The Club

by Mandasue Heller

  Marching into the bedroom, he snatched the blusher brush from Melody’s hand and hauled her up off the stool.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she squawked. ‘I’m not ready.’

  ‘Yeah, you are,’ he grunted, marching her into the living room. ‘Here, you can finish off on the way.’ Snatching her handbag off the table he shoved it into her hands, then pushed her out the door and down the corridor to the elevator.

  Melody complained all the way down to the foyer. But Tony ignored her, possessing that rare quality other men would pay to acquire: the ability to completely blank his women out.

  Even those as gorgeous as Melody Fisher.

  And she was gorgeous: angel face, devil of a sexy body, waist-length honey-blonde hair, and the most perfect tits he’d ever got his hands on – all bought and paid for by him. At thirty-two, and five-ten, she was a good deal younger than him and a little taller in her heels. But he was more than man enough to hold his own beside her, because he had that certain something about him: a menacing, brooding darkness, which, when added to his larger-than-life personality and the twinkle in his piercing eyes, created a powerful aura. We’ll have a laugh, but don’t even think about fucking with me.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Tony!’ Melody complained now, tottering helplessly on her stilettos as he pushed her out of the entrance doors. ‘Do you have to act like such a fucking thug? You might get away with the He-Man shit in the fucking States, but we’re in England now, remember?’

  ‘Whatever,’ Tony said dismissively, shoving her onto the limo’s spacious back seat and climbing in beside her. Waiting until Eddie had got in up front, he tapped on the dividing window to tell the driver to get going.

  Sighing loudly, Melody sat petulantly back, muttering, ‘I can’t believe you’re stressing me out like this. Christ, I’m actually trembling – look . . .’ Thrusting her hand out, she gave it an exaggerated shake. ‘I need a cigarette,’ she said then. Getting no response, she clicked her fingers sharply in front of Tony’s face. ‘A smoke, Tone, I need a smoke!’

  ‘Not in the car,’ he snapped, swatting her hand aside. ‘And don’t call me that. You know I can’t stand it.’

  ‘Sorry, I’m sure!’ Pulling her skirt down over her thighs with a huff, Melody folded her arms.

  Reaching across, Tony pushed the skirt back up. ‘Leave it there. I don’t want people thinking I’m hanging out with a fucking nun.’

  ‘No,’ she sniped. ‘You’d rather they thought I was a fucking whore.’

  ‘Not just any whore,’ he countered, giving her a sly grin. ‘My whore. And don’t you forget it.’

  Melody complained all the way to the club, only stopping when they pulled up outside and she saw all the heads in the queue turn their way as people tried to see who was behind the blacked-out windows. Getting her first real buzz of the night, she fixed her top for maximum cleavage and manoeuvred her skirt to pussy level, then waited for the driver to open the door, eager to get out and bask in the admiring glances.

  Tony was having none of it. He’d just spotted the paparazzi hanging about on the other side of the road, and the last thing he wanted was to wake up and find his picture splashed across the papers. Taking a firm grip on Melody’s wrist when they hit the pavement, he raised an arm to shield his face from the barrage of flashing lights and yanked her to the head of the queue.

  ‘Tony!’ she griped, twisting to free herself as he paused to show the doormen their invitation. ‘You’re hurting me.’

  ‘So quit wriggling.’

  ‘These people wanted to see me. I am famous, you know. It kind of comes with the territory.’

  Giving a scornful snort, Tony said, ‘Two films does not a superstar make.’

  ‘Hollywood films,’ she reminded him tartly.

  ‘You still ain’t no Jolie,’ he flipped back. ‘And I’d bet my life none of these idiots have got a fucking clue who you are.’

  Not yet, maybe, Melody thought resentfully, folding her arms while they waited to be admitted. But you just wait till my agent tells me I got that part I auditioned for. Angelina flaming Jolie won’t know what’s hit her when I get started!

