by Hannah Ford
“Okay, I’ll bite,” Raven said.
Skylar was staring after her with wide eyes as the man in the tuxedo ushered her around the corner and into a small private room that he opened with a key.
The room was bare, except for some bookshelves and a desk and some art on the walls.
“I need you to sign some paperwork,” the man told her, turning his back to her and gathering what looked like an entire binder of material.
“Paperwork? For what?”
“A guest has expressed interest in speaking further with you,” he explained. “In order to make the guest comfortable, we have arranged for you to sign our standard non-disclosure agreement.”
Raven’s head was spinning. She knew that Jake Novak must have sent this man to speak to her, but she couldn’t believe they wanted her to sign paperwork just to have a conversation.
“This seems a little extreme,” she laughed. “I need to sign stuff just to talk to a guy at this party?”
The man in the tuxedo placed a stack of papers on the desk and handed her an expensive, heavy fountain pen. “Yes, you need to sign stuff to talk to a guy at this party. Especially this guy.”
“It’s going to take me a year to read all of this,” she said, trying to scan the document. On the very first line of the first page, in bold, it said:
CLUB ALPHA INTERNATIONAL STANDARD NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT
“You don’t have a year to read this,” the man said. “And you don’t have to sign it at all. But if you refuse, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the party.”
“Why?” she said, stepping back. “What’s the big deal?”
“It’s very simple. We make it possible for our very famous guests to engage in a relaxed environment without fear of their every word and deed being exploited for financial and political gain. In order to do that, we must at times make use of legally binding contracts.”
Raven was flipping through the astoundingly long contract, trying to make heads or tails of it, but it was no use. It might as well have been written in a foreign language.
“I can’t understand any of this.”
“As I explained, it’s a standard non-disclosure. Do you have any interest in selling the story of any conversation you might have tonight?”
“Selling it to who?”
“TMZ, People, US Weekly…”
“Of course not.”
“Then you shouldn’t have an issue signing this contract.”
Raven hovered over the contract, trying to figure out what to do. If Jake Novak had asked for this, then she wanted to do it. If that’s what it took to get more time with him, she was powerless to say no. But at the same time, she felt crazy for signing a contract that she couldn’t even understand.
Luckily, I’m just drunk enough not to care.
“Okay, show me where to sign,” she told him. “And hurry up before I change my damn mind.”
For the first time, the man in the tuxedo smiled at her. “Just a few places,” he said, and then began flipping through the contract. “Here. And here…and here…initials and date here.”
By the end, she might have been signing her life away.
* * *
The party continued, but the conversation with her mystery suitor never materialized.
Raven was vaguely drunk, dispirited, hanging around and trying not to keep looking over at Jake Novak, who had seemed to make a point of drifting from one girl to the next as he made the rounds.
Why isn’t he coming over to talk to me? I signed the stupid forms they wanted me to sign. Isn’t that what he was waiting for?
None of it made any sense to her.
Maybe some other rich man had been interested in her—but so far, nobody had approached, and the only she cared about was Jake Novak.
Each time he talked to a new woman, Raven felt the same sense of jealousy and fury and then shame for feeling those things.
And each time, she saw how the new woman reacted to him just as she’d done—Raven could easily see how attracted they were to him, how any one of them would have done just about anything to make him happy, make him choose them.
It was really sickening, and mostly Raven was embarrassed for herself.
I’m no different, no better than any of them, just as star struck, wishing that Jake had seen fit to want to talk longer with me, kiss me, give me his number.
But not anymore.
“Hey, I’m going to take off,” Raven told Skylar, having made her decision to call it a night. Maybe in the end it had been disappointing, but she could still call it a success overall.
Skylar looked at her. “It’s only a little past midnight. And you know who might still come over and talk to you again.”
“Actually it’s almost one o’clock and I don’t think anything else is going to happen.”
“But I thought I heard someone say that Matt Damon might show up later.”
“Well tell him I said hi, and that I loved him in Good Will Hunting.”
“Wait like one more hour and I’ll go with you,” Skylar said, still looking around, as if searching for the perfect guy.
“No can do,” Raven said. “I’m leaving now.”
“Okay. Well I’m going to hang here awhile more.” Skylar leaned in and they exchanged a quick peck on the cheek, and then Raven was walking out of the enormous hall and trying to remember how the hell to get out of this maze.
She took one twisting hallway after another—they all looked the same.
Finally, she came upon a set of doors that she could have sworn led to the giant staircase, and opening it, was shocked to find that she’d inadvertently wandered into someone’s bedroom.
There were three girls, all naked, and two of them were kissing each other while the third girl was giving a blowjob to a pot-bellied man wearing what looked like a king’s robe and a crown on his head.
