by Anthology
The manicurist checked the appointment book and within ten minutes I was gritting my teeth through a Brazilian. I hated being waxed but I loved the ability to afford such pampering and held myself to a certain high standard, that of a woman of means and strict beauty rituals. These were the differences between the girl I was and the woman I aimed to be. I opted to have my eyebrows threaded since I had a date in a few hours. There wasn’t time for puffiness.
Buffed and polished, I scheduled a return appointment for hair and makeup at four. Two hours to find a dress, shoes, and all the accessories necessary for a black tie affair.
A notification came directly to my phone that funds had been electronically deposited. Nice. If anything, Micah was my most generous client. Twelve hundred dollars of make myself pretty money. More than enough.
First stop was a consignment boutique in Society Hill that carried only name brand labels. The goal was to look like twelve hundred bucks while spending as little as possible. I had other plans for the balance.
They knew me at the boutique and knew I was usually shopping on a time crunch. As I walked in, the clerk, Twyla, dropped whatever she was doing to tend to my needs.
“He wants something red tonight.” They never asked who he was and why should they? It was none of their business.
“Oh, we have this adorable new romper—”
“It’s a black tie function.”
Twyla deflated and twisted her lips, her gaze scanning the neatly organized racks. She suddenly perked up. “We just got a new shipment in. I think I saw something red in satin back there. Hopefully, it’s in your size. Let me check.”
I moved to the shoe display while Twyla searched for a dress. There was a great pair of nude Nappa heels for only forty dollars. They likely retailed for a couple hundred. They were a size too small, but for a deal like that... I took them off the shelf and moved to the jewelry display, not seeing anything fitting with tonight’s theme.
“Avery, you’re in luck!” Twyla reappeared, carrying a devil red gown draped over her arm and nearly trailing on the polished floor. “And it’s a size two. But it might need a hem.” She lifted the gown and hooked it on an ornate sconce.
“Oh…” Drawn into the sultry ripples, I ran my fingers along the gently pleated chiffon. It wasn’t satin, but this was better. “Can I try it on?”
“Of course.”
Once in the dressing room, I shimmied out of my clothes and Twyla helped me with the zipper. The dress fit like a second skin and draped perfectly along my curves.
“What do I do about this?” I gestured to the plunging neckline that plummeted to my lowest rib.
Twyla arched a brow. “Nothing. You look incredible. That dress was made for you.”
Now, for the painful part… “How much?”
“Retail, it originally went for nine. I can go as low as one-fifty for you. One seventy-five if you want it pressed. Two if you need a hem.”
“The nude Nappa pumps out there, I left them by the jewelry—”
“Perfect!” She snapped her fingers and disappeared, returning to the dressing room a second later with the heels in hand.
I slipped the shoes onto my feet, mindful of my ankle that was still tender from the tumble I took last night. Finding my balance, I stepped onto the pedestal facing the half octagon of mirrors.
“How do I look?”
“My God. What I wouldn’t give to have your body just for a day.”
I smiled because it was a sweet compliment, but no amount of flattery removed the longing for a Philly cheesesteak and a chance to sleep in rather than hit the gym every day at dawn. This body took a ton of work.
“Thanks. I’ll take it.”
“And lucky you, with those shoes, you won’t need any alterations.”
I left the gown with Twyla so it could get steamed and delivered to my apartment in an hour. While that was getting handled, I took a cab to Jeweler’s Row.
I was shopping for wear and toss jewelry. If the paste only held the stones for one night I was getting my dollars’ worth and walking away with money in the bank.
I found a stunning black pearl choker at a crafter’s corner store that would go perfectly with the red gown. “Are there earrings to match this?”
The merchant stepped behind the glass display and examined the necklace I selected. “Lovely choice. Are you looking for chandelier earrings or studs?”
“Whatever matches best.” The idea was to look so well put together other guests would assume I’d been in the hands of a professional personal shopper and stylist.
The merchant found three sets of earrings and I decided on the understated, black pearl studs. Sometimes less was more, as I’d learned from watching others.
“I’ll also take that antique hair comb and that black and white rhinestone bracelet.”
“All beautiful choices, miss.” He wrapped the jewelry and rang up the order. “That will be eighty-four twenty-five.”
As I left the store and hailed a cab, I reevaluated my spending. One-seventy-five on a dress, forty on shoes, eighty-five on jewelry. And hair and makeup shouldn’t be more than one-thirty—including tip.
I prided myself on being a generous tipper since I, too, benefited from the practice. I was wrapping up and still under five hundred. A successful shopping spree if I ever saw one.
I made excellent time and saved over seven hundred dollars to put toward tuition. That didn’t even include the money I’d make tonight.
A gratified buzz put a giddy murmur in my heartbeat. I’d been overdue for a day like this, a day when I was so generously reminded why I chose this occupation. Leave it to Micah to remind me. He was, after all, the man who introduced me to the profession.
I never expected to be a sugar baby or, more impressively, a college graduate. When I earned a scholarship and packed up my childhood bedroom back in Blackwater, I still wasn’t convinced I was actually getting the hell out of that shithole.
