Jessa settled back against him.
Their honeymoon at the Sandals Resort was just the disconnect from the world that they needed. She was loving the warm climate, beautiful scenery, and food so good they happily overindulged. The five-hour cruise with seafood and champagne lunch was the right outing after being holed up in their private villa enjoying being pampered by their butler, ordering from room service, and making love until they both were sore.
Once the boat docked they enjoyed a walk together on the beach. She didn’t know if anything felt quite as good as her feet pressing down into the warm sand.
“Good thing I’m not jealous,” he said.
“Why?”
“All eyes are on you,” he said, sounding amused.
The wrap she wore around her hips was sheer and did little to shield the white thong of her strapless one-piece bathing suit.
The wind blew and Jessa reached up to hold her large woven hat atop her head. “Not all,” she insisted.
“Enough,” he said, reaching behind to slap her buttocks and then looking down to enjoy the sight of it jiggling in response.
Jessa came to a stop and looked up at him through her shades. “I want you inside me when you slap it,” she said.
“And when is that?” he asked, looking down at her.
“As soon as we get back to our villa,” she said stroking his chest. “Honeymoon rules.”
“Shit, you ain’t said nothing,” he told her, before picking her up and headed up toward the resort.
They had agreed on the plane ride to Antigua that sex on demand was the first rule.
Hammer didn’t set her down on her feet until they were inside the villa.
“You had everybody looking like I broke a foot or something,” she told him.
“Did you want me to put you down?” he asked.
“Hell no. Not ever.”
Hammer grabbed her hips. “Let’s stay in for the rest of the day.”
“What about horseback riding on the beach at sunset?” Jessa asked.
He dipped his hands around her to tightly grip her buttocks. “I got enough to ride right here,” he said.
“I know that’s right,” she agreed, turning in his embrace to press her behind against him.
She felt him harden against her and she bent over. Her hat fell from her head onto the floor.
He pulled the thong of her strapless bathing suit to the side and entered her. He was hard and hot. His fingers dug into her flesh. The feel of the soft hairs surrounding his shaft tickled her. His deep and fast strokes made her moan. He brought his hands around her waist to press one beneath her suit to massage her clit and the other to cup her breast.
That made them both cum.
It was fast, hot and electrifying.
Hammer stepped back, freeing his dick from her. Jessa dropped down on all fours as she struggled to reclaim the strength in her legs and the air in her lungs.
Good sex. Good man. Good love. Is this all real?
“Give me a quick sec, baby, and I’ll get you up from there,” Hammer said, sounding breathless. “Shit, I gotta myself together first.”
And she laughed. “I’m good,” she said, rising to her feet with aid of the nearby chair in front of the desk.
Hammer laughed when her legs wobbled. “We’re not spring chickens,” he reminded her.
“I’m not an old rooster either, though,” she said.
“Let’s shower before we hit the bed,” he offered.
Jessa nodded in agreement, dropping a beach towel from their bag onto the chair before she sat down on it. “I’m coming. I wanna check on Delaney again.”
She opened her laptop to Skype back home. She was grateful that Winifrid had agreed to live in while they were out of the country, but she still liked to lay eyes on Delaney twice a day—sometimes more. She smiled when the nanny’s face filled the screen. “Hello there, Winifrid. Where’s my baby?” she asked, her eyes shifting to the background of the bedroom.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Bell—”
“Mrs. Young,” Jessa reminded her, stroking the diamond wedding band she wore along with her engagement ring.
“Sorry, Mrs. Young, she’s down for her nap,” Winifrid smiled.
Jessa checked the clock. “I forgot the time,” she said, offering her an apologetic smile.
“That’s okay.”
“And your other charge?” Jessa asked.
“She went walking around the block.”
Jessa did a double tale. “Say what now?” she asked.
Winifrid chuckled and held up both of her hands.
What the hell is that old woman up to now?
The morning after their wedding when she and Hammer went to the airport for their flight, they had also taken Mrs. LuBell Young to her terminal and made sure she was on her flight back to the West Coast.
Why can’t I be so lucky?
“Winifrid, do me a favor and let me know when she gets back safe, please?” Jessa ran her hands through her hair and shook her head.
“No problem.”
She gave the nanny a perfunctory smile and ended the connection. “What is my mother up to now?” she asked herself aloud, already feeling herself worry.
There goes honeymoon rule number three.
She closed the laptop.
Bzzzzzz . . . bzzzzzz . . . bzzzzzz . . .
Jessa released a long yawn as she eyed her beach bag. Her cell phone was vibrating loudly.
She looked at the door to the bathroom in the mirror hanging above the dresser.
“Honeymoon rule number two,” Hammer said, coming to lean in the open doorway.
He has the fucking ears of a dog.
“No business calls,” she said softly, rising to accept the hand he extended to her.
Together they walked into the bathroom just as the steam escaped to swirl and cover them.
Interlude
Sometimes I just wanted to forget.
Other times the thought of my mother’s demise at my own hands gave me purpose.
