Revenge for Hire (The Get Even Agency) (3 page)

The way she said the words condemned. She found the task
degrading. Mrs.
Sedwick
was a motherly sort and loved
doting on him. Of course, this living, breathing Venus couldn’t know that. Perhaps
to another the task would be menial. Then again, she was his assistant and at
the company to make his life easier. Getting rid of his headache would make
life easier.

Sexual release would make his life easier.

A hell of a lot easier. Because his temples weren’t the only
part of his body throbbing.

Jude wanted this woman. Badly. More than he recalled ever
wanting a woman.

Which was ridiculous. He didn’t even know her.

Even he had his limits.

He didn’t sleep with complete strangers.

Of course, right now he didn’t sleep with anyone.

What had he been thinking when he made that vow?

Oh yeah. Extra motivation to help his best friend get out of
his post-divorce depression.

“What’s your name?”

“Angela.”

Getting answers from her was like pulling teeth. Slow and
painful.

Angela. He liked it. Didn’t Angela mean angel? She certainly
looked like she could have dropped straight from heaven. Come to think of it,
she reminded him of that actress Angelina Jolie. The Angela before him was
pretty damned perfect-appearing.

“Angela what?”

“Angela Greene.” She pursed her all-too-tempting lips.

He might want her, but it was quite obvious she didn’t
reciprocate the feeling.

Fascinating.

How long had it been since a woman presented a challenge?

“Married?”

Her gaze narrowed. “That’s none of your business, Mr. Layman.”

“Polite conversation makes working relationships more
tolerable.”

“I’ll only be here a few days. Surely I’ll be able to tolerate you
that long.” With that his angel spun on her toes and sashayed out of his office
with the
clickety
-clack of “do me” high-heeled shoes.

Mrs.
Sedwick
never wore shoes like
that.

Jude supposed he was on the verge of being a jerk, watching Angela
as she walked away. Watching and enjoying the view.

Had to be because he knew he couldn’t have her making him ache
to know more about what made Angela Greene tick.

Who was she and what was it about her that made him want to
dive right in?

* * *

Avery had made a grave miscalculation.

Even the slightest miscalculations were unacceptable.

The colossal one she’d just made was deplorable.

Not that she thought he’d noticed.

Jude Layman had been too busy seeing her as a sex object to
notice her reaction to him. A reaction she’d done her best to mask.

But she’d failed.

How was she to know looking at him would make her
sweat
?

Sweat in places she hadn’t known sweated.

Her neck, her breasts, her
thighs
.

She certainly wasn’t attributing the moistness down there to
anything other than sweat, that was for sure.

That perverted bastard had
not
turned her on with his
unusual eyes and movie star good looks.

He was a user, a cheater, a liar.

He totally saw women as only sex objects for his amusement. Or
to feature in his degrading magazine.

She slid into the seat she would occupy until Mrs.
Sedwick
came back. From Jude’s photos she’d known he was a
gorgeous man, but the camera hadn’t caught his charisma, the air about him that
oozed with testosterone and pheromones and whatever else it was that made her
feel like a silly school girl. One who wanted to clamor for his attention.

No wonder Playhouse Magazine was so successful. What woman
wouldn’t take off her clothes if Jude Layman asked her to?

Avery’s cell phone rang.

She glanced at the display panel.

Randi.

She dropped the phone back into the chunky black purse she
carried as part of her Angela Greene persona. She didn’t feel like answering
Randi’s questions about Jude at the moment. Tonight would be soon enough to
deal with her partner’s curiosity.

Frankly, she didn’t know what to say.

She’d met the mark and she’d had to fight to remain focused.

Her. The woman who didn’t enjoy sex and had never been
attracted to a target. Ha. She was never attracted to anyone. Not since Scott
and that had been eons and a broken heart ago.

So why now? Why Jude Layman?

She glanced up and saw him lounging against the doorframe. A
knot formed in her throat. Long and lean, dressed in black slacks and a black
shirt that clung to his broad chest like a second skin, he watched her with an
intensity that frightened her just a little.

Or maybe the fear came in secondary to the feminine excitement
that jettisoned through her veins at the prospect of spending the next few days
in his company. The fear that she was jealous of a black knit shirt wrapped
around those shoulders, his chest, and his narrow waist.

“Thanks for the aspirin.” He smiled. He had the most amazing of
lips. Full and soft and sensuous. Lips that made a woman want to trace her
finger over them. Lips that made a woman want to know what they’d feel like
pressed against hers. Her lips. Her throat. Her breasts. Her belly. No! She
wouldn’t continue with that downward train of thought.

