Page 17 of Meet Hate Love
God. Blake was practically a living, breathing omen of bad luck and misfortune, and I was about to be joined at the hip with her and all her bad juju for fourteen days. The plane would probably crash. The hotel would catch on fire. We’d miss our train, end up renting a car, and have the brakes give out right as we rounded a sharp turn in the Alps.
Amanda printed off paperwork, then passed it to me with a suspicious look. “Tell Blake to turn that in before the end of the day.”
Forcing a smile, I left Amanda’s office and headed straight to Blake’s cubicle.
I slapped the travel document down on her desk. “Congratulations, you wannabe criminal. You have your trip.”
A slow smile worked over her lips. And damn, those were some good lips. Soft and full and perfect for—
“Why are you looking at her like that?” Somehow, I must have missed Margot wheeling her chair around the corner of Blake’s cubicle.
“Like what?” I asked.
“Like you want to joustPauldown her throat.”
Great. Margot had seen My Dick Travels, too.
Blake’s head whipped around. She glared at Margot with disgust. “Some things shouldn’t even be put out into the universe, Margot. And that is definitely one of them.”
“I assure you,” I said. “I don’t want to ram shit down her throat. Except, possibly, a gag.” That was a lie. While a gag would offer me some peace, I would have much rather rammed something else down her throat, like my tongue, my dick…
“Try to gag me,” Blake said, crossing her arms over her chest, “and see what happens.”
That sounded like a dare to me.
ChapterSeven
BLAKE
I’d love to say the next two days before departure were smooth sailing, but alas, they were not.
Wednesday night, the day of the blackmailing, the hooker-red thong Margot had given me ended up in my load of whites. All my once-sensible white cotton panties were now pink. So were a handful of my shirts and dresses. Aggravating? Yes, but the silver lining: I had an excuse to go shopping. Which was why, after work on Thursday, I’d loaded up on coffee, then headed over to Macy’s on Fifth Avenue.
It could have been a great afternoon, but halfway up to the women’s department, the elevator stopped. I spent four hours in the tiny compartment, sweating my ass off, with my bladder about to rupture before maintenance got the thing moving again.
That same night, my sister, Grace, and I went to our usual Italian restaurant for dinner. We took an Uber back to my apartment, and two blocks from our stop, she grabbed my Louis Vuitton—the one designer bag I owned—and hurled shrimp scampi into it.
To top it all off, late last night, in the final hour, I’d received an email fromAmanda stating the cost of an extra hotel room on short notice was outside of the assignment’s budget. Which meant Vance and I would share a room.
Share a room!
I stared through the taxi window at the setting sun as the driver pulled into the departures lane of JFK, trying to imagine how in the hell Vance and I would both survive the next two weeks. Fourteen days of confined spaces, timers going off all times of the day, of him and those arrogant smirks. I told myself the torture would be worth it as I grabbed my suitcase from the trunk and headed through the sliding glass doors. Although, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure it would.
I checked in for my flight, left my luggage at the baggage drop, then headed through the hustle and bustle of the airport to the High Flyer bar. I had no clue where Vance’s seat on the plane would be, but if by any chance it was beside mine, I did not want or need to be cold-stone sober.
I hopped my short butt onto a barstool at the counter and placed an order for a chardonnay, then glanced at the newspaper someone had left behind on the counter.Three arrested and charged with blackmailing senator for using prostitutes.
A panicked hiccup tripped my heart as the bartender placed my wine in front of me. Arrested?
I took a large gulp as the reality of what I’d done crept in.
This wasn’t like the time Margot and I had skipped school in eighth grade to go to Coney Island or the time I had crawled over the side of the little bamboo bridge in the tropical exhibit at the zoo just to pet a sloth. The worst that could have happened in those situations would have been getting grounded or being eternally banned from a zoo. Blackmail, though. It was serious crap.
Like criminal crap. I glanced back at the article—the men have been sentenced to four years in prison—like felony crap.
I rested my head on my hand. Surely the American justice system had better things to do than worry about a literal and figurative dick being blackmailed.
“What the hell is wrong with me?” I whispered into my glass as I shoved away the paper and flagged down the bartender for another chardonnay.
