The Fidelity Files (Jennifer Hunter #1)(74)

I GUESS you could say I stumbled into my current job as a fidelity inspector. It's not like I planned it. It's not like I woke up one morning with the brilliant idea that I wanted to spend the rest of my life seducing married men.

The first one was, for all intents and purposes, an accident.

It was a work happy hour. The crowd had finally dwindled down to just me and a few young female coworkers from my investment bank. After a few too many Rolling Rocks, we began what started out as a very innocent but amusing game of Truth or Dare. Which eventually morphed into just "dare." It was all very harmless. "I dare you to pretend you knew the bartender in high school, and then act offended when he doesn't remember you." Or "I dare you to walk up to that table and ask them how they're enjoying their meal." But after a few more beers it started to take a more scandalous turn, when dares to casually say "Nice balls" to the people playing pool and dares to flash pieces of covered skin to passersby seemed to become more amusing and popular than the less risqué versions that had entertained us earlier in the evening.

The hot seat had passed several times around the circle, and at approximately 11:30 P.M., it landed on me for the last time.

"Okay, Jen." My colleague Rebecca pointed a long polished finger in my direction.

I smiled and brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. "Yes," I replied confidently and fearlessly. I had successfully fulfilled my last dare with flying colors when I walked into the men's room, motioned confusedly to the urinal, and said, "What a strange-looking sink" to the man inside. The girls had watched from the restroom hallway, laughing hysterically and high-fiving one another like frat boys at a porn convention.

Rebecca eyed her two neighbors knowingly, and they all exchanged smiles.

"What?" I asked, wanting to be a part of the secret.

Her eyes drifted off to a man at the end of the bar, who was dressed in a smart business suit and mingling with a group of other well-dressed professionals. "See that guy over there?"

I surreptitiously glanced to my right. "The one holding the glass of whiskey?"

Rebecca's face showed her clear distaste for his choice of alcohol as she nodded. "Yes."

"Okay," I confirmed.

She exchanged another verifying glance with Hilary and Tina on either side of her. "Well, you have to go over there, talk to him, and without ever suggesting anything, get him to ask you back to his place."

I burst out laughing. "Yeah, right."

But when I looked up, expecting to see three faces laughing right along with me, I was greeted with nothing but deadpan expressions. "You're kidding, right?"

Rebecca shook her head. "No. C'mon, the stakes are getting higher, step up to the plate."

I looked over at the man again. "No! I can't do that."

"If anyone can, it's you," Hilary piped in.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It means," Tina began, "that you're by far the best looking of any of us, and we have this little theory that no matter what the place or the time or even the outfit you're wearing, any man would jump at the chance to take you home."

I snorted. "That's ridiculous!"

"I don't think so," Hilary replied matter-of-factly.

"What? Did you guys plan this? Before we even got here?"

Hilary looked to Rebecca. It was obvious they had.

"Not exactly," Rebecca clarified. "It's just come up a few times... like at lunch or whatever. I mean, we see how all the guys at the office look at you."

I scrunched up my face. "No!" I insisted. "That's not true."

"Prove it," Rebecca challenged.

"But he's married," I protested, noticing his ring.

"That won't stop him," said Rebecca cynically. "He's still a guy."

I looked desperately to Hilary and Tina, hoping for a counteroffer. I received none. Apparently this was a spectacle to which everyone wanted to bear witness.

To this day I don't know if it was the ambush or the Anheuser-Busch, but after a long, hesitant look at all three of them, I silently pulled myself out of my seat, slung my bag over my shoulder, and slowly strolled the three paces to my very first subject.

The rest of the story went pretty much the same as all my subsequent stories. Flirty glances, coy smiles, witty banter. A slight exaggeration of my level of intoxication. And as it turned out, Rebecca, Tina, and Hilary were right. I didn't exactly get an invite to his house, but it didn't take long for him to ask me if I wanted to go someplace less crowded, and according to my panel of judges, that was good enough.

When I said the whole thing was an "accident," technically I was referring to the day after. When I found out what these "lunchtime conversations" behind my back were really about.

The next morning at work Miranda Keyton, a vice president of mergers and acquisitions, pulled me into her office for an impromptu meeting.

I found it somewhat odd that she would be requesting to meet with me alone. As I was only an analyst at the firm, requests were usually streamlined from her through many levels of bureaucracy, and then finally reached my lowly level after they'd been picked apart, analyzed, and altered by several echelons of the corporate food chain.

So I could only assume that getting a direct request from Miranda was either really, really bad news, like "Pack your bags, you've been laid off," or really, really good news like, "Pack your bags, you're moving to an office. You've been promoted."