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“Okay, this is just downright freaky.” Andre murmured, massive hands stuffed into the even more massive pockets of his lime green suit jacket. “You didn’t have him cloned, did you?” The big man swiveled his whopper-like head down to stare at Zoey.
Zoey peered up at him, brow arched. “We can do that?” She realized how dumb the question sounded as soon as it left her lips. In a world with criminally spastic billionaires and tech-powered super villains, cloning was probably hanging down at the very bottom of the ‘crazy shit’ list. “Never mind, don’t answer that, I don't wanna know.”
As one, they both turned back to look at the woman waiting in the expansive foyer of the Casa.
If Will Blackwater did have a clone, it was most definitely this woman, with her perfectly coiffed black curls and stunning green eyes. She had been poured into a stunning cornflower blue suit, cut to cling to her hourglass figure in a way that showed off all her curves. The collar of her blindingly white button-down opened to reveal to the hint of cleavage, decorated with a single teardrop diamond necklace hung from her neck, just begging people to follow the silver-plated line down right into her ample bosom.
The whole ensemble probably cost as much as the chair she was sitting daintily upon, seeing how Arthur Livingston delighted in buying expensive, useless shit to show off his insane wealth. Her father didn’t do extravagance by halves, and Zoey thought she was following in his footsteps.
Which would explain what the woman was doing at the Casa in the first place. She, Lillian Grimm, was hopefully the last in a long line of potential female suitors for one Will ‘God Damn Him Straight To Hell’ Blackwater.
Andre shook his head. “I told you once, I told you a thousand times, it ain’t gonna work.”
“You just wanna bang her yourself.” Zoey rejoindered.
“Also true, but it still ain’t gonna work. The dude is where pussy goes to die.” Andre freed one hand from his pocket to scrub it across his jaw thoughtfully. “And that’s not a crack on his dead wife, rest her poor soul. I don't think I've seen him with a woman once after she died. For a while there, I thought maybe he'd switched teams, after it all went down. Still kinda do, given the givens.”
Zoey frowned up at him petulantly. “Don't be a turd in the punchbowl, okay? It just didn’t work before because I wasn’t thinking like a high-class anal-retentive douche. I was thinking he was like any other typical red-blooded American... that he was like you.”
“That was the first of your many mistakes.” Andre said with a chuckle. It had been hilarious to watch Zoey try and fail over and over, but damn was she persistent, which made it even funnier, the harder she tried.
“What was whose mistake?” Echo said, sauntering up to Zoey and Andre in a way that made Zoey insanely jealous. It was why Echo did it, because she knew, the bitch.
Andre pointed a finger, drawing Echo’s attention to Lillian.
Echo groaned. “Oh, god, not this again. I thought we went over this, the man is a living chastity belt. You will never get these two-dollar hoes below Will’s belt.”
“Au contraire, mon frère.” Zoey replied. “That isn’t just some two-dollar hoe. That is Lillian Grimm, the Chief of Operations at Sullivan Financial.”
Echo’s eyebrows jumped into her hairline, spurring Zoey to continue extolling her virtues.
“Top ten in her class at Carnegie-Mellon, graduated summa cum laude, worth a metric butt-ton of mostly legit money, and apparently has sent three male colleagues to the hospital with something called testicular torsion, that I didn’t even know was a thing until I had her checked out.”
“A literal ball-buster.” Andre snorted. “Why does that make her even hotter?”
Echo grinned. “Because you’re a perverted sadomasochist?”
"Bitch, you don't know me!" Andre quipped sarcastically, before shrugging. “But yeah, probably.”
She glanced back at Zoey. “So, the hoes didn’t work, now you’re trying to throw educated businesswomen at him?”
Zoey nodded at Echo's concise nut-shelling. “I figured I needed to think outside the box on this one, if he wasn’t going to give it up to anyone who offered. If it’s less about just sticking it anywhere and more about sticking it somewhere with more than two brain cells to rub together, I needed a high-class woman for a high-class man... but none of the high-class escorts would go anywhere near Will, no matter how much I paid them.”
The fear that the name Will Blackwater struck into the hearts of the denizens of Tabula Ra$a extended far beyond just those who did business with the man. Once Will had spurned the advances of the cheaper, run-of-the-mill prostitutes she'd paid to come on to him, Zoey realized she had to go bigger to get him laid. Unfortunately, she'd found herself going to her competitors in the skin-trade looking for an escort who would willingly have sex with Will, because the ones working at their many brothels were too afraid of Will to go near him.
