Watching ames xo surveil.., p.1
Watching Ames (XO Surveillance Book 1), page 1
Watching Ames
XO Surveillance
Book 1
R. Handler
Watching Ames
Copyright © 2023 by R. Handler
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, businesses, companies, organizations, events, locales, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Editing by Miriam Compton
Cover by Natalia Junqueira
Created with Vellum
Eric,
Thanks for being the inspiration behind every love story I’ll ever write.
Contents
Author’s Note
1. Her
2. Him
3. Her
4. Her
5. Him
6. Her
7. Her
8. Her
9. Her
10. Her
11. Him
12. Her
13. Her
14. Her
15. Her
16. Her
17. Him
18. Him
19. Her
20. Her
21. Him
22. Her
23. Her
24. Her
25. Her
26. Him
27. Her
Thank You
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Author’s Note
This book contains explicit sexual content, profanity, and morally gray characters. While Watching Ames is not a dark romance, it does have some content that may be sensitive to certain readers. Please visit my website for a full list of content warnings.
Chapter 1
Her
The bouquet of flowers waiting for me in the kitchen felt ominous. I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t the bouquet that was out of place in the center of the island; my boyfriend Peter often had his assistant buy me flowers for holidays and anniversaries. For years, his assistants had passed the key to my apartment between them as they shuffled between cities and internships, as they graduated law school, always having access to leave the flowers around for me to find when I woke up in the morning or came home from work. But Peter and his forever-rotating assistants had never bought flowers that reflected my style; those bouquets were always much more classic, with pale pink roses and white lilies, wedding and funeral flowers that looked good sitting among the white cabinets and granite countertops in my kitchen.
But these had me frozen in the archway: white poppies, their pale, paper-thin petals contrasted with their dark centers, mixed among anemones and dahlias so burgundy they were almost black. These flowers were much more my style, dark and broody, almost sucking the light from the room, which was what discomfited me so much. My shoes squeaked across the tile as I reached my hand toward the bouquet, running my fingers over the soft petals, which shook in the wake of my touch. The smell drifted from the disturbed blooms, even the scent of the flowers darker and more sensual than I was used to.
A silver envelope sat nestled among the blooms, the scrawl of my name across the front in bold letters - Ames - another irregularity to all the bouquets I’d received in recent memory. Peter was usually too busy at the firm or assisting his father in another re-election campaign to write me a card, and his assistants too unwilling to forge a sweet or sexy note to accompany the bouquets they were buying with their boss’s platinum card. So the bouquets often arrived with the standard typed notecard, stamped with an impersonal: Happy anniversary/birthday/Valentine’s Day. Love, Peter. I expected a similar notation when I slipped my fingernail under the lip of the small envelope and popped the seal, so surprise flickered through me when I instead found a thick silver notecard with black handwriting rather than typeface.
Good luck, beautiful.
XO
The three words were written in precise lettering, striking me right in the chest and sending my heart racing as my lips tilted up in a smile. Considering the cold treatment I’d received from Peter since our argument a few weeks ago, I felt lighter than I had in a while, my eyes tracing over the scribbled hugs and kisses at the bottom of the card. He had been feigning work for the past month, choosing to stay at his townhouse in D.C. and avoiding spending nights at my place, which he usually did at least once a week.
There had been radio silence for weeks now, save for the occasional text ensuring my calendar was free for a gala or business lunch I’d be expected to attend in the upcoming months.
His current assistant - a blonde whose name I thought started with an S - stopped by a couple times a week, bringing in my mail and grabbing shoes and suit jackets from the stash Peter left at my place. She left little post-its with reminders: “don’t forget to wish Peter’s mother a happy birthday!” or “make sure to buy a dress for the Senator’s campaign luncheon!” with passive-aggressive smiley faces scribbled in the corners. But never anything from Peter, until today. And while some may consider flowers to be the lowest bar in terms of apologies, these exact flowers were a huge step in the right direction.
Peter disagreed with my darker inclinations, claiming that my tastes were “unfitting for the future wife of a senator,” as his dream was to follow in his father’s footsteps. I usually agreed. Until I was standing in my kitchen, in an apartment Peter helped choose for me, surrounded by beige furniture and cookie-cutter decorations Peter’s interior designer had picked out, and the most beautiful thing in the room were flowers that I had no doubt he would never usually approve of.
But he specifically chose these flowers for me and wrote a card in an attempt to bridge the gap between us. More importantly, he recalled that today was a huge pitch for my business, and despite initially arguing against pursuing my ceramics as a job rather than a hobby, his support of me now, when I needed it most, struck a chord deep inside of me.
