Keeping a cool head and my panic in check, I’m at Evie’s door in half a second, banging loudly. “Evie?”
I’ve made enough of a ruckus to set off the neighborhood alarm system of barking dogs, and manage to stop a walking couple in their tracks. Pasting on a casual smile, I give them a wave and a friendly nod. Predictable in returning smiles and nods, they wave back and move along.
Good thing too, because who knows what the hell’s going on inside, and I really don’t need more civilians to worry about. Is it Dimitri? Or his henchmen?
I’m barely a breath away from kicking the damn door down when it flies open. Aggressively, Evie grabs the center of my T-shirt and yanks me in, then slams the door shut. Never before more grateful to be the bare-chested stallion Coop ribbed me about as teenagers, I peel her clutched hand away from my favorite running shirt and check it for holes.
“Wow. I’ve never had a woman so eager for me to taste her pie,” I say with a smirk.
Annoyed, she rolls her eyes and moves behind me, shoving me through her nicely decorated great room, past the spotless kitchen, and to the French doors off the back.
“S-s-see?” she asks, remaining behind me with her hands pressed against me.
I glance around the spacious backyard, tastefully decorated with high-end outdoor furniture placed neatly before a custom wood-burning fireplace complete with a pizza oven. Everything’s on a paver patio that’s similar to mine except much, much nicer. I envy every square stone, studying the construction, determined to work up a comparable design for my own place the second I get back home.
But then I see exactly what’s put the fear of God in her freaked-out little body, and I smile in amusement. On a center paver is a massive furry brown Texas tarantula slowly making its way from one end of her patio to the other.
“That guy’s huge,” I say, breathing out the words in pure awe.
“That g-g-guy’s trespassing,” she says with meek insistence, now digging her fingernails into my lower back. Not that I don’t enjoy the cheap thrill of her scraping my skin, but I’m getting a little concerned at how worked up she is.
“Don’t worry. I’ve got just the thing.” I tug my phone from my back pocket and take a few shots of the mammoth beast, including a quick selfie, grateful for the Nat Geo-quality lenses of the latest phone. After five or six shots, I send them off in a text.
“W-w-what are you doing?” she asks, curiosity bleeding through her hysteria.
“Finding a new home for Godzilla here.” My phone pings with a return text. “My friend Gary has two little boys who’ve been dying for a pet spider. That or a snake, but I think his wife ixnayed the snake.”
“But she’s okay with a spider?”
“Oh, it’s not the pet that concerns her. She’s seen camel spiders that make that guy look like a ladybug. No, she’s worried she’ll be the one stuck taking care of it, and all she cares about is what they eat.”
Evie utters a blech under her breath, and I can feel her body shiver behind mine. Her tiny whimpers are my undoing, and I pull her against my side for reassurance, patting her as I answer my ringing phone.
“Hey, you still have that old aquarium? You’ll need it. It’s the house across the street from mine. Nope, she doesn’t want money. Hell, she’d probably pay you ten times the going rate to cart it away,” I say with a hearty chuckle as I get a good look at her bright blue eyes, wide with concern, as she stays tucked in my hold. “And bring the boys. See if they can find any other ones around.”
“Other ones?” Evie asks, scared but calmer. Her stutter has stopped, but as she leans her head against my chest, her alarmed stare is fixed out the window.
“It’s just a precaution,” I lie, rubbing her arm and wondering how the hell this is the first one she’s seen.
* * *
Thankfully, the boys don’t find any other tarantulas, so I don’t have to peel the poor girl off the ceiling. Evie has bundled up several muffins and cookies for them, and she and Gary exchange phone numbers.
“I’m just a few minutes away and work from home,” Gary says. “If you like, each day the boys can ride their bikes over and see if they find any others.”
Evie nods her head quickly. “And each day they come, they’ll get cookies.”
I clap Gary on the back, thanking him too as I walk him out. The boys are busy admiring their new pet, but quickly wave as I say, “See you later.”
As they take off, I check in on Evie.
“You gonna be okay?” I ask, and her worried frown has me lift her chin with a finger. “Hey, I’m just across the street if you need anything.”
“You could stay,” she says with a sweet blend of adamance and begging. “I have all the ingredients and can rustle you up a fresh bourbon peach pie in a heartbeat.”
Her words come out as more of a question than anything else, and I can see she could use a little moral support against her fears. So I glance at my cell as if there might be anything else on my calendar—which there’s not.
“Sure,” I say, and not just because Mav’s voice echoes in my ears. But because I’m getting hungry, and that dessert sounds really good. “But it’s getting late, and I’m guessing you haven’t eaten. How about I order a pizza while you fix your infamous pie.”
“Yes,” she says, enthusiasm and relief pouring from her. “I love pizza, and I’m not picky at all. I’m a goat. I’ll eat anything.”
Good to know.
While I click through the order app, selecting my usual thick crust with the works, I watch her slip on the apron that’s become a part of her evening routine. “You sure you don’t want a thin-crust veggie?”
“You sure you don’t want an eggplant and avocado pie?”
