Playing Hard To Get Read Online Free PDF

snoring man leaning on her shoulder. The panty-free, transgender prostitute. Sudden stops. Dirty floors. Graffiti. Grit. Grime. Crime. Perfection—not.
    If Tamia worked hard, she rationalized, she shouldn’t have to be exposed to this cornucopia of bad scents and bad taste. Like the rest of her friends, who traipsed around the city in taxis and chauffeured town cars, she should be able to enjoy the life she’d worked so hard for. But unlike her friends, her hard work didn’t come with Manhattan or Hollywood inheritances. Her family had money. But not that kind of money, so she’d have to work a little bit harder. Which she, being Tamia, certainly did. And so far, the perfectly planned subway promise had been kept.
    However, on the third day of her new life far and away from her new beau, when she’d done little in the way of finding space from Charleston other than not accepting his calls, she realized that she had a problem. How was she going to get to work?
    In addition to her freed-up bank account, one of the other awesome luxuries she enjoyed as Charleston’s girlfriend was the chauffeured Bentley that waited at the front of her residence to whisk her (well, him) to work each morning. It was a beautiful treat that she loved to remind herself of when she was in the shower or curling her hair—“the car is waiting downstairs.” It sounded like something she deserved. Something better than the subway, which was what she could afford.
    But on day three…Charleston wasn’t in her other bathroom, meticulously coiffing himself as she meticulously inspected her clothing. So when the sweet thought of the car downstairs came to mind, she realized the separation wasn’t going to be as perfect as she’d planned. Her car was in a rented parking garage two blocks away and even if she bothered to take the walk to the garage, it would take her an hour to maneuver through traffic and she’d never find a parking space in midtown.
    “Shit,” she scoffed, knowing there was no way her new leather Prada heels would survive a minute in the packed rush hour subway. Her Tahari suit would be wrinkled and thus out of place at her afternoon team meeting.
    These complaints would sound ridiculous and spoiled to anyone else, but to Tamia it was a point of recognition, of realization. She’d busted her behind to get her things, to get to this place. She deserved better. She just needed a new plan.
    “Bancroft,” she said into the phone when the concierge downstairs answered her call.
    “Madame Dinkins, how may I be of service?”
    “I’ll need a taxi waiting. I’ll be down in ten minutes.” She counted two twenties in her purse and thought it would certainly be enough to get to the office.
    “A taxi?” Bancroft’s voice was as English and distinguished as his name.
    “Yes.”
    “But we assumed you’d be taking your customary mode of transportation,” he said with his voice lowered to a whisper. He always referred to himself in the manner of his entire staff, saying “we” instead of “I.” “Shall we tell your driver to leave?”
    “He’s down there?” Tamia ran to the window before she remembered her view was of the side street.
    “Present, Madame.”
    “Oh.” Tamia would’ve blushed had she not been so perturbed by the news.
    “Will you still be needing a taxi, Madame?”
    “No. Tell the driver I’ll be down in ten minutes.”
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    It was one thing to ride to work in a chauffeured luxury automobile with her affluent boyfriend beside her, wheeling and dealing on his cell phone as the car cut through traffic. It was a big, brand-new kind of thing to ride in that kind of luxury car alone. Steamy latte in hand and seat belt free, Tamia sat like she was the Queen of Kings County. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and ordered the driver to lower and raise the windows so many times they both laughed at her indecision. And when it was all over and she was at the office, she thought to ask him to go