Attending college for a semester was an adventure, but maintaining enrollment seemed unrealistic. Even as a teenager, I knew the chances of graduating from the community vocation school were unlikely.
My mother lived paycheck-to-paycheck and not very well. My father… Well, who knew if he was even alive?
My siblings all left home by the time they were sixteen, not a single one finishing high school or having the ambition to go back to earn their GED. Didn’t matter anyway. Mostly everyone in Blackwater worked at the waste plant or the mill. One didn’t need a degree to do that sort of menial work.
Blackwater was populated by a community that lived hard and only enjoyed short lives. I wanted to live well and last long enough to look back with pride. This profession was only a stepping-stone before I took a leap into a much brighter future.
I left two sorts of people behind when I moved to Philadelphia, the ones that fondly recalled me as the girl who broke the mold and escaped, and the not so nice ones that recalled me as that prissy Mudd girl who thought she was too good for Blackwater.
Both were accurate. I was too good to piss my life away working in some windowless factory without air conditioning, wearing a hairnet while making pennies above minimum wage until I retired in bumble fuck nowhere, or more realistically, went on disability due to poor work conditions no one cared to improve.
My mother was also too good for that town. But she was too damn stubborn to change her fate at this point in her life. She had no choice but to understand why I left, even if she often complained about me being gone.
She straight up told me, Avery Dean, you take that scholarship even if it’s just your ticket out of Blackwater. You’ve got to get out of here before you miss the chance. Once you choose to stay, you know it’s where you’re gonna die. I don’t want you dying here with the rest of us. You’re my smart one, the one we can count on for better things. I want you to go make something smart of yourself, you hear?
I heard her that day and I still hear her every day when I’m getting
ready to meet a man I don’t love and never will. My life didn’t have time for moral reflection or guilt because I was too busy surviving. Everything in this world has a price, and the one thing people were always claiming they couldn’t buy was youth.
I was young enough, pretty enough, and I had enough brains to know sometimes you gotta to rob Peter to pay Paul. That’s all I was doing, borrowing against my youth to afford a good future.
Less than one year of college left and I’d be a certified teacher, qualified to earn a respectable income and live a normal life anywhere I pleased. And I’d never have to return to Blackwater again. If those dreams ever came to fruition—which they would—I would make one more trip back home. One trip to prove I’d done it and show Momma she didn’t have to worry no more.
“What do you think?” The stylist turned my chair away from the make-up artist and I faced a reflection too pretty to be me.
“Wow.” It never ceased to amaze me how easily they could transform a backwoods trailer park nobody with ash blonde hair and freckles into a classy, sexy siren. “I don’t even recognize myself.”
My hair, which was no longer light brown since having numerous blonde highlights threaded throughout, was teased and twirled into a wavy bun with impressive height atop my head. And my makeup was drop-dead perfect. Smoked out eyes with gold shimmer accents around the corners, heavy lash extensions, deeply contoured cheekbones, and the perfect nude shade of gloss to give my mouth the sort of pout men went crazy for. Micah was going to be very pleased.
Of all the men I kept arrangements with, there would always be something special about Micah. Dark skinned, quiet, sophisticated, with eyes full of secrets. He was my first Daddy and would probably be my last.
He never smiled, but he also never failed to tell me when he was pleased. He was my leading client and he taught me how to be one of the best sugar babies in the city. Which was exactly why I let him get away with more than my other clients ever would.
The doorman called up at precisely five fifty-nine. “Miss Johansson, you have a guest in the lobby.”
“Thank you. Please send him up.” Micah would always be welcomed past the front desk. It was his name on the lease, after all.
Collecting my wrap and slipping on my heels, I met him at my door. “Always on time.”
“Avery.” He took my fingers in his hand and pulled me into a slow twirl. “You never fail to impress me. Gorgeous.”
“Thank you.” I allowed him to adjust my wrap and press a kiss to my cheek.
“Shall we?”
I couldn’t help permitting the kiss. There was something about Micah that made me beam with pride. Mature and debonair, he was always a class act.
Not once did he try for more than my company. He wasn’t in a relationship. And, aside from being married to his job, his life was fairly uncomplicated. Our arrangement was simplistic and approaching three years.
I trusted him, something I didn’t do easily. He encouraged and guided me in the gentlest manner possible. And, in a way, I believed he depended on me, too. Men like Micah didn’t rely on many people, and maybe that was why we got along so well.
He took my keys as we exited the apartment and I waited as he fastened the locks. My gaze snagged on the moving dial above the elevator and my heart stuttered. Someone was coming.
There were only two of us on this floor, so chances of it being Noah were pretty high. His imminent approach filled me with an uncomfortable emotion, one I struggled to identify and had a hard time hiding from my date.
Micah passed me my keys and I tucked them into my clutch just as the doors to the elevator parted. My breath escaped in a relieved sigh as a man I didn’t recognize entered the hall. The scent of Chinese food wafted from the brown bag he carried and I knew we only had a few seconds before my neighbor opened his door.
I was set on avoiding Noah, very aware of the things he made me feel, the way he looked at me like he wanted to taste me, the way something dark awakened inside of me when I felt his stare on my body—and all the ways we were incompatible. I didn’t need complications and that was exactly what he would be.
