by Diana Seere
“You might wish to know that the Patriots lost.”
“The—what?” This was too much. Gavin jumped up, head pounding, and fumbled for his phone. Without a word, Manny produced it from thin air and handed it to him.
Gavin checked the score.
“God damn it!” he shouted, throat sore from the shift. Manny produced a cough drop. The man really did read his mind.
“They were favored by a touchdown but they lost 41–14!” Gavin threw his highball glass into the fire with a frustrated pitch.
“I am sorry your beloved team lost.” If Manny was being sarcastic, his tone hid it well.
Gavin snorted. “It’s bad enough I get...distracted in Waltham.” One big, curvy blonde distraction. “And wind up naked in the limo with an erection the size of the Prudential building. But missing the game?”
Manny shrugged. “At least you missed one where they lost.”
“Stop trying to help. Stop speaking at all, in fact.”
Manny shut up.
A loud shout from the old elevator that provided entrance into the club caught everyone’s attention.
“Morgan! My kingdom for a scotch!” boomed the voice.
“Derry’s here,” Gavin said with a frown.
A veritable giant of a man burst into the shadowed room, taking up even more air than space. With thick, onyx hair halfway down his back, sloped eyebrows and bright blue eyes, Gavin’s younger brother, McDermott Stanton, could be summed up in one simple word:
“Bastard,” Gavin muttered.
Not literally, of course. He and Derry were blood brothers. Half brothers. That didn’t mean Gavin had to like him, though.
“I heard you found the One!” Derry announced, tossing his suit jacket on a well-oiled leather wingback chair. The fine cloth slipped to the floor.
Gavin glared at Manny, who made a slight shrug with one shoulder. “Did you post this on social media?” he asked with a snort. Manny wisely did not reply.
“It went viral the old-fashioned way,” Derry joked, clapping Gavin’s shoulder. “From Manny to Asher to the servants back home to me.”
“The servants told you?” Gavin stood toe-to-toe with Derry, who was a few inches taller and packed with more muscle. What Gavin lacked in size compared to his younger brother, he more than made up for in business prowess. As the only brother to make his own billion, Gavin had set a standard for the other three to match.
Derry’s… achievement, if you could call it that, came in an entirely different field. Two hundred years ago he would have been called a rake.
In the twenty-first century, the proper term was man whore.
“A servant told me. A juicy morsel of luscious softness, all pink and moaning,” Derry said with a leer.
Gavin felt Manny roll his own eyes, though the man didn’t even blink. Derry’s offhand comment that their older brother, Asher, now knew about Lilah didn’t go unnoticed. In fact, it was the most important statement Derry had made, and he’d buried it.
Interesting.
“But only after I made her cry out my name like she was praying to God. Which she didn’t need to,” Derry added with a wink, slugging down the scotch he’d bellowed for moments ago, “because she was fucking him already.”
“Accomplished and modest,” Gavin replied.
“I aim to please.”
“You aim to score.”
“Same thing.” Derry’s thick brows curved in a masculine arc over eyes that were always on alert, ever-vigilant, searching for hedonistic fun. “And it seems you’ve scored. The One, huh? Have fun with that,” he laughed. “Only one woman? That’s like eating only one food for the rest of your life. Better make it a good one.”
“Don’t talk about her like that,” Gavin warned, hands curling into tight fists, chest broadening with a deep breath that set his senses on alert.
“Oh!” Derry said in a teasing voice, eyebrows up, face playful. “It’s like that already? The One really is the one? How quaint. You fuck her already? She any good in bed?”
Manny inserted himself between them so carefully, with just the hint of a foot’s movement, as Gavin’s smartphone buzzed in his suit jacket. Blood pounded through him like a drumbeat, his eyes on Derry as he answered the text, Derry’s own phone buzzing too.
