Sam glanced over and saw the woman had her hands knotted together in her lap, eyes white-rimmed and liquid in the dash lights. “That was convincing,” Sam said with a snort. Apparently, the nerves were making her snappish.
“Well, I’m not an actress,” Jasmine defended.
Sam snorted. “I’m a damn professor.”
They shared a moment of doomed silence.
“We’re gonna blow this,” Jasmine said.
“No we’re not. Hush,” Sam said. She couldn’t contemplate failure because she held the superstitious belief that doing so would then cause failure. And not to be melodramatic, but failure wasn’t an option in this scenario. Sometimes, old idioms were true.
Sam took one last deep breath and said, “Here we go. You ready?”
Jasmine echoed her shivery exhale. “Yeah.”
Sam buzzed her window down, leaned out, and pressed the call button on the intercom box.
“Yeah?”a heavy male voice asked from the speaker.
Sam marshalled her meager acting skills and put on her best flirty girl voice. “Your entertainment for the night’s here, baby.” She cringed inwardly, but pasted a wide smile to her face in case the camera could see her.
“Yeah?”the voice repeated, this time with considerably more interest.“You must be new. What’s your name, baby girl?”
Shit. She hadn’t thought of that. “Uh…Honey,” she said, scrambling. “And my friend…” Shit, Jazz already had sort of a hooker name. “Lavender,” she said, and then closed her eyes, bit her lip in total shame and regret.
“Lavender?” Jazz hissed.
But the guy on the intercom laughed.“Honey and Lavender, huh? Come on in, ladies. We’ve been waiting.”
There was an electronic droning sound and then the gate unlocked with a loud clang ahead of them, slowly slid back on its wheels.
Sam rolled the window up. “Sorry.” She glanced over at Jazz and took another of oh-so-many deep breaths. “Alright, Lavender, you ready?”
Jazz shook her head, but said, “Yeah, let’s go get our boy.”
The driveway was wide, but flanked by stone walls crawling with ivy. Sam felt them closing in as their headlights skimmed a path down to the house; felt the gate closing behind them, sealing them off from the world. Fox had bragged about being able to scale the wrought iron fence around this place, and maybe he could, if what Aidan had said of the Englishman was true – but no way was she going to be able to climb over, should things go south. Especially not in these damn stilettos.
The driveway ended in a circle around a multi-tiered fountain at the front of the mansion. A mansion that was tastefully illuminated with landscape lighting and carriage sconces on either side of the massive double doors at the top of a steep stone staircase.
“Jesus,” Jasmine said as they parked behind an Escalade. “Beauty and the fucking Beast around here.”
“Us being the beauties, I take it,” Sam said, grimly. “You’ve got your gun?”
“Yep.”
Last chance to turn back, a small voice whispered in her head. She whispered back,Not a chance. And climbed out of the car.
Her heels clipped across the stone pavers and though she shivered in the cold, she didn’t pull the halves of her jacket together. If it could even be called a jacket. Aidan and Carter in tow to ensure “authenticity,” she and Jasmine had pawed through the Goodwill racks in search of proper call girl getups. Sam had finally settled on a clinging black minidress with a faux fur duster over top. She’d found spike-heeled boots and costume chandelier earrings. She’d troweled on the eye makeup and doused herself in perfume.
Jasmine, she had a feeling, had pulled her own skirt and top from her personal closet, and hadn’t needed to go shopping at all. Whatever. Not judging.
The red blinking eyes of cameras followed their ascent to the top of the stairs. The door opened before they could knock, Sam’s freshly manicured hand hovering above the panel.
The man who awaited them was nearly as broad as he was tall, his head shaved, his features small and piggish.
Sam swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and said, “Hey there.”
Jasmine, more practiced, popped a hip and gave him a slow grin. “Howdy.”
