Chapter One
TINSLEY
If there are two things men hate, it’s being rejected or outsmarted by a woman. I’ve done both to Biff Bradford. Biff isn’t his real first name; it’s Buford, an equally bad name. If you are trying to get away from the name Buford, why choose Biff as a nickname? It’s just as terrible.
Wealthy people do strange shit. Who would swipe left on such a name? Unless you know the last name Bradford. I didn’t, but I do now. I guess it’s a big one from what I have dug up on it.
Family names in the city are a whole lot different than the ones in my small hometown of New Hope. Your last name wasn’t flashy because you had money; nah, you had to mean something to everyone there. It didn’t matter how much money you had; no one gave a shit. They cared if you were a good neighbor who gave a crap about your community. Money can’t buy that.
Now I’ve got a man with too much money and too much time on his hands seeking revenge. How the tables have turned. Revenge is my game. It's one that pays well, and a girl's gotta eat.
My whole life I have done odd jobs. In New Hope, it was easy. I grew up there, and people trusted me to come and go from their homes or watch their little ones. In the city, you need resumes and all that jazz. The whole nine-to-five thing reallyisn't for me. I was only in the city to finish out beauty school and then I was going to head right back to New Hope.
Biff was at my last job, and now that has all gone to shit. The man is stalking me and making wild threats. All because his wife asked me to test him. He failed, as most spouses do. It was rare for me to test a partner and have them pass with flying colors. When they did, it would restore a bit of humanity for me. That said, the men who don’t do that shit don’t have partners having to worry about their loyalty.
It has really given me a jaded experience of romance. In New Hope, when people fall in love, it's forever. In fact, there has never been a divorce in our town. A part of me was wishing that while I spent a year in the city, I might find the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with.
As cliché and silly as others might find it, I do want that small-town life with a husband and kids. I grew up with it all around me. I know that the man I will share that dream with one day doesn't already live there. It would have happened before already. Now it's all been a bust, except I did graduate.
It was by accident I'd fallen into this line of work. It started with one of my classmates thinking her boyfriend was cheating. I did recon and came back with proof the next day. From there, it was word-of-mouth. Then, in the middle of one of my jobs, I made an Instagram profile to lure one woman's husband out. It was as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. That led to loyalty testing.
See, this is my problem. I always take things one step too far, and that's why I'm here, standing outside of the tallest building in the city filled with shiny, fancy people and their high-paying jobs. This wife, Monica, had money, and she wanted things to go further than an online loyalty test. She wanted to see if her husband would follow through. Would he show up and meet me at the hotel bar down the street from his work?
Yes, the answer is a solid yes. Monica wanted all the details. I had to sit at the bar with this man pretending to be interested in him. I will say, he's not hard on the eyes, but when he opened his mouth, it was all downhill from there.
After I got all she wanted, I did the old "I need to use the restroom." This might have been after I went up to the room with him and tricked him into taking off his clothes before stealing them. I walked out of the hotel suite, letting his wife right in. She said it would be a whole lot harder for him to try and run if he didn't have clothes.
He was more than happy to drop trow when I suggested we get in the massive bathtub together.
Since he got caught with his pants down and his wife left him, and I’m told because of the prenup and his infidelity, she’ll be leaving with half. Now Riff, Biff, or whatever his name is wants my head on a platter.
I'm annoyed more than anything. There isn't much, if anything, he can do to me, but there have been threats, and I don't take too kindly to those. My plan is to show up and be a loud, embarrassing pain in the ass. That will likely get him to back off. When people know you bite back, they often retreat, and that is extremely true when it comes to a lot of men. Their bark is usually bigger than their bite.
They think they can push us around, and they often get away with it. I make it a mission to always push right back. That way the next time they think about fucking with a woman, they'll think twice.
Really, I'm doing this for the greater good. I check the time.
Carly, Biff's assistant, was more than happy to feed me information about her asshole boss as long as I didn't let it link back to her. She'll be making herself scarce right about now, and Biff is in a meeting with his lawyer. I make my way into thebuilding, the two men at the front desk glancing at people as they pass, stopping ones they don't recognize.
"Afternoon, Jim," I tell one of them. "Samuel," I say to the other with a nod. I don't know them. Never seen them before, but I keep my chin up, pretending I own the building, and they let me walk right on by and toward the bank of elevators.
I hit the button for his floor. When I step off the elevator, there is a woman at the front reception desk.
"Girl, that blouse is fire," I pause to say to her before she can ask me anything. A smile tilts on her shiny pink lips. The color is spot on for her complexion.
"Bloomingdale's."
"I couldn't pull it off. Not like you." Her smile grows.
"Thank you."
"Shit, I'm late," I tell her, hurrying past her desk, my target's office now in my sights. His assistant's desk is empty… I’ll let myself in.
Chapter Two
PIERCE
There is nothing more I hate than waiting. I don’t give a shit that Biff didn’t know I was coming today. That was the point. I didn’t want him to have a stack of lies and excuses ready.
