The Housewife Assassin's Hostage Hosting Tips (Housewife Assassin Series Book 9) (15 page)

Try as I might, I can’t tamp down my smile. It’s all Henry needs to know he’s won me over.

But he loses me all over again when he adds, “Of course, I will personally be on hand to turn down your sheets.”
 

It’ll be much more fun to see the look on his face when he finds Jack under the blanket.

He assumes the smile on my face is my pleasure regarding what’s to come that night. Hardly.

I’m just about to pluck the security card from his hand when he slides it back into his pants pocket.
 

No, this isn’t a game of Go Fish. It’s straight out high stakes poker.

As if reading my thoughts, he says, “The card will be waiting for you at check-in, as soon as you sign the new event contract.”

Fair enough.

The next candidate for my job, Jenny McDougal, is not exactly a
femme fatale.
 

Let me put it this way–calling her “homely” is being generous.
 

Gargoyle is a more apt description.

The former CIA analyst is tall and thin. Her nose is hooked, her skin is pockmarked, her teeth are bucked, her glasses are Coke-bottle thick, and her bright red hair is coiled so tightly that it looks like a rusted Brillo Pad.
 

It also doesn’t help that she sports a ’stache that’s thicker than Henry’s.

Well, too bad. Jenny is a crack shot, knows several Chinese dialects, and she holds the highest belt in Judo, Chun Kuk Do, and Japanese fencing. Not to mention that her psychological profile came through with flying colors–

Okay, except for one little anomaly. Dr. Bellows gets straight to the point: “While under hypnosis, she divulged her fear of rejection, because of her looks. Or as she put it, ‘No guy will mug me, let alone date me.’”
 

“Is it so bad that it’ll be a deterrent to her role as a honeypot?”

“Afraid so.” He grimaces. “Unless her target is a blind man.”

I’m glad she’s outside in the reception area and can’t hear him.

I make it to her side just in time to witness the true test that she may not work out. Dominic has just entered the building. When he sees me, he asks in his typical stentorian decibel level, “Ah, Mrs. Stone, there you are! I presume your comely charge will be joining you any moment now?”

“As a matter of fact, she’s right here.” I grab hold of Jenny by her arm in order to pull her onto her feet.

It seems I’ve caught her off guard. Jiggling her arm while she freshened her lipstick created a larger lower lip than what’s really there.

When she smiles, Dominic backs away, horrified.

To break Dominic’s stare, I say, “Jenny and I were just about to go to lunch. Would you care to join us?”

He gives the lamest excuse possible–that he’s needed on a conference call with POTUS–and scurries off in the opposite direction.

Totally bogus. I know for a fact that the last person Lee Chiffray would call at Acme is someone whom he refers to as, “that pompous pretty boy.”
 

That’s okay. Where I’m taking Jenny, we don’t need him tagging along. “You’ve passed all your tests with flying colors,” I tell her proudly. “What do you say we go out and celebrate? We’ll have a spa day!”

Perplexed, her unibrow knits together like an Amazonian underbrush hit with a stiff wind. “Um…okay. If you think it’s necessary. I’m a soap-and-water kind of girl, myself.”

“All the more reason to reward yourself–on Acme’s dime, too.”

As we head out the door, I text the Sunset Tower Hotel to reserve two suites, as well as a deluxe spa package. Jenny will be given the works: a Turkish Hammam treatment, seaweed detox, milk bath, the premiere HydraFacial, and an hour-long massage. Afterward, she’ll be treated to a haircut and highlights, and a makeover by one of the Tower’s celebrity salon stylists. By the time she gets back to her suite, she’ll find it filled with designer duds and shoes in her size, courtesy of Beverly Hills’ go-to personal shopper, Nicole Hopper.

Not only will Jenny feel like a million dollars, she’ll look like it too. Tomorrow when she’s good and relaxed, on the way back to the office I’ll talk her into laser surgery to correct her vision.

Okay, yeah, and maybe just a smidge of rhinoplasty.

This job changes you in so many ways.

The Sunset Tower Hotel’s terrace bar is crowded. It goes without saying that all the chaises around the pool are taken. The only place left to stand was against one of the three-foot-tall glass guardrails that separate the terrace from a dead drop, some eleven stories above Sunset Boulevard.

Even before we turn back around from admiring the sunset view, a waiter hands us a couple of champagne flutes.

Jenny looks flustered. “We haven’t ordered yet,” she tells him.

He points toward a man lying on the chaise furthest from us. I recognize him as a lead actor in one of the latest and greatest Marvel blockbusters.

“Not too shabby,” I murmur as I nod toward him.

Jenny follows my gaze. Her eyes grow large when she realizes who he is. She practically faints when she notices that her drink is accompanied by a written invitation to meet him tomorrow for dinner.

“He’s smiling at you,” I murmur.

She blushes at the thought. “Hot damn! I guess he’s as blind as me.”

At my suggestion, she took off her clunky old lady glasses for the evening. I figured, why muck up a work of art? In the past few hours, her ’stache was zapped with electrolysis, and the make-up artist did wonders in hiding the manly arch in her nose while accentuating her sky-high cheekbones.
 