Still, those swings back and forth between my reality and this zone of revenge I concocted was maddening. It was crazy what I was doing, and I had enough sense to know it. Still, I continued. Feigning friendships with these other silly people who allowed themselves to be called “agents.” Trying to trap doggish men into revealing their hidden sins and desires.
Every bit of it was a façade on top of another façade.
My friends have long since stop calling to invite me out to party.
I was barely holding on to my job as the personal assistant to a celebrity party planner because of Mistress, Inc.
My own life was fading. I never thought I’d be undercover in her life for this long. Almost ten months. Far too much dwelling in the middle place, this shade of gray.
“Georgia,” I said aloud just to hear it as I stared at my reflection in the mirror over the sink in my bathroom.
My life was a mess, and I couldn’t take it much more. The pleasure I received from secretly being in Jessa’s orbit was beginning to fade. As was my desire to crush her world like a thin piece of paper in my hand.
I have done things that are not Georgia. Not me.
How much was I willing to lose of myself to gain this control over the life of a woman who didn’t even recognize me as the child she bore?
Accepting her invite to her wedding had been a mistake.
Being in her home and around her family—my sister and my grandmother—and being introduced with the same obligatory politeness as the rest of her employees had stung as if I’d been pierced by a knife whose blade had been resting in fire. They had all been accepted into her life while I was outside her bubble like a leech.
And she was beautiful. I couldn’t deny that.
That moment right after Hammer picked Delaney up from Jessa’s mother’s arms and they stood at the altar like a little family, I could have retched in disgust and hatred and jealousy. Instead I had to plant a smile and
force joy at what looked to be the happiness of her life.
Did he even know that little precious Delaney was not her one and only child?
During the reception I snuck away the first chance I could. I knew her bedroom was on the second floor because I spotted her at the patio doors before the wedding. Once I was in her room, I walked around and touched everything. I lay across her bed. Sat in her closet with the door closed. Stepped in her shoes. Rummaged through her drawers and envied her expensive lingerie. Tried on her diamond jewelry. Sprayed every last one of her dozen or more perfumes on my inner thighs. Peed in her toilet. Pressed my face into her towels. Laughed bitterly at discovering the nursery adjoined her bedroom. Cried at the beauty of Delaney’s room.
“I was here,” I remembered whispering into the air just before I finally took my leave, as if leaving an imprint that couldn’t be erased whether she knew I’d been there or not.
I would never forget it and took a memento to make sure I didn’t.
I looked down at her red ballet slippers I wore.
I didn’t have the courage to take anything more noticeable or expensive.
“Are you and Hammer going to have a baby together?”
The memory of that question being asked made me lift my head to stare at my reflection again.
“I doubt it,” Jessa had said. “One is enough for me.”
Pain that was sharp and aching clutched at me, bringing up tears that wet my eyes. I turned from my mirror image just as my hot tears raced down my cheeks.
This had to end. These glimpses into her life were hurting me. Opening up doors in me. Insecurity. Doubt. Self-loathing. Normally, getting high was my escape. That’s all I’ve known all my life.
My sobriety was in jeopardy.
I don’t know how much more I can take.
Chapter 10
Two weeks later
“What the hell?”
Jessa dropped the covers of her bed and rose from her knees with the flashlight on her iPhone still beaming. She turned off the feature and pressed her hands onto her hips as she looked around their spacious bedroom suite. Everything was organized and its rightful place.
“So, where the hell are my red slippers?” she asked, flinging her phone on the bed and walking over to her closet to have her third search of the night.
She turned on the overhead lights and walked up and down the length of the closet that now held all of her possessions and Hammer’s. “Fuck it,” she said, giving up.
She’d spent more time in the last hour looking for them than they were worth. Hammer thought she had taken them to Antigua and left them behind by mistake. What other explanation could there be?
“I’ll just order another pair,” she said, raising her arms to run both of her hands through her hair.
Her eyes fell on her Louis Vuitton luggage in the corner of the far end of the closet. I just don’t remember packing those slippers.
She’d just discovered them gone. For a moment she pondered theft, but those fifty-dollar sandals were nothing compared to the jewelry and high-end accessories that were right where she left them. And she’d checked.
Jessa lightly bit down on her bottom lip as she left the closet and checked Delaney’s video monitor. She was already bathed and dressed in her pajamas watching Peppa Pig videos on YouTube via her iPad. She smiled when she yawned and stretched her arms high above her head. Sleep, little girl.
Jessa left her bedroom and walked down the hall. Her mother’s door was closed. She knocked twice. “Ma?”
“Come in.”
She opened the door, surprised to find her in bed with the lights dimmed and the volume on the television almost too low to hear. “You not feeling well?” she asked, coming to stand by her mother’s bedside.
“I was trying to sleep,” Darla said, her back to her daughter.
“Sorry, Mama,” she said, looking down at the empty teacup on the bedside table. “I’ll leave you be. Good night.”
Jessa turned.
“I think it’s time I go back to my apartment.”
Jessa turned again. “Why?” she asked.