  PART ONE

  1

  Jenna Lorde seemed to have it all. At twenty-six she could still pass for twenty-one, even on a bad day. Slim and curvaceous, with sleek shoulder-length black hair, a flawless complexion, and exotically slanted sea-green eyes, she had a good job at a major fashion house in the West End, a nice little flat in Maida Vale – and a shattered heart, having recently discovered that Jason, her charming, funny, passionate, unbearably handsome boyfriend of six years, was married.

  Dumping him as soon as she found out, Jenna spent the next few months fielding the texts and phone calls claiming that his wife meant nothing to him, that it had all been a terrible mistake, and that Jenna was the only woman he’d ever loved. When that didn’t work, he tried self-righteous anger, turning up at her flat, and – more embarrassingly – her workplace, accusing her of being selfish, and telling her to stop feeling sorry for herself and think what this was doing to him. And, finally, he tried reasoning that, as she’d already been sharing him with his wife all along, what was the difference if they carried on now as if nothing had ever happened?

  And in one particularly weak, bleak moment, when she’d been missing him like crazy, and wishing that she’d stayed in blissful ignorance, Jenna had found herself actually considering it.

  Which was when she came to the conclusion that she had to get as far away from him as possible if she was ever going to get her life back on track. But just as she was about to hand in her notice at work and give up the lease on her flat, fate stepped in. She got the call telling her that her dad had died.

  Going home to Manchester to arrange the funeral and sort out her dad’s affairs was a shock to Jenna’s system. She’d been away for eight years, and in some ways it felt like she’d never been gone. But in others, it was truly weird to be back – especially knowing that her dad wouldn’t be there when she reached the house.

  Having kept in touch mainly by phone over the last few years, and only paying the occasional flying visit, Jenna hardly recognised the place when she stepped off the train. Piccadilly Station had had a major revamp since she’d last been there, and so had the rest of the city. But the people were exactly the same, she soon discovered – stoically determined to retain their northern-ness as the landscape mutated around them into a pastiche of the south. She didn’t know if that was a good or a bad thing, but as she wasn’t planning on sticking around after the funeral she didn’t really care.

  The funeral was a small affair, because Jenna didn’t really know any of her dad’s friends to invite them. In the end it was just her, a handful of their old neighbours, and Ruth Wolff – the widow of her dad’s old solicitor, who had been the one who’d let her know that he’d died.

  Jenna’s older sister, Claudia, didn’t come – but then, Jenna hadn’t expected her to, considering that she hadn’t bothered coming back for their mum’s funeral either. Claudia had moved to Australia fifteen years earlier, and they hadn’t clapped eyes on her since. Now she claimed that she couldn’t afford the air fare – despite the fact that she and her husband ran their own business and owned a sprawling ranch-style house. But she’d always been selfish, which was why Jenna wasn’t surprised when Claudia demanded that her share of the inheritance should be sent over as soon as possible.

  Going back to Ruth’s house after the service for a small buffet, Jenna felt like an outsider as Ruth and the elderly neighbours swapped stories and reminisced about her dad. It was obvious that they had known James Lorde as a man in his own right, had chatted to him on an adult level and knew how he thought and felt about the world. Whereas Jenna had only ever known him as the dad who had been too busy running his precious nightclub, Zenith, to spend more than the occasional hour with his children every now and then. Who had nipped in and out of the house as if visiting an hotel, giving his wife perfunctory ki
sses on the cheek in passing and leaving the scent of Old Spice in his wake. But the man his friends talked of, who had, apparently, been the life and soul of every gathering and would give you the shirt off his back; the man who had kept the collection of porn magazines that Jenna had found hidden in his wardrobe when she was clearing the house out, who had left dirty clothes scattered around his bedroom floor, a stack of unpaid bills in the kitchen drawer, and a whole heap of empty whisky bottles beside his bed – she didn’t know that man at all.

  But, newly discovered secrets and childhood memories aside, Jenna still loved James Lorde as deeply as ever. She might not have seen him as often as her friends had seen their fathers while they were growing up, but he had always been a hero to her. A strapping man with a magical laugh, who would toss her into the air and then catch her and give her a big cuddle, who’d slip them money to buy their mum a birthday or Christmas present, who’d herd them all into the car on a Saturday afternoon and drop them off at the cinema. Even when she grew up and moved away from home, it was her dad that she still turned to for advice; him that she would phone whenever she needed a comforting voice in her ear.

