The Greek Billionaire's Counterfeit Bride (2 page)

“Obama said that banks can’t charge fees!” Eva muted herself before her derisive snicker bubbled up from her throat.

“Sir, banks are allowed to charge fees for specific services,” Eva explained. “What is illegal is not informing customers of those fees in advance, or charging fees that customers cannot opt out of. If you would like to no longer receive this monthly fee on your account, I can cancel the service for you.”

“I want the service and I don’t want to be charged a fee! How hard is that to understand? Jesus Christ, did you even graduate high school?”

“Yes, sir,” Eva said. She could hear the sarcasm beginning in her voice. “I did absolutely graduate high school.”

“So that’s the state of education in this country these days,” Jersik said bitterly. “Look—you just need to remove these fees for me. I don’t care how you do it, but I want them off of my account.” Just for the sake of at least paying lip service to her job, Eva selected one of the fees and submitted the request for a credit. The screen refreshed and she nearly laughed out loud at the resulting message:
Credit request denied. Customer has exceeded credit value on account for the year.
Apparently Jersik had requested credit not only for his late fee the previous month, but for some other fees he’d accumulated in the previous twelve months; he was not generating enough money for the company to justify providing any further credits.

“Unfortunately, I’m unable to credit any fees on your account at this time,” Eva said. She may have relished being able to tell the man that; he was steadily not only getting on her nerves but stomping on them.

“That’s bullshit and you know it!” For what felt like five minutes straight, Jersik continued to rant and rave about illegal fees, about the bank’s shady, crooked policies, about his right to not pay any charges he didn’t want to, and how DigiFinancial should be bending over backwards to make him, the customer, happy. Eva kept microphone muted as he went on the tirade, glancing around the office. “Are you still there?” Quickly Eva took her phone out of ‘mute’.

“Yes, sir, I’m still here,” she said. “I wanted to make sure that I heard all that you had to say without interrupting you.”

“Well, then, what the hell are you going to do about my account?” Eva shook her head.

“Let me be real with you for a moment, Mr. Jersik,” Eva said; she knew that the rising anger she felt bubbling through her veins was a dangerous thing—she knew that she should, instead of speaking, put him on hold and wait until she could calm down to address his issues; but after a long, stressful shift, the sixth day in a row of working without a day off, Eva’s ability to be circumspect simply vanished. “You have fees on your account because you agreed to the terms and conditions of that account, which included the company charging you a fee for paying late, as well as monthly maintenance fees for a service you specifically signed up for. At this point, you are not going to receive any further credits on your account because you’ve managed to bully previous representatives into giving you credits and at this point, the company views giving you any more free money as a bad investment. You are not worth another sixty dollars to this company.” The man sputtered on the other end of the line. “If you would like to cancel the service that you’re being charged for, I can certainly do that for you. But this company is not going to continue giving you good will money when you’re abusing the services we offer.”

“I want to speak with a manager,” the man said, his voice tight with anger.

“Certainly,” Eva said. “If you’re willing to hold for three to five minutes, I will get a manager on the line for you.” She didn’t wait for his assent; instead she tapped the hold button and took a deep breath.
If anyone monitors that call I’m out on my ears,
she thought; but Eva hadn’t been able to contain the irritation she’d felt at the man. She transferred the call to the tier two customer service, holding for the minute it took to connect to a representative in that department.

“What have you got for me?” Eva sighed.

“Hey Tiffany,” Eva said. “I’ve got a guy who wants credits for a service he signed up for, who thinks that any fees we charge him are inherently illegal because reasons.” Tiffany snorted.

“One of those, eh? All right, put him through.” Eva connected the call; she could hear the chirpiness in her voice as she told the man he was connected with an account manager by the name of Tiffany, who would take care of his issues going forward. She was tempted to stay on the line and eavesdrop, but as soon as Tiffany began her call opening script, Eva obediently disconnected.