Smartass. “Meat lovers it is.”
I wander over to get a better look at what she’s doing. A strainer of fresh peaches sits in the sink as Evie measures out flour, white sugar, brown sugar, and enough butter to clog my arteries from fifty paces.
“Sliced or diced?” I ask, sliding the cutting board closer and grabbing the largest knife for the hell of it, posing as if I’m about to go all stabby-stabby murderous on one.
“Sliced, you psychopath,” she says with a laugh.
A few slices in, and I can’t keep my big mouth shut. “Why aren’t you living with Dimitri?”
I’m nosy as hell and unapologetic about it. And she’s taking it in stride because the only alternative if I leave is she’ll have to burn the place to the ground.
With a shrug, she powers on the mixer. “Dimitri’s home is just that. His. He wants to bring you on the project to help me see that it can be mine too. Alas, you blew him off.”
I’m surprised to learn about this side of a cold-blooded bastard like Dimitri Antonov, but who knows? Maybe everyone has a point of redemption.
For no reason at all, I tell her all the things I shouldn’t. But my cover was paper thin, and I have a feeling she’s smarter than people give her credit for. Inclined to build a real rapport with her, I go with my gut.
“I wasn’t blowing him off. Or you. I really don’t have a background in residential design. My very brief history in construction includes the Valor Group and several buildings put up to defend against mortar attacks. Or surveillance. Or just the unbearable desert heat. I don’t exactly have a knack for the sophistication required for a job like that.” I leave out my more recent military operations and grab another peach.
“I’ve seen your work. You’re being modest. And it’s not some major project we’re talking about. It’s mine. Well, sort of, anyway. I can show you my sketches sometime, just to pick your brilliant mind and see what you come up with.”
I opt not to argue when she calls me brilliant and find myself intrigued with what she might have drawn. “I’d love to see them.”
“Now, can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“Why are you a prostitute? I mean, is it to keep you in the obvious lifestyle you’ve become accustomed to until your architect status skyrockets? Or do you love it?”
When the doorbell rings a second later, I offer to get it, relieved to have a moment to come up with an answer. As I take the pizza and tip the delivery guy, I think about just telling her I’m not a male hooker, but then I’d have to explain the Five. Plus, not gonna lie—there’s something about that gigolo persona that I’m confident rocking.
Once she has the pie in the oven, Evie grabs a bottle of red in one hand and an ice-cold beer in the other, waving each option, requesting my choice. Though I never mind a beer, that cabernet has my name written all over it, so I point to it.
She hands it to me with a corkscrew. “Well?”
Thinking back to her question, I say, “Obviously, I have to put any and all of my God-given talents to good use.”
“Obviously,” she says with a smirk.
Over her fancy wine and my laid-back pizza, we talk about everything and nothing. Her work. My work. Her day. My day. Mostly, she talks and I listen. I credit part of that to my operative days, and part to the fact that I like listening to Evie.
She’s spunky and snarky, and I try to stop from staring too hard at the streak of flour on her cheek, but I can’t help it. I brush it off with my thumb. Maybe it’s the wine, but she lets me.
There’s also no bullshit between us, which is a refreshing change from the women I’m used to. The ones set to impress with their lethal combination of fake hair, overinflated tits, and eager beavers.
Evie isn’t fake. She isn’t eager. And those gorgeous breasts that were pressed up against me less than an hour ago were definitely real.
I have to laugh out loud when she says, “And clear as day, the two were fucking right on the copier as I walked in.” She takes a sip of her wine as I try to keep mine from coming out my nose. “I’d never seen two men go at it before.”
The realization hits me. “Oh my God. You just stood there and watched, you voyeur.”
“Nooo,” she says. “I also discreetly snapped a few shots.” Proudly, she waves her phone at me. “And now, thanks to me, it’s become a little thing called evidence.”
“But you kept watching after that, right?”
She shrugs, looking at me with innocence in her eyes as she goes in for a large mouthful of pizza.
Another realization hits me, but not wanting to be critical or rude, I broach the subject with a fair amount of caution. “Can I ask you a question?”
She gives me a full three-hundred-sixty-degree eye roll before downing the last of her wine.
“Don’t judge,” she says, more as a statement than a plea. “I don’t stay at Dimitri’s place because he has his life and I have mine. He travels a lot, and I don’t want to rattle around in a fourteen-thousand-square-foot house all by myself. I did enough of that growing up. That and I’m pretty sure he’s fucking around, and the last thing I need is something like that flaunted right in front of me.”
The shock on my face must be noticeable, because immediately and more timidly than before, she repeats herself. “I said don’t judge.”
“I wasn’t. I’m not. I, uh . . . wasn’t about to ask that at all.” Backpedaling, I quickly say, “I just thought the pie might be ready.”
She blinks back her embarrassment.
“It sort of smells amazing,” I add, my words coming out like a question.
Evie jumps up and races for the oven. With an oven mitt in one hand, she pulls out the hot pie, inspecting it before setting it on top of the stove.