“I’m feeling better already,” he said, his eyes lazy and heavy
with interest.

She wasn’t interested. Not really.

He wouldn’t be feeling better long.

“Fine.” Had she sounded too brusque? How dare he attract her? Just
because he had those eyes, marvelous lips, and that cleft chin and that…oh! She
had to stop. “You’re welcome.”

He grinned, like he found her annoyance with him amusing. Fine,
she’d be the one amused in about thirty minutes.

“When Mrs. Yamaguchi arrives, send her in.”

“Yes.” She refused to look at him.
The bastard
. Maybe if
she ignored him, he’d take the hint and go back into his office.

An office that surprised her. She’d expected pin-ups and girly
calendars and other such paraphernalia. Jude Layman’s office had been the
utmost in refined class for the most part. A sleek mahogany desk and matching
bookshelves. A black leather sofa with a coffee table in front of it with
several copies of Playhouse Magazine scattered on its mahogany surface. A
couple of matching chairs that could be turned toward his desk or the sofa. Of
course, there had been the artsy, foot-high statue of a man and woman locked in
an embrace on his bookshelf and the framed covers of Playhouse Magazine
plastering one wall.
 

After several minutes, she glanced up and met his amused gaze.

He winked. A good-to-honest wink that turned her insides to
putty.

Her breath caught, but she hid her reaction and pretended to
focus on her computer monitor. Pretended because she couldn’t focus on anything
other than the man standing in the doorway.

Oh yeah, she’d made a grave miscalculation all right.

She was pretty sure Jude Layman had the power to undermine
every single thing she’d convinced herself of since Scott walked away with her virginity
and her heart.

Things like her being impervious to men.

She’d ignore whatever the odd attraction Jude held was and
she’d bring him down. Just as planned.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

She knew the rules and Avery always played by the rules.

She’d co-written this particular set.

Revenge for hire, that was her game, her sisterhood, her life.

Chapter Three

Jude was having problems concentrating on Mrs. Yamaguchi even
before his stomach started roiling. He blamed the stench of her heavy perfume. That
and the headache he’d already been suffering from. Unfortunately, the aspirin
hadn’t knocked the pain and the cloud floating around Mrs. Yamaguchi sent him
from bad to worse.

“You understand that for my company to continue advertising in
your magazine, we expect a higher quality ad than the one from last month?” the
petite Japanese-American woman said. Mrs. Yamaguchi’s company represented a big
chunk of Playhouse’s advertising revenue. A very big chunk.

Needless to say, Jude couldn’t afford to offend her and
unfortunately the woman was easily offended.

“Actually, your marketing people sent the ad. We ran it as was
as we were directed to do.” An invisible fist grabbed hold of his gut and
twisted. Jude gritted his teeth, ignored the perspiration beading along the
edge of his hairline and neck, and forced a smile. “But, I take full responsibility.”
He clenched his hand at the next stomach pain that hit. “We should have caught
that the ad wasn’t up to par and asked for a resend.”

A loud gurgle had Mrs. Yamaguchi’s eyes dropping to his
midsection and not in the usual way she stared at his crotch.

She spoke, but he didn’t hear, just saw her mouth moving.

His face burned and his gut threatened to burst. An
embarrassing squeak sounded and Mrs. Yamaguchi’s mouth shut and her eyes
rounded.

Hell fire.

Fire. Yup. That’s what was moving through his insides. Hell
freaking fire!

“Excuse me.” He couldn’t stand the cramping anymore and took
off out of his office at
mach
one speed, clutching
his stomach and breaking the sound barrier all the way.

* * *

Avery hid her smile at Jude’s rushed getaway from his office. One
hand covered his mouth and the other clutched his stomach. Pink flushed his face
and his skin looked slick.

He didn’t seem amused anymore.

“Well, I never,” Mrs. Yamaguchi huffed when she came out of Jude’s
office.

“Really?” Avery smiled politely. “Because that’s not what Jude
says about you.” She gave a sugary sweet once-over and pretended to have the IQ
of a bean. “He says you do and quite often if rumors can be believed. How else
would you know all that sex research stuff?”

The woman’s mouth dropped, and her gaze narrowed. “That
arrogant meathead.”

She lifted her chin and stalked from the office.

Avery puckered her lips and kissed the air.