She kept herself on “after call work” mode for exactly one minute, breathing slowly and deeply in the attempt to dispel the last of her annoyance.
On the plus side, at least there’s only about an hour to go before I can leave,
Eva thought, glancing at the time. She put her phone back into “available” mode and closed her eyes, attempting a meditation technique one of her high school friends had taught her years before.

“Eva? I need to see you in my office.” Eva’s stomach lurched inside of her and she opened her eyes, turning in her chair to see Yvonne, her boss, standing a few feet away.
Here we go,
she thought bleakly. Either someone had overheard her, or someone had gotten the word to Yvonne about what she’d just done.

“I’ll be right there, just let me log out—feedback code?” Yvonne nodded, looking solemn.

Eva tapped the “log out” button on her phone and entered the code for a feedback session, knowing that it was likely that she would be logged out for “end of day” as they called it, by the time she had finished her conversation with Yvonne. She took off her headset and put it down on the top of the desk, locked her computer, and stood, pushing the chair back and turning to follow Yvonne off of the call center floor.

She’s just been looking for an excuse to can you ever since you got onto her team,
Eva thought, staring at Yvonne’s back. Her team leader always wore the same outfit in different colors: a skirt suit in a boxy cut, low, chunky heels, and big “statement” jewelry from Charming Charlie in “coordinating” colors. Her hair was pulled back into a tiny bun at the base of her skull, gleaming slightly from hair dressing in the fluorescent office lights. Eva followed in silence, ignoring the curious glances from her teammates, putting one foot in front of the other until they came to the door of the office.

Yvonne gestured for Eva to go in before her and Eva heard her team leader close the door behind them as she took the lone guest seat available on the other side of her boss’ desk. Eva took a deep breath, making herself a promise that she wasn’t going to let Yvonne see her cry, or get upset in any way; Yvonne had ridden her from the moment that Eva had joined the team, and Eva refused to give the woman the satisfaction of seeing her affected.

“I think you probably know why you’re here,” Yvonne said, sitting down and shifting in her desk chair enough to make it squeak in protest.

“Tell me,” Eva said blandly.

“The last call you took came up flagged in the system,” Yvonne told her matter-of-factly. “I’ve reviewed the call.”

“Okay,” Eva said, staring at a point just above the bridge of her boss’ nose. “What would you like to discuss?”

“I have determined, after listening to the call, that it falls into the egregious category,” Yvonne said. “As you’re aware, an egregious call is grounds for immediate dismissal.”

“I’m aware,” Eva said, as levelly as she could.

“As much as I hate to do this to you, I am going to have to dismiss you, effective immediately.” Eva held her silence for a moment, meeting Yvonne’s gaze. She blinked slowly, considering what to say to the other woman’s remark. Nothing that she would say at this point could possibly alter the result; she would not cease to be fired if she cried, or if she screamed, or if she begged.
Sometimes when the shakes go against you, there’s nothing you can do.
One of her friends—now in prison—had given Eva that advice. Another one, quoting a musician, had told her,
“All the bridges in the world won’t save you if there’s no other side to cross to.”

“I don’t think you hate it at all,” Eva said matter-of-factly.

“Of course I do,” Yvonne said, color rising into her cheeks and her eyes widening. “This isn’t a pleasant experience for me, Eva.”

“I’m pretty sure you get off on the power of being able to fire people,” Eva told the woman, resisting the urge to smirk. “You may want to speak to a therapist about that—just as a parting piece of advice. It’s probably not a healthy trait in someone who’s in charge of people.”

“This is the dismissal paperwork,” Yvonne said, avoiding Eva’s gaze. She extended a sheaf of papers towards Eva. “I need you to sign at the bottom of each of these pages, signaling your understanding. Then I will escort you to your desk and you can collect your purse and personal items, and we will walk to the elevator together.” Eva considered saying something in response to Yvonne’s directions, but decided against it; she picked up the pen on the desk next to the paperwork and began reading, skimming the information to the bottom of each page and then signing that she understood and agreed to the terms of her dismissal.