When she doesn’t move and keeps staring at it, I step up to take my own look. “Wow. That looks incredible.”
Scowling, Evie glares at an imperfection I didn’t notice. “The edges are a little burned.”
“You say that like I’m not going to eat every last bite of it. Trust me. I am.”
That brings a small smile to her lips. “It should really cool before I cut it.”
“For how long?”
“An hour.”
“Well, there’s zero chance of that. Ice cream?”
Her shoulders drop with the disappointment of a woman who could really use a gallon tub and a spoon. She shakes her head. “I ate the last of it last night for dinner.”
“Had I known your eating habits, I would’ve come over sooner. I’ve got some. Be right back.”
We spend the rest of our evening eating a bourbon peach pie that I can only imagine rivals crack cocaine, and slip back into the easygoing conversation of nothing too deep.
Checking my phone a while later, I say, “It’s getting late.”
“But . . . the spider.”
“The spider’s gone. You’re fine.”
“You said there might be more.”
“No, I said the boys would check just in case.” I try to stay strong when her sad eyes and sulking pout accompany the words of course and I understand.
I lay a confident hand on her shoulder and look her square in the eye. “Evie, you’ve got this. The spider’s gone. Your house is safe. I’m right across the street if you need me.”
Meek as a mouse, she nods before pulling out the big guns. Hands clasped, pleading. Eyes batting those ridiculously long lashes. Mouthing the word please as if anyone else might hear.
My expression stern, I point a single accusatory finger at her. “That’s absolutely not fair.”
“Just one night. And the guest room has its own bathroom.”
Deadpan, I say, “I know. We have the exact same model. Well, except for your upgraded patio that I intend to rectify by starting a neighborly patio war.”
“I’ll buy you a patio,” she says out of desperation.
Surprised, I realize she’s not only serious, but probably ready to torch the place if she does see another one of those fuckers. And to her credit, it was the biggest monster of a tarantula I’ve seen in Texas. Ever.
“Look, you don’t have to buy me a patio,” I say like an idiot. “I’ll head home, shower, and call to check on you in half an hour. If you still need spider-protection services, I’ll put on my very grubbiest sweats, with the full expectation that you have no objection to me rummaging in your pantry, and any movies we watch have to be pre-approved. On my all-in list is anything with the words fast, furious, or death in the title.”
“Really?” she asks with enough hope in her eyes, she’s adorable. When I nod, she says, “Deal,” squealing like the girl she is.
“That was an if, Evie. And just for tonight.”
* * *
Maybe it was the please that filled my ears. That small word whittled its way deep into my mind, carving a hole through my better judgment and common sense, and making me wonder how it would sound less like a plea and more like a beg.
But it’s less about the words and more about Evie. She’s an anomaly with the body of a goddess, the heart of a saint, and the mouth of a sailor. A puzzle I need to piece together. To understand. The all-American debutante wouldn’t be slumming with a creep like Dimitri without an enticement. One that goes beyond the normal enticements of ultimate power and piles of cash.
But aside from that, why would he be marrying her?
He doesn’t need the money. Or an heir. The man doesn’t exactly lay low, though he’s been a person of interest in more than two dozen cases of money laundering, extortion, and missing persons, just to name a few. Slave trade. Torture. Murder. It’s a wonder if any of the people on his payroll are there of their own free will.
As she watches a movie, and I pretend to, I consider again why Dimitri would marry a blueblood like Evelyn Banks, a girl shedding her socialite status, opting to be completely down to earth.
Case in point . . .
With her hair falling over a shoulder and all traces of her makeup wiped off, Evie sucks the sugar off the head of a Sour Patch Kid, losing herself in a rom-com with a ridiculous story that would never, ever happen. But it has enough witty banter, amusing plot lines, and semi-nude sex scenes that I take a peek here and there.
Between the infrequent snippets of soft porn, I pass the time using a database on my phone that I shouldn’t have access to from an agency that still wants me back, and get up close and personal with the girl sporting pink flannel pants and a sweetly snug shirt that reads cupcakes are my love language.
Name: Evelyn Anne Banks.
Age: Twenty-seven.
Siblings: One, a hopeless drug addict with bi-weekly appearances on the news for bad behavior, and who holds the title of CEO of Banks Multimedia.
Nice.
Her parents are divorced, though there have been some very recent rumors of her mother being romantically involved with Everett Long, recently retired CEO of Long Multinational. Evie’s graduated top of her class since kindergarten, has just enough speeding tickets and bar brawls on her record to impress me, and has no financial connection to Long Multinational, though she’s listed on their website as counsel of record. Not exactly a smoking gun, but interesting, nonetheless.
I don’t bother looking up Dimitri. I don’t have to. In the fifteen months since my last look-see, his dossier was filled with one atrocity after another, and I doubt the son of a bitch has found God.
Eventually, Evie loses the tug-of-war with sleep, and I wait until she nods off during the movie’s latest banter-before-sex scene. When her breathing is heavy and deep, I confiscate the bowl from her lap still filled with popcorn, M&Ms, and one headless gummy, and then head out.