  Claudia had always been jealous of their relationship, calling Jenna a daddy’s girl and accusing her of playing up to the fact that she was her father’s favourite. But Jenna had never seen it like that – not until the will was read, and she learned that he’d left Zenith solely to her.

  Wracked with guilt that Claudia might have been right all along, Jenna rang her sister, intending to tell her that she would sign half of the club over to her as soon as she could. But she immediately changed her mind when Claudia laid into her before she had a chance to say a word, calling her a gold-digging, grave-robbing tramp. Anyway, she figured that her dad must have done it this way on purpose: not because Jenna was his favourite, but because he’d known that Claudia would put the club on the market before the soil was settled on his coffin – which was exactly what she had insisted Jenna should do with the tiny semi in Rusholme where they had grown up and which he’d left to them both.

  Not that Claudia would get much out of it when it went, because their dad had obviously done nothing to it after their mum had died and Jenna had left. The neglect showed in everything from the gate hanging off its hinges to the overgrown garden, from the rotting door and window frames to the stale odour of man-alone that tainted the air inside.

  But, honoured as she was that her dad had trusted her enough to leave his club in her hands, there was just one major problem for Jenna: she didn’t actually want it.

  Taking it on would mean having to move back to Manchester, which she really didn’t want to do. And she didn’t even know if she was capable of running a nightclub, anyway. She’d never taken the slightest interest in the place when she’d lived here, and had resisted her dad’s efforts to bring her in and show her the ropes, because she and her friends preferred the trendier student bars with their cut-price booze and cool live bands. And then she’d moved to London, which was worlds apart from Manchester when it came to club-life, so she was still none the wiser.

  But then, her dad couldn’t have known what he was doing when he started out, either, and he’d managed to keep it going for twenty years. And he’d done all the hard work, so all she’d have to do would be to walk in and pick up where he’d left off.

  She just didn’t want to.

  But how could she walk away without even trying, when her dad had obviously wanted her to make a go of it?

  Knowing that she owed it to him to at least consider it, Jenna decided to go down to the club and take a good look around. If her instincts told her to give it a shot, then fine, she would roll her sleeves up and throw her heart and soul into it, like her dad before her. But if they said no, she would put it up for sale. And she was sure that her dad would understand, as long as she’d given it real consideration first.

  Jenna took a cab to the club and her heart sank before it had even pulled up to the kerb. Her dad had obviously missed the regeneration bandwagon when it had rolled into town after the bombings a few years back because, compared to all the bright new façades surrounding it, the club looked dated and scruffy. It had the same old scarred black doors as when he’d first bought it, and the wall was covered in messy posters, leaflets and graffiti.

  It was so seedy and neglected that Jenna couldn’t imagine anybody making an effort to come here for a night out. In fact, the only good thing about it was the location: smack in the middle of Deansgate, which had taken a massive upturn in recent years and was now chock-full of upmarket wine and coffee bars and swanky new apartment blocks. If she did end up selling – which was looking very, very likely – she’d get more for the postcode than for the actual building.

  Using the keys that the solicitor had given her she unlocked the door and went inside. She’d only ever been here a couple of times, and that had been during opening hours when it was fully lit and crammed with people, with music pumping out at an incredible volume. Standing in the foyer now, it just felt cold, dark, and far too quiet.

  Shivering, Jenna went through to the clubroom itself, which was pitch dark and really quite eerie. Propping the door open with a chair, she used the sparse light from the foyer to find her way to the lights control box which the solicitor had told her was behind the bar. Flicking switches at random, she had just found the one for the overhead lights when a door opened behind her and a man walked in.

  Leaping back when he saw her, he cried, ‘Holy shit! You scared the crap out of me!’ Patting his chest then, he gave her a sheepish grin. ‘Guess you’re not an armed robber, huh?’

  ‘Definitely not,’ Jenna assured him, amused that he seemed even more alarmed than she was – he was lean and muscular and looked quite capable of taking care of himself. He was also very good-looking, she noticed. Mixed-race, clean-shaven, with ice-white teeth, unusual blue eyes and a soft American accent.