When she finished, Yvonne stood and Eva followed her to her desk, where the computer was still locked. Under her supervisor’s watchful eye, Eva opened her locked desk drawer and retrieved her purse, along with one or two personal items she’d left out. “If there are any items in the drawers that are non-sensitive and belong to you, they’ll be mailed to the address we have on file,” Yvonne told her quietly. Eva nodded her assent and followed her team leader through the cubicle farm and out of the office, towards the elevator in the lobby. “Please hand over your access card,” Yvonne said. Eva unclipped the security card from the lanyard on her belt loop, and handed it to her now-former boss. The elevator pinged and the doors opened. “Drive home safely,” Yvonne said, turning without looking at her and walking back into the office proper.

Chapter Two

Eva stepped into the elevator and tapped the button for the ground floor, glancing around as she waited for the doors to close to make sure no one got on with her.
Last thing I need right now is to have someone asking me what happened,
she thought irritably. Finally, the doors closed and the elevator hummed slightly as it began its descent, and Eva leaned against the rail, shaking her head at the twist her day had taken on.

She hadn’t been surprised that her decision to stand up for herself had gotten her fired, but it irritated her nonetheless.
I definitely needed to have something else refuse to go my way,
she thought bleakly, reviewing the past several months. She had known—intellectually—that she couldn’t go back to the life she’d had before; she’d only barely avoided being arrested and charged for her part in the last job she’d taken before going “straight,” and that had been too close to comfort for her. Eva shuddered, remembering the hours in an interrogation room; the only way she’d been able to get out of fraud and racketeering charges had been to tell the complete and total truth. While she hadn’t been in charge of the operation that had gotten her caught, she’d been a valuable member of the team.

The job went south,
Eva thought, glancing up at the lights that went on and off to indicate the floors she was descending through. The call center that had hired her was in the middle of a huge skyscraper—one of many businesses that occupied the building.
Just because one job went south, it doesn’t mean you can’t get back in the game.
The idea had a tantalizing gleam in her mind.
But even if you could get back in the game, how would you start up again?
Eva had gotten her start hustling jewelers, selling them counterfeit pieces that were just good enough to pass inspection by the juniors and then taking the money before the manager could arrive; she’d run a few blackmail games on married men she found on Tinder, until—working that very scam—she’d met Jared.

Jared hadn’t been married; the spouse listed on one of his social profiles had been a fake. When Eva had given him the option of paying her $1,000 or being “outed” to his wife, he’d laughed and told her that she could message the woman in question all she wanted. When Eva had tried harder to find a way to get something out of him, he’d made his counter offer: work for him, and make substantially more money scamming companies instead of individuals. Eva had at first assumed that Jared meant to put her out on a limb and then escape with whatever money she managed to make for his enterprise, leaving her high and dry; but he’d offered to let her come along on one of the jobs, in a low-stakes position as his “assistant,” for a smaller cut of the money. Within three days of going with Jared to make the pitch, Eva had gotten two thousand dollars in cash. It had only made sense to join the group.

The elevator pinged when she reached the ground floor, and Eva shook her head, getting the idea of joining a new ring out of her mind—at least for the moment.
I’m too good to go back to counterfeit jewelry, or blackmail scams,
she thought to herself, stepping over the threshold and into the lobby.
I’m not going to start at the bottom.
She looked around; people were beginning to leave for the day, and some were coming in to start their nighttime shifts at one or another of the companies the skyscraper housed. The door at the front of the building somehow seemed both miles away and far too close. Eva stalled on her way to the exit, pausing to look at a piece of mediocre art on one of the walls as she considered her situation.

