Page 10 of An Improper Deal (Elliot & Annabelle 1)
“We all gotta eat.”
She snorts. “I’m not sending you a stripper.”
“Of course not. Can’t copy Ryder.” I fake perking up. “I know: a hooker baked in a pie!”
Laughing, she throws a napkin at me. “You’re horrible,” she says, still chuckling. “Absolutely hopeless.”
“But you love me anyway.”
“That I do.” She wipes a tear from her eyes and sniffs. “Lord knows why, but I do.”
My phone vibrates with a new text. I pull it out just in case it’s from Ryder, but it’s not. It’s…
I scowl. What the hell?
Can we meet, love? I’m going to be in town in a few weeks.
Tension crawls up the back of my neck. If she thinks I’m wasting another second of my life on her, she’s crazy. If I could, I’d go back in time and change the day I met her.
I block the number. Didn’t she get the hint the last time? I also made my feelings clear when I blacklisted her email address and refused every letter and postcard she sent me.
“Who’s that?” Elizabeth asks.
I put the phone back in my pocket and smile. “No one. Wrong number.”
Chapter Five
Annabelle
The address Caroline gave me leads me to a small, warehouse-looking place about half an hour from our apartment. I park my Honda in back and buzz at the rear entrance like she told me to.
My phone pings, and I check the text. It’s from Nonny, at a friend’s place for a sleepover.
Got here fine. See you tomorrow, Anna! She only calls me Annabelle when she’s an
gry with me. When she was old enough to talk, she started to call me Nanni, which got morphed into Anna, and it stuck. She’s the only one who uses that nickname.
Have fun. Love you, I type and hit send.
A few minutes later, a guy opens the door. He’s somewhere around forty, with a narrow, fatless face and cleanly shaved head. He has the body of a distance runner, thin with ropey muscles, underneath a black T-shirt and jeans that hang off him. There’s a tattoo crawling halfway up his neck.
“Yeah?” he says. The voice is deeper than I expect.
“I’m here for the job.”
“You ain’t the girl.”
“Caroline got sick,” I lie. “I’m here so we don’t disappoint the customer.”
He looks at me. “You’re kinda short.”
“Easier to fit into the cake, right?”
He thinks it over, then makes a circle motion with his finger. I obediently do a slow pirouette, all the while reminding myself about the money I’m going to get from this one night’s work—and how it’s going to put me that much closer to true independence.
“All right. Come on.” He moves to the side, so I can walk past him. The door closes with a metallic clang.
Inside is some kind of makeshift studio. A couple of people are putting the final touches on the cake I’m going to get into. It’s white with lots of hearts and bright red ribbons.
