Mr. Silva. He’d be somewhere on the floor. I knew nightclub owners like him from two Errands I’d worked before. They were the kind of men who didn’t want to be locked up in an office when the party was happening a floor below them. They were the kind of men who liked to be seen and wanted to be recognized. They thrived off of it.

  It was also what they expected, and the best way to get a man’s attention was to lead with the unexpected.

  I finally saw him. As expected, he was in the middle of a little entourage. All of them were women, and most of them were dancers. He was laughing and touching and charming, just as I’d expected, decked out in a dark blue suit with just enough sheen that the dim light of the club made him stand out from the next guy in a suit. The wedding ring was missing from his left hand, just like every last one of my former Targets. His teeth were fake, as was his tan, but the gleam in his eyes—that predatory, I-take-what-I-want-when-I-want-it—was real. The most real thing about him.

  I tipped my shoulders back a bit, arched my back ever so slightly, and started toward Mr. Silva and his female entourage. How would I stand out amongst the couple dozen beautiful women staggered around him?

  I would be the only one ignoring him.

  Ten more feet and I’d make eye contact for no more than a second or two. Just long enough for him to know I’d noticed him and would keep walking. All men loved the chase and wanted what they couldn’t have, but men like Mr. Silva were at the top of the food chain in that department.

  I could tell he’d noticed me from the corner of his eyes, and his gaze was just shifting when someone stepped in front of me.

  “Damn, now I understand why this is called The Pleasure Room,” the young man decked out in a cheap suit said, staring at me with a sideways smile as he fitted his hands to my hips. I knew the look he was giving me had done a job on plenty of women, but I had a built-in B.S. detector when it came to all things male.

  I glowered up at him. “And you’re about to know it as The Punishment Room from tonight on if you don’t get your hands off of me.” The guy was big and built, just like ninety-nine percent of the meatheads wandering down Ocean Drive on South Beach, but G made sure to include self-defense training in our Eve education. I knew just where to punch, poke, and prod at a guy to bring him to his knees.

  Captain Meathead obviously didn’t have a lot going on upstairs because his one-sided smile only shifted higher. He lowered his mouth to my ear. “I like when a girl talks dirty. It makes me imagine the filthy things she’ll be cursing up at me when I’m between her legs.”

  All right. I wouldn’t even feel bad when I drove my knee into that dude’s nads. Maybe stumbling around for a week with ice strapped to his crotch would beat some sense into his thick-head.

  Right before I could deliver knee-to-nads, a voluptuous little thing skidded up beside us. “What the hell, Chad?” she half-shrieked.

  “Shea, calm down,” Chad instructed, lifting his hands.

  Shea didn’t calm down. She pretty much went with the opposite. Lifting her blinged out hand, she slapped Chad across his cheek before turning my w
ay. If the chick tried to slap me, she was going down. I didn’t do girl drama.

  I gave her a warning look and prepared to grab her hand, but she did something I wasn’t expecting. She upended her glass of white wine on my chest.

  “There,” she said, making sure the last drop of wine landed on my dress. “Now I’m calm.” Without another word, she flicked her hair and powered away.

  “Shea!” Chad called out, flashing me an apologetic look before chasing her.

  Muttering a string of curses, I worked my way back into the crowd before Mr. Silva’s gaze could drift my way again and find me a livid, wine-soaked mess. I went to every Greet prepared, but that snafu would take a little time to sort out.

  I’d had a drink dumped on me before. Thankfully Shea’s was only white wine. Let’s just say that white linen spattered with bloody mary is beyond repair.

  The women’s lounge and restroom was at the end of a long, dark hall and was mostly empty. Other than a girl adjusting her cleavage at the long mirror, I was alone. I dug around in my small clutch until I found a mini-spritzer bottle of club soda. Some women didn’t leave home without their lipstick; I didn’t leave home with my spritzer of club soda. To date, save for the white linen/bloody mary fiasco, I hadn’t met a stain club soda couldn’t tackle.