It didn’t seem fair: when she had been grifting, right up until the last job that went south, Eva had had all of the nice things she’d always craved, and sufficient money to do what she liked with her free time. The job she’d taken in the year since she’d barely gotten off, the apartment she lived in, the life she’d led after going straight, seemed to constantly remind her that she was nothing and nobody; living paycheck to paycheck and having to budget her spending, having to answer to a faceless company in the form of her supervisor, had chafed after she’d tasted the freedom of relative wealth and independence.
Surely you can get in touch with someone running a new game,
Eva thought; maybe something that was a little less obvious than what Jared had been doing. She sighed, remembering the terror she’d felt at the idea of going to prison for fifteen or more years on fraud charges.
Sleep on it; it’s not like you have to wake up early tomorrow.

Reluctantly, accepting the fact that she had nothing to do but go home, Eva turned away from the bland landscape she’d pretended to peruse. As she started towards the building’s entrance, two men and a woman walked past her. “…and she’s trying to get it sold,” the woman explained.

“That place? She’ll move it when an earthquake takes this building out,” one of the men countered.

“Can’t fault her for trying,” the other man said. “She’s got a catered reception setting up as we speak.” Eva slowed slightly, intrigued.

“It’s a penthouse apartment in an office building,” the first man said. “Who’d want to live above a corporate complex?”

“It’s a pretty sweet space—have you been up there?” the woman shook her head and Eva slowed even more, carefully making sure she didn’t obviously stop, and inching back in the direction of the threesome.

“Sweet space or not, she isn’t going to get it sold,” the first man said, tsking.

“It’s probably worth checking out later,” the second man concluded. “If nothing else, the food and drink will be worth it.” Eva hung back when one of the members of the group glanced in her direction.
Open house, huh?
Eva ducked into a bathroom and thought about the fascinating bit of information. The skyscraper that housed the DigiFinancial call center held another twenty or more companies, most of them large and wealthy; the penthouse suite would undoubtedly be a sight to see.
Worth ten million, maybe more…they’ll be pulling in millionaires, maybe billionaires…
an idea began to crystalize in Eva’s mind. If nothing else, the view from the top floor would be worth seeing; and maybe she’d gather a few names to file away mentally, in case she did decide to go back to the game.

Eva glanced down at the “lucky bamboo” she’d taken off of her desk when she’d left.
Make your own luck; obviously this didn’t do a damn thing for you.
She dropped the plant, pot and all, into the garbage, and looked at herself in the mirror.
At least I got to keep some of the clothes,
Eva thought, smoothing her skirt against her legs. She’d dressed better than more than half of the women on the call center floor for the entire time she’d been working; while the police had confiscated some of her ill-gotten gains as evidence of the kind of money Jared’s team had been making, she’d managed to convince the investigators to let her keep the least expensive items. Eva turned slowly in a circle, checking the fall and lines of her clothing. If she moved quickly and spoke firmly enough, she thought she could pass.

Eva touched up her lipstick and pulled her dark brown hair back into a bun, securing it with an elastic from her purse along with a couple of spare bobby pins. She took another look at herself in the mirror and nodded to her reflection before turning to the door.

She hurried through the lobby towards the elevators, keeping her gaze straight ahead of her. It wouldn’t be the first time—nor the tenth—that she had talked her way into a place she wasn’t technically supposed to be; she knew how to get through most levels of security, as long as they weren’t expecting her. As Eva waited for the elevator to arrive, she began to put together a cover story.
Why am I interested in the penthouse? What’s my income? Where am I from?
The elevator pinged and the doors opened; Eva stepped onto the car quickly, and tapped the “door close” button three times in quick succession.

She didn’t particularly want to share the elevator if she didn’t have to. Fortunately, no one had been waiting with her, and she was alone. Eva hit the button for the top floor complex, where she reasoned the penthouse would be. Eva quickly made up a loose story for herself, a “character” that she could present. As the elevator rose through the floors, Eva set her face into firm, confident lines, and pushed back her shoulders. For a moment, she considered carefully rearranging her blouse to improve on the cleavage between her breasts, but decided against it; while any security on the floor might be moved to distraction, the realtor—according to the people she’d eavesdropped on—was a woman, and would be suspicious if Eva was too sexy.

