by Alice Ward
My palm skimmed over something small and smooth, and I was reminded of the remote to the vibrating panties. I knelt down and pulled the item out from the podium cubbyhole. It was a microphone that looked more like a Bluetooth earpiece. I straightened up, curled it up in my hand, shoved my hand into my pocket, and returned to the reception room.
Tabby was standing by herself against a wall with the expression of a fish out of water. I didn’t blame her. If the news story had never come out, I would’ve bet my last dollar she would have been surrounded by members had I left her alone. Now, however, she was a pariah. I only considered it a miracle she wasn’t being attacked with accusations. Ducking past several groups of familiar faces, I sidled to her and gave her a peek of the microphone I’d thieved.
“Where can I put it?” she whispered, looking down at her body. She was in the red dress I’d hoped she’d pick — though it still revealed more to my associates than I would have preferred — and there didn’t appear to be anywhere to hide the device. Of course, that had been her intent in choosing such a flimsy outfit — to disband any suspicions anyone might’ve had about her sneaking in with wires — but we had to get creative now.
I pulled her back into the dance room, away from prying eyes. She started plucking along her immodest collar, and I rolled my fingers between her hem and thighs.
“Don’t start that here!” she scolded.
“Oh, please, sweetheart,” I drawled with a roll of my eyes. “I’m not that much of a letch.”
“Well, we can’t put it down there anyway. We need to make sure it can pick up anything anyone says to me, and I’m not really fond of the idea that all the guys in this place would be able to hear what it sounds like up close when I walk.”
I happened to agree with that point, so I joined her up top. The seam where her strap met her bodice drew my attention. It was thick with a small fabric overlap, and a snag where the sequined mesh had broken from the rest left a miniscule poof. I was suddenly very glad she’d borrowed clothes from Heather because if I’d taken her shopping like I’d offered there was no possibility she would’ve been wearing anything with a defect.
“Here,” I said, sliding the hook around the strap and tucking the microphone bud between the split mesh and silky fabric underneath. “There’s a little bump now, though.”
She looked down at my handiwork, then grabbed a few of the sequins at the top of the tear and pulled. The threads came loose and the unsecured fabric puckered, creating the illusion that the bulge was just a symptom of the snag rather than a product of a foreign object.
“Wow. You have a knack for ruining things.”
Tabby smiled, but the smile was strained. I could tell her nerves were starting to take over. Her eyes were less focused and darted a little too quickly to any movement she caught. When I bent a little to look at her directly, she averted her gaze. I took her chin between my thumb and forefinger to force her face up to mine.
“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” I told her seriously. “We can leave right now.”
“No, we can’t,” she replied, trying to shake her head against my hold. “You said yourself these men are able to affect my career, my life, all that. I need to clear my name. And I want to get you out from under their radar too.”
“I can handle everything. You’re not obligated to make a situation right that you didn’t screw up in the first place.”
She smiled again, a little more softly this time. “I’m not obligated, but I want to do it.”
I studied her for a second. If I witnessed the smallest sign in her features that she was horribly uncomfortable with what she was about to do, I would yank that microphone right off her dress and drag her from The Club kicking and screaming if necessary. I, myself, wasn’t comfortable with any of this, but the nymph was so damn headstrong I might as well have run myself headfirst into a brick wall in trying to convince her out of it.
All I saw looking back at me was iron determination.
“Fine,” I growled. “Just don’t forget to turn that thing on, or it’s all for nothing.”
When Amanda summoned the participating ladies to the gathering room, I kissed Tabby deeply, swatted her ass, and watched her walk tentatively through the ballroom with the other women, Pippa included. I felt sick to my stomach.
For a long minute, I didn’t hear anything except the low hum of chatter and the clinking of glassware on bar tops. I was seriously contemplating storming back there and extracting Tabby from the mix when a horrible, squealing shriek sounded over the speakers. Conversations stopped. As the sound ebbed, a voice rose crystal clear through the room.
“Didn’t think you’d have the balls to show your face here again.”
“Why? I have nothing to hide.” This was Tabby, and I was pleased to hear she sounded cool and confident.
“You’re nothing but trash, and you coming back proves it,” Pippa hissed. She was speaking in a harsh whisper, but the power of amplification made her voice more than audible to the many sets of male ears in the reception room.
I heard Tabby sniff with dismissal. “Is that why you went to Owen’s house? Because you can’t stand to see him with trash?”
“I don’t give a fuck who he spends his time with!”
“That’s not what I heard,” Tabby calmly replied. “My sources tell me you were trying to sleep with him and he turned you down.”
There was an unidentified shuffling sound, and when Pippa’s voice came through again it sounded louder. I guessed she’d taken a threatening step closer to Tabby, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “If I were you, I’d be grateful for every second I spend with that man because, in the end, he’s going to realize he can do a lot better and throw you away like the garbage you are,” she snarled.
“Like he did to you, you mean?”
“You and I aren’t even in the same league, bitch.” Either she’d moved even closer, or she was raising her voice because Pippa sounded like she was in the room with the throng of members now. “There is no way Owen Driscoll would choose an ugly, broke nobody like you over me.”