Because Jude would definitely have to do some
hiney
-smooching to get back into Mrs. Yamaguchi’s good
graces. He’d do it, too. Otherwise, he’d have to say bye-bye big advertising
account.

Mentally, she scored one for The Get Even Agency and scorned
women
every where
.

Avery busied herself with Mrs.
Sedwick’s
job. Perhaps while doing the woman’s day-to-day things she’d uncover yet
another way to get beneath Jude’s skin.

Which was the wrong way to think because getting beneath
anything of Jude’s distracted. Way too much.

Focus, Avery, focus
.

Minutes later, the distraction returned. The edges of his
sexily tousled hair were damp, as if he’d splashed water onto his face. His
skin still carried a flush and his eyes shined bright. His stylish clothes had
a slightly disheveled appearance.

Even so, something about him appealed. And left her feeling a
tad guilty.

Perhaps it was the self-deprecating grin he gave her when their
eyes met.

“Was that a freight train coming through here, or what?”

She didn’t answer and he glanced toward his open office door.

“Mrs. Yamaguchi left while the leaving was good?”

Avery kept her expression pert. It would be way too easy to
actually like Jude. Liking a target, feeling guilty, could only lead to
problems. That’s why she preferred the quickies. No time to ever know more than
just the basic facts. Which in this case was that Jude had used a young woman
in such a horrendous way that her father would never take her seriously. He’d
robbed her of her pride, her self-respect, and her dignity.

He’d even dissed Randi.

No one dissed a TGEA girl. All for one and one for all.

“She left, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Crap.”

“Yes,” Avery stared at the computer monitor as if the screen contained
the answers to all mankind’s problems, “she mentioned something about crap, too.”

She heard him snort.

“Yeah, well, I’m in a whole heap load if you can’t get her to
agree to come back.”

Her? Avery frowned. Wrong answer. Jude would have to do his own
puckering up.

She glanced at him, determined to tell him to do his own
suck-up work, but his face had gone pale.

He groaned, doubled over, and ran towards the bathroom.

Later. He’d have to pucker up much later.

* * *

“Tell us everything,” Courtney demanded the moment Avery
entered their apartment.

Avery kicked off her heels, pushed them neatly against the
wall, and dropped the over-sized black purse that contained the
tricks-of-her-trade next to them.

“I thought you were out on a job today,” she said, wondering
why Courtney was home.

“I was.” Courtney stuck her finger in her mouth and then
air-pressed her finger in front of her while making a sizzling sound. “My mark
crashed and burned. Mission accomplished.”

A quickie. Avery sank onto the sofa. She should have taken that
job and let Courtney have Jude Layman.

Courtney would have Jude naked on that big leather sofa in his
office faster than she could say nudie magazine. Not good.

“Quit scowling. It’ll give you wrinkles,” Cassidy warned as she
walked into the living room carrying popcorn. Payback Puss followed closely on
her heels, meowing and eyeing the popcorn. The crazy cat loved popcorn. “Don’t
tell me that look’s because Jude Layman blew you off, too?”

“Not exactly.” It pleased her that she told the truth. Which
annoyed her. She shouldn’t care that Jude had been interested. At least until
he’d taken the afternoon off to have a friend drive him to his doctor, providing
Avery the opportunity to bug his office and set up two surveillance cameras. She’d
also taken advantage of his absence to get a good feel of the magazine’s layout.

“Do tell.” Cassidy sat Indian-style on the opposite end of the
sofa, hugged the bowl of popcorn to her, and looked like an eager child
awaiting a story.

“I gave him one of the specially made tablets Danielle compounded
for us.”

Cassidy popped a handful of popcorn into her mouth, shook her
head at the cat, and then mumbled, “The pharmacist whose husband stole medicine
from her pharmacy and tried to let her take the wrap for it?”

“That’s the one.”

Courtney tossed Payback Puss a piece of popcorn. “Do we still
have any of those special blend Viagra and Testosterone tablets she made? I
used the last one I had on a date a while back.”

“You didn’t,” Cassidy gasped.

Courtney nodded smugly. “It was possibly the best night of my
life. The kind of night that makes you
wanna
sing
hallelujah at the top of your lungs.”

“Hello, is this the same girl who was worried she might be
losing it?”

“Okay, so you have a point.” Courtney grinned sheepishly.
 
“So, do we have any more?”

Avery had one in her purse’s arsenal. Today hadn’t been the
right time to give Jude an unstoppable boner, but if the right opportunity
presented itself she might give him one. “A few, but they’re not for personal
use. You know that. That’s just not ethical and beneath us. You know better. Just
as you know the vet said not to let Payback Puss eat popcorn.”

