Jessa made her way down the stairs to her office.
She called him again. Still no answer. “Hammer, I need you to switch surveillance to Bella Montgomery. Call me.”
Should I call her? And say what?You chose the wrong bitch to use?
No. Not yet.
Jessa pulled up the Montgomery files. Everything. Even the financial reports Hammer collected. Everything was about the husband. Nothing on the wife.
Major fuckup.
Warrington Sachs and his shit-loving perversion had exploited a loophole in their services. He used them to try to set up his wife. Jessa knew it and she’d put nothing in place to make sure no one else did the same thing.
Love had softened and blinded her.
And Bella Montgomery came right in and used me.
She hated that.
“Fuck,” she said through clenched teeth.
The question still remained: Why?
What did she have to gain?
Money. What else?
Jessa called Hammer again to no avail. She leaned back in her chair, trying not to let her annoyance with Bella Montgomery ruin her night. Or my fucking business.
She started to call Keegan but quickly pushed that thought away, not chancing an “I told you so” type conversation. To hell with that.
Jessa released a long breath.
Dear Lord, give me patience not to get in my car and go snatch this fraud by her throat and make her tell me what in the entire fuck—
She clenched her fist and pressed it to her mouth as she searched for control over the anger rising in her.
Bella Montgomery wanted to pay one of my agents twenty-five thousand dollars to sleep with her husband and record it.
“She wants out of the marriage and she wants control of it,” Jessa said aloud, talking herself through it. “It could give her leverage to press him to make a financial settlement that she wants. New York isn’t a community-property state.”
Slick bitch.
The desire for revenge was stuck in her throat.
And then she thought of the Bible verse Reverend Dell had told her about during the early days of her counseling sessions with him.
“And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your father in heaven may forgive you your sins,” she recited.
It is hard, but necessary.
“Lord help me,” she prayed, feeling overwhelmed.
Her hand trembled as she turned the phone over and dialed Hammer’s number again with her thumb.
This time he answered.
“Hammer, I need you—”
Jessa stopped abruptly as the soft moan of a woman echoed into her ear. Her heart pounded just that quickly, seeming to want to beat its way out of her chest. “Hello?” she said, before checking the phone to make sure she dialed the right number.
She had.
“The fuck?” she snapped gripping the phone so tightly she was sure she would snap it in half.
Another moan. Then a purr.
Her reflection in the glass of the windows blurred as tears filled her eyes and silently raced down her cheeks, seemingly filled with the shattering pieces of her heart.
It can’t be.
It better not be.
There has to be an explanation.
“Please, God,” Jessa said softly, feeling her nerves and her fears cause her body to tremble.
As the sound of another woman enjoying pleasure continued to echo into the phone, she fought for control. Her emotions turbulently swung back and forth between the desire to lie on the floor in a ball while wailing and a fiery anger ready to be channeled into punches and kicks.
With shaky hands she swiped away her tears and put the phone on mute before she opened the Find a Friend app to show his location.
His apartment.
Time seemed to slow down around her. She felt as if she spun where she stood. She released a small shrill cry that only hinted at the torture she felt. Each breath she released was shaky and uneven. Even as the soft moans continued, she didn’t want to believe it.
“It can’t be,” she whispered, shaking her head.
She dropped to her knees. “Heavenly Father, help. Give me strength and clarity. Guide my steps. Ease my pain. Make me calm. Please, dear Lord, let this all be a mistake,” she prayed with intensity. “Amen.”
She rose, wiping the sweat and the tears from her face before pushing her hair back. She breathed through her open mouth, welcoming the oncoming numbness. At least it offered a reprieve from the pain.
Slowly, with a deceptive calm, she began recording the phone call, leaving it behind on her desk as she picked up Delaney’s monitor and left her office to climb the stairs. She reached her mother’s room and opened the door. “Mama,” she said, her voice sounding almost monotone.
“Huh?” Darla said, turning over in her bed. “Say what now?”
“Listen out for Delaney for me,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
“Jessa—”
She turned and left the room, feeling as if she was in a dream state.
“Jessa!”
She continued down the stairs.
“You hear me?”
She hadn’t.
Jessa turned and looked up the stairs. “Ma’am?” she said, sounding more like a young girl than a full-grown woman.
Darla eyes widened in surprise as they took her in before she squinted. “What the hell going on?” she asked.
“Nothing, Mama.”
“What he do?” Darla asked.
“Same shit they all do, Mama,” she admitted, fresh tears rising.
“Don’t you go. You don’t need no man you got to chase. There ain’t been a man born to make you act a fool in the street,” she said, her words slurring a bit. “You hear me?”
Jessa closed her eyes just as a fresh tear raced down her cheek. “I’ll be right back, Mama,” she said, turning to walk across the foyer to grab her keys and leave the house.
One she was behind the wheel of her red sports car, Jessa used every bit of her inner strength to remain calm and focused as she drove the twenty minutes to reach his loft apartment in Connecticut.
It can’t be.
But what else could it be?