I heard a snicker timed so perfectly I almost beamed with pride. “But he did, Pippa. And that’s why you’re trying to hurt him now, isn’t it?”
“You know what? You two are perfect for each other. You think you’re untouchable, but you’re not.” I could feel it coming, the confession, and I was holding on to my drink so tightly that steam rose on the glass surface above my hand.
“Is that why you tried to hurt him by leaking The Club to the press?”
Pippa laughed but the sound was bitter. “Doesn’t look like I hurt him too much, did I. Or all the assholes out there who have to pay for a piece of ass.”
I looked around, watched the faces of the “assholes” around me, pleased at the fury I saw there.
“So you tipped the press to hurt all of them?” Tabby asked, and I was so fucking proud of her I could burst with it.
Another bitter laugh. “All, yes, but especially the bastard you’re fucking. I hope my little tip to the press will teach him he’s as breakable as anybody else, and I hope the only thing you’re left with is a guy who lost everything.”
There it was. Easier than I could have believed.
I looked around the room. Not one man was moving. Nobody spoke. Everything was still.
And then there was uproar.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Tabby
I could hear the shouting from the back room where the women and I were hidden away, and I couldn’t contain my smile. Pippa glowered at me with her hands on her ample hips.
“So, you’re psycho on top of hideous?” she spat. “Why are you smiling at me like that?”
“Congratulations, Pippa.” I dug into the impromptu pocket on my dress and withdrew the microphone. “The truth has set you free.”
She stared at the piece for a minute, trying to figure out what it was, and then her entire face went white. Her fal
se lashes scraped her brows as her eyes widened to alarming proportions. The only sound she made was a sickly gurgle.
“Ladies?” The matronly yet chic auctioneer poked her head into the room. “It’s time.” She tapped each girl kindly on the back as we filed past her. I blinked. So she hadn’t heard Pippa’s confession, and things were about to go on as planned. This was about to get interesting.
The ballroom looked completely different from the stage. I was blinded by the spotlight shining down on me and couldn’t make out more than fuzzy silhouettes, but the space felt smaller somehow. It was the men’s faces, all blank masks of fury. In other venues, the men would probably be shouting and cursing, but here… these powerful men exuded their anger without a word. Their silence was more terrifying than anything.
The auctioneer looked around her, surprised and uncertain of what had happened to change the attitudes of the men. Then, someone strode up to her and said something I couldn’t hear.
Fury on her face, the auctioneer strode purposefully past me and took Pippa by the arm. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” she said, her voice a thousand times louder thanks to the microphone clipped to her dress.
I tried to make out faces enough to locate Owen and see his reaction to the scene, but it was impossible to find him in the sea of anger.
“This is bullshit, Amanda,” Pippa snapped furiously. She yanked her arm out of the woman’s grasp. “And don’t touch me.”
Two burly fellows in navy suits stepped up on the stage to flank Amanda, and Pippa gave up. The last glimpse I had of her face before she was removed from the platform revealed burning red cheeks and blazing eyes, and then silence fell until the bang of the door to the street echoed throughout The Club.
I couldn’t hold back my own grin. I did it. I cleared my name and outed the outer. Owen wasn’t going to have to deal with being blamed for the news story, which was one less thing he had to maneuver around while cleaning up the mess of publicity. Everything was fixed. We were going to be fine.
“All right, gentlemen, now that we’ve cleaned house, I think it’s time to start our auction,” Amanda exclaimed and nodded to each of the men.
My heart dropped.
I wasn’t out of the woods yet. My reputation and Owen’s were saved, but I was still standing on a stage in front of God knew how many men, and any one of them could claim me for himself for the night. Even though Owen had promised that there would be no sex until the scandal died down, I still felt vulnerable.
Again, I tried to pick Owen out of the crowd. I wanted to silently plead with him to figure out a way to get me out of the spotlight and into his limo without fuss. There was no discerning one man from another beneath the blinding glare pouring onto me, though, except for sheer body size, and I realized I was going to have to pay the piper for the decision I’d made.
“Get your cards, boys, get your cards! Delilah, there’s a gentleman over here who needs his hand. If you have a twenty-one, don’t be shy. Call it out!” Amanda called, walking confidently back and forth in front of the queue of women.
“Twenty-one!” a voice expelled from somewhere in the room.
I held back a groan. The voice wasn’t Owen’s. It sounded rounder, more nasal, and definitely more mature. I closed my eyes and started a chant in my mind. “Not me, not me, not me, not me, not me.” My fingers crossed behind my back.
“How lucky!” Amanda crooned. “Anyone else?”
No other cries met her question, so she brandished her arm and waved. “Come on up, then, Dr. Donahue!”
