Amanda and Jake already had a full afternoon and evening planned. Amanda wanted to savor some of the New York she hadn't yet seen, and Jake suggested visiting an art gallery. Amanda had readily agreed, then looked at her reflection in the mirror and the state of her nails and called Marc Joseph. It was a Catch-22. The things she did like manis and pedis and spa treatments lasted pristinely for the two weeks they were in the real world, but quickly fell to the realm. But the polish applied in the realm remained unblemished in both worlds. She dashed to her cell phone and made a panicked call, then let out a sigh of relief and told Jake she'd be going out for a bit.

"I won't be long, Jake, I promise." Amanda told him. "I've got another facial scheduled at Marc Joseph, and a mani/pedi. The last treatment made me look five years younger, and I really want to do it again, and get my nails redone. A couple of hours, and then you can take me to the Museum of Modern Art, and then when we get back here...You can just take me." She winked.

He winked, they kissed, and she felt like she had to explain herself. "I spent decades wearing no makeup other than punk...And...Fuck it. I like the way I look now when I'm dolled up. I realize what I missed all of those years, and it's pathetic and vain but it's the truth. I know you don't care...I just...It makes me feel even prettier, and you make me feel plenty pretty, but I like looking at my facial and makeup and nails and seeing how even prettier I can be when I take my time and do it."

Jake wrapped his arms around her. "I get it. You don't have to explain. And besides, I know how fun it can be to be pampered. Go and enjoy yourself. Shit, you don't even hardly let me pay for it yet so how could I be remotely pissed when you do it. You're gorgeous without it, I agree, but you're gorgeous with it. It makes you happy, and I like knowing it makes you happy."

So she smiled and said she'd hurry back and dashed out the front door. The driver was a lovely man by the name of Roger. He was usually very friendly, so seeing him with a confused expression as he stood outside the door was peculiar. "Someone handed this to me and left. He did not say his name."

He passed Amanda a note. She opened it. In large letters, it said, "I KNOW WHO YOU ARE LINDA AND I KNOW YOUR SECRET I WILL KEEP IT TO MYSELF IF WE MAKE A DEAL STARBUCKS 1128 3RD AVENUE NOW."

Shit. Jigsaw's apprentice had been found. Strahm had been wrong. FUCK. Someone had seen her on T.V. and knew of her past. Who? Who the fuck would know? Was there another apprentice besides Hoffman? But they used the Linda alias too, the one she'd recently abandoned now that she had all the documentation claiming she was Amanda Park. Who knew about THAT?"

Her heart was beating in her chest. She told Roger to wait for her. She and Roger were on a first-name basis because Amanda wasn't a snooty bitch, and she always treated him as friendly as possible and threw him many, many tips on top of his salary, so he asked her, "Is everything okay, Amanda?" Amanda forced a smile. "I'll know in a few minutes, probably." She gave him a reassuring look and then she stormed off in the direction of the Starbucks on the note.

It wasn't a long trip. She was outside the door in less than 10 minutes and walked into the Starbucks. She had no idea who she was fucking looking for. The asshole could have told her what he was fucking wearing. Sitting off by himself in Dickies, a man made eye contact and held up his hand.

Amanda's face went into resting bitch-mode and she walked over to the table and sat down. "What the fuck do you want?" She didn't recognize the man, and he looked a little too rough to be one of Jigsaw's apprentices.

"No need to be rude," he said.

Amanda's hair-trigger temper slipped a notch closer to the red. "I just want to know who the fuck you are and what the fuck you want. The note you left wasn't very fucking civil, so it's kind of a fucking joke that you expect me to greet you with a sunny smile."

The man looked surprised. "Your memory isn't what it used to be. I thought girls always remembered their first."

Amanda's eyes darted, then widened. "Kyle?" He smiled. "I'm sorry for the threatening note, but I didn't think you'd agree to see me if I just asked. I saw you on the news and recognized you and so I did some searching online and it brought me here. To you. I've actually been missing..."