I was painfully aware that all those things, coupled with my recent tumble, were sending mixed messages. I’d taunted him, let him have his little game of stare at the new neighbor, but then I went and humiliated myself by falling on my face. I had my own game I wanted to play—be the untouchable goddess across the hall. When the game changed I didn’t want to play anymore.
I knew what kind of man Noah was. He was comfortable in designer clothes, drove a beautiful garage kept car, was used to getting his way, and rarely heard the word no. He wouldn’t take direction well because he was used to being the one in charge. And yet, I still wanted to drink him up, unravel every dark secret he awakened, and study at his body the way he scrutinized mine.
He lived in a beautifully renovated mansion because his income was substantial. He was exactly the sort of man I usually accepted as a client. But I would never accept Noah because none of my other clients made me feel the way he did.
Noah was dangerous. The more I reminded myself of that the more likely the warning was to sink in.
Micah rested a familiar hand on the base of my spine as we entered the elevator and turned. The deliveryman knocked and Noah’s door opened. He stepped into the hall and I held my breath.
“Is everything okay?” Micah’s deep voice not only drew my attention but the attention of everyone else.
Noah’s potent blue gaze clashed with mine, and the world went utterly still.
No babies were born, no tears were shed, no birds flapped their wings and no wind blew. Everything was eerily motionless. Time stuttered for that shared second between us, and the moment was ours, no one else could touch it.
And then the spell was broken, snapping like a stretch of elastic pulled too far. All of the energy in between lagged and drooped as his gaze drifted over my gown and lifted to Micah.
Noah’s lips firmed and I could taste his displeasure. Not my problem, I reminded myself. This was my job and he was my neighbor. And I didn’t do guilt.
Micah leaned forward to press the button.
It was absolutely ridiculous to think there was anything more than an address shared between us. I was behaving like some starry-eyed tween and I knew better. If he knew who I really was, he’d know better, too.
The doors closed and I forced myself to forget about Noah and focus on my date.
“Are you friendly with your neighbor?”
My gaze lifted to Micah’s face. “Why do you ask?”
“You didn’t say hello. Do you not get along?”
“We only met once. I hardly see him.” Because I’m excellent at avoidance.
“No need to get defensive, Avery. I was only asking a question. If there is a problem with your neighbor we could see about having you moved to a different floor.”
I swallowed a laugh. The building was packed and there were waiting lists for all of the surrounding blocks. Yet, I somehow knew Micah could have me moved within one business day.
“I love my apartment, Micah. I’m sure my neighbor and I won’t have any issues.”
“Good.”
He escorted me through the lobby and my gaze snagged on the copy of Cosmo resting by the row of brass mailboxes. My guilty pleasure. I intended to devour the magazine in bed tonight after Micah dropped me off.
Chapter Four
Micah escorted me to the elevator and my gaze lingered on the row of mailboxes, not a single piece of mail littering the mantle. Someone better have stuck my magazine in my box or there was going to be a problem.
After a polite goodbye and a soft kiss on my brow, I said goodnight and stripped out of my gown. Plucking the pins from my hair, I searched for my slippers. There was really nothing quite as lovely as pajamas and slippers.
Heading back down to the lobby, not caring about my appearance at one a.m., I unlocked my mailbox and—
Empty.
Fro
wning, I scanned the antique tables decorating the pristine sitting room that was our lobby. Nothing.
Beyond the lobby was the main vestibule. The doorman sat behind an ornate desk with his back to the security monitors, his focus on his phone and an amused grin pulling at his caramel lips.
“Winston, did someone throw away the mail that was on the mantle?”
He looked more alertly in my direction, straightening his posture and adjusting the visor of his black Pershing hat. “No, ma’am. That would be a federal offense. Are you missing something?”
“Someone stole my magazine.”
He raised his brow and I heard how stupid the accusation sounded. People in this building didn’t steal magazines. If they were set on stealing anything, embezzling millions was probably a more feasible crime for their tax bracket. But someone had taken my magazine.
“Perhaps it didn’t get delivered yet.”
But I saw it there. “You’re sure no one was messing with the mail?”
He straightened the notched lapel of his jacket, the gold trim matching the cuffs and creases of his pants. “You’re the only one who had an outside guest in the building this evening. Well, you and Mr. Wolfe.”
“Mr. Wolfe?”
Winston grinned. “Your neighbor.”
Wolf, tiger, thief… Regardless, he was dangerous.
“Oh.” Wait… “He had company tonight?” Who did he have over and … was his guest male or female?
“Just a supper delivery, but I watched the cameras the entire time the man was in the building and he didn’t go near the mailboxes, Ms. Johansson.”
My gaze darted to the surveillance screen. Five views captured the front entrance, each floor, and the lobby. “Can you see who did?”
“Uh, I could, but that involves rolling back the tapes and interrupting the feed. I’m not the person to do that. I’m sure it was just a simple misunderstanding, another neighbor mistaking the magazine for their own. How about I give you the four dollars to purchase a new one and from now on I’ll ask the mailman to leave any extra items for you at my desk?”