  And a broad gold wedding band on the third finger of his left hand, which he wasn’t trying to hide – unlike Jason, who had hidden his for six long years, the bastard!

  Shaking the irritating thought of Jason out of her head, she asked the man if he worked here.

  ‘Weekends,’ he said, presuming her to be one of the waitresses who worked mid-week when DJs Fiddy or Marky Day had their slots. ‘Shame we had to shut down, isn’t it?’ he murmured then, gazing around the room. ‘It’s a great place. And James was pretty cool for an old guy. But nothing lasts for ever, right?’

  Jenna nodded her agreement, liking him because he’d obviously liked her dad.

  ‘It’s Vibes, by the way.’ He held out his hand. ‘One of the DJs – or, at least, I was.’

  ‘Jenna,’ she told him, shaking it. ‘You say the club’s been closed down?’ she asked then, wondering why the solicitor hadn’t told her about that.

  ‘Yeah, the day James died,’ Vibes said, frowning quizzically. ‘Look, sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but shouldn’t you already know that if you work here?’

  ‘I’m the old guy’s daughter,’ Jenna told him, smiling when she saw the information sink in and show up in his eyes.

  ‘For real?’ Drawing his head back, he peered at her face, then nodded. ‘Yeah, I guess I can see it. You’ve got the same nose.’

  But not the same anything else, he thought, because she was absolutely stunning.

  Snapping himself out of it, he said, ‘So I take it you’re the new owner, then, huh? And you’re like – what? Just checking the place out?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Jenna replied. ‘I wanted to see what my instincts told me before I made any decisions.’

  ‘And what are they telling you?’

  ‘Not sure yet.’ She shrugged. ‘It’ll need major renovations if I do take it on.’

  ‘Worth it, though,’ Vibes said, adding quickly, ‘not that I’m trying to sway you, or anything, but – well, you know. It’s a great place.’

  ‘So you said.’

  ‘Bad habit, repeating my
self.’ Vibes flashed her a sheepish grin. Then, shrugging, he said, ‘Suppose I’d best let you get on with it, then. Don’t mind if I just grab a bit of my gear, do you? Only Fabian’s waiting out back to lock up and I don’t want to keep him waiting, ’cos I don’t think he was planning on sticking around.’

  ‘No, go ahead.’

  ‘Right, well, then.’ Another smile. ‘See you later, I guess.’

  Watching as he strolled across the dance floor and tripped lightly up the stairs to the DJ’s booth, Jenna bit her lip thoughtfully. She hadn’t even considered what her decision would mean to the staff. If she sold Zenith they would all be out of a job. But even if she’d wanted to keep it open, she doubted that she’d be able to afford all the work that would be needed to bring the club into the twenty-first century. The decor was hideously old-fashioned, the seating worn and faded, the carpets so manky that she’d bet her feet would stick to them, and the bar was a huge wooden monstrosity with brass hand- and footrails that would have looked more at home in an old back-street pub – which was probably where her dad had picked it up from in the first place. It might look great in the alcohol-glazed atmosphere of night, but in this harsh overhead light it resembled a seedy old working men’s club.

  ‘Er . . . excuse me, but who are you, and how did you get in here?’

  Jumping when she heard the accusing voice behind her, Jenna turned around and saw yet another good-looking man. This one was white, with expensively cut blond hair, slate-grey eyes, and a very good-quality suit.

  Raising an eyebrow when he saw her face, Fabian King’s gaze slid over the rest of her and a slow smile lifted the corner of his lip.

  ‘You must be Fabian?’ Jenna said, looking him in the eye, unamused by his leering.

  His eyebrow went up another notch. ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘Vibes mentioned you.’

  ‘I see.’ Flipping into instant cold mode, Fabian frowned. Vibes had obviously tricked him into coming over, thinking he’d be stupid enough to let him in then get straight off and leave him to his little rendezvous. ‘I suppose he let you in the front door, did he?’ he demanded now, all set to tell her that she could damn well let herself back out the same way.