Having clients from all walks of life came in tremendously
handy. When they’d asked the pharmacist if she could help them with some super
strength, quick-acting compounds, the lady happily obliged.

All the tablets were identical to regular aspirin. If the
tablets ever got mixed up, there would be no way for the girls to even know
which was which so they kept them carefully sorted.

“You going to use one on stud boy?”

Images of she and Jude tangled in a silky bed sheet whipped
through her mind. With the tablet, Jude would be hot and hungry for her.

No. No. No.

Jude was a mark, not a potential lover.

Avery shrugged with a nonchalance she didn’t feel. “Seducing
him isn’t the game plan for Jude Layman. If he resisted Randi, there’s not much
I can do in that category.”

Remembering the way he’d looked at her when she’d brought him
the water and what they affectionately labeled “the gut bomb” tablet, she
wasn’t so sure Jude would have resisted her. He hadn’t ignored her sexually. He’d
looked interested. Very interested. Like he wouldn’t be averse to her tangled
sheet—and bodies—image.

Phew. She fanned her shirt away from her skin. There she went
to sweating all over again.

She couldn’t like him, couldn’t be attracted to him, couldn’t
anything in regards to Jude except make him pay and pay dearly for what he’d
done to Mandy.

“What’s wrong?” Cassidy asked, watching Avery way too closely.

“Nothing.” She glanced at the remote in Courtney’s hand. “Start
the movie.”

“Not a movie. Surveillance of that guy in Boston we were
contacted on last week.”

Avery’s brows knotted together. “You hired a local P.I. to get
the goods on him?”

“Yep. He thinks I’m the expectant mother of dude’s child and
that I want to see what kind of daddy he’ll make before risking bringing him
into my little one’s life.”

“Isn’t that hitting it a little too close to the truth?”

Courtney shrugged. “Nah. Aidan doesn’t suspect anything. He
sent this to the PO Box in Boston like instructed and I had Ginny Stringer, you
remember Ginny from university?” They all nodded. Ginny had been one of their
first clients after she was date raped by a campus dickhead. The popular guy
got off
scott
-free, but Ginny had dropped out of
school due to the cruel treatment she received on campus. TGEA reaped a justice
far more suiting than anything the legal system could have dished out. “She
works for the Post Office there and had it over-
nighted
.”

“What’s on the tape?”

Courtney shrugged. “Aidan just said I should watch it and then
make up my own mind. He emailed a detailed report on everything he discovered.”

“That’s two times you’ve said his name,” Avery pointed out,
wondering at the light in Courtney’s eyes.

“He’s the P.I.”

Avery curled up on the sofa and watched. She had to give the P.I.
credit. He’d done a thorough job and the video footage was excellent. The mark
was a total sleaze and apparently thought nothing of having a different woman
every night despite the fact his long time live-in girlfriend was pregnant. The
girlfriend had been the one to request TGEA’s services. She’d wanted to know if
he was cheating on her or was she just being paranoid like he accused?

So much for paranoia.
 

“This P.I. is good.” The footage was concise, to the point. “Does
he do anything outside the Boston area?” Avery asked. From time-to-time they
subbed out investigative work to locals. Good P.I.’s were hard to come by.

“Mostly just local stuff. He does travel some, though, because
that’s how I originally met him. I think he’s a single dad. He had a picture of
a little girl on his desk.” Courtney looked distracted and she ran a finger
through her spiky white blond hair. “I should check on that.”

“You were in his office? Met him face-to-face?” Sometimes Courtney
and Randi took too many chances with protecting their identities.

“Hel-lo.” Courtney rolled her eyes. “He thought I was pregnant
with jerk-off here’s baby.”

“You were in disguise?”

Courtney nodded and made a round belly motion. “I was a
brunette when I went to his office.” She gave a duh look, then waggled her
plucked brows in a pure Courtney move. “Otherwise, he might have recognized me
from the night I slipped him the magic pill.”

“What?” Avery and Cassidy both asked at the same time.

Courtney waggled her brows again, but Avery didn’t quite buy
her devil-may-care-attitude. “He’s the one I used the magic pill on.”

“Oh my gosh, Courtney.” Cassidy shook her head. “What were you
thinking?”

She shrugged. “That I wanted him to keep it up all night. We
were going to have sex anyway, so it’s no big deal.”

Avery groaned. “You drugged the man.”