Derry swiped his coat from the floor and lumbered to the elevator doors while Gavin scanned his text. A simple computer error closed down the stock market in a tiny country the international news media didn’t care about. Millions on the line, but a sequence of rapid subsequent texts claimed it was all under control.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Gavin shouted at Derry’s back.
“Wherever I damn well please. While it’s cute watching you turn into Mr. Darcy over a woman you haven’t even dipped your knot into, this has become boring.” He faked a yawn.
Gavin’s legs braced in preparation to lunge. While they weren’t fighting schoolboys anymore, he wasn’t above teaching his “little” brother a lesson or two with fists and fang.
Ding! As he stepped on the elevator, Derry shook his phone in the air and called out, “Always nice to get a booty call from my favorite threesome. Life is a buffet. Have fun eating nothing but oatmeal!”
The elevator doors closed as Gavin’s phone exploded with texts. Maybe the problem wasn’t under control after all.
Work was imitating his life.
And it was all because of her.
Chapter 3
The next morning, a thunderstorm shattered the heat wave that had been torturing the city all week. Lilah woke with a chill, reaching around in a groggy daze for a sheet and blanket. When her fingers brushed against soft fur, and her wrist felt the touch of a wet tongue, she smiled.
“Morning, Smoky,” she whispered, not wanting to wake her sister, even though it was almost nine. Jess worked the late shift at the store again that day.
Giving Smoky a pat, Lilah got to her feet. She’d been staring at the ceiling half the night, burning with a desire she didn’t understand for a man she’d never met. A different kind of heat clung to her skin, her thoughts, her restless fingers.
Stress. It was just stress. Lust was a lot more fun than fretting about her mother, her sister, the dog, her career. Now that it was morning she was able to take action. Waitressing wasn’t so bad. She was good at it, actually. Before the end of the weekend, she’d have something lined up, even if she had to commute out of the city. Hell, she’d love to get out of this town. With the dog, she’d have to find a new place anyway.
But then reality intruded. Jess had a job here. College too. She couldn’t just take off; her sister wouldn’t be able to afford a place by herself. She’d have to stay.
She’d figure it out. Combing her long hair with her fingers, she crept past Jess in her bed to the bathroom to get as beautiful and employable as she could. She shaved and shampooed, brushed and dried, flat-ironed and made herself up.
How many times had she done this over the past year? Trying to appeal to an unknown employer, trying not to show how desperate she was, which would make them wonder what was wrong with her and hire somebody else...
An urgent knock on the bathroom door interrupted her as she applied a second layer of mascara.
“Phone!” Jess called out. “Lilah? Lilah! Phone!”
Lilah pulled open the door. “All right, all right.” The serious look on Jess’s face erased her irritation. “Something about Mom?”
Shaking her head, Jess handed her the phone, mouthing “job.”
Lilah snatched the phone out of her sister’s hand. “Hello, this is Lilah Murphy.”
“Good morning, Lilah, this is Eva Nagy at Xavier Rand Incorporated.” The woman’s voice was as smooth as a radio announcer’s, rich and confident. She had a slight German accent, or was it something else? While Lilah was trying to place her nationality, the woman prompted, “Lilah?”
“Yes, I’m here.” She met Jess’s curious gaze with a shrug. “Xavier...” The name wa
sn’t familiar.
“Xavier Rand,” Eva said. “I’ve got your resume in front of me and—forgive me for calling on a Saturday—we’re hoping you’d be willing to consider a rare opportunity that has opened up.”
“You’ve got my resume?” Jess was giving her two thumbs-up, but Lilah was wary. “I don’t remember signing up with an agency by that name.”
“No, you wouldn’t. We don’t accept direct applicants,” Eva said. “We find talent through more private... back channels, you could say. Word of mouth. You came to our attention through your current agency, which is one of our subsidiaries. I believe you’ve just finished an eleven-week assignment at Courtland Mortgage?”
Hope stirred in Lilah’s chest. “Yes. I finished yesterday.”
“So you would be available immediately?”