She bit her bottom lip and shook her head, pressing her foot on the accelerator to speed up Interstate 84. Her grip was so tight on the steering wheel that her fingers and wrist began to throb. She switched lanes to exit, and the driver of the car coming up behind her laid on the horn.
There ain’t been a man born to make you act a fool in the street.
“It can’t be?” she said aloud in a whisper.
And she kept thinking and saying it as she drove to his apartment. Even as she laid eyes on his vehicle in the drive, she still hoped that it just couldn’t be. She rode the elevator up, with her back pressed to the wall and her reflection in the mirror looking nothing like her normal cool composure. When she came to stand at his door, she pressed her hand to the steel and lowered her head to rest lightly against it.
“Dear God, please don’t let it be,” she begged.
Jessa unlocked the door and pushed it opened wide, looking straight across the distance at her husband furiously pumping away inside another woman, who was on her knees in the middle of the bed.
It could be and it was.
She would never forget that exact moment that something inside her that she had fought so hard to reclaim withered and died.
Something inside her snapped.
Hammer looked over his shoulder just as Jessa came barreling across the loft at full speed, knocking down everything in her path to reach them. His eyes widened and he pulled out of his lover to jump off the bed and stretch his hands toward her.
“You bastard!” she roared as she unexpectedly raised her foot and swung it into his side.
Hammer grunted as he took the kick and still stepped forward to wrap his arms around her body like bands of steel. “I’m sorry, Jes
sa. I swear I’m sorry,” he kept saying.
In the midst of the crazy, she took note that in the space of so little time his touch now repulsed her. “Get the fuck off me!” she roared, futilely fighting against his strength. “Who is she?”
Mocking laughter filled the charged air around them.
Jessa froze and Hammer shook his head as he dropped it.
There ain’t been a man born to make you act a fool in the street.
Jessa relaxed her body. “Let me go, Hammer,” she said calmly, looking up at him.
She leaned to the left and then the right, trying to see the face of his lover. He blocked her.
She knew then his mistress was someone she knew.
“I’m so sorry. I lost my head,” he said, his eyes remorseful.
“Yes, I know you did, right inside her,” Jessa said, welcoming the coldness within her.
The look in his face changed. He saw the warmth fade from her eyes. “Jessa—”
She licked her lips and gave him a bitter smile. “Why would you want me to stay here?” she asked. “Do I deserve not only to be cheated on but forced to stay in the presence of you and your mistress? I am done here.”
Slowly he moved his arms.
Jessa smoothed her clothing and raked her fingers through her hair as she stepped back to turn.
“Bye, boss.”
She stopped, closing her eyes. Double betrayal.
Recollections came to her in a flash with the same speed as a train zooming past on the tracks.
Hammer and Charli always seeming to be in each other’s space whenever there was a company meeting.
Keegan had noticed it as well at one of their company dinners.
Looks like we might need a reminder about not fraternizing at work.
Charli questioning her about her relationship with Hammer.
I had a feeling he was your private dick.
Charli giving out unnecessary compliments that may have been covertly mocking: I think you are the epitome of what most men want, and the female agents could learn a lot from how you carry yourself.
“I guess you were right, Charli, we do seem to have something in common,” Jessa said as she slowly pivoted.
Hammer’s lover stepped from behind him, just as nude as he. “Try again.”
Jessa couldn’t hide her surprise. “Lacey?”
Hammer released a heavy breath as he retrieved his discarded jeans and pulled them on. “Don’t do that,” he said.
The woman laughed again, giving Hammer a withering up and down before looking back at Jessa. “I’m so glad you finally caught on so I don’t have to put up with fucking his old ass no more,” she said, boldly walking up to her.
Jessa’s eyes widened at the red ballerina slippers she wore. “When did you steal those?” she asked. “I guess you truly did want to walk in my shoes.”
She shook her head. “Never,” she said vehemently.
Jessa was confused by Lacey’s anger and the joy she seemed to be gaining from ruining her life. There was a wildness in her eyes. As if to dare. Provoke. This was an enemy. Jessa stood her ground.
“My biggest disappointment is that my husband—Hammer—was too big a fool to realize he was used in this pathetic war you seem to have against me.” She spared him a withering look before locking eyes with her again.
“Do you see me?” she asked. “Do you finally see me?”
The light in her eyes changed from anger to hurt. I barely know her. Is she crazy?
Jessa held up a hand. “I’m done with this. You’re fired. Stay away from me. Have Hammer. Get help,” she said, turning as she felt her despair rise again.
She refused to cry or break down in front of these traitors. Not one damn tear.
“I’m Georgia, Mother. Don’t you see me?”
Jessa had just opened the front door to the apartment. She whirled as she eyed the woman across the loft. Her face was filled with both hate and glee. Jessa studied her, looking for any clue that what she said was true. Is she my Georgia?
“Liar,” Jessa spat, pointing her finger at her. “Who paid you to destroy me? Who sent you after me? Who are you?”
Georgia’s expression became bitter. Her eyes filled with tears. “The daughter you threw away like trash,” she snarled. “The one who wasn’t good enough. The one you didn’t want. I owe you this and so much more for everything you did to me by the very fact that you gave me away.”