The elevator pinged, and the doors slid open. Eva emerged onto a well-lit, sumptuous hallway with wood-paneled walls and thick carpeting on the floor.
Showtime,
she thought, spotting the discreet guards at the end of the hall. Eva took a quick, deep breath, and plunged forward.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” the first guard said, moving to intercept her at the end of the hallway, just before she came to the atrium on that level. “There’s an event going on; I’m sure you can understand.”

“Of course I understand,” Eva said sharply. “I’m here for the event.” The guard looked her over slowly. “Are you some kind of oaf who thinks that a woman can’t manage her own real estate affairs?” Eva raised an eyebrow, staring at the guard, holding his gaze on her face.

“Of course not,” the security guard said, glancing away from her in a moment’s indecision.

“I know you probably don’t know every wealthy person in the world on sight, but if you’re supposed to be keeping this open house secure, you should at least know the people who are supposed to be attending,” Eva told the man tartly. “Don’t you know who I am?”

“No, I’m afraid not,” the guard said. He made a quick gesture with his hand, and one of the other guards stepped up. “She says she’s here for the event.”

“If I had known it would be this much trouble to look at a potential new apartment for myself, I never would have made the drive,” Eva said, shaking her head in exaggerated frustration. “If you’re going to give me crap like this I might as well call back later and inform my friend why I won’t be purchasing her new property.” Eva turned as if to leave and the guard held up a hand.

“No—no, it’s fine.” The new arrival looked at his colleague sharply. “Of course you can go in, ma’am.” As Eva followed the man’s gesture towards the door at the end of the hall, leading into the apartment, she heard him hiss to the first guard not to be an idiot.

Eva suppressed a smile and continued onto the door, giving the other guard monitoring the hallway a sharp, confident look. She knocked twice and then turned the knob on the door, pulling it open and stepping through it quickly before any of the guards could think too much about her performance.

The apartment was immense; bigger than any home that Eva had lived in. She walked from the door into the entryway, glancing around herself. The foyer had marble floors and deep green walls, and a small table with a guest book. Deeper in the apartment, Eva spotted some of the attendees, dressed in tailored suits and expensive designer clothing.
That’s promising,
Eva thought, filing away the thought for later development. She could hear the realtor talking about the details of the apartment, boasting about antique brass fixtures, custom-made upholstery, and all the luxuries the property boasted. Eva stepped up to the guest book and looked over the names as she reached for a pen. She filed away the names mentally, committing them to memory to put to faces where possible later on. Eva took one of the pens out of the cup next to the book and made sure it worked, scribbling lightly on a side sheet of paper. She smiled slightly to herself, signing the book
Elizabeth D. Bennet
.

Eva stepped away from the table and crossed into the living room of the apartment, taking another quick breath to keep her nerves—twitching with subdued alarm—as calm as possible. After a moment of doubt, she moved towards the refreshment table; the spread was certainly in keeping with the value of the enclave: fresh seafood, elegantly prepared, blanched and chilled vegetables, and a bar manned by a crisp, white-coated bartender. “Good evening,” the man said, inclining his head towards her. “What can I make you?”

“Seven and seven?” Eva smiled slightly.

“Of course,” the bartender said, nodding as he began to mix the cocktail for her. Eva took a plate and snagged a few choice morsels, daintily placing them on the cool ceramic, folding a cocktail napkin onto her palm. She accepted a drink and stepped away from the table to wander slightly, taking in the beauty of the apartment. One wall was dominated by huge casement windows, leading out onto a balcony beyond which Eva saw the best view of the city she’d ever taken in. After a few moments, she turned back towards the apartment proper and moved about the living room, glancing at the expensive custom furniture, the gleaming hardwood floor mostly covered by thick, plush rugs with swirling, looping patterns.
Beautiful. Completely beautiful.
The upholstery on the huge couch and heavy chairs looked expensive—Eva thought it might have been damask. The wall opposite the windows boasted a huge brick fireplace with wrought iron fixtures.