Page 72 of Push & Pull
Although a flash of indecipherable shock appeared on Petra’s face, it was Earl who turned around on his stool to address Simone’s presence. “Can we help you, Miss?”
His accent was much more genuine than whatever Petra pulled out of her ass.
“What thefuckis going on here?” Simone focused on the woman sheepishly pulling away from Earl and acting like she didn’t know the person interrupting her fun. “Petra?”
“I think you must be mistaken.” That Texan drawl sent shivers down Simone’s spine.I’ll smack him if he keeps talking.He had already put his hands on Petra – and she let him! Invited him, even! “This here is Charlene. From Savannah.”
“Charlene from Savannah.” Simone held Petra’s unwavering gaze when she repeated that. “Not Petra from Chicago? The woman who looks exactly like her? The woman I came here with and is supposed to be at a business meeting right now?”
“Darling,” the imposter named Charlene said as she kept one hand on Earl while climbing halfway back into his lap. “I don’t know any ‘Petras’. You’ve got the wrong girl. Maybe I’ve got me a doppelganger around these here parts.” She flashed a smile at Earl and tipped her chin up. “New York, right, sugar?”
Her façade only faltered when Earl laughed himself into a coughing fit. Petra hopped off his lap and fired a heated look in Simone’s direction.
“Not right now,” she hissed. “I’ll explain later. My name’s Charlene! Don’t blow this!”
“Oh, I’ll go upstairs.” Simone had already turned around, her throat on fire and her eyes burning. “But I won’t be waiting for you.”
Although a slight bite to the lip warned Simone that she was taking things too far, Petra was nothing but awkward giggles to the man grasping on to her again. “Oh-ho, Earl!” Her overexaggerated facial expressions were too much for Simone to handle. She pivoted on her feet and hauled herself out of the hotel bar.
Embarrassed. Confused. Ashamed.
An unholy trifecta that threatened to deconstruct everything she had built those past few months.
Chapter 25
“Goodbye,Earl.”Petracouldn’thelp but quote a Dixie Chicks song as she finally released the fake persona she had adopted from the moment she left her own hotel suite earlier that evening. As half-naked Earl Olivier lay face down on his bed, knocked out but alive, Petra finished rifling through his wallet, taking every dollar bill and all the credit cards. When she met up with Georgio earlier that afternoon, he had not only given the name of the same hotel where Petra was staying, but passed her a card skimmer and a bottle of potent sleeping pills.“Do your thing,”he had grumbled before leaving her in a corner of Central Park.“Get us the money.”
The card skimmer would help, assuming Earl’s limit was high enough to handle it. Because he didn’t have a lot of cash on him. Barely enough for Petra to stage her usual getaway from one of these flirt-and-dumps.
She already did her best to avoid having to actuallysleepwith the bastards her uncle sent her after, but Earl had made it stupidly easy to drug him before the rest of their clothes came off. The man had asked her to go into the bathroom and get him a glass of water. Oh, and could she pass him one of those blue pills in his plastic case? The one right there on his dresser.Water and Viagra. Fucking hell.The man was so horny for “Charlene from Savannah,” that he didn’t look twice at the pills he popped into his mouth. As soon as he crawled onto the bed and promptly fell asleep, Petra rushed through his things, taking anything of slight value that wasn’t sewn into a pocket. She barely had enough time to scan his cards and leave them behind before finally putting on a fresh pair of gloves and blowing the joint, mask on her face and hat on her head.
Instead of rushing to her next hideout, however, she went up several floors to the suite she was supposedly sharing with Simone.Hello headache.This was not going to be pretty.
Had Petra been shocked to see Simone in the hotel bar? Yes, but not surprised. After all, it was the same place where they were staying.If Earl were staying anywhere else…Except Petra’s plan hinged on cornering him in the lobby or in the bar. Once she saw him, sheaccidentallybumped into him, dropping a compact, some makeup, and her pack of cigarettes. After they profusely apologized to one another, Earl followed the gentlemanly script of offering to buy her a drink at the bar right over there. She had pretended to be against it at first, before eventually capitulating.
There wasn’t much to explain after that.
“Cards skmd and mon got.”That was the shorthand for “cards skimmed and money obtained” sent to Georgio’s burner phone. Petra would dump hers as soon as she destroyed the gloves she used to rifle through Earl’s room. While concealing her identity was far from perfect in the modern age, she hadn’t been caught yet. After tonight, she hoped to keep it that way.
As soon as the message was read, she unlocked the suite door and ducked inside.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Simone asked from the table by the window, where she had been furiously typing something the moment Petra walked in.
“Hmph. Did you forget I have a key, too?” Petra shoved the keycard into her bag as soon as she was inside and the door was locked. She was pretty sure she had not been followed, but one could never be too sure after a job was completed. “Anyway, I told you I would explain, so hold your damned horses.”
“What the hell is there to explain?”
“Uh, a lot, actually.”
Simone shot out of her seat and met Petra halfway across the suite. “Get the hell out. I don’t want to look at you right now.”
“Oh. Rich.”
“You’re acting like I don’t have every right to be pissed at you right now!”
Petra waited for Simone to turn around before rolling her eyes.This definitely is the headache I predicted it would be.In the hour since Petra saw Simone in the bar, things had only escalated in that head of a princess. “Sit your ass down and let me explain. What you saw wasn’t real, all right? It was work!”
“Right! I got that!”