“I would,” Lilah said, smiling at Jess. “But what’s the job?”
“This position might, at first glance, seem below your qualifications,” the woman said. “But I can assure you, the compensation is quite generous. And the benefits are remarkable.”
“What’s the job?” she asked again, this time with less enthusiasm. It sounded like a sales job. Cold-calling, telemarketing, something soul-crushing with empty promises. No guaranteed salary. She walked over to the window and looked out on the rain. Pouring down in sheets, it flooded the road where the limo had been, where she’d seen him.
Her heart skipped at the memory.
Him.
The dull pain in her scar came back briefly, then faded just as fast.
“Perhaps we could meet in person,” Eva said.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what kind of job it is.” Lilah rubbed her eyebrow absentmindedly.
“Of course,” Eva said, not sounding at all offended by Lilah’s tone. “That’s completely reasonable. But if you could see the site in person—”
“Tell me what the job is, and maybe I will.”
“I’m confident you’ll keep an open mind,” Eva said. “Especially when I tell you the pay is several times what you received at your last position. Plus full benefits, holidays, sick days, and all the meals at the club you would like. The chef there is world-class. Formerly of the White House.”
The words were seductive, but Lilah’s alarm bells were still ringing. “Club?”
Jess, who had come up behind her, snapped her bra strap. “Stripper,” she whispered.
“The Platinum Club,” Eva said. “Perhaps you’ve heard of it? They’re looking for one or two new people to add to the waitstaff.”
“The Platinum Club?” Lilah turned to Jess, who’s openmouthed shock mirrored her own. “You mean the Platinum Club?” There was only one.
The Platinum Club was real? Every serious journalist, and even a few not-so-serious ones, had declared that this exclusive getaway for the rich and powerful didn’t exist, that it was only a rumor, an Internet fantasy. Both political parties denied membership in such a club, although the mayor and the governor, each of different parties, had been seen on the street where the club was believed to reside. As had many serious and not-so-serious journalists, movie stars, tech billionaires, baseball players, Nobel Prize winners, and astronauts.
“Yes,” Eva said. “The club is our only client. You understand now why we don’t advertise directly for staff.”
“I thought it was only for men,” Lilah said. “If it really existed.”
“It is most popular among male members, that’s true. But there are some women as well.”
“I bet,” Lilah said, imagining what those women would be doing: on a pole, on a lap, on a rich guy’s dick.
“The exclusivity of the club means there are many misconceptions that cannot be corrected without direct experience,” Eva said. “In other words, you’ll have to see it for yourself.”
“I don’t think so.”
“The waitstaff at the club work in many capacities, none of them you would be ashamed to describe to your own grandmother.”
“How can you be sure that would persuade me? My grandmother could be a hooker.”
Jess gasped and tugged at her sleeve. “What’s she saying?”
The woman’s voice maintained its mild, pleasant tone. “You would serve drinks, although I must tell you upfront that at the Platinum, there is no tipping.”
“Aha!”
“They pay you much more than the equivalent job elsewhere, just to eliminate the need. The members of the club never, ever reach for their wallets. There is no tab, no bill, no credit cards. The cost to join is quite high enough to cover a lifetime of expenses.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Which is why, dear Lilah, I do hope you will consider coming in and talking about this in person.”
Lilah rubbed the scar over her eyebrow again. The dull ache returned, though nothing compared to the stabbing pain of the night before—unless she thought about the man in the limo, remembering those blue eyes, the tawny hair.
Then it returned with violence.
Good reason not to think about him.
Smoky jumped up and put his feet on her shins, smiling up at her. Before bed, she’d fed and bathed him, cut off some of the matted hair, and brushed him as well as she could. Now he was as downy as a dandelion fluff, looking more like a celebrity’s fashion accessory than a mangy rescue dog from the inner city.
And Jess was staring at her too, now with a worried, pinched expression.
