Heartbreak for Hire

by Sonia Hartl

  Over the next week I completed a few more successful assignments. My biggest score was a dentist who referred healthy patients to a specialist for kickbacks and then fired the dental assistant who tried to expose him. After a few drinks and some light flirting, I’d managed to record him bragging about his cabin on Lake Michigan, paid for with healthy teeth. I got an up-front fee for the recording, and I’d get a portion of the money from the wrongful termination suit. Mark was supposed to join me for another night of training and observation, but he’d gone to the wrong bar. Oops.

  The other girls had also ditched their male counterparts, giving them wrong locations or simply refusing to fill them in on assignments. The men had received zero training from us, and if we kept this up, we hoped they’d just quit out of frustration. So far, Margo hadn’t said anything. Either this was some kind of test, or she was playing with us.

  On Friday, Margo called me into her office. I’d just gotten a new H4H assignment for the following night, and I brought along my research folder since I had a feeling she wanted to give her two cents on how it should be handled. I’d listen, then politely reject her suggestions. I already had a few ideas on how I wanted to work this one.

  Instead, I walked into an ambush.

  Mark gave me a slow smile. From an outside perspective, it might’ve looked like a greeting. In reality, it was a challenge.

  “Good afternoon, Margo.” I took the seat next to Mark, shifting the chair away from him a few inches. Petty, but necessary, since I couldn’t give him the middle finger.

  “It seems like Markus and the other men have had a little trouble with training this week.” Margo passed me tea, as if this were a friendly chat, but I considered sniffing it for arsenic. “They haven’t been able to make it to a single assignment to train.”

  “What a pity.” My exaggerated pout wasn’t fooling anyone.

  “We’re having dinner tonight at the Gilded Swan. All eight Heartbreakers. My treat.”

  “Fancy.” The Gilded Swan served French cuisine, and a dinner for nine would likely cost a month’s rent. I’d never been, but I’d looked longingly at the desserts online. “Might be too hip for the professor over here.”

  Mark looked down at his argyle sweater-vest. “Are you saying I’m not hip?”

  Margo managed to turn her choked laugh into a cough.

  “I’d love to go,” I said. “But I’m launching my new assignment tonight.”

  Mark gave me a sharp look. I might’ve forgotten to tell him about this one.

  “All of your assignments are pushed back until tomorrow night.” Margo’s eyebrows drew together in annoyance, and she swept a hand over her silver swing of hair as she regained her composure. “The nonsense that’s been going on ends tonight. I’m also becoming fully involved in your assignments again until you prove you aren’t a child in need of babysitting.”

  A lead weight settled on my chest. Margo was done indulging our tantrums. We’d known it was only a matter of time before she dropped the hammer, but this was the first time she’d spoken to me like that. It both shamed and scared me. I didn’t have a clue what I’d do without this job. It had been my whole world for the past two years.

  I’d have to play along until I could get with the other girls and we could come up with a plan to sabotage the men in less obvious ways.

  “You know the basics of my next one.” I set the folder on Margo’s desk. She wanted involvement, but we’d see if Mark could stomach the reality of what we did at H4H.

  “I’m sure Markus would like to know too,” Margo said.

  I spared him half a glance before filling him in. Jesse James—yes, he’d had it legally changed—owned the Stir-Up, a honky-tonk bar in the heart of Chicago with live country music and dancing. For twenty bucks, customers could pay to have any waitress of their choice ride the mechanical bull. Jesse didn’t bother to split the take with the girls forced to ride that thing upward of ten times a night, so they’d pooled their tips to teach him a lesson.

  I was going to take a lot of pleasure in ripping him to shreds.

  “From what I’ve been able to gather from the waitresses, his weaknesses are his receding hairline and the fact that he’s never ridden a horse, yet fancies himself a cowboy,” I said. “His father was a bit actor in some westerns. It’s one of the first things he mentions to people.”

  Mark shifted in his chair. “How much info did you gather on me?”

  “Enough,” I said.

  “Is the bar owner fame-hungry?” Margo asked. “Might be an angle to work.”