I reached for my phone, considering texting Peter and thanking him for the gift, but thought better of it and decided to let him grovel a little more before allowing him forgiveness. Instead, I snapped a quick picture of the blooms and shot a text off to my sister, complete with half a dozen exclamation points and a few heart-eye emojis. Peter had been on Bex’s shit list since our fight - honestly, from the moment we started dating - but I hoped a well-placed emoji alongside the picture of flowers she knew I’d love would help ease some of the tension between them.
I was still tracing the soft petals of the flowers when my phone rang with an incoming call, jolting me out of my daze. I gave the flowers one last sniff and pocketed the card at the last minute, heading out the door as I answered the phone.
Chapter 2
Him
I knew the bouquet was a bad idea before I sent it. Hell, I knew the bouquet was a bad idea before, during, and after I sent it. Watching her for months, getting to know everything about her through a screen, that was supposed to be enough. I could barely make it through a day at this point without my fingers itching to flip over to one of the many cameras I had hidden throughout her apartment, or to one of her social media accounts, which I followed with zealot-like devotion.
The flowers, I reasoned with myself as I bought them, were a one time weakness. I had tracked that asshole’s credit card purchases along with his email and text messages to no avail. Despite knowing that today was a huge pitch for her, he hadn’t sent her a single good luck charm or message. Actually, maybe I gave him too much credit. Chances were, his head was so far up his own ass that he had no idea what was going on outside of his own little world.
Plus, his new assistant was too busy scribbling passive-aggressive notes and popping Xanax to think to do something not explicitly asked of her. I much preferred his last assistant, who had input all important relationship dates of theirs into his calendar and made sure to send flowers and chocolates every time her boss failed to do so himself. But she was gone now, quitting suddenly after an overnight trip to Tampa with her boss. Which meant no more surprise bouquets, even the day of her biggest pitch since she started her business. So I caved.
Ordering the flowers was simple. I knew my girl backward and forward, inside and out. I knew what flowers she usually got from the asshole and his many assistants, and had seen the faces she made when she received them (disappointed) and the texts she would send to her sister about them (a few words followed by a period and no emojis, which deviated far from the exclamation-point-laden and gif-riddled texts they usually shot back and forth, like a couple of high schoolers). But more importantly, I knew what flowers she actually wanted, the flowers she wished for. I knew the flowers she envied and coveted and pinned to her hidden Pinterest board so as not to embarrass the asshole with her less-than-conventional tastes.
Sure, all that was easy. A drop in the bucket of the time or energy or money that I was all too willing to devote to her. I didn’t even think it was a bad idea for the reasons I’m sure my friends would expect. Not because I would be breaking every rule I've ever put into place, not because I was worried she would get scared or figure out who was behind the flowers. No, the flowers were simply a bad idea because as soon as I ordered the bouquet, a small idea started to form in the back of my mind. An idea much more dangerous than a simple bouquet. One that I hadn’t been able to get out of my mind since, despite knowing just where it would lead.
But fuck if it wasn’t worth it when I watched her double back to press her face fully into the petals before grabbing the card with my note and slipping it into her back pocket with a smile.
Chapter 3
Her
My sister kept me on the phone long enough to distract me from the fact that I was driving to a pitch that could make or break my burgeoning business.
“Are we sure Peter sent the flowers?” Bex’s voice echoed through my car speakers, her voice unconvinced.
I sighed for the eighth time during this conversation, one for each time she asked this question. “Who else would send the flowers, Bex? I know your partners are usually more likely to name a new strain of weed after you, but sending bouquets of flowers usually falls under a normal boyfriend’s job criteria.” I’d have felt guilty for the jab at the less-than-savory characters my sister usually attracted if the statement wasn’t entirely true. A couple of years ago, an ex of Bex’s named a strain of marijuana he invented after her, mostly due to its ability to knock you on your ass.
“I mean, I just find it unlikely that boring-as-hell, boat-shoes-wearing Peter Kendall ordered you one of the most gorgeous and gothic bouquets I’ve ever seen.”
“It really was, wasn’t it?” My voice sounded wistful even to my ears, and I regretted not bringing the bouquet along with me for luck.
“And you’re sure it was Peter who sent it to you? Did you recognize the handwriting?” Bex asked, voice clearly skeptical, and this time I groaned aloud, banging my forehead on the steering wheel as I reached a red light. My skull pressed so deeply into the wheel that the horn emitted a faint honk, startling me just as the light turned green. I shook myself, trying to get back into the right mindset for my presentation.