Even more unfortunately, the women working for her competitors were more afraid of Will than those in Zoey's employ. Apparently, sleeping with the enemy and pissing off their employers wasn’t worth it in the long run.
“So, I brought Ms. Grimm here under the pretenses of hiring her on to the Board, because it hit me that instead of paying for it, I could arrange a genuine interaction with a woman on his level who has the potential to hit it off with him. No hoe is gonna get in his pants, but she might.”
Being a Suit came with a lot of perks, as well as immense power, and just the idea of a job offer had Lillian on a plane from New York in mere hours. No hesitation, no qualms about coming aboard something like Ashe Developments, one of several legitimate enterprises Zoey owned, as cover to the several dozen illegitimate ones, just an immediate agreement to fly out first thing to meet with them.
Zoey almost felt guilty for the subterfuge, as Lillian seemed like someone she would have actually hired under normal circumstances. Besides, except for Echo, there were too many penises running the show, not just around her but the city in general. A woman of Lillian's caliber and acumen would have been a boon to have in Zoey's pocket, and that made Zoey feel actual guilt, for entirely different reasons, reducing her to nothing more than her genitalia. Goddamn but she was desperate to get Will laid. It would solve so many problems.
Echo whistled lowly, drawing her from her musings. “That’s downright cold-blooded, Zoey.”
She knew it wasn't a compliment. “It’s called perseverance. Or something.” She said, to keep the guilt from finding a place to grow roots.
“Creepy is what it is. It was funny the first few times, now it’s just bordering on psychosis.” It had been entertaining, watching scantily clad women approach Will on the streets, loudly offering to let him stick it anywhere, promising to do multiple obscene (and possibly illegal) acts with him, though the humor quickly wore off as those encounters grew in frequency and inappropriateness. Now she'd lured Lillian to the city under false pretenses, just to throw her at Will like a piece of meat. Echo sighed. “Jesus, you really are becoming your father.”
Zoey gasped, affronted. “You take that back right now, or I’ll have Stench Machine shit in your boots.”
Echo shifted her weight to peer down at her boots, the leather coming up to just below her knee, and then glanced back at Zoey. “If he could get his ass up this high, I’d let him.”
Unable to keep up the appearance of being upset, Zoey burst out laughing. The sound drew the attention of Lillian, who craned her head around to stare at the three of them for their unprofessional behavior.
“Sorry.” Zoey said with a wince, pulling her shoulders up like an embarrassed turtle. “We’re just... shooting the breeze while we wait for Will.”
As if on cue, the front doors opened, revealing Budd suited up in all his ridiculous, rhinestone glory. Even his cowboy hat was decked out with a band of shimmering rhinestones, and Zoey couldn't help but think that he looked like the disco ball at the strip club where her mom used to work.
Behind him was the man in question, in a suit blacker than a woodchuck’s asshole, sans his trench coat in the summer heat, though the ever-present fedora sat perched atop his head. If not for his fearsome reputation, the sheer physical presence of Will Blackwater would be enough to turn heads, overly tall and foreboding, like an undertaker bringing the specter of death with him wherever he went.
Zoey saw Lillian the Ball-Buster gulp when she spotted him, before standing up, smoothing a hand down the front of her shirt nervously. Apparently, Will held sway on the East Coast, enough to make a woman like Lillian apprehensive. It made Zoey want to smack her upside the back of her head. She was supposed to be as formidable as Will, not wilt at the sight of him.
Both Budd and Will gave Lillian a once-over as they passed her on their way over Zoey, Andre, and Echo. Budd’s eyes lingered on her longer than Will’s did, and Zoey’s stomach dropped when she was unable to determine if he found her even the least bit attractive. Physical attraction was the first barrier to making this plan of hers come to fruition and if she lost the battle before it even began, she didn't know what she'd do. Maybe Andre was right, maybe he had given up women altogether. A part of Zoey almost wished that was the case, since it would mean she wouldn't have to worry about Will ever again, for entirely different reasons.
Once Zoey and the Suits were together, they formed a huddle.
“Who’s the filly?” Budd asked immediately, making no effort to be subtle with the volume of his voice or the way he hooked a thumb over his shoulder toward Lillian. The man had no sense of decorum.
Echo rolled her eyes. “She’s here for a ‘job interview', to become our new member.”
Will blinked and fixed Zoey with an icy blue gaze that cut straight into her. “I was unaware that we had a position that needed to be filled.”
