by Nolon King
She kissed the bouncer on the cheek, a guy who looked like Michael Clark Duncan and had an even deeper voice, like rumbling thunder.
I waited a few steps behind her, listening to her talk in a loud whisper, just low enough to exclude me.
Everyone here seemed in love with themselves, which probably explained the giant golden mirror fixed to the building. It should have been tacky, but somehow it wasn’t.
I looked at myself, admiring my body in the little black dress, a new addition to my wardrobe that I rationalized by reminding myself that I could afford it if I was going to renew my contract. My makeup was dramatic, in vivid colors I rarely wore. Olivia had teased my hair into suggestive waves.
If I crashed into Ryan now, he probably wouldn’t recognize me.
I barely recognized me.
The bouncer ushered us inside. I could hear chatter behind me as I followed Olivia, following the bouncer into Cameo.
Who are they?
I think the blonde is Margot Robbie.
Damn, that dude is big.
Olivia turned to me and said, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, although I can’t imagine what that would be.”
She started to walk away, but I grabbed her by the arm. “Wait!”
“What?”
“Aren’t you going to help me?”
“I got you in here, now you’re on your own.”
Then Olivia strutted off.
I felt itchy in my skin and out of my body.
My husband was here with another woman.
I wasn’t sure what would happen when I found them, but it wouldn’t be pretty. I might kill him right in front of everyone.
I walked through the club, trying not to get distracted. It was dark enough to shroud me in shadows and obscure the identities of the patrons around me, yet it was somehow light enough to see whatever I needed to in front of me, with halos of light where people were clustered.
There were doors everywhere I looked: bathrooms, apparently unisex.
Olivia had already disappeared into the mob. I was in awe of the woman, walking in like she owned the place, then vanishing into its throbbing heart like she’d been there a hundred times before.
She probably had, and made a couple grand per visit.
This was probably a mistake. Best-case scenario, I would see Ryan with another woman and slink off in horror, too injured for a confrontation. Worst case, I’d lose my shit and go viral, because of course someone would film it.
Or maybe keeping silent was the worst case. Maybe losing my shit was exactly what needed to happen.
I swallowed, then started walking the club.
I would have given anything for a friend. It had been a long time since I could use that word with Olivia, but her abandoning me at the door still hit me harder than I would have imagined. I felt deserted, standing solitary in the face of something that was so much bigger than me.
At least I was enjoying the view. Cameo was stunning, and so was its clientele. The bar was occupied by a long row of wealthy-looking men. Tailored suits, polished watches, gorgeous dates that had only been legally drinking for hours.
Whoa.
If Aldo Barr and Sebastian Swan were casually drinking a few feet away from me, then this place was even more exclusive than I thought. How could Ryan afford to come to a place like Cameo?
And how was he able to get in?
“Whiskey on the rocks,” I told the bartender, who looked like Brad Pitt’s better-looking little brother. He smiled as I paid for my drink and dropped a twenty into the tip jar.
By the time I finished my drink, I still hadn’t caught a glimpse of Ryan, so I went back to the bar. I wanted another whiskey, and some more of the bartender’s smile.
After being served, I returned to wandering, but I still wasn’t finding Ryan.
So I had another, then another after that.
I didn’t see Olivia anywhere and figured maybe she had left. Abandoned me again.
Soon enough I was that girl: drunk, sad, and alone at the bar.
Brad’s kid brother offered me another whiskey, but I waved him away.
“This one’s on the house,” he said, setting it in front of me a minute after my refusal, probably figuring I couldn’t really mean no if I was still at the bar, and it was the least he could do after sixty dollars in tips.
I finished that one off, even though I really shouldn’t have.
Now I was officially fuckered, with a swimming head and my equilibrium about to go on strike. And — dammit — I might have to throw up.
“Where’s the bathroom?” I asked like an idiot, only remembering Cameo’s layout after the words left my mouth.
He laughed. “Just spit and you’ll hit one.”
“Thanks,” I said, then wobbled over to the nearest one.
It was locked, and so was the one after that. The third was open. I went in and locked the door behind me.
I looked at myself in the mirror, wondering how those perfect women all managed to keep their makeup so perfect while my eyeliner was smudged under my eyes, awful enough to make me look like a crack-whore.
I didn’t have to throw up, once I had a closed door between me and all that chaos. But I did splash cold water on my face and fix my makeup as best as I could. Then I stared at myself in the mirror long enough to collect myself, reaffirming my mission to find Ryan, before leaving the bathroom.
I took two steps before there were arms at my waist, grabbing me and spinning me around.
I was expecting to see Ryan, but instead I was staring into the eyes of someone else.
“Elle! I thought that was you.”
It took me a moment to realize who I was looking at, and to register how weird my life had become.
Bennett Cole held me close, looking down on me, concerned.
“What’s the matter? Have you been crying?”
I wanted to lie, but I couldn’t. Not with the way he was looking at me.
“Just a little,” I said, wiping at my eyes. “But it’s no big deal.”