Raven groaned, disgusted at what she’d inadvertently walked into.
And then she realized that two of the naked girls were from the group that she’d met up with earlier in the evening at the dance club. In fact, the one girl going giving the blowjob to “the king” was the very same girl who’d issued the invitation for Skylar and Raven to come to this party.
Stopping her blowjob for a second, she turned and looked at Raven with a seductive smile. “Want to play?” she purred.
She’s very friendly. I’ll give her that.
“Uh, no thanks. You kids have fun, though,” she said, backing away and shutting the door.
Her heart was hammering away in her chest, beating out a steady, fearful rhythm as she walked in the opposite direction.
Now she just wanted to get home, get out of this weird and creepy mansion and forget it had ever existed.
Whatever this whole thing was, she was glad to have experienced it so she could cross it off her list. This wasn’t for her—these people, these parties, these mansions.
She remembered once again why she’d stayed away from parties ever since high school. Nothing had changed since that horrible time when she was seventeen. Here she was, four years later, and the people had gotten older but their true natures were still the very same.
Raven shook her head, half of her wanting to laugh at it all while the other half wanted to cry.
Finally, she was able to retrace her steps and find the big stairway that led down to the first floor and the grand foyer, which was surprisingly quiet. The unsmiling tuxedoed man was standing with his hands behind his back, seemingly waiting, for what Raven had no idea.
“I’m leaving now,” she said. “Can I get my cell phone back?”
He knelt down next to the basket. “I believe you had the pink iPhone here,” he said, retrieving the very phone she’d dropped in hours before. He handed it to her with a brief smile.
“Thanks,” she said, holding it gingerly, as if it had been infected by some strange virus, sitting with those other cell phones for so long.
The man in the tuxedo didn’t
smile, but his eyes were softer now. “Maybe you’ll come back and join us again sometime.”
“Somehow I doubt it.” As she was crossing the foyer to leave through the front door, someone called out to her from behind. At first, she thought it was the tuxedoed man again.
“Leaving us so soon?” came the familiar voice.
But when she spun, Raven saw none other than Jake Novak walking down the stairs after her.
She caught her breath and tried her best to act natural, as if this happened to her every day. “Yeah, well, it’s past my bedtime.”
“That’s too bad,” Jake said, still coming closer. “I was hoping we’d get more time together.”
Raven shrugged. “A girl can’t wait around all night.”
“Nobody asked you to wait around all night. I’m standing right here,” he said. “And so are you.” He walked another step closer, and now he was so near that Raven could see the stubble on his jaw, the flecks of green in his brown eyes, the small scar above his eyebrow.
“I should go,” she said, not even knowing why she was saying it. She wanted to talk to him, after all.
But now that the moment had arrived, she was indescribably frightened.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
She hesitated. “Why do you want to know?”
He laughed. “That’s a very strange response to a simple question.”
“Maybe I’m strange. I just…” she didn’t know what else to say. She was getting more and more scared as he kept watching her. If he’d kissed her instead, it might have been easier.
“What’s your name?” he asked again, insistent.
“Raven,” she told him.
“I like that name,” he said. “It suits you.”
“Well, I guess it would. It’s my name, after all.”
He reached out and brushed a strand of hair from her face. “You don’t take compliments very well,” he told her.
Raven could still feel the heat from his fingertips as they’d grazed her cheek.
She looked away. “I think I’m just tired, and a little drunk.”
“I’d like to meet with you again.”
Now she did look at him, because she couldn’t believe he’d said those words. Was Jake Novak asking her on an actual date? Or was he just fucking with her?
Was someone filming this for YouTube?
“You want to meet with me,” she said, as if by restating it, he might tell her she’d totally misheard him.
“I’m in town for a few days to kick off the new tour, and I’d like to get together with you while I’m here.”
Her heart soared. This was beyond belief, and yet, she had to admit it was real. Jake Novak was interested in her—her out of all the others. “Okay. Yeah, sure, why not?” she laughed. “I’ll give you my number.”
Jake’s expression changed at this suggestion. His eyes grew cold and serious. “That’s not typically how it’s done. We have to let the agency know about this first—I can’t just cut them out of their commission.”
“Agency?” she squinted at him. Did he think she worked as a model or something?
He laughed, but sounded slightly annoyed now. “The agency. The one that brought you here.” He looked at her like she was speaking gibberish, like she was the crazy one.
“Stop screwing with me,” she told him, getting nervous now. Really nervous.
“Did you or did you not sign a contract?” he said. He stared intently at her.
She swallowed. Her breathing felt stifled. “I…I just signed some kind of…what do you call it? I signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement.”
Jake wasn’t smiling anymore, not even a little. “You signed much more than that, Raven.”