"What the fuck do you want from me? If it's to reconnect, fuck that. You took my cherry and abandoned me without saying goodbye, and frankly, I'd slap the fuck out of you if there weren't fucking people around."

Kyle's face remained smiling. But he abandoned his initial hope that she carried a torch for him. If he wanted money from her, he had to blackmail her for it, that was now completely obvious. But maybe he could blackmail her into a quick fuck anyway. He said, "And of course it would look bad if you did slap me and make a scene. It would reveal your true status, and not the one you've so carefully cultivated. People would wonder why Jake Park's "classy" wife was beating on someone in a Starbucks...Wouldn't they? Tongues would start wagging."

This was getting fucking weird. What the fuck was he talking about? "Are you going to tell me why you're here? Because it's obvious now that flirting was just an angle and now you see that it's useless. So what do you really want from me?"

"I know all about you, Amanda. I know about the trailer, the abusive father. I know you came from nothing but you reinvented yourself, right? After all, you had to, in order to snag yourself such a fine man, a billionaire's son. But you can only cover up so much with the make-up and the expensive lipstick, can't you? Look, I'm not here to make waves. Jake never has to find out you were trailer trash. All it will take is a million dollars, cash. I know you can get it. He'll never know you're not high-society, your marriage will remain intact, and I'll never bother you again...Also, I'll need you to get us a hotel room. I want us to have one more intimate encounter together, and do it right."

Amanda sat there. And suddenly all the tension she'd been feeling evaporated. THAT? THAT'S what this was fucking all ABOUT? Blackmail to hide the fact she grew up poor in a fucking TRAILER? And he wanted her to fuck him TOO?

"Well?" Kyle was looking at her expectantly. She wasn't even listening to him. He said, "If it makes you happy, I haven't had much go well for me..."

And she giggled. And Kyle stopped speaking and looked at her in shock, and a little anger. She kept giggling. And then giggles weren't enough. She started laughing loudly enough to draw stares.

Kyle grimaced. Did she not comprehend that it would take one fucking phone call to her husband and a local scandal magazine to fuck up her entire life? "Look, bitch, I saw you married him as Linda Gideon. You're obviously playing an angle and I'm not even going to get into that. But I will reveal that you're not who he thinks you are. It's obvious from the assumed name that he doesn't know, because you used a false Identity. I will tell him everything I know about you, I'm not kidding..."

"Oh lord," Amanda said, wiping tears from her eyes. "Blackmail. Oh fuck." She collected herself and said, "He already knows I grew up in a trailer and my daddy beat me, you stupid fuck. And he knew that my Linda Gideon name was false, but I got rid of it. I don't need it anymore."

Kyle opened his mouth. "Bullshit, there is no way he could know what you are and marry you..."

Amanda cut him off quickly. "Oh yes he could, and oh yes he did. He knew all about me from the first time he fucked me, and he hasn't stopped since. He knows I'm nowhere near his league and he doesn't care. He loves me for ME. I had a lot of emotional problems, for obvious reasons, and he helped me get through them all without any medication. He's my fucking knight in shining armor and I let him know every day. And I'm his femme fatale...His tempting, lusty, femme fatale. We met under unusual circumstances and fell completely in love. We haven't had our anniversary yet, but our connection is as strong as a couple that's been married over 20 years."

Kyle was sputtering. Amanda kept twisting the knife. "And Christ does he know how to fuck me. Nightly. Sometimes multiple times a day. Shit, he fucked me ten times in one day in that lifeboat. I'm sure you heard about our drifting on the ocean in the news. I even told him about the lackluster way you took my virginity and said since no one has ever been as deeply in my pussy as his big cock has been, that I considered him the one who really took my fucking cherry."

This was going more horribly than Kyle could have ever imagined. "But...His parents..."

Amanda cut him off again, "Know enough about me that anything you reveal won't be shocking to them either. They love me like a daughter and they love the marriage and closeness I have with their son. They know I love him completely and adore him totally and would hurt him, never. They see how in synch we are and they are thrilled to death that I make him so fucking happy everyday."