It took every ounce of self-control Zoey possessed to not snort at Will’s choice of phrasing. “Well, there’s a lot going on that you aren’t aware of, Will.” She said haughtily, trying to remain calm and not give up the game. For as much as she couldn't read him, the same wasn't true for Will, who had the uncanny ability to see through her at ten paces. It was annoying.
The statement got a reaction out of him, however, just not one that she'd been expecting: anger. Will prided himself on knowing just about everything there was to know, constantly aware of what was going on around him at all times, like he was living in a real life chess game. It was what made him so dangerous. His gaze narrowed and Zoey felt her heart leap into her throat.
“In this instance,” He said evenly, attempting to keep his wits about him, “that statement would be true. But as a general rule, even you know that’s not the case.”
Zoey arched a brow. He wasn’t angry at the idea of not being kept in the loop, he was angry she doubted his abilities. She shook her head, remembering she needed to stick to the plan and couldn’t get caught up on Will getting offended at the implication he was losing his touch. Placing a hand on her hip, Zoey waved her free hand around, trying to pull a believable excuse from the air. “I just think we need some new blood, you know, someone who could lend extra credibility to our business ventures... someone who isn’t another one of your ‘yes men’.”
“Technically, they’re your yes men.” He said, an odd expression coloring his features.
“Technically, you can shut your cock holster.”
Instead of responding to the insult, Will calmly smoothed his hand down his tie, quietly exhaling a frustrated breath. Zoey could see the wheels turning in his head. “Fine. We’ll interview her, so we can end this godawful charade of yours, to... I don’t know, make us fear for our jobs or whatever it is you’ve cooked up this time." It was always a crapshoot, figuring out what sort of mood Zoey would wake up in, and it seemed today she'd woken up feeling malicious.
"What can I say, it's fun keeping you all on your toes."
"Fun for you, maybe... for the rest of us, it's just a waste of time and sanity. But you're the boss and I live to serve."
Zoey narrowed her eyes at Will in faux outrage. "Damn right you do."
Echo muffled a snort in her hand. Will just ignored her. "What’s her name?”
“Lillian Grimm.” Zoey replied.
“Total ball-buster. I like her already.” Andre added, with no small amount of lasciviousness in his voice.
Will seemed to recognize the name and cocked his head to the side appreciatively. “Quite the choice of candidate. If this is a ploy to make us work harder or make us agree to a pay cut, it’s working.”
Zoey grinned broadly at crossing the first hurdle. “Then by all means, have at her, tiger. Just... maybe don't let her near you without wearing a cup.”
"What?" Will asked in confusion.
Andre answered by barking out an ear-splitting laugh.
*~*~*
Stretched out across the backseat of the car, Zoey planted a stockinged foot against the window. They’d been stuck for nearly a half hour and she was getting bored. With her big toe, she traced nonsensical lines over the glass.
“At this rate,” Wu started, breaking the silence, “we could have just gotten out and walked to the restaurant.”
“Like you would let me walk downtown at this hour with just you to have my back.”
Wu chuckled. “Fair point.”
It wasn’t a comment about his inability to do his job, it was more a comment on the voracity of the people who lived in Tabula Ra$a. The moment anyone recognized her, the crowds would swarm with their Blink cameras and questions (or shouted obscenities), and they’d be at the mercies of said swarm. A bodyguard's worst nightmare.
“Should have invited Will, that man is Moses when it comes to crowds.”
Zoey smirked. It was true. Instead of mobbing around one of the most recognizable faces in the city, people tended to move in the opposite direction. Quickly. It was quite a sight to behold. It was one of the many reasons Zoey liked having around him, it made people think twice before approaching her. Add Andre, Echo, and Budd to the mix and it made her feel all but untouchable.
At least for a little while, until news of her public sighting hit the feed and then it was a free-for-all against her. Her foot squeaked across the window, guaranteeing whoever cleaned the car would be confused, and Zoey wished she were as bulletproof as it was, impervious to nearly anything.
“I would have, but he said he was ‘busy’ tonight.”
Wu turned his head to peer back at Zoey. “Oh? You think your little ploy finally worked?”
“It better have. I’m ninety-nine percent certain most of Will’s problems would get solved if he just got laid.” She tried to say it without sounding bitter or childish.
“You remember he was married, right? I’m pretty sure he was still a massive prick even then.” Wu didn’t run in those circles back in the day but everyone in the city knew Will Blackwater’s name, as well as his prolific reputation.
Zoey did know that he’d been married, that he was a widower, and that despite his frightfully cold exterior, he still carried the scars of his wife’s loss with him. It had less to do with making Will a little more congenial and palatable to the rest of them, and more to do with making the man unavailable. If he was unavailable, then Zoey thought maybe she’d the man out of her head and out of her fantasies. It was why she’d gone to such great lengths trying to find someone, anyone, who would take the man to bed.