She leaned back against the door, searching for strength but feeling weakened to her core. There was no denying the trueness of the anger nor the hatred she exhibited.
“Don’t lie about that. Don’t you dare lie about that,” Jessa said in a harsh whisper, pain clutching her chest as she felt her legs giving out beneath her. Her head spun. She felt faint.
“Shit,” Hammer swore, jumping up to gather Georgia’s clothing and press it to her body as he steered her toward the bathroom. “Get dressed.”
“I better listen. I wouldn’t want my stepfather to spank me . . . again,” she said, gloating.
Hammer pushed her in and shut the door.
“I can’t do this,” Jessa whimpered, completely overwhelmed. “Oh God, I can’t do this.”
Lacey was Georgia?
The child she was forced to give up hated her and plotted to destroy her.
Hammer cheated.
Her husband’s mistress was her very own daughter.
Their love was over.
She dropped to her knees, her forehead and palms pressed to the floor as she felt her world spin off its axis. She felt Hammer kneel beside her. The first feel of his hands at her side trying to help her pushed her over the edge. She released a soul-wrenching cry that pierced the air and she didn’t stop until her throat was strained and she nearly strangled on her own saliva.
“Don’t worry. Neither one of you will ever see me again.”
Jessa looked up from the floor, shoving Hammer’s hands from her body as she looked at this woman standing there. Gone was the sweet Lacey. She grabbed at Georgia’s wrist. “Are you my daughter?”
“I stopped being yours the moment you gave me away,” she said.
“I never gave away my daughter. I never gave away my daughter,” Jessa said, releasing her hand, as her body wrenched with renewed tears. “I never gave away my daughter. That’s a lie. That’s a lie. That’s a lie!”
Georgia looked down at her with disgust in her eyes. “You the lie,” she said, before turning and walking out the apartment.
Why, Lord? Why?
Jessa tried to rise to her feet to go behind her, but as soon as she stood she felt dizzy. “Georgia,” she whispered, as her body went slack just before she fainted into the darkness.
* * *
Jessa awakened.
She knew she was in Hammer’s arms. Through half-opened eyes she recognized her home and that he was carrying up the stairs. She didn’t have the will to fight him. Nothing was the same anymore and never would be again.
She had no will. Her body felt as if she had no strength. Her heart was broken, her soul weary.
She let her eyes drift back closed.
“What happened, Hammer?” she heard Darla ask, her tone alarmed.
“She fainted,” he answered.
“Fainted?” Darla asked in disbelief.
“Have you been drinking?” he asked.
Yes, Mama, have you?
“Have you been out fucking? Don’t worry about me,” Darla shot back.
That was a yes. More shit on my plate to eat and swallow. But not now. I can’t.
When he laid Jessa down on the bed, she immediately rolled away, escaping his touch.
“Jessa.”
She felt the weight of his body on the bed. “Bring me Delaney,” she said, keeping her eyes closed. “I want Delaney.”
Images replayed. Things she wished she could forget forever.
A small hand patted her thigh. “What’s wrong?” Darla whispered.
She smelt t
he liquor on her breath and was thankful when she stepped back.
“Here’s Delaney,” Hammer said.
Jessa opened her eyes, quickly shifting them from Hammer’s face, unable to take the very sight of him. She welcomed her sleeping daughter into her arms and pressed soft kisses to her brow. She was the only thing in the world she trusted.
“Good-bye, Hammer,” she said when he remained standing there looking down at her.
“I want to talk to you, Jessa.”
She looked at him. Their eyes met. Her heart broke a little more. “Please,” she begged. “Don’t.”
He turned away.
Jessa closed her eyes again, welcoming the darkness, comforted by the steady up-and-down movement of her daughter’s chest in her sleep.
“Listen, just go, Hammer. I don’t know what happened. But she don’t want you here, and until she is ready to deal with it, you wasting your time,” Darla said.
Her mother championing her, even while inebriated, broke something in her. With her world crashing in around her, she longed for nothing more than to be a child with harmless worries who knew her mother would handle the hard stuff.
But that wasn’t her reality.
“Good-bye, Jessa,” Hammer said.
She shook her head before pressing the side of her face deeper into the pillow.
The room went dark. The door was shut. There were no distractions from her misery. Her mind was free to wander.
How could she not remember the words of Hammer’s mother in that quiet moment filled with her tumultuous thoughts. She was a woman who once relished the affair she had with the husband of a friend, and now she was the wife who was betrayed.
It’s possible the daughter she gave up for adoption had found her and hated her with a vengeance.
All chickens come home to roost.
Chapter 11
One day.
That was all the time she allowed to wallow in pity and despair. And then no more.
“Good morning, Ms. Young—”
Jessa gave Winifrid a sharp look that caused the rest of the nanny’s words to fade away. Her reaction was instinctual. A marriage of less than a month didn’t warrant such respect. She forced a stiff smile. “Call me . . . Mrs. Bell again,” she said, deciding not to go back to her maiden name of Jordan.
Jessa Jordan had been a victim. Jessa Bell had been—and still was—a victor.
Mistress for Hire Page 15