Action Hero Hottie isn’t the only one vying for her attention. Gawking is rampant. A five-foot eleven beauty with a long mane of red tendrils in an electric blue Alice + Olivia croc leather V-back mini-dress and five-inch heels is sure to cause a fuss, even in Hollywood’s see-and-be-seen hotel.
 

Finally, Jenny honors Action Hero Hottie with an uncertain wave. “I feel like Cinderella,” she murmurs.
 

“Good, because your new job is all about role playing,” I remind her. “Being beautiful is all up here, anyway.” I tap my forehead with a newly manicured finger.

Her smile fades. “So is being ugly. I was told that enough when I was a little girl.”

“Your parents?”

“Singular–parent. My mother. But only when she was sober, which wasn’t often.”
 

I guess that’s why it took me some convincing to have her order even a white wine spritzer. “The cut is always deepest from those we love most.”

“Cut? Ha! It’s the only thing she didn’t threaten to do.” She looks down into her drink. “I thought getting punched in the face was bad enough”–she points to the bridge of her nose–“until she put out her cigarette on my thigh.” She lifts her skirt just high enough to show me a large dark blemish.
 

I shake my head. “How old were you?”

“Twelve. One of her asshole boyfriends had just made a play for me. He got a blowjob, and I got this.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Jenny.” I glance around the terrace bar. “Well, I guess tonight is proof that Mommy Dearest was dead wrong about you. I mean, just look at you now! You could pass as a runway model. Most women would envy your figure.”

She snickers. “Hey, let’s give my new push-up bra credit where it’s due. It’s the only reason I look even a tiny bit curvy. Let’s face it, I’m way too skinny for my height.”
 

To prove it, she turns sideways–only to trip on the low-lying ledge securing the glass wall that stands between us and oblivion.

Quickly, I grab her elbow and hold on until she catches her balance.
 

She sighs. “That proves I’ll never be on a couture catwalk.”

“It’s okay. In our job, being built for designer couture is an asset. You fake a model’s life only if the mission calls for it.”
 

“Good to know. At least there’s one advantage to starvation. Your stomach shrinks so much that you never develop an appetite.”

“Didn’t your mother qualify for food stamps?”

“You better believe it! And on good days, the cuisine was baloney-mayo-and-white-bread sandwiches. But Mama had a habit of washing down her sandwich with a fifth of cheap vodka.”

“I thought you couldn’t buy booze with food stamps.”

“You can’t. She earned her drinks the hard way: on her back, legs spread.” Her eyes darken with sadness.

Time to change the topic. “How did you end up at Langley?”

Once again, her smile emerges. “All it takes is one great teacher to inspire you, right? Mine was my ninth grade French teacher. She was shocked at how easily I picked up the language. When Mama disappeared on a permanent binge, she talked my social worker into allowing me to be her ward. It paid off with a full scholarship to MIT in Asian Studies, with a minor in Geography. I was recruited right after earning my Masters in International Studies.” She smiles sadly. “The rest, as they say, is history. No, make that salvation, because that’s what it was. I became someone because of it.” She looks down at her dress. “And now I’m reborn again. No longer an ugly duckling, but a swan.”

I nudge her. “Your not-so-secret admirer is making his way over. It’s a perfect opportunity to practice a little spycraft. Let’s see what kind of false identity and cover you can come up with on the fly.” I hold a finger to my lips. “Remember, Cinderella, this is a fantasy. Just keep it fun and games.”

“Aye, aye, madam.” She salutes me.
 

Our laughter must be infectious because the first question out of Action Hero’s mouth is, “What’s so funny?”
 

I step aside so that he can make his move. He comes in close–so close in fact that he and Jenny bump heads. He doesn’t know that she can’t see six inches in front of her nose.
 

So that she doesn’t give this away, she smiles, nods, and laughs in all the right places while he chats her up: an anecdote about something that happened recently on the set of his latest movie.

Jenny plays her role well–that of the bemused princess. To prove that he’s clever enough to win the keys to her kingdom, Action Hero goes into pantomime. But when he tries to illustrate that the story is getting even funnier, he makes a sudden move.
 

For someone who’s practically blind, her instinct is natural: to take a step backward.
 

Only, in this case, there is no backward.
 

Her foot smacks into the security ledge of the glass handrail. She looks like a windmill with her hands flailing. But at almost six feet, gravity gets the better of her.

Proof that Hottie isn’t really an action hero is that he’s not quick enough, or strong enough, to break her fall.
 

For that matter, neither am I.

For the longest time, he and I stare down at her broken body on the pavement below.

When we turn around, we are faced with an army of cell phone cameras.

Like me, Action Hero Hottie knows enough to put his hands over his face. As he rushes out, he shouts, “I–I didn’t touch her, I swear!”

The security cameras will validate his claim. Still, my guess is that it won’t help his career.

Nor mine, for that matter. I have a lot of explaining to do.

I guess it’s a good thing that I’ll soon be retired–granted only seven days, five hours and three minutes, to be exact. But who’s counting?
 

After this incident, Ryan more than likely.