“Sure it’s a big deal. Do you want to talk about it?” Bennett looked at me like he had on his sofa, in a way that made me feel seen.
It was light amid so many shadows.
“I was stalking my husband, but now I’m just drunked.”
“Drunked?” Bennett laughed.
“Something like that.” Then I laughed too.
I know I shouldn’t have let my guard down. But I was still a little hurt over the way he’d kicked me out of his hotel room, and he was being so nice to me now.
“Do you know what helps when I’m drunked?” he said.
“What?”
“I’ll show you,” Bennett said, holding out his arm for me to hook mine through.
“Where are we going?”
“Upstairs. Have you been?”
“I didn’t even know there was one,” I admitted.
Bennett didn’t say anything else as he led me into an elevator that took us up to the rooftop.
I wondered if he’d done this with other women he’d hired out, approaching them in public off the clock and taking them somewhere isolated. Did he want sex from me now? Or was he just being nice?
Or maybe he just feels sorry for you.
That brought me back to the question I’d been working hard not to think about at all.
Why hadn’t he booked me again?
I couldn’t stop wondering, even though I scolded myself for caring every time I found myself doing it. This time was no different, but there was a chill in the night air kissing my naked skin, and unlike Cameo below, the rooftop was brightly lit.
I felt exposed. Practically naked.
“Do we have a plan for when we find your husband?” Bennett asked, clearly amused.
“Kill him, of course.” I laughed, but I was drunked enough to almost mean it.
“Of course.”
Bennett let that settle. He didn’t try to touch me, even though I wanted him to. He st
ayed a respectful three feet away, but he was still looking at me, into me, more deeply than Ryan ever had.
He finally spoke. “So you followed him here?”
“He’s supposed to be on a business trip in Atlanta.”
“And where are you supposed to be?”
“That’s not the point,” I said.
“I’m only asking you the questions that he is going to ask you, if you choose to have this confrontation.”
“What, you don’t think I should talk to him if I see him?”
“I can’t tell you what to do, Elle. But I can tell you that if I acted on every impulse, my life would be a mess. Know when to let things go, so your actions matter when you take them.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Bennett raised his eyebrows and looked at me expectantly. “Is this fresh air doing you any good?”
He was eyeing my body; why wasn’t he doing anything else?
Fuck, even his voice was sexy.
“You need a plan,” he said.
“I’ll be fine.” I turned around and started walking toward the elevator.
Bennett stayed right beside me.
“Don’t do anything that you’re going to regret,” he warned me in the elevator, his warm hand on my cold shoulder.
“Mm-hmm.”
“Information is power. Take what you learn and do something with it,” he suggested on our way back to the bar, his large palm on the small of my back.
“Mm-hmm.”
“I think you’ve had enough,” he cautioned as I ordered another whiskey neat, his strong arms around my waist, leading me over to one of Cameo’s dark corners.
I wondered what he might want to do to me once we were there.
“I want another drink,” I slurred, faux-pouting.
“Not tonight.”
I was about to argue when I saw my husband. In the corner, sitting at a loveseat in one of Cameo’s few illuminated areas. Practically framed, at a small round table under a decorated arch, inked with ivy that looked real from where I was standing, almost trompe-l'œil.
If we weren’t in a tangle of shadows, or if I wasn’t painted and dressed like a whore, Ryan could certainly see and recognize me from where he was sitting with that stunning blonde. She had movie star looks. Or at least TV.
That’s where I’d seen her before.
Jess Lindley. She played Allison on Adulting.
They were close. So close.
It shouldn’t have surprised me since Cameo was a Hollywood hotspot, but the lighting in this place was unreal. My husband entertaining a beautiful former actress, young but already done, seemed almost backlit for my horror.
My face was hot, and the hairs on my arms were all standing on end.
I lurched forward, but something yanked me back.
Bennett’s hand on my arm. He pulled me toward him, squeezing.
“Don’t, Elle.” He nodded toward the loveseat. “Is that your husband? With Jess Lindley?”
I nodded.
“But you have no idea how they know each other?”
“No. That’s why I’m here. Why are you making that face? Do you know her?”
He didn’t tell me why he was making that face, and kept right on making it as he said, “No. But we have people in common.”
“Why do you care whether I go over there and confront him?”
“Because I don’t want to see you hurt. This place is still very public, as exclusive as it is. A woman like you should be well-practiced in the arts of discretion.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” It came out sharper than I wanted, but also kind of ‘fuck him.’ That sounded like an insult.
“It’s supposed to mean that you traffic in secrets.” Bennett said it gently and in almost a whisper. “Restrain yourself now and you’ll have all the power later.”
He squeezed my arm again before letting me go.
“Okay,” I said, desperate to have some sort of closure about something, hating how impotent I felt. If I couldn’t interrogate Ryan, what could I do?
I reeled around on Bennett. “Why haven’t you booked me again?”
His body straightened. His jaw firmed. His hands fell to his sides.
And it was all my fault.
