“Is it going to be a problem that I’m putting the purchase through my corporation?” Anton asked. Just another layer of privacy. It wasn’t as if they could completely wipe the house off the map, but he could make it as hard as possible for people to find out anything about the buyer. He would be using a separate corporation the guys had set up—unconnected to the spa he owned in the city.
“Oh, no problem at all. I’ve handled a lot of large estate purchases bought through corporations,” she said.
Anton nodded. Black and White Industries had been the most nondescript and innocuous name they could all come up with. They’d hidden their own identities behind multiple layers of contacts—many nonexistent in reality. And nobody’s real name was on anything. It had taken some doing, but then, Anton knew a lot of interesting people. As far as Phyllis knew, Anton’s name was Alexander Aristov. And that was what he would sign on the paperwork.
He took another look around the entry hall. He had a good feeling about this place. “Get the papers together. I’m ready to move on this.”
Phyllis’s face broke into a huge smile. “Fantastic.”
43
One Week Later
The truth was a malleable and ever-changing thing to Annette Waincott. She couldn’t help it really. It wasn’t malicious. She’d just always been this way. It was so much nicer to tell a beautiful lie than a disappointing truth. The tendency had started in childhood, and when she kept getting away with it, she kept going. She had a sweet, innocent face and long, fair hair that made it hard to believe there was even one deceitful bone in her body.
The morning of July eighth had dawned much the same as any other morning, except for the pounding headache.
The alcohol had flowed too freely the night before. And the hangover...God, the hangover. Annette was never drinking again.
Possibly another lie—they blended together after a while.
She wasn’t sure if it had been vodka goggles, but the man at the club had been incredibly hot. And Jesus, that accent. He could probably kill her with that gorgeous lilting Russian accent. She hadn’t told him her name, and so he’d called her kiska, which he claimed was a term of endearment. She wasn’t sure she believed that. For all she knew he’d been calling her a slut or a bitch all night. But it had sounded so lovely rolling off his tongue either way.
She was half-surprised he wasn’t in bed with her now, but then puking on a man’s shoes wasn’t exactly foreplay. Annette sighed. Too bad she’d never been able to hold her liquor. She didn’t know his name, either. And she was quite sure she’d never see him again to learn it.
Annette stumbled out of bed and pulled all the blinds closed. Darkness. She needed darkness. And silence. And coffee.
Halfway through a bagel and a cup of coffee, the previous night began to come into sharper focus. Maybe too-sharp focus. She’d been in fine form, stringing the hot Russian along with all her kinky fantasies. If only he’d been paying for all that dirty talk in more than just drinks.
The only trouble was, she didn’t have kinky fantasies. When it came to her fantasy life, she was a blank slate for other people to write on. Where would she find the space to discover her own pleasure when everything about her was such a carefully crafted lie?
The business line rang. Was he early? Annette glanced at the clock on the wall. Nope. She was late. Ten thirty on the dot. Always so punctual. The high-rolling business suits always were. She’d no doubt been penciled in like all his other meetings. Annette imagined he locked his office door and shut the blinds for these calls while his hand slipped into his pants to touch himself to the story she spun around him like a warm, sultry cocoon.
Annette sat on a bar stool and answered, fighting past the hangover to put a sexy purr in her voice “Hello, Stan.”
“Jessica, I missed you.”
“Oh, don’t be silly. It’s only been two days.”
“Why can’t we meet?”
She sighed. It was going to be a banner day if the wheedling was already starting.
Clients always wanted this. To meet. She shouldn’t complain. After all, the phone sex business wasn’t what it used to be. She was lucky to have the clients she had. Men wanted cam girls now, but the game was a man always wanted more. If you gave him voice, he wanted your pussy on cam. If you gave him that, he wanted your face. And almost always they wanted to meet and fuck you for real. But she wasn’t a prostitute. Phone sex was just a fantasy. Just another beautiful lie—one she was good at. She’d always believed one should go with their strengths.
“Stan...”
“Take your panties off,” he said, his voice gruff.
Okay, that was more like it. Maybe she wouldn’t have to have the same tired argument after all. Annette took out a bottle of dark red polish and began painting her nails—not exactly the best smell to go with a hangover, but she had to do something to pass the time.
“Are they off?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, making her voice more breathy while she painted her pinky with the dark red color. “I’ve been wet all morning thinking about you, waiting to talk to you.” She let out a theatric whimper. Then her voice turned conspiratorial. “I found a cucumber in the fridge. Do you want me to fuck myself with it?”
A chuckle. “You dirty little slut. Yes. Fuck yourself hard. Hold the phone down there so I can hear how wet you are.”
Annette put the lid back on the bottle of polish and pressed a button on the CD player at the edge of the counter, skipping to track three. She held the phone next to the speaker. Who knew if that girl was fucking herself with something or if she was faking, too. Either way, it sounded real. As did the moaning.
She let Stan have about a minute of this before she turned the CD player off and put the phone back to her ear.
“Come on, Jessica. Meet me. I make a lot of money. I could make you comfortable and happy. And I’d give you all the dick-shaped produce you wanted to pound that sweet little pussy with.”
Annette made a few fake sex noises, trying to distract him and get the call back on course. She would have dragged it out with a much longer tease to make more money if she hadn’t needed to get him away from the meeting-in-person talk. The company she worked for preferred they keep the callers on as long as possible. Girls who met and exceeded time quotas regularly got end-of-the-month bonuses. Those bonus checks really helped pay the bills.
“Please,” he said. His breath had gone deeper, heavier. She might not really be doing anything she told him she was doing, but Stan was. He was about to come. “I need to meet you.”
“You know I don’t meet clients.”
“It’s because you’re fat and ugly,” he barked suddenly.
Well. Normally it took longer for a client to escalate to that level of bitterness. Mrs. Stan must not be giving him anything at home. Not Annette’s problem.
She disconnected the call without a word of reply. About twenty percent of her clients ended this way. They were all worked up with nothing warm and wet to stick it inside. The tease who refused to make good on her dirty phone sex promises was an easy target.
Annette opened her laptop to log into the company site. The one benefit to not being fully independent was that no one had her real number. She sent Sherry an email request to remove Stan from the client list and not to patch another call from him through.