  After spritzing, dabbing, and drying my dress under the hand dryers, I was good to go. Next time, I would kick the offending meathead boyfriend in the balls first and dodge the girlfriend and her drink later.

  Before leaving the restroom, I did a once-over in the mirror. It always took me a few days to get used to my new look. Realizing the person staring back at me in the mirror wasn’t a stranger, at least not in the traditional sense, took a few double takes.

  The stylist had layered my hair with champagne and platinum highlights, woven in a few hair pieces for added length and va-va-voom, and added some long layers. Once the hair team was done, I’d been passed off to the waxer, the bronzer, the facial specialist, the manicurist, the pedicurist, and finally the girl who’d layered lash after precious fake eyelash into my existing ones. I didn’t know what it was about that kind of Look at ME! style that men loved, but the ones I dealt with couldn’t get enough. I felt more like a patina of a woman than a real one.

  After making a slight dress adjustment, I headed for the door. The woman’s lounge had been empty when I’d meandered into the restroom, but it wasn’t anymore. In fact, the whole three’s a crowd adage didn’t seem to apply to the woman’s lounge.

  “And here I thought this was a woman’s lounge,” I said, startling two of the trio. The third couldn’t have looked less startled. The dancer on her knees in front of Mr. Silva stopped pulling at his zipper, and the other, who’d been making out with him in a way that gave new meaning to the term “sucking face,” gave the face sucking a break.

  It wasn’t an ideal first meeting: in the woman’s lounge while the Target was about to be serviced by not one, but two, of his own employees. However, when G had warned me years ago to be prepared for anything, I’d taken that warning seriously.

  I would take these three-way meet-and-greet lemons and make some goddamned lemonade.

  Lowering my lids just enough, I gave Mr. Silva a hint of a smile. When his pupils dilated even more than they already were, I knew I’d caught his attention. The right attention. “I’ll let you get back to it then.” I headed toward the door, adding just a bit more sway of my hips to my step. “Have fun.”

  I hadn’t gotten more than five feet when Mr. Silva’s smile slid into place. “You can stay and play if you like,” he said, letting his gaze linger on my chest for so long I was worried he would go cross-eyed. “The more the merrier.” His voice was deep and smooth, and that confident expression was even more impressive in person than it had been in his photograph.

  “I’ll pass. Thanks though,” I replied, as I lifted one eyebrow at him on my way to the door. “I don’t do that. Anymore.” I caught the look flash over his face before I unlocked the lounge room door to let myself out. That flash said I was the treat placed right under a child’s nose they were told they couldn’t have. Wanting what they couldn’t, or thought they couldn’t, have was every man’s Achilles’ heel.

  I smiled my whole way out of the club. I was still smiling when I wandered into my hotel room a little while later. Despite the cluster-fuck of unexpected events, the Greet had been made of win. I’d caught Mr. Silva’s attention, and I’d held his undivided attention while two half-naked girls were pressed up against him.

  The job was going to be easier than I’d thought.

  FAMOUS LAST WORDS. After five years, you would have thought I’d learned no job is ever easy. It’s just not in the cards.

  I returned to The Pleasure Room the following night, quite certain that if Mr. Silva caught sight of me, he’d drop anything and anyone and come my way. Again, that wasn’t conceit talking; it was experience. The look on his face, the way he’d licked his lips as I passed him in the woman’s lounge were strong indicators that what I was sending out, my Target was picking up.

  I waited around until the club closed. Mr. Silva didn’t show his face once, which seemed odd given it was Saturday night, The Pleasure Room was bustling, and Mr. Silva didn’t seem as though he would ever willingly miss out on a party.

  So back to the drawing board early Sunday morning. After thumbing through Mr. Silva’s file again, I got into my car and zipped over to his country club. According to Mrs. Silva’s notes, he went there every Sunday morning from seven to eleven a.m. Apparently, he soaked in the club’s mineral pool before hitting the green for eighteen holes. I hoped Mrs. Silva’s notes were “apparently” correct. Every hour wasted was one I’d never get back.