I was soiling his fantasy by making this real, trying to hold him accountable for a relationship that didn’t — that couldn’t — exist. I was being overly emotional, and that was more than he had bargained for.
“Compose yourself. You’re acting like a child.”
I flinched. The last time anyone had told me I was behaving like a child, I actually was one.
I opened my mouth to protest, but the sound of familiar laughter made me whirl around in time to see Olivia greeting Ryan with a giant hug.
I strained to hear her above Cameo’s racket, a soundtrack of celebrities, wannabes, and the dripping rich. Her laughter was louder than her talking, but it was easy enough to imagine.
Oh my god! What are the odds that we’d run into each other here?
The hug broke and Olivia sat.
Then the bitch looked right at me. Her eyes were an arrow and mine were the target.
Her lips were twisted in menace. She wanted me to wonder what she was doing.
“Do you want to go?” Bennett asked.
I couldn’t tell what he even meant by that. Did I want to leave Cameo with him? Or was he hinting that he wanted me to go away?
I didn’t care, I couldn’t care. Not right now, not while I was watching this scene play out like a bad joke.
What happens when Natalie’s cheating, lying, fucker of a husband sits down with a washed-up actress and her oldest friend-turned-foe?
“I need to see this,” I whispered.
Ryan looked smitten to have run into his former girlfriend, turning his attention from Jess to her with a smile that I haven’t seen him wear in years.
It hurt, like a blade between my ribs, but mostly because the light of that gleaming knife illuminated the truth. There was a natural ease and connection between them that Ryan and I still didn’t share, even all these years later.
I was dying to know what they were saying, but their body language made it clear: they were happy to see each other, their hands on each other’s shoulders, and a lingering embrace that was more intimate than friendly. Familiar, and from my place in the shadows, perhaps even tinged with longing.
I could feel myself starting to spiral into rage.
Fortunately, I was a slightly different person than I had been the night Olivia first showed me those photos. Or at least I now had access to a different me. I knew where to go, because it was the same place I went whenever I was getting paid for a party. Before, during, and after, because in that place, I called the shots, even if someone was calling them for me.
I took Bennett by the hand and made a beeline for the nearest bathroom without any line, hoping for a vacancy, and not giving a shit whether or not Olivia saw me.
He knew where we were going and clearly liked the idea. He tried the door for me.
It was open, so we went inside.
Bennett locked the door and pressed his back against it, his hands already at his belt.
I was on my knees, that little black dress riding all the way up my ass.
I took Bennett in my mouth to get Ryan out of my mind.
What happened next had nothing to do with pleasuring him as a client. It was about me being desperate to take back some little bit of control over my unraveling life.
Bennett grabbed me by the arm, hauled me to my feet, and led me over to the sink.
Then he bent me over so that my palms were flat on the tile. He lifted my little black skirt up above my waist with one hand, while he hooked his thumb into my panties and lowered them with the other, and sank into me.
I bucked back, wanting him as much as he wanted me, trying to lose myself in the unbridled pleasure of feeling wanted by someone to consume me.
He finished in less
than a minute, then left without a word.
When I emerged from the bathroom, Ryan was gone.
Jess and Olivia too.
Chapter Ten
Thursday Afternoon …
“Don’t leave us with Anna! Anna’s mean.” Alec sulked as I secured my earring. “Lena hates her.”
That’s how put out Alec was. He was using his sister to manipulate me into staying home instead of heading out for another client date.
“Why do you say she’s mean?”
He hesitated. “You’re always gone, and so is Dad.”
He wasn’t wrong.
I was trying not to feel like a terrible mother. I missed spending time with them — movie nights and popcorn, board games on Thursdays after dinner, playing catch at the park on Sundays. But I was doing this for them. Even if I couldn’t explain what I was doing to Alec, I needed him to understand that I didn’t want to be away.
“You’re right, Alec. But please, I need to take care of a few things tonight, and so that means that I need you to behave for Anna, and to set a good example for your sister. Can you do that for me?”
Silence.
“Alec?”
“Fine.”
I grabbed my purse, then kissed him on the forehead as I passed by on my way to the door.
“Ew, gross,” he protested half-heartedly.
“If Anna tells me you’ve been good, we’ll go for ice cream this weekend. As many scoops as you want.”
There was a time when the promise of unlimited ice cream would’ve made my son cheer, but tonight it earned only a skeptical grunt.
As I got into my car, I promised myself that I would make it up to him soon.
I’d been an absentee mother ever since Cameo. Catching Ryan in his web of lies had rattled me. Okay, it had depressed me. And empty sex with Bennett had made it worse — ironic that when he’d been paying, he made me feel cared for, but when the sex was free, he’d made me feel used.
I’d dealt with the emotional aftermath by asking Victor to set me up with as many bookings as possible. My calendar was suddenly packed, so Alec was right to be upset. I was starting to have regulars — several clients had booked me on repeat, except for Bennett — so with my full permission, Victor had scheduled three clients in a row, from lunch through late dinner. Two of today’s were new.