A doctor. Well, that was a little more promising. Doctors had to have some kind of bedside manner and compassion for people, didn’t they? Maybe, if he picked me, he would be willing to let me off the hook…
When he stepped near enough, I recognized him. Owen had never introduced me to him, nor spoken with him any time we had been at The Club, but I’d seen him on every visit. He was a paunchy man with a sour mouth and eyes that seemed too small for his head. There were scraps of hair on his scalp combed across to give the appearance he wasn’t balding, but he certainly hadn’t fooled me. He was looking up at me from the bidding floor greedily, and my stomach flipped.
“I want her,” he said, raising a thick finger and pointing at me.
Amanda opened her mouth to call me down, but before she had a chance to speak another voice budded from the black blob of a crowd. “Thirty thousand.”
My stomach flipped again, this time with joy. It was Owen. I didn’t even need to see him to know it, but he pushed his way through to the front and stepped up next to Donahue. He didn’t bother to acknowledge the doctor or Amanda, instead keeping his eyes pinned on me. His lips were pulled into a frigid line, and his jaw was clenched so tightly I imagined it hurt.
I saw the beast.
He was mad.
Really mad.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Driscoll, do you have a twenty-one?” Amanda asked. She was trying to speak confidently through her uncertainty.
“Eighteen,” he replied, lifting his cards for her to see and flicking them with distaste to the floor. “But fuck that. Thirty thousand for Miss Rickard.”
There was a long pause in which Amanda looked around at each of us women standing in a line. When she reached me, I gave her a small nod and silently begged her to go with it. She smiled almost imperceptibly, returned my nod with one of her own, and looked back to the mass of men waiting on tenterhooks for a reaction. “Well, gents, this is a first for The Blackjack Club!” she said cheerfully. “I know bidding wars aren’t how we do things, but maybe we ought to change it up and add some confusion to the many articles about our fine group. What do you say?”
There were nods all around, and Amanda swooped an arm with the kind of showmanship typical of a magician’s assistant.
“Beautiful!” she cried. “Thirty thousand to Mr. Driscoll, then! Dr. Donahue, a counterbid?”
“Fifty,” the mean-faced man snapped.
“One hundred,” Owen shot back immediately.
The numbers continued rising, and Amanda didn’t even have an opportunity to shout out the latest bid before another was made. Other men were chiming in now, too, stepping forward to join Owen and Donahue near the stage, and I was fluttering with nervousness and thrill. It was silly, but my self-esteem was soaring through the roof upon witnessing so many successful men vying for my company, and it was boosted all the more in watching Owen capping every offer they put forth. He was determined to have me.
Then, when Dr. Donahue bid a snarly half-million, Owen performed the proverbial mic drop.
“One million.”
He said it quietly, almost a whisper and hardly audible over the chaos going on. A hush fell upon the horde, and several women’s jaws physically dropped. Amanda, with all her sophistication and finesse, was too flustered to speak.
“This is bullshit!” Dr. Donahue raged suddenly. He spun around and stomped out of the room, shoving his way through people without so much as an excuse me.
Amanda regained her ability to talk and jubilantly called out, “We have a winner!”
CHAPTER FORTY
Owen
Blood was still rushing in my ears, hot and fast and violent. I closed the door to my bedroom and turned slowly to face Tabby, who plopped down onto the bed with a heavy sigh.
“What a night,” she breathed with a smile.
She looked adorable beaming at me like that, but I wasn’t in the mood for adorable. I was riddled with adrenaline, a walking mass of aggressive energy, and I was seething. Her face fell as she observed my expression, and I knew she knew I was furious. Her shoulders turned inward, her head dropped an inch, and she pulled her knees up to wrap her arms around her legs like an armadillo rolling up into a protective ball.
“You took some serious risks tonight,” I said, speaking low with the intention of forcing her to listen closely. “If Pippa hadn’t ended up confessing, you would have looked like a spy with that microphone.”
Her brow furrowed. “It was the only choice I had. You even helped me with it.”
“I helped you with it so you didn’t go rogue and do something even stupider.” I walked toward her, each step measured and even and slow. She tightened her grip around her legs. “And once you’d gotten her to admit what she did, you could have come back to me instead of doing the auction.”
Loose hair fell over her face, and she tossed her head. “No, I couldn’t have. I signed up to participate, so I had to participate.”
“Well, aren’t you just the goody-two-shoes?” Sarcasm lived in the words.
Her legs dropped away to reveal the crimson bodice and the swell of cleavage above, and her eyebrows knitted together with frustration as she snapped, “I don’t see why you’re so upset about this. Everything worked out just like we wanted it to, and I’m here with you instead of somewhere else with Dr. Donahue or whatever his name is.”
She was right. It had turned out exactly right. But still… there was this emotional swamp of fury and fright still swimming around in my head. A testament to how important this woman was to me. I wasn’t used to this. I wasn’t used to feeling. I wasn’t used articulating my feelings.
And I was terrible at it, I realized.
“But you almost weren’t,” I hissed, pouncing across the last few feet of floor to land on the bed in front of her. I snatched her wrists before she could scramble away from me and slammed her backwards onto the mattress. Pinning her arms over her head, I leaned down until our noses were touching and our breath mingled. “And ‘almost’ is too near a miss for me.”
“Sorry,” she grumbled.
