Push & Pull by Maya Tayler

1
     
    We sat across the table allowing
silence to fill the space. Her arms folded neatly across her chest while I
flooded my coffee with creamer.
    “Jillian. He’s your fiancé,” I
insisted, “I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing such a thing.”
    “It’s what you do for a living and I
need to know if he can be trusted.” Her checkbook was on the table before I
could utter another word. Never in all my life would I have imagined seducing
my friend’s future husband, yet there we sat. I hoped for my sake and his that
he was faithful. Jillian Leal was the most successful pharmaceutical CEO in Los
Angeles with the worst dating reputation. If she hadn’t have told me about the
scores of men trying to embezzle from her, the media sure had. At age 30, she
paraded quite the laundry list of half baked Lotharios and her fiancé, Lucca
Moretti, would prove no exception. Her hand quivered as she slid the check
across the table. Twenty thousand big ones.
    “Wouldn’t a prenup suffice?” I asked,
trying not to let the size of the check influence me. She shook her head.
    “You know it’s not about the money.
Anyway, he’ll be at that new restaurant, Padua, on Highland tonight at 7,” she
said giving her pen a sharp click before dropping it back into her purse. “I’m
supposed to meet him and his colleague there but I’ll call and cancel last
minute.”
    “How will I know it’s him?”
    “I dressed him this morning,” she
smirked, “He’s wearing mustard colored dress shoes. They’re hideous. You’ll
spot them right away.”
    “And you’re sure you want to do
this?” I asked, hoping to convey my deep rooted concern.
    “Well, you’re not going to fuck him,
are you?” she laughed sarcastically as her phone let out a deafening ring. “I
have to take this. I’ll catch up with you later,” she said, leaning forward to
give me air kisses. “Ciao, Bella.”
    This was never how I imagined my
life, sitting in a restaurant being asked to test a man’s fidelity. But some
days I wished more than ever that someone like me was around when I took a
fall.
    Once upon a time ago I was a
self-made millionaire and likely the youngest woman ever to engineer accounting
software. My prototype program, Centax, was the first of its kind to
incorporate tax advice with basic bookkeeping. After selling the rights for a
few million I founded my development company and everything was going smoothly
until I met Jason. He was charming, easy-going, and possessed every swoon
worthy trait of a true swindler. The last thing on my mind was a prenup as we
marched down the Little White Chapel aisle in good ol’ Las Vegas. Two years
later I was broke. And he was off in some foreign country spending my life’s
work. I managed to pin him down long enough to sign the divorce papers and that
was it. I swore I’d never let another woman make my mistake.
    It was already 5 o’clock and I was
pressed for time, as always. The faded blue skinny jeans and low back top I was
wearing would have to do. I considered taking off my bra, just in case. Jill
had sprung this proposition on me and left without the slightest detail about
her fiancé. All I knew was that they’d been dating for only a month before she proposed. Jill was never really one to wait around but it certainly came as a
surprise to our circle when she showed up for brunch with a fifty thousand
dollar rock on her hand. She paid for it. He reimbursed her. This wasn’t
looking promising. Either this man was a spineless flop or he was in it for
financial reasons. Either way, I didn’t think it’d take long to expose him.
    With only mustard colored shoes and
an Italian name to go on, I guessed I’d figure it out as I went.

2
     
    By the time I arrived the restaurant
was buzzing. Women in short dresses they had no intention of wearing circled
around the bar, nursing their watered down cocktails. A few of them looked up
from their idle conversations to scowl at me. I could have been the