He wasn't about to give up yet. "But he still makes you do spa treatments and wear expensive makeup to make you look younger than you are, for appearances. Don't tell me you haven't been under a knife yet as well."

"The things I do to beautify myself are strictly because *I* want to. I hadn't showered in days and definitely had no makeup on in that lifeboat towards the end, and he couldn't stop fucking me for most of a day and into the night," Amanda grinned at him smugly. "We were both sore as Hell when we finally passed out. I could go au naturale in a garbage bag and he'd still get a hard-on and want to fuck me. He doesn't care that I'm older than him or care if I'm made-up or not. He just wants me. All the fucking time."

Amanda stood up. "Point is, you got nothin', big boy. Definitely not anything to spend a million bucks to keep from him, and definitely nothing worth making me take you to a hotel room so you can sloppily put your dick inside me and gloat over the fact that you're fucking me after you hurt me in my teens. You're probably such a douchebag that if I'd agreed, you'd make me pay for the room you fucked me in. Now...If you're really dead-set on it...You might make a few bucks talking to a scandal rag because those shitrags will print anything, but it's not going to affect my marriage or relationship with Jake's parents one iota. So fuck you very much on that plan."

He hated himself, but he started to beg, started to say that he needed the money because he was tired of living paycheck to paycheck...But he could see that she was pissed and uppity, and begging wouldn't work.

She opened her purse, pulled out a wad of cash, and set a $100 bill on the table before making the money disappear into her huge bag like a magician. "That'll more than cover your coffee and gas back to whatever hole you crawled out of. I can't believe after what you did to me that you'd sink this low." She leaned down and got into his face. "My life until recently was a living fucking Hell and it almost killed me. Jake and his family are the first good thing that has really ever happened to me, and the thought that you'd try to come here and fuck with that, after you stole my fucking innocence, and then abandoned me when you knew I was fucking fragile as Hell mentally, is pretty fucking depraved."

She raised herself upright. "Great to catch up, now stay the fuck away from me. You've seen my husband, right? Well I'm going to tell him about this little meeting, and I can assure you, if you cross paths with me again, he'll knock your dick in the dirt. Don't let the designer clothes fool you, he's not anyone to fuck with. And he'll be even more vicious to anyone who fucks with me. We love each other completely, my baggage and all, and nothing will ever change that."

Amanda smiled sweetly, gave him a wave and left the coffee shop. She should still be able to make her facial on time. She giggled again. Jigsaw's former apprentice was safe and sound. Christ, a million dollar blackmail demand to keep secrets from Jake when the only thing he didn't know about her was that her dad drunkenly tried to rape her. What a goddamn joke. And he wanted her to fuck him too. What a fucking asshole.

Amanda hurried back down the sidewalk to her in-laws' house. Roger got out of the limo when he saw her approach and was waiting by the door and he smiled when he saw the relief on Amanda's face. "It was an old boyfriend wanting money. I told him to pound sand. If we hurry, I won't be late. Pedal to the medal, my good man."

Amanda let out a whoop and a holler like she was a member of the cast of a remake of "Smokey and the Bandit," opened the rear door and dived into the back seat.

And because she and Roger were friends, he smiled and gave the limo enough gas to burn rubber as they pulled away from the curb. Amanda lowered the dividing glass as she usually did when they were by themselves, and he laughed as he saw her continue to whoop, holler, and bounce excitedly in the limo's back seat.

***************************************************************************************

Kyle was clenching and unclenching his fists as he stared at the hundred dollar bill she left on the table. The fucking bitch. How the fuck had she told her husband she was fucking trailer trash and still managed to get him to marry her? She was pretty, but she for damn sure wasn't some supermodel, she was nothing when you considered that as rich as he was, he could get any fucking woman he wanted. Why the fuck had he picked her?

She'd said something about them meeting under unusual circumstances. Where? Did she give him a mind-blowing lap dance at some strip club? After all, now that he'd seen her again, he could see her being able to avoid marrying someone like her father if she'd instead turned to a profession where she let men pay money while she exposed her body. Had he seen her performing? Did she fuck him so good in the VIP room during a private session that he decided fuck the fact she was a stripper, he wanted to have her to fuck for the rest of his life?