She wasn't quite sure when it had happened, the change in how she felt about Will, but when it had gone from subconscious to conscious, Zoey knew she had to do something about quashing it. A normal person would have acted on those feelings by making a move on the person they were attracted to, but she wasn't exactly what one would call a normal person, and not just because she was up-jumped trailer trash whose only stable relationship was with her smelly cat. Zoey had dissected her desires three ways from Sunday and determined Will would never give her the time of day. She'd seen pictures of his wife, there was no way in hell he'd ever stoop down to her level. Once that had been determined, Zoey thought the only way to curb those desires was to find someone to take Will off her hands, to tarnish whatever pedestal she'd put him on in her mind. Hence the train of skanks.
When the skanks hadn't worked, that's when she'd called in the big guns. She just hadn't expected it to work so well, or the pain that it had caused.
Lillian had been everything Zoey had hoped she'd be, intelligent, clever, constantly on her toes as the Suits had put her through the wringer. They'd been aware of Zoey's ploy but that hadn't stopped them from treating the interview like it was the real deal. Will had taken the bait, falling into a verbal tango with Lillian until she'd thought the two of them would just rip their clothes off and bang right there on the conference table. Will had even volunteered to escort Lillian back to her car after the interview had ended. At least it meant Andre was wrong and hadn't taken to bedding men in his grief. Zoey had never felt more elated or more miserable.
“Finally.” Wu said and Zoey felt the car begin to move. Groaning morosely at the hole she'd dug herself into, she sat back up, slipping her feet back into her shoes. Zoey patted a hand over the back of her head, fixing her hair where she’d been lying on it. Anyone who saw her would mock her outfit, her weight, or the numerous other things she was an easy target for, but at least they couldn’t say she had flyaways.
A few minutes later, Wu pulled up to the curb and a valet opened the door for her. “Ms. Ashe.” He said politely, hand waiting in case she needed help getting out. Wu came jogging around the other side of the car to escort her up the sidewalk and into the restaurant. She heard a few people shout her name, trying to get her attention so she’d look toward them and at their Blink cameras, but Wu just placed a hand on her back to keep her moving. It was a familiar dance and Zoey just let herself be guided, her thoughts on how she was going to wallow in a metric ton of decadent food that was so not on her diet plan.
When she walked inside, however, and saw Will at the hostess stand, Lillian on his arm, Zoey stopped dead, causing Wu to nearly crash into her.
The entrance was filled with the indolent wealthy and sleazy CEOs all milling around waiting to be seated, but given that Will stood head and shoulders above them all (literally and figuratively), he was easy to spot in the scrum. She never wished harder for a gaping void to open up in the floor to swallow her up. Will and Lillian looked good together, beautiful and statuesque, in a way Zoey never looked when she stood beside him. There was that bitterness again, bubbling up inside of her like acid.
Zoey had to console herself with the idea that at least she would have looked better with him compared to a two-dollar hooker.
“Uhm, did you invite Will and not tell me?” Wu asked, after tracking Zoey’s gaze to see what had caused the pile-up. “Or is this a celebratory thing so you can pop the champagne on a job well done?”
All Zoey could do was shake her head numbly. It was one thing to know you’d been successful and seeing you’d been successful. It wouldn’t have been so hard for her to hear about Will’s sexual conquest after the fact, but seeing the lead up into it was not something she wanted to be around for.
Not sensing her internal struggle, Wu continued on in his job, marching her through the throng of billionaires and local celebrities up to the hostess stand so she could check in for her reservation.
LIllian spotted her first. “Oh, Ms. Ashe, what a lovely surprise.” Will turned upon hearing her name and nodded his head in greeting, though he showed no shock or signs of being upset at seeing her there, too. If anything, he seemed pleased to find her there. Probably so he could rub it in, the jackass.
Zoey managed a brief smile in return, suddenly self-conscious of her teeth, despite the fact that she’d spent most of the afternoon in a fake interview with the woman who hadn’t seemed to care one iota about Zoey’s appearance, as she was more concerned with going over her bonafides. Bonafides that had impressed even Will, who didn’t impress easily. That much was more than apparent, given that they were now on a date. There was no way the restaurant had enough chocolate for her to drown her sorrows in.
“Yeah, what a surprise. I mean, I’m pretty sure this is one of the places I own, but I didn’t expect either of you two to be here.”