  “I don’t think so. He has one of those walls for signed celebrity pictures, to show off who’s been to his bar, but he never auditioned for so much as a commercial. I think he likes fame by proxy.” I flipped open my folder. “Both his ex-wives were Dolly Parton look-alikes.”

  “You’re going to need bigger boobs,” Margo said.

  Mark sputtered and beat on his chest as he started coughing.

  “Problem?” I smiled pleasantly at him, venom dripping from every syllable.

  “I don’t think… you’re… you shouldn’t…” He glanced at my chest and back up, his cheeks pinkening. “Is that necessary?”

  “They’re called falsies, sweetie.” I patted his cheek. “And yes, in some cases, they are necessary. Don’t be surprised if you have to stuff a sock in your pants one day.”

  He swallowed hard. “Right.”

  He had that look in his eye. The what the hell did I sign up for? look. I was pretty sure I’d worn the same expression the day Margo handed me my first assignment. It took time to develop a taste for our work, and not everyone was cut out for the ways we had to objectify ourselves in the name of revenge.

  I’d learned that the more elaborate the costume, the easier it was to separate myself from the assignment, and my background in art had given me skills in contouring, allowing me to work repeat venues without being recognized. Falsies, wigs, press-on nails, fake lashes, jeans with built-in butt pads, I’d done them all. Sometimes simultaneously.

  Mark paled as Margo and I went on to discuss conversation prompts, outfit choices, and how best to stage the meet-cute. Real glamorous stuff. Margo took notes on what I’d put in my cheat sheet, the main points I’d need to keep in mind. She vetoed a cowboy hat, pointing out that it would smush my hair, and it was necessary to go big there. She told Mark to observe me from the bar for most of the evening, until I needed to use him. She wanted me to pretend to leave the bar with Mark while we made fun of the bar owner on our way out the door.

  After we’d gone over the plan twice more, with Margo asserting her opinions and me pretending to consider them, I stood and stretched. “I need coffee.”

  “Me too,” Mark said, looking like he just needed an excuse to get away.

  “Why don’t you two go together and discuss the logistics of tomorrow?” Margo said. “I know Markus is observing for training purposes, but it would be nice if he could contribute. I like this idea of using him to crush the cowboy.”

  His lips thinned. It hadn’t escaped him that Margo had basically referred to him as one of my props in an elaborate role-play. Welcome to the world of objectification, Mark. Women have been enduring it for centuries.

  He followed me to the elevator. The warmth of his body was so close that, if I stopped short, he’d bump into me. His hard body would press against my back, and he’d grab me around the waist to keep me from falling, bending me over, and… Nope. Not having a fantasy about my sworn enemy today.

  I really needed coffee.

  As soon as the elevator door closed, he hit the emergency stop. This was how at least a hundred pornos started, but he didn’t look like he wanted to ravish me. In fact, he looked like someone had just backed over his cat.

  “Give me a minute.” He ran his hands over his face. “How do you do this?”

  “It’s a dirty business, and it’s only going to get worse.”

  “How?” He looked at me like I was his teacher an
d he was my patient student.

  “Jesse James sounds like a terrible person and an even worse boss. I won’t mind taking him down. But sometimes…” My gaze traced the curve of his lips. “Sometimes you actually like your targets. But you have a job to do, and you can’t have it both ways.”

  The air had gotten too tight. I hit the green button next to the emergency stop, and the elevator started again. His hand brushed mine, and I looked up into his stormy eyes.

  “Have you liked many of your targets?” he asked.

  The elevator stopped, and the doors whooshed open. “Just one.”

  I stepped out and hurried through the glass door. He took his time following me down to the Starbucks on the first floor of our building. While he looked over the muffins, I ordered a tall skim latte. My name had been spelled Boinkly on my cup. That was a new one. I took my favorite window booth and people-watched until Mark joined me. There wasn’t much we had to plan for the Stir-Up, since I really didn’t want him helping in any way, but I’d sit down here and drink coffee and act like I was fine.