Even though Bex was my sister and best friend, her vendetta against Peter had caused an undercurrent of tension between us for the last couple of years. Despite growing up in the same suburban home and attending the same schools, Bex and I had always had distinctly different ideas for our futures. I majored in accounting in college and worked at a firm for a couple years afterward, only pursuing ceramics this past year, once I gained enough of a following on social media and had the financial stability to take the risk pursuing what I had always viewed as a hobby.
Bex had forgone college all together, pursuing a string of short-lived jobs which had included hairdressing, making custom jewelry, and growing microgreens. That is, until she got involved with a government hacker who ended up getting her arrested and almost sent to jail a few months ago. If we hadn’t gotten lucky with a great lawyer having a sudden opening in her schedule and the police losing a large amount of evidence against my sister, she would have been in jail.
Despite our differences, we had always gotten along, our parents’ sudden death from a car accident five years ago bringing us even closer together. We had different goals and personalities, and that had never been a problem. Until Peter. She had issues with how he treated me (“like a pet”), his job (“a lawyer? Need I say more?”), his father (“definitely in some sort of baby-killing old white man cult”), and even his rotating assistants (“red flag”). Bex was great at taking a few negative interactions and using them to try and disrupt my entire relationship. She didn’t understand the appeal of simplicity and stability, made clear by her previous choices in partners. Her current girlfriend was a punk-rock tattoo artist with a criminal history, and it was by far the most stable romantic relationship she’d ever had. Yet, she still felt she had room to judge my relationship.
I took a deep breath and tried to reason with her. “No, I didn’t recognize the handwriting…But Peter has never really written anything to me. I mean, most of our communication has been through texting or email, if not in person, and anything handwritten is usually done by his assistants. I’ve only ever seen him sign checks, and I guess that writing was close enough.” I could feel Bex gearing up to make a snide comment at that, so I quickly continued on, “Who else would call me beautiful and sign the card with hugs and kisses?”
The rhetorical question threw her for a moment, Bex thinking so hard I could almost hear it over the bluetooth speakers. “Maybe you have a stalker?”
My thumb hovered over the end call button on my steering wheel, eyes rolling so intensely I worried I might crash the car. Just as I went to hang up on her, Bex sighed loudly, sounding put out as she attempted an apology.
“I’m sorry. I’m just kidding. The flowers were beautiful, and if Peter really did pick them out for you and write the card, I’m happy for you sis, really.”
“Thank you,” I smiled, shoulders relaxing down from where they had hitched up toward my ears over the course of this interrogation, anxiety escalating with each question she threw my way. “Hopefully they bring me some good luck for this pitch.”
“You’ll do great. Your work speaks for itself. Now go in there and kick some ass!” She yelled and I laughed, hanging up the call as I pulled into a parking space outside of the restaurant.
My eyes flicked to the clock, noting that I was still a few minutes early as I glanced up at the building I was parallel parked in front of. The worn red brick and dated single-pane windows were as unassuming as they were the first time I came here upon a recommendation from my boss, June. The run-down outside of the building looked even less impressive in the tepid morning light on the cloudy day. The simple black-and-white sign read Morel with a small image of a mushroom serving as a period and a reference to the fungi for which the restaurant was named. Passing by on the street, you wouldn’t think anything based on the façade of the building, which looked similar to the rest of the early nineteenth-century single family homes common for the neighborhood, but I knew that inside was one of the most popular Italian-inspired restaurants in the city. Reservations were a requirement, with a small, intimate interior and a moody, hipster feel I had fallen in love with immediately.
Peter and I had gone for our anniversary months ago, my eyes immediately drawn to the forest-green wallpaper and antique brass fixtures that were unmistakably part of the original house before it was refashioned into a restaurant with a bar and open kitchen concept. Plants crawled along the walls and against the windows facing the street. The employees fit the vibe of the restaurant perfectly, most of them tattooed and pierced with modern hairstyles and stylish black outfits that marked them as staff.
Peter hadn’t appreciated the energy of the restaurant, the attentiveness of the staff, or the seasonally themed menu with local mushrooms featured in most dishes. Instead, he’d complained a majority of the time about the vintage feel and artwork displays by local artists, insisting that for our next celebratory dinner he would take me to his favorite Italian restaurant up north.
“You’ll love it,” he insisted, glancing down at the antique wood table we were dining on with a slight curl to his lip that I hoped the waitress couldn’t see. “It’s very refined; with white tablecloths and a prix fixe menu. Very high end. Great wine selection, too.” At this, he glanced at the spiced cocktail to my right, which had a witty, slightly sexual name that made Peter flush when I ordered it from the waiter. I finished my entrée shortly after and declined dessert, slipping quietly out of the restaurant with Peter’s hand on my back, sending an apologetic smile to our waitress, who I had overheard talking to her coworker about Peter’s attitude on my way to the restroom.
