by Diana Seere
Asher’s laugh made Gavin grip the railing so hard he might bend it. “Your lies are as bad as Derry’s debts.”
Gavin turned around to meet Asher’s eyes.
“Unnecessary and, in the end, more destructive to you than to me.”
“Why are you here?”
“To save you from making an enormous mistake.”
“How can it be a mistake if I feel the Beat? What if she’s the One?” Gavin asked with a tight smile. His voice carried a mocking tone and yet—a vision of that long blonde hair, those wide hips, the kind arms that reached for the dog and her lingering eyes, reflecting back his desire…
Gavin studied his brother, who now hovered in the balcony threshold. Moonlight gave Gavin a full view. The same dark hair that Derry possessed, but blue eyes like Gavin’s, though a deeper color, as if black onyx had married the azure blue sky. Asher wore his hair longer than any of his brothers, pulled back at the nape of his neck with a simple ribbon. He looked, for all intents and purposes, like a man from the 1800s. Derry’s Mr. Darcy joke resonated, though he’d teased the wrong brother.
If any man in the family were close to a Regency hero, it was Asher.
In terms of age, he was also the closest. The Stanton bloodline, like all of the other old shifter families, gave its members long lives. Long, extended lives. None were immortal, but living parts of three centuries was not unheard of. All five Stanton children looked to be in their thirties and twenties, but their true ages were nearly three times that.
The bitter laugh that greeted Gavin made his breath seize in his chest. Asher’s words felt like a knife. “You don’t believe in the old ways, but they believe in you when you’re not looking. If this woman, Lilah—”
“You know her name?” Gavin was suddenly inches from Asher’s face, ready to fight.
“Of course,” Asher replied, swishing his drink casually as if Gavin weren’t bearing down on him. The affect enraged Gavin. Hearing Lilah’s name on his brother’s tongue enraged him more. “And you know damn well, Gavin, that you cannot have her.” He paused, frowning. “You can have her. Bed her. That is fine. But you won’t marry her.”
Gavin bristled. “I’ll marry as I wish.” He walked over to his television and picked up a giant foam finger, a memento from the last Patriots game he attended in his club box. He slid his free hand into it.
Asher’s eyebrows inched up. “As long as the one you wish for is a shifter.”
“How do we know that Lilah is not one of us?” Gavin asked, the words out in anger, unable to be retrieved. He could smell his own craving and felt a keen sense of desperation welling up.
Gavin didn’t do desperation. Anger would be a fine substitute, though.
Anger and his hands on Lilah, stroking and teasing, laving and loving—
Asher’s face contorted, eyes on Gavin, his expression pinched in disgust. “You can’t stop thinking about the human, can you?”
Gavin pointed the foam finger at Asher. “We’re human as well.”
Asher rolled his eyes and shoved the finger to the side. “Not entirely.”
“More than enough.”
“Too much,” Asher said with a well-worn bitterness. He finished his drink and marched into the shadows of the penthouse. A sloshing sound followed as he refilled his drink.
The truth dawned on Gavin. “You don’t want me to marry a human because of what happened to Claire.” Claire was Asher’s late wife, a human who had died during childbirth.
Asher’s turn to get in Gavin’s face, the mention of Claire enough to turn him bright red and seething. A small sense of victory pinged deep inside Gavin, for breaking through Asher’s cool, casual exterior took tremendous skill. He was unflappable.
Except when it came to his late beloved.
“Marrying a full human is pure folly,” Asher hissed, his alcohol-soaked breath tickling Gavin’s nose. He could feel the whisky in his brain. “It is stupid and dangerous.”
“What if I don’t have a choice?” How could Gavin explain the feeling of pure fate, the loss of control when he had been near Lilah, how some part of him was a magnet, drawn without choice to her?
“You? Gavin Stanton, the billionaire biotech king? You are the epitome of smart choices.” Asher drained his full glass and set it on the table next to the glass doors. His voice was taunting. That wasn’t a compliment.