And shit, a million bucks was nothing to her. Absolutely nothing. And she'd thrown that hundred bucks on the table like it was fucking NOTHING also. She'd palmed more money than he saw in a month without even thinking about it. Pulling out wads of cash was a perfectly natural thing for her now, the uppity cunt.

And she damn well didn't give it to him because he was fucking special. She probably gave the goddamn baristas who served her coffee hundred dollar probably just stood on the street corner and randomly passed them out to everybody who walked on the sidewalk if she felt the urge. A hundred bucks was more than he made in a day working, and she acted like she'd just left him a dollar bill.

But the biggest thing...She'd laughed at him. After he knew that lying about his buried feelings for her and had come at her with both barrels with his blackmail scheme, she'd immediately shot him down by laughing at him.

He'd expected her to panic, maybe cry, and then start begging. He'd expected her, after he told her he'd keep it a secret, to immediately begin discussing how she would get him the money, and then after that, and after he'd told her that his silence was also contingent on her spreading her legs for him, that she'd immediately book them a room in a fancy hotel...And pay for it.

But she hadn't fucking done any of that. In two minutes she'd cut him down and fucking LAUGHED at him. She used him as a punchline and said he was smaller than her husband's dick. She'd done that just to piss him the fuck off, and it had fucking worked. She looked like the older version of that naive teen he'd coaxed into the backseat of his Cutlass and who he'd gotten to spread her legs for him, but that was the end of the resemblance. She'd turned into an uppity, condescending bitch now that she had access to her hubby's bank account.

And it pissed him off knowing that she'd found a rich boy that had listened to her entire shitty life story and still found her attractive enough to marry and have sex with. True love conquered all, apparently. It made him sick. He could have done far better and he'd settled for this cunt...This bitch...This undeserving whore who knew she was trash but now felt so sure of herself that she could insult him.

No, fuck the bitch. She had money, and he wanted it. He was gonna get the last laugh. He would find a way to do it. Hating himself, he pocketed the hundred and started working on another plan. It came roaring to the front of his brain almost immediately. He asked to borrow a phone book and looked at the listings and was surprised to see a name under the business directory. They had one of those here? In the Upper East Side of Manhattan?

He thought about it, but the rage overtook anything else he may be thinking. It hadn't even taken him 10 minutes. He already had his next plan in place. And furthermore, this plan would net him a lot more money than the paltry million bucks he'd tried to blackmail her out of. He thought about calling Wade but decided against it. But once he revealed his alternative, and once he revealed it would bring them both even more money, he knew Wade would immediately get on board.

***************************************************************************************

"So I ran into an ex-today." Amanda was stretched out in the back seat of the limo and had her legs draped over her husband's lap. She'd even left the divider down and Roger said, "Yeah, he was a real sweetheart."

Jake looked through the divider at the back of Roger's head, then looked at her as the buildings passed by the limo windows on the way to the Museum of Modern Art. "Oh yeah?"

Amanda nodded. "Someone who knows about my trailer roots. He told me he'd tell you about it and ruin my high-society image if I didn't give him a million bucks. And then he also wanted me to fuck him in order for me to buy his silence."

And then she burst out laughing.

Jake started giggling himself, shocked. "Seriously? You went out for a facial and you've already been blackmailed this morning?"

Amanda was nodding her head as she laughed. "I know, right? What a fucking JOKE. He saw me in the newscasts from the ship interview and has been stalking me on the internet and thought I was a gold digger or something. I mean, we know why you married me, but I could see how some of the deadbeats I let walk on me would wonder what lies I told to bag a hot...Sexy...Rich...Buff...Big-dicked guy."

Amanda had taken her boots and socks off and playfully rubbed his crotch with her toes. She always knew how to tease him and turn him on, but she never played hard to get. If he suddenly wanted to fuck her right now, she'd want him to do so. But this was more important than that right now. He ignored his growing erection and said, "So what did you do?"