  I pulled up to the club a half an hour before seven. The club, just like the spa where I’d met Mrs. Silva, only had valet parking. I’d had plenty of experience with those kinds of places. They didn’t let just anyone off the street inside. You couldn’t get inside the front door if you made less than seven figures a year. So how would I get past the front desk without so much as a second glance?

  By pretending I owned the place, the way the rest of those upper-crust broads did.

  These kinds of country clubs weren’t the place where you scanned a membership card before being granted admission. Your membership card was the handbag on your arm, the name stamped on your shoes, the entitled tilt of your brow when you sashayed in.

  I rolled my shoulders back as I walked through the front doors. I tipped the doorman and made it a good one, but I didn’t make eye contact, and I didn’t smile. The young woman attending the front desk glanced up as I passed her, but after a moment or two, she went back to her computer. And I was in. I’d just “snuck” into one of the most prestigious country clubs in the nation by doing what we Eves had mastered: hiding in plain sight.

  The Louis Vuitton handbag on my arm, the Jimmy Choo’s strapped onto my feet, and the rich-bitch expression I’d perfected didn’t hurt either.

  Other than the golf course, the club was pretty dead that early in the morning. When I found the mineral pool, not a single trust-fund soul was in sight. I couldn’t have planned it more perfectly.

  After tucking my purse, shoes, and dress into one of the pool decks’ storage compartments, I gave the pool room one more scan. Empty, but not for long. I’d worn my swimsuit under my dress, so once I was certain I was alone, I gave the strings tied at my back and neck a tug.

  I knew swimming topless to catch a guy’s attention was classified as trashy by most non-European women. But since I didn’t know anyone was coming soon—at least in Mr. Silva’s estimation—my trashy ploy would be perceived as wild, spontaneous, and adventurous abandon.

  Plus, Mr. Silva would see me half-naked, which would make him want to see me completely naked.

  I didn’t use this technique to lead into most of my jobs, but Mr. Silva was a bit more evasive than I’d anticipated, which meant it was time for the girls to come out to play.
<
br />   The mineral pool area was beautiful, very Grecian inspired, and I wouldn’t mind spending my retirement years in the pool itself. It wasn’t quite hot-tub warm, but it was close, and millions of tiny bubbles gurgled through the water. I tilted my head back to wet my hair before swimming to the other end.

  If it wasn’t seven o’clock yet, it would be in the next minute. Mr. Silva was probably passing the front desk. Men like him hadn’t built an enormously successful career for themselves by showing up late. Being prompt, even to their extracurricular activities, was ingrained in them.

  I was just making the return trip when the door swung open. The pillars stationed around the pool deck obscured my view as I continued down the pool, but I heard a voice. Or voices. Only one of them was male. The other two were a couple of giggling girls.

  If I had had something nearby to punch, I would have. Mr. Silva was turning out to be a major pain in my seducing ass. Mrs. Silva could have saved herself some money by having him followed for a day and snapping a picture of any one of the good handful of times he screwed another woman in any given week.

  I’m sure if I had hidden and stayed quiet, I could have snapped a picture of him doing the deed—twice—in a few minutes, but that wasn’t my job. The Eves didn’t get paid for another woman screwing the Target. We didn’t get the credit for another woman’s hands-and-knees handiwork. So much for Mr. Silva’s discretion.

  I’d never met a Target less discreet.

  I swam to the end of the pool, and by the time I’d almost reached the stairs, Mr. Silva and his giggling girls were in view. He had one on each arm. I almost rolled my eyes.

  The two girls were different from the two in the woman’s lounge, but they had the same look: blonde and busty with and had the fuck-me look on their faces. So what was my plan for getting and keeping his attention when I was blonde and busty like the other two?

  I was going to give him the fuck-you expression.

  The trio didn’t notice me until I walked up the pool steps. When they did notice me, two sets of eyes narrowed. The third set widened.