“I just thought,” Will started with a modest tone, “that since Lillian had come out this far, the least I could do was treat her to a meal before she returns home.”
“He was ever so kind to ask, as I didn't think I'd get to enjoy anything the city has to offer before leaving, but the hostess went to check on our table ten minutes ago and hasn’t been back since. We could have just gone and bought a hot dog from one of the carts going up and down the street.”
Will cut his hand through the air deferentially. “I’m not sure you should trust any of the meat that comes from those carts. If it even is meat.”
With a crystalline laugh, Lillian playfully smacked Will’s chest. “I’m a New Yorker, born and bred. Paying for mystery meat from strangers is the least of my concerns.”
Will just chuckled at that. "You can rest assured none of the meat on tonight's menu will be a mystery."
Zoey’s eyes widened, staring at him like she’d never met him before. Will Blackwater was chuckling. And making jokes. On purpose. She glanced around to make sure she hadn’t walked into a bizarre, alternate reality. Nope, still the awful reality she was used to.
Thankfully, the hostess chose to return at that moment, a little out of breath and apologetic. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Blackwater, there was a bit of an issue with some other patrons, but it’s resolved now and your table is ready.”
No wonder the woman was sweating, Will could make or break her with a word. She grinned at him nervously. “Please, right this way.”
Will placed his hand on the small of Lillian’s back. “I'm loathe to break up this little chat, but tempus fugit. Enjoy your meal, Zoey. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
“Yeah,” Zoey replied dumbly, “yeah, you two have fun. I’ll see you in the morning.”
With that, Will and Lillian followed the hostess back into the main floor of the restaurant, leaving Zoey as she waved them off, feeling two feet tall. She was supposed to feel happy that she'd been successful in getting Will off the market, even if only for the evening, if not for some unforeseeable amount of time. Zoey had gone through all the rigmarole to squash whatever feelings she had for him, finding a woman Will wanted to bed in order to solidify in her mind that she never stood a chance with him. So why did she feel like someone had punched in her square in the gut?
Beside her, Wu folded his arms across his chest, watching the two of them walk away. “Damn, I can’t believe that actually worked. Turns out you're an evil genius after all. Good for you, Zoey.”
“Uh-huh... good for me.” She said, before adding quietly, “fuck...”
*~*~*
Wending their way through the tables, Lillian turned to grin at Will. “You think she bought it?”
Will smirked back at her, blue eyes alight with a wicked sort of glee. “Yes, I believe she did. Brief, yet subtle enough not to come off forced. An excellent piece of performance art, if I do say so myself. Thanks in no small part to your assistance."
"I must admit, I was hesitant at first, agreeing to all this, but I'm actually having a lot of fun." The hostess led them to their table and Will politely pulled out her chair. She sat down, eyes on Will as he took his own seat. "I sort of feel like a spy. It's much more fun than the corporate espionage I'm accustomed to."
Taking a napkin off the table and placing it across his lap, Will flicked his eyes up to Lillian. "Don't get too comfortable, I made certain we'd be placed in full view of Zoey's table." Will straightened in his chair, glancing over his shoulder to an empty table several yards away. "Childish, yes, but I was nearing my wit’s end with this insane charade of hers.” He'd only given Lillian the abridged version of the events leading up to to their evening, but it had been enough to convince her to help him.
"Desperate people resort to desperate measures." She replied, leaving the comment open-ended enough to let Will make his own inferences as to whom she was referring. "But maybe now she’ll come to her senses, seeing the fruits of her efforts laid bare before her, and it’ll work out for the both of you. I’m just a little sad the job offer turned out not to be real.”
“After this, I’ll make sure your company becomes our go-to for all our financial needs. With any luck, it will be enough impetus for them to open a branch in Tabula Ra$a... with you at the helm, of course.” Will always made certain those who helped him out were well taken care of, not just because it kept them neatly in his pocket for whenever he needed them, and name dropping Lillian to the right people would be enough to assure that happened. "I think that just barely scratches the surface in recompense for what I owe you."
Lillian’s expression warmed. “The Magician at work, and what a sight to behold. Strange as this all is, though, I can see why she likes you so much. Even if she did try to have multiple women to sleep with you... she’s quite odd, isn’t she?”
Will nodded, unable to argue with the sentiment. He saw the hostess lead Zoey and Wu through the restaurant, a pinched look on her face that said she’d most likely farted near a group of people but was hoping no one noticed. He felt a tiny smile pull at the corners of his lips. “And now, god help me, you can see why I like her, too.”