“I don’t work for any agency,” she said, her voice urgent now. “I just came here with my friend as a favor, to hang out with her. All I signed was a non-disclosure thingy. That’s it.”
He sighed, as if she was being difficult. “The only way this is going to happen is if I pay you for your services.”
It was like a slap in the face. “Pay for my…my services? What does that even mean?”
“It means that this thing between you and I only happens if we do it my way.”
“And what exactly is your way?” she asked.
“There’s an easy way to find out. We go through the agency and take it from there.”
Whatever Jake Novak seemed to be believe she was—Raven thought it was quite clear that he’d gotten the wrong impression about her.
“I don’t think I’m the kind of girl you’re looking for.”
He looked at her with his brown eyes, and he reached out again and touched her arm with time, just above the elbow. “I think you’re exactly the kind of girl I’m looking for.”
Her nipples stiffened automatically when he made contact with her. “But I don’t understand,” she said. She felt faint, out of control, frightened—but worst of all, she felt her desire for Jake Novak was something that could undo everything good that she’d done for herself these last four years.
“Maybe someday soon you’ll start to understand more. And then I’ll come find you.” He turned around and walked back up the wide staircase, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. In that brief moment, she both hated him as much as she’d ever hated anyone, and she wanted to scream for him to come back down and kiss her.
But she did nothing of the sort.
Instead, she turned the door handle, opened the massive oak door, and walked out into the cool night air.
Leaving the mansion and getting in a cab to take her home, Raven could almost convince herself that none of it had even happened.
* * *
The next morning, Raven’s brain felt like it had been put through a meat grinder. Her head was pounding and her mouth tasted like cardboard. She sat up in her futon bed and groggily opened one eye, glancing at the time on her cell phone.
It was just after ten in the morning. That meant she’d have only a few minutes to shower and get dressed before heading to the restaurant for her lunch shift.
Why did I go out partying on a night when I had to work a lunch shift the very next day?
She glanced at the phone again, this time with both eyes open. That’s when she noticed that it said she had a missed call and voicemail.
Yawning, she got up and shuffled to the bathroom, phone in hand, starting to play the voicemail as she walked.
She expected to hear Skylar’s voice on the other end, or perhaps her stepmother asking her when she was coming home for a visit.
But no—the voice was decidedly male, and the tone was decidedly unfriendly.
“Hi, Raven, this is Max Mendez from Club Alpha. You need to call me as soon as you get this message.”
Raven got a cold chill up her spine as she re-listened to his brief message. At first she had no idea what he meant by Club Alpha, until she faintly recalled the title at the top of the contract page she’d signed last night.
Club Alpha was the name of that agency that Jake Novak had been talking about. Thinking back to the last conversation she’d had with Jake made her tremble inside. He’d said a lot of very confusing things, things that she wasn’t sure she wanted to think about.
But then she remembered the way he’d looked at her, the touch of his fingers grazing her skin as he’d brushed a lock of hair from her face.
The way her nipples had stiffened and the need had tightened her belly, a feeling she hadn’t ever imagined she could feel.
His words still echoed in her mind.
The only way this is going to happen is if I pay you for your services.
Raven tried to get the sound of his voice out of her head, knowing that in the cold light of day, one thing about Jake Novak was abundantly clear. He was no good. And there was absolutely no use thinking about what he’d said and done last night, because she would never see him again.
If she was going to forget about Jake Novak, she certainly was going to ignore that voice
mail. Whoever was calling her, she wanted nothing to do with it.
Ignore them long enough and they’ll go away. You learned that the hard way a long time ago.
She set her phone on the bathroom sink, stripped off her undies and got into the shower. As she let the hot water run over her, she closed her eyes, and flashes of the night before ran like strobe lights through her mind.
Picturing Jake Novak’s face again, the way he’d looked at her, the sound of that low voice with just the perfect masculine rasp, she felt that same familiar quiver in her stomach.
Stop thinking about him! Just stop it!
You had a chance at Jake Novak and you blew it! She imagined Skylar saying. You blew your chance at the lottery—every girl would have loved to be in your shoes and you just tossed it all away.
Would Skylar still say that if she knew that Jake Novak wanted to pay Raven for services rendered?
Probably. Skylar was crazy enough not to care.
That made Raven smile a little, knowing that when she went to the restaurant, she’d see Skylar there and they’d both laugh about last night.
She turned the shower off but it continued to drip because her landlord absolutely refused to make repairs. That’s what you got when you lived in Watertown and paid $500 a month to live in a tiny basement apartment.
Raven wrapped a towel around her hair and then walked to the mirror.
That’s when she noticed her phone buzzing again. She glanced down and saw UNKNOWN CALLER and got a shiver.
“Dammit,” she whispered. Her heartbeat accelerated as she stared at her cell