He was right, though. Gavin had to give him that.
“Then give me that choice,” he countered, eyes narrowed, locked on Asher’s dark, angry orbs.
The air was charged with electricity and resentment, with the past and the future, with all the many slights and sorrows, joys and celebrations that passed through decades—centuries—of being family.
Gavin could feel his brother cataloguing each incident, every interaction, racing through an archive of the family dynasty. As the heir, he had both great wealth and tremendous power. The responsibility was extraordinary.
And Gavin had threatened it all by becoming a powerhouse on his own.
“If I give you that choice, you will choose wrong. The family cannot afford that.”
“Then you’re ruling the family by fear. Not respect.” Gavin poked Asher in the chest with the silly foam finger twice, enraging his brother. Asher grabbed it and threw it out the balcony doors, where a breeze caught it and sent it over the railing, floating down into the street.
“When did you become so childish?” Asher asked with disgust.
“When did you become so bitter?” Gavin countered.
And with that, Gavin brushed past Asher and marched straight out of his own apartment, needing to be anywhere but here.
Chapter 4
At three o’clock on Monday afternoon, Lilah showed up for her first shift at the Platinum Club.
Although a few doubts lingered, and her stomach quivered with nerves, she was eager to walk through the luxurious, glossy office-building lobby and take the elevator up to the club as instructed.
The documents that Eva had sent to her were convincing, impressive, and seductive. The promise of an advance on her paycheck at the end of her first day—an amount more than she made in a month at her last job—made her light-headed.
First thing tomorrow morning, she’d pay off a few of her most pressing debts and take her sister out for a real meal. On Wednesday, her day off, she’d take Smoky to the vet and the doggie salon. And in a few weeks, if she could cut it at the club, she’d start looking for an apartment in a better part of town and even find some affordable landscaper and housecleaner to help out her mom. Just once would make her so happy.
The Platinum Club. Movie stars, financial titans, baseball players, senators.
And a decent paycheck. She’d talked to an ex-waitress at the club—her phone number had been included in the documents—and been reassured there was no stripping, no lap dances, no harassment.
“They could get plenty of that somewhere else,” the woman had said. “The Club is a classy place. You’ll see.”
Given that the ex-waitress was now a feminist studies professor who hosted a show on NPR, Lilah was convinced. Fantasies of paying off her enormous student loans in a single year, as the professor had, ran through her mind. Or helping Jess with medical school.
And it made more sense for her to be a waitress than a secretary if she wanted to work in hospitality management and tourism someday. She didn’t have to give up on her dream after all.
Heart pounding, she checked the number over the glossy doors—fifty-five—before striding inside in her black pants and ballet flats.
Eva had insisted she arrive in nondescript clothing. They’d take care of her “attire,” as she’d called it.
Swallowing over her dry throat, Lilah approached the vast reception desk, where a gray-haired man in a black suit sat between crystal containers displaying exotic fruit and flowers. “Hi.” Her voice caught, and she cleared it. “I’m Lilah.”
“Of course you are,” the man said, his voice as ser
ious as an upright British butler in a Hollywood movie. “They’re waiting for you.”
She hesitated a moment before nodding and walking over to the elevator. Everything was as respectable as the mortgage company where she’d been temping, although much more expensive. In seconds she was inside, gliding upward to eleven. Her palms sweated. When the doors slid open, she forgot how to breathe.
But then she was looking into the friendly round face of a woman no older than she was. “Lilah?” the woman asked. She was a short and curvy brunette with huge blue eyes.
Lilah nodded.
The woman hooked an arm through hers. “I’m Molly. Oh my God, this is going to be so much fun. You’re beautiful!”
“Fun?”
“I get to make you up. After today you’ll get dressed by yourself, but I’m always here if you want help or something new or whatever.” She released Lilah’s arm to pull her own messy brown hair into a ponytail. “I was a theater major. My parents were so depressed, thinking I’d never move out of the house. But look at me! Isn’t this incredible?”