“It’s wise to be skeptical,” Eva continued. “We wouldn’t be interested in hiring you if you lacked intelligence. Or education. Everyone we interview goes through this process, and we expect it. Therefore, I have emailed you links to several password-protected documents, images, videos, and audio recordings. It should take you the rest of the day to study all of the materials. If after viewing them you are still unwilling to talk to us in person, then you can simply do nothing. The links will expire, as will the offer.”
When the woman said “expire,” a shiver undulated down Lilah’s spine. Some deep, voiceless message echoed in her mind: you cannot let that happen.
“The password is luna-one-seven-zero-one, no caps,” Eva said.
In a daze, Lilah jotted it down on their unpaid phone bill: luna1701. “I can look at the, uh, materials,” she said. The pain in her forehead was returning. Beats of pain, still faint, throbbed like a distant drum.
“Wonderful. We look forward to meeting you, Lilah.”
The phone went quiet.
Gavin swiped the keycard to his penthouse apartment overlooking the river. He owned the entire twenty-third floor, with a panoramic view of the nightscape ever at the ready. Most nights, he ignored anything beyond the remote-controlled curtains, using the apartment for sleep.
Tonight, though, he had other plans.
Pouring himself a full tumbler of whisky his father had sworn was made in the 1700s under his great-grandfather’s watch at a private distillery in the highlands of Scotland, Gavin turned to the windowed wall and flicked a switch, the tinted glass doors to the terrace opening so quietly they might not have had motors. Powered by magic.
Magic. Like the legend of the One. The Beat.
The ludicrous. What he felt for Lilah was pure animal attraction. Lust. There was no need to clutter it with silly notions of superstition. The only throbbing that mattered was the beat in his cock, and he’d experienced that with plenty of other women. More than he could count, really.
He paused as he went to take a sip of his drink. That wasn’t quite true. While more than enough women had been the recipients of his sexual attentions, none had made him so crazed.
So obsessed.
He made a derisive sound in the back of his throat, the noise lost on the wind. He paused, body edgy and filled with impulses he could not name.
What was it that Isaac Asimov once said? “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Science was how Gavin made his billions in biotechnology, but magic was what turned his hear
t and mind in circles tonight. A wicked wind whipped through his hair, body bathing in the moonlight afforded by the barely waning moon.
His throat drank greedily from the glass in his hand, head tipped up to take in the night not with his eyes, but with his nose. Could he find her through scent alone?
Science told him that his werewolf status was a simple accident of DNA, a mutation generations back that made him and his bloodline different from humans. He was half wolf, half Homo sapiens, and fully in charge of his own destiny. His own life.
His own heart.
The beating began in his core, traveling down, blood pooling where his ardent desire lived.
No. Gavin was a man of science, of rational thought, of evidence and reason, but even he had to admit that there were realms where mere fact was no competition for some deeper force.
The hollow feeling inside him was new, and wholly unexplained by fact.
Gripping the balcony’s railing, his arms flexed with muscle fibers that wanted soft curves, hands tight on the carved wrought iron. The night was cool, the solid metal a grounding force.
His heart thudded in his chest, steady and full, even as his mind pounded for her.
Her.
Her.
Her.
“Are you quite done?” said a voice like a serpent. Gavin froze, senses preternaturally fast, absorbing the surprise with no startle.
His older brother, Asher.
“Make yourself at home,” Gavin grunted.
“I already have.” The clink of ice on glass, the scent of his own whisky in his nose told Gavin that Asher was telling the truth.
Asher always told the truth.
“Derry tells me you’ve found ‘her.’ I can smell the need on you,” Asher said quietly. Never one to yell, he could express displeasure with a single turn of one syllable. All of the Stanton brothers could detect his moods. How their younger brother Edward managed to live most of the year so close to Asher at the family estate out west was a mystery to Gavin.
Gavin had no desire to explain how he felt—what he felt—to his older brother right now. The invasion of home was bad enough. The invasion of his heart would not do.