Donna Hill - Tender Loving Passion - Temptation and Lies

From there it would be off to her real job—the one she could tell everyone about, she thought with a smile.

Event management was the perfect occupation for Mia. It gave her the opportunity to arrange every aspect of an event, down to the most mundane detail, and she loved every minute of it.

Ever since she was a little girl, growing up in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, she’d had a knack for arranging things. As a preschooler she had a precise time and location for all her doll tea parties and all the accessories had to match and be placed “just so” on the tiny pink plastic table.

The most traumatic incident in her young life was when she went to place the teacups on the saucers and discovered that one of the handles was broken and there were no more in her collection that matched. “You see, the tablecloth, paper napkins and the dolls’ outfits were all color-coordinated,” she’d explained to Savannah and Danielle many years later, who’d both given her sympathetic looks.

She’d become so hysterical that her mother had to promise to replace the entire set the following day. Mia was only five at the time, and her obsession with detail and order only grew and crystallized as she got older.

Of course, now she didn’t collapse into tears and fits when things went awry, but her entire demeanor would become one tightly wound band of tension that was terribly uncomfortable to be around.

That aside, Mia Turner was your everyday, ordinary kind of woman unless, of course, you counted her other life.

She squinted at her appearance in the oval hall mirror. Her smooth, shoulder-length hair haloed her face in soft waves. The slight touches of makeup—bronze lip gloss, mascara and a little powder to keep the shine off her nose—kept her lovely features from being overshadowed. She cinched the belt on her knee-length dress, took her coat and purse and headed out, checking the locks three times before she felt comfortable.

* * *

Twenty minutes later she pulled onto 135th Street in Harlem. She parked her midnight-blue Lexus two doors down from the brownstone. The luxury car was a recent present to herself for having achieved a stellar year of profits from her business. In these tight economic times, everyone was cutting back, but her business continued to flourish. Big business, celebrities and the well-off were always having conventions or hosting parties to sell something, impress others or remind everyone else how important they were, and MT Management was the one they invariably called.

Mia slid off her glasses and tucked them into her purse. She was terribly nearsighted but refused to wear her glasses in public and was adamant against “sticking something in her eyes” as she put it, referring to contact lenses. So vanity won out and she went through life squinting, which often gave her a severe appearance that was totally contrary to her open and warm personality. In business, however, it often worked to her advantage: in her dealings and negotiations, her steely gaze gave the impression of a no-nonsense businesswoman.

She gathered her purse and hopped out, her chocolate-colored Milano ankle boots hitting the pavement with a soft pop.

She grabbed her ecru-colored swing coat from the hook in the back of the car and quickly slipped it on. Although it was early October and the sun was high in the sky, the weather had already begun to grow cool.

Setting the alarm on the car, she headed to the brownstone and rang the bottom bell.

Within moments, Claudia, Savannah’s mother, came to the door.

“Hello, darling,” Claudia greeted her, enveloping Mia in a warm hug. The soft scent of Chanel floated around her.

Claudia Martin was in her early sixties, but she didn’t look a day over forty-five. Class and style always exuded from Claudia. She kept her auburn-tinted hair in a fierce cut that mimicked the early Halle Berry look. Her cinnamon complexion was flawless and she rarely wore much makeup, save for a dash of lipstick and mascara to accentuate her incredible hazel eyes. St. John was her designer of choice and she wore it well.

Claudia had been a member of TLC for several years and had recruited her daughter, Savannah. And all those years that Mia, Savannah and Danielle had seen Claudia toting around her TLC carryall and saying she was going to meetings, they’d always believed what she told them: that she was selling beauty products. Ha!

The joke between them, now that Savannah had a daughter of her own, would be that she would recruit little Mikayla when she came of age. Knowing her already feisty infant, Savannah had said Mikayla would probably launch her own division of TLC Tots!

“Looking good as always, Claudia. Bernard must be treating you well. You’re glowing.”

Claudia laughed lightly. “That he does, my dear. Nothing like a good man to get the kinks out.” She winked at Mia and walked inside.

“Have you two finally set a date?”

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.” She clasped Mia’s arm and her diamond ring flashed in the late-morning light. “Now that Savannah had the baby and can fit into something ‘fabulous,’ as she said, we wanted a December wedding. Do you think you can put something together in time?”

Mia stopped short, propped her hand on her hip and gave Claudia a look of mild reprimand. “Claudia, this is me. If you said your wedding was this afternoon and you wanted it in Paris, I would make it happen. It’s what I do.”

Claudia laughed in response. “Chile, what was I thinking? Go on,” she said, still chuckling. “Jean is upstairs in her office.”

“We’ll make an appointment to talk,” she promised before heading off.

* * *

Mia went up the stairs and down the “hall of fame” as it had been dubbed. The walls on either side were lined with portraits of all the Cartel members who had been affiliated for at least a year and had successfully completed their assignments. She smiled as she spotted Savannah’s photo and then two photos down was one of Danielle. Claudia’s was at the beginning of the row, right next to Jean. Mia drew in a breath of resolve. One day soon her photo would grace the hall of fame, too.

Mia knocked lightly on the closed door.

“Come in.” Jean looked up from her computer screen when Mia entered. “Have a seat. I’ll be right with you.”

Mia did as instructed, taking in the room while she waited. As with all of the brownstones in Harlem and in Brooklyn—which had not been cut up or converted—the rooms were enormous; grand would be a better word. Vaulted ceilings, crystal chandeliers, parquet floors, mahogany sliding doors, massive mantelpieces, stained-glass windows and working fireplaces. Some even had the claw-foot bathtubs and original porcelain sconces.

She’d grown up in a brownstone on Putnam Avenue in Brooklyn. Not quite as big as this one, but large enough. So any time she came here she felt right at home.

Mia crossed her legs.

“Thank you for coming,” Jean began, bypassing any pleasantries.

Mia merely nodded, knowing from experience that Jean wasn’t one for chitchat.

“I have an assignment that is perfect for you, especially with the business that you’re in.”

Jean took a sealed manila envelope from her desk drawer. “All the details are inside. I’ll briefly give you some background. This was handed to me from a personal contact at the FBI. There are some extremely high-profile individuals involved and before the lid gets blown off, they need to be absolutely sure.” She cleared her throat and removed her red-framed glasses, setting them gently down on the desktop. “There is a major, very elite, very exclusive escort service operating in New York City. Although that’s nothing new, what is new is that it appears to be run by Avante Enterprises. You need to find a way to get inside the organization, and get the evidence that the Feds need to shut it down.”