  “I think we should call a truce.” Mark sat across from me with a frozen mocha and a muffin. “Though I do think you still owe me an apology.”

  “It’s not a genuine truce if you’re asking for something from me.”

  “Fine.” He held up his palms in surrender. “No apology. Just a truce.”

  “Okay.” I could pretend to make nice. “Truce.”

  “Good.” He gave me a smile I hadn’t seen since the night we met. Genuine and full of the kindness he didn’t have to fake. “How long have you worked at H4H?”

  “Two years.” Two years of my life spent baiting and trapping men, and what did I have to show for it? Half a master’s degree, no dating prospects, and a cat I was pretty certain was just waiting for me to die so she could feast on my remains. I had a plan for the future, but the here and now wasn’t all that great. “I’m sure you won’t be here once something permanent opens up at UoC.”

  “That ship has sailed. I’m hoping I’ll be a better fit at Northwestern. I had an interview the day you saw me there.” He tilted his cup toward me. “A friend let me know a professor from the anthropology department is retiring at the end of this semester, so I jumped on it, even though I was told the process could take months and the competition is tough.”

  “Good old Dr. Faber.” My mom would be annoyed I’d missed my opportunity, since she somehow believed I could complete an advanced degree in a field I hadn’t studied by the time next semester rolled around.

  “You know Dr. Faber?” His eyes narrowed.

  “He’s a longtime family friend. My mom is head of the psychology department, and they’ve been close for years. I almost got my master’s in art at Northwestern.” Which was akin to saying I almost won the lottery or almost cleaned my apartment. Almost was worse than nothing at all. The failure lay in the attempt. Talking about school made me itchy. Or maybe it was talking about my mom. I turned the conversation back to him. “Did you always want to be a college professor? Or do you just like teaching in general?”

  “Teaching is the only thing I care about. I hate university politics.” He took a sip of coffee, and I had a feeling the bitterness in his expression had nothing to do with his drink. “If I had my way, I’d teach in my old community, maybe middle school, where I could run an after-school program.”

  “Why don’t you just do that then?” Middle school teaching jobs had to be easier to come by than assistant professor jobs with tenure tracks. “Isn’t it your life?”

  “You’d think.” He frowned at the name on his cup. Marc Withakay. The baristas were in fine form today. Then he frowned at me, as if he’d just realized who he was talking to, the person who had been sabotaging him all week. “Forget I said anything. It’s not nearly as dramatic as I made it sound.”

  “I grew up around academics. They are vicious and backhanded. They’ll smile to your face while they twist a knife in your back, and if you do manage to survive, it’s only because you’ve sliced the throats of anyone you could possibly care about in your rise to the top. Enjoy the lonely view.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Speaking from experience?”

  “Yep.” Eve, Eliza, and Aiden had all had a hand in my fall from grace, but I’d learned the bitter lessons best from my mom. “It’s not like I need to tell you any of this.”

  “I understand the consequences.” He stared out the window with a faraway look.

  “Why are you doing it then?”

  “Why do you care?”

  I opened my mouth to reply and promptly shut it again when I couldn’t come up with an answer that sounded reasonable or genuine.

  “That’s what I thought.” He stood and tossed his cup in the nearby trash bin.

  It wasn’t like his lofty career goals were my business anyway. Though the look in his eyes stirred something in me. The resignation. I knew the feeling all too well, and I nearly reached for his hand out of a misguided sense of empathy. Which probably would’ve just embarrassed us both.

  CHAPTER 14

  My Uber driver stopped in front of the Gilded Swan, and I managed to exit without flashing my goods to the street. The strapless plum dress I’d squeezed into left little to the imagination. Emma stood outside the restaurant, looking stunning as always in a black cocktail dress with lace trim. She had her back to Nick, who scowled in her direction. A cigarette dangled from her lips.

  “Em, what the hell?” I took the cigarette out of her mouth and stomped it into the sidewalk. “You don’t smoke.”

  Nick whipped his head in our direction. Emma took my arm and pulled me closer. “I know I don’t,” she whispered. “But Nick is such a health nut. It annoys him.”