Darla lay on her back, her hair covered with a black satin bonnet. “You and Hammer are married and sharing this house,” she said. “I feel out of place.”
Jessa stepped closer to the bed.
Her mother covered her mouth as she started a coughing fit.
“Mama, you all right?” she asked, pausing in her steps.
Darla gave her a side-eye and twist of her lips before she nodded. “Yeah, just a cold.”
“I don’t want you to feel out of place. Hammer moving in doesn’t change a thing,” Jessa insisted.
“It does so,” Darla said. “I know you think I’m crazier than two left shoes on two right feet, but let this old woman teach you something if I ain’t never taught you nothing else.”
“Mama—”
Darla slashed her hand through her air to silence her. “A man has to be a man in his house,” she said. “And nothing makes him feel more like a visitor instead of the king of the castle than not being able to walk around his home in his drawers when he gets ready.”
Jessa chuckled.
Darla shot her a stern stare before lying back down on her side. “You can take it or leave it, but never forget it,” she said. “Now you have a good night.”
“Mama, have you seen some red bedroom slippers around the house?”
“Nope.”
“Night, Mama.”
“We ain’t done talking ’bout Harlem, Jessa.”
She heard her clearly, but Jessa continued out of the room, knowing she couldn’t let her mother live alone again. She had the power of attorney on her care, and the final decision was up to her. She closed the door, going to Delaney’s bedroom to find her asleep with her thumb in her mouth and the sounds of the video still echoing.
The night air of spring could get chilly, so she draped a blanket over her lightly before powering down the tablet and setting it on her bedside table before dimming the lights and walking to her bedroom through their adjoining door. She checked her gold watch. Just a little past eight.
Her eyes shifted to the bed. She missed him already and wished he was there watching mindless television with her or bathing her in the shower or sexing her on the floor...
Bzzzzzz . . . bzzzzzz . . . bzzzzzz . . .
Pushing away her sexy wishes, Jessa lay across the bed and picked up her phone as she rolled over onto her back. She frowned, not recognizing the number. “Hello.”
“Mrs. Bell—I mean Young—this is Amanda. I’m sorry to call you, but I didn’t know what else to do.”
Jessa’s arched brows dipped as she sat up on the middle of the bed. “Amanda? Weren’t you back on the Montgomery case tonight?” she asked, her heart already beginning to pound. “Did something happen?”
“I’m okay. It’s just . . .”
“It’s just what, Amanda?” Jessa asked, being sure to keep her voice calm.
“Mrs. Montgomery was here—”
Jessa’s back stiffened. “Say what, say who?”
“Yes, she came up to me before I even entered the restaurant and offered me, like, twenty-five thousand dollars to sleep with her husband and record it,” the young woman said, her words rushed and almost running together as she spoke.
Jessa was speechless and licked the dryness from her lips as she tried to come to grips with the news she had just been given. “Why would she do that? What the fuck is going on?” she asked, speaking aloud to herself.
“I thought you should know.”
Yes, the fuck I should.
“Where are you now?” Jessa asked, rising from the bed to pace the floor as she massaged her forehead.
“Still outside the restaurant.”
“And Bella Montgomery?” she asked, before grinding her teeth.
“She left and paid me a thousand dollars not to tell you.”
Jessa paused. “You should have asked for double.”
“I did. She offered five hundred.”
Jessa arched a brow. “Go home. Don’t worry about the husband.”
“Mission aborted.”
Jessa ended the call. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” she roared, her tone having risen with each obscenity.
“Mama?” Delaney called out, slumber still heavy in her voice.
Jessa winced and froze in place with her hands balled into fists tight enough for her nails to dig into the soft flesh of her palms. She said a silent prayer that Delaney would self-soothe herself and fall sweetly back to sleep.
“Mama!” Delaney cried.
“Shit,” Jessa swore, shoving her phone into the side pocket of the linen pants she wore before she walked into the bedroom.
Delaney sat up in her bed, clutching one of her many stuffed animals with one hand and wiping her own tears with the back of the other. “Awww, Mama’s sorry,” she said, walking over to pick her up. “Did I scare you?”
She carried her to the ivory chaise lounge by the arched window and sat down, massaging her back as Delaney continued to whimper. She forced herself to calm down, worried that Delaney picked up on her tension and was feeding off it.
Jessa looked out the window at the night sky as she breathed deeply, soothing her daughter and herself. It didn’t take long for Delaney to succumb to sleep, but she remained holding on to her because the calm and the quiet gave her time to think clearly.
Bella Montgomery is full of shit. For the last four months, that woman has been like a thorn in my ass about her damn crepe myrtle bouquets and her cheating husband. I closed her case months ago and then she calls pleading with us that something still is not right in her marriage. I assign a new agent and she pulls this stunt?
She wants her husband to cheat? She wants him caught? She wants proof?
The question is why?
Why, bitch, why?
Carefully she rose from the chaise with Delaney sleeping in her arms. She gently laid her back down on her bed and pulled her iPhone out, dialing Hammer as she made her way to her bedroom.
She dialed him twice. No answer.
Mistress for Hire Page 14