“I hope so.”
“I know, I know, you’re freaking. But it’s even better than your wildest dreams.”
Molly led her through two oak-panel doors into what looked like a high-end boutique in the richest part of town.
“We don’t have as much time as you deserve, but you’d be beautiful in anything,” Molly said, grabbing a black cocktail dress off a rack and thrusting it at Lilah. “Shoe size?”
Lilah bit her lip. “You won’t have my size. I have huge feet. I have to order all my shoes on the Internet.”
With a wave of her hand, Molly laughed and turned away. “I love a challenge. Put that dress on and meet me over by the sofa. I’ll grab a few pairs for you to try on.”
Lilah found the dressing rooms at the back—it really was just like a store—and took off her business casual outfit. Just as she was worrying about how her bra and panties were going to look under the slinky dress, Molly hung a crimson-red corset over the door.
A corset?
“Don’t worry, it’s actually really comfortable,” Molly called out. “Just try it. If you hate it, I’ll find something else.”
Lilah ran her hands over her generous curves and looked at herself in the mirror. Every inch was going to jiggle visibly under that skimpy dress, and her underwear would leave serious panty lines. She was not a skinny girl. The other waitresses were probably model-thin, or at least average-sized, and this was Molly’s polite way of helping her fit in.
She took the corset off the hanger and squirmed into it.
Oh my. She licked her lips, suddenly flushed. It was seriously sexy. Her waist was nipped in just enough to emphasize her large breasts, the flare of her hips.
If only he could see me in this instead of those old pajamas.
She gaped at herself.
Him?
Heat flared between her legs. Her nipples puckered. It was as if he were in the dressing room with her, watching her tighten the laces under her breast, caress the dampening cloth between her thighs...
I’m losing my mind.
Molly’s voice snapped her out of it. “How does it feel?”
“It’s... nice,” Lilah managed to say.
“Great. I hate to hurry you, but they’re expecting you upstairs in five minutes. Could you...”
“I’m coming.” Lilah pulled the wrap dress on and tied the sash at her waist. With the corset, her hourglass figure and long legs were wildly exaggerated. She’d never looked so glamorous in her life.
“Just leave your stuff in the room. It’ll be there at the end of your shift when you go home.” Her voice was fading away. “I’ve got your shoes over here, all right? And I’ll do just a little bit with your hair and makeup.”
Lilah opened the door and walked barefoot over to the sofa, where Molly was taking out a pair of crimson-red heels the same color as the corset out of a silk drawstring bag.
“Listen, shoes like that never fit me,” Lilah said. “Seriously.”
“Just try them on,” Molly replied. “Seriously.”
With a sigh, Lilah sat down and held out her foot. “Eleven wide. Pretty shoes never come in eleven wide.”
Molly shook her head, her lips curved in a lopsided smile, and slid the first shoe onto Lilah’s foot, then the second. “We’ve only got three minutes for your makeup. Your hair is fabulous as it is, so I’m not going to do a thing.”
Speechless, Lilah stood up in the crimson heels and took a tentative step. They fit. More than fit—they molded to her feet perfectly. And weren’t even uncomfortable.
Unbelievable.
Molly was beaming at her. “I knew you’d be gorgeous. How do you feel?”
Lilah couldn’t help but smile back at her. “Great.”
“I love my job. OK, makeup. Just a little, mostly around the eyes. You’ve got incredible eyes. And a nice red for your lips, and you’re good to go.” Molly turned on a lamp, pulled out a case, and got to work. Extremely quick and efficient, she applied the creams and liners and colors, brushed out Lilah’s hair, and led her to a side door.
“You’re going to do great,” Molly said, guiding her out into a dim hallway with a service elevator and punching the call button. “This is the staff entrance to the club.”
The door creaked open. Lilah got inside.
“Break a leg,” Molly said, grinning. “That’s theater talk for good luck, which would be bad luck to say, so I don’t say it.”