  “Can’t you find other, noncancerous ways to do that?”

  “I don’t inhale.” She poked at the crushed cigarette with the toe of her shoe. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m over this.”

  A stone sank in my stomach. I’d told her about Margo cracking down on me with regard to training Mark, but Emma had seemed wholly unfazed by all of it, almost as if she was looking forward to the confrontation. I just hoped she wouldn’t do anything she’d regret.

  “We’re all over this,” I said. “We just need to stay united.”

  “No.” Emma laid a hand on my shoulder. “I mean, I can’t keep doing this. As soon as Margo brought in the men, it made me start thinking—” Before she could finish, Allie pulled up with Charlotte, and Charles, Liam, and Mark soon followed. “We’ll talk later.”

  Mark had managed to dig up a suit, much to my surprise. The gray jacket he wore fitted over his broad shoulders, then tapered down to his trim waist. He’d paired it with a baby-blue shirt and a patterned tie with threads of blue and gray. He looked like the cover of a glossy magazine. I wanted to unfold him and tack him to my wall and practice French kissing.

  Emma cleared her throat and nudged me. It wasn’t fair that he got to walk around looking like that. He should’ve at least been given elongated nose hairs or a twitchy eye.

  The rest of our dinner party greeted one another at the curb. Liam grabbed Charlotte’s attention immediately, and she laughed at something he said, as if the two of them were in their own private world. Emma narrowed her eyes. Uh-oh. I waved the girls over to us, hoping to defuse the issue without involving the guys.

  “You’re looking cozy with your partner,” Emma said to Charlotte.

  “He’s a funny guy. Is it a crime to laugh at jokes?” Charlotte snapped.

  Even Allie did a double take. Charlotte rarely got short with anyone, and never with one of us. I bit my lip and glanced at Liam, who was watching Charlotte with his heart in his eyes. She had that kind of effect on men in general, but I hadn’t expected it from this one, considering Charlotte had been telling us she’d done her part and ditched him on assignment.

  “Whatever.” Emma frowned but didn’t push it. “Let’s get this shitshow over with.”

  The guys followed us
into the restaurant. Deep burgundy and gold silk papered the walls. Plush velvet couches around a six-foot-high fireplace formed a cozy waiting space beside the reservations desk. Gilded mirrors hung from steel wires embedded in the ceiling, and potted plants screened the tables from each other. Margo already had a table waiting in an indoor courtyard.

  Mark pulled me aside before we entered the courtyard. “You look beautiful.”

  What was this flattery? A new tactic? “I had no idea you even owned a suit.”

  “I own lots of suits,” he said. “They aren’t my favorite, but there are times for them.”

  Margo would keel over from shock when she got a load of Mark, since—in her words—he’d walk into Nordstrom and walk out with a sweater-vest from the clearance rack. I personally found the Hot Professor look appealing, but I’d never say so to his face.

  He slipped a loose curl behind my ear, and I shivered as his finger traced the shell. He bent closer and whispered, “Want to share an Uber when we leave?”

  “What?” My eyes narrowed, even as my fingers and toes were tingling.

  “Share an Uber. We live in the same neighborhood, and it’s cheaper. Wouldn’t you agree?” His wide-eyed innocence didn’t fool me for a second.

  “Fine.” I put a hand on his chest, resisting the urge to curl my fingers, and pushed him back a full step. “But why do you have to make everything sound so scandalous?”

  “Maybe because I like seeing you unnerved.” He tucked his hands into his pockets and strolled into the dining courtyard.

  I pulled myself together and shook off the annoyance. He clearly wanted me to be flustered, and I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d thrown me off-balance. The fake truce was still in place. My heels clicked on the brick floor as I looked for my name card. Margo had assigned us seats, as if we were in grade school, or at a wedding. Mark and I sat with Emma and Nick on one side, while Allie, Charles, Charlotte, and Liam sat across from us. Margo, of course, was at the head of the table.

  Emma unfolded her napkin and set it in her lap. “What’s with the dinner?”