Amanda giggled and paused the actions of her toes. "Honestly, the only reason I went is because he said he'd tell my secret and I thought it had to do with my past criminal history as Jigsaw's apprentice. He also called me Linda, and I'm not sure how he knew that I was called that once, but again it was enough of a red flag that I HAD to take the meeting. Once I found out that he was just hitting me up for money and sex, I told him to fuck off and said that if he bothered me again that you'd pound his dick into the dirt."

And they both laughed. And behind them, in his Cutlass, Kyle followed with an angry expression on his face. He'd made his side trip and cruised back up to the house and saw the limo was back outside. He figured it wouldn't just be parking there, and so he'd decided to wait and see if the uppity bitch came out again, and sure enough, after waiting 15 minutes, she had, with her rich and apparently trailer-trash loving husband. He did look tough, but if the chips were down, Kyle thought he could take him if he fought dirty.

So he'd followed them to see where they were going, and when the limo pulled into an underground lot, Kyle followed it. When it parked in a parallel spot for large vehicles, he parked across from it.

Jake said, "He could have dropped us at the door. We could have shown up like celebrities, maybe people would have recognized us and fawned over us and asked us for our autograph. The two miracle survivors of the Ocean Princess."

Amanda shrugged. "I like walking in New York in the cold. It's invigorating. And what you described is EXACTLY what I want to avoid. Peter reassured me, but the more I get "famous," the more of a risk I'm taking of someone ACTUALLY recognizing me as Amanda Young."

"I know honey, I was just joking. You don't like pomp and circumstance, same as me. If you'd actually asked, I'd have been shocked."

She grinned. "Is it because I wander around your parents' house barefoot like I'm back in my trailer? Is that the giveaway I'm just a simple bitch that loves to spread my legs and fuck?"

"Mmmhmmmm." Jake nodded and caressed her thigh. "And I'm a simple man that loves to put my cock in my simple wife whenever she spreads those legs."

Amanda kissed him again. "Maybe when we get back out here, Roger can take the long way home for us. Lot of space back here to spread my legs." They both grinned. She touched her face. "Shit, I didn't put on any make-up after the facial. I probably should dress it up a lil, nothing fancy. Do I have time?

Jake said, "I need to pay the ticketer so the limo doesn't get towed. I can do that quickly if you want to put a few touches on your face. You might want to put your boots back on. the museum might be one of those places that does a no shirt, no shoes, no service policy."

"Fuck, you're right. Plus, it'll be a cold walk." Amanda smiled and kissed him and started pulling her socks back on. "Yes, go get the ticket. I may be simple, but I've definitely grown to appreciate how my tired old face looks with some make up dressing it up."

Jake got out of the limo and said, "Tired old face my ass. You look gorgeous. You don't need make-up and you never do. Quit calling yourself an old bag. You look better and fuck harder than an 18-year-old."

They exchanged one more smile and Jake shut the door. Fuck he was adorable. Amanda used her compact mirror to throw on some lipstick and eyeshadow. She wasn't going to go overboard, the facial made the skin of her face shiny and smooth. She deemed herself presentable and after she slid her feet back into her boots, she got out of the limo. Her purse tilted and some of her shit fell onto the floor. "FUUUUCK," Amanda muttered and leaned in to get it.

And then things happened fast. She didn't hear Kyle approach, and she exited the car backwards. He raised a length of pipe and clipped the back of her head with it and Amanda was out before her face hit the seat. He stuffed her into the tight back seat of the Cutlass, got in, and drove away. Roger exited the vehicle and got just a glimpse of the car, seeing it was black, before it pulled around out of sight.

"Amanda?" He hurried to the back. She was gone. Jake was approaching with the sticker to put on the limo's window. "Jake!"

Jake looked at him, startled. "Amanda. I think something happened to her. I didn't see, but she just disappeared. A black car pulled away, but all I could tell was that it was black."

Jake's heart was beating in his chest as he called 911. "My wife," he told the dispatcher in his panic. "I think my wife has been kidnapped. Help me. Please."