“Thanks.” Lilah was smiling at her when the door closed and Molly disappeared.
She looked at the rows of black elevator buttons and realized she didn’t know which floor she was supposed to go to.
And then it occurred to her that she wasn’t alone in the elevator.
Gavin despised these public cocktail parties, but he loved having venture capitalists fawn over LupiNex. While he was long past the point of needing early-capital investors, once his company went public, the stock prices would soar if there was enough buzz.
He needed more business buzz and less of the other buzz. The one in his pants. The one that had started the second he set foot in the building that held both his work and his refuge.
Tonight he would go to the main club, the enormous, private facility that easily hosted events for a thousand people. This was the outer dressing, the cover story for the inner sanctum where Gavin and his fellow shifters convened.
The world knew only about the main club. It was the least-well-kept secret in Boston.
No one could know about the club within a club unless they, too, were a shifter.
While hundreds of business men and women vied for a single, coveted membership that opened up for the main club this year, downstairs, eight stories below ground, only blood could qualify you for membership.
A very special kind of blood.
He marched through the wide, glass doors to the lobby, the open-air foyer extending up twenty stories, giving the building the feel of an action-adventure movie, as if one would expect a famous movie star to come rappelling down from hundreds of feet above. The offices in the building ranged from old-money banks to new-money tech firms and to every corporation in between. With rental rates that made Donald Trump pause, this was the place to be for a fast-rising biotech firm on its way to world domination.
Gavin would have it no other way.
And, conveniently, the elite club was sandwiched between these prestigious, lucrative organizations in the middle floors. So the top players had a quick, discrete escape.
“Excuse me! Mr. Stanton!” He turned toward the sound of hurried footsteps to see an older woman with short gray hair rushing toward him. Her shoes made a muffled sound on the polished marble floor, and she walked with a tall stride. Slim, Asian, with a motherly feel to her. A woman of grace. A dim flicker of recognition blinked in the back of his mind. With 1,500 employees in the Boston unit alone, he couldn’t remember everyone, but this woman...
“Ye
s?”
“Mr. Stanton, I’m so glad to run into you. I’m Brenda Ng. Yesterday you helped to arrange paid family leave for me so I can help my husband through his cancer treatments.”
He remembered the appeal. Human Resources had advised against it, worried that the story of corporate kindness would have a negative ripple effect with employees, leading to a flood of similar requests. He’d told HR to stuff it.
“Family comes first, Brenda. Always.”
Tears welled in her eyes and she reached out to him, snatching him into a completely unsettling embrace. He reciprocated, knowing that compassion could never be enough when someone you love is hurting.
“I...I appreciate this so much, Mr. Stanton. It’s his second round with cancer. The first time was seven years ago, and we thought we were out of the woods.” Brenda wiped her tears with the back of her hand. Gavin reached into his breast pocket and handed her his cloth handkerchief. She accepted it with a surprised look.
“I understand.” He placed a hand on her shoulder and looked her in the eye. “You have two sons, yes? One still in high school? He’s autistic, as I recall.”
Her eyes widened. “You remember that?”
He did. A group of twenty-nine employees in the division where Brenda Ng was a director offered to pool their sick days so she could take six weeks off with full pay to care for her husband and, also, her son with special needs. That kind of employee loyalty was rare. Brenda was exactly the kind of leader he wanted in his company.
The request had been memorable for its aching humanity.
“I do.” He smiled. “And I hope your husband’s recovery is swift.” Gavin leaned in and whispered, “Kick cancer’s ass.”
Laughter through tears greeted him, Brenda’s sniffling making him feel tenderness for her plight. Brenda’s voice echoed up as she hugged him quickly, then said, “I have to catch my train, so I’m sorry to run off. Thank you so, so very much!”
And with that, she disappeared through the main glass doors and into the dark night.
Family comes first. Always.
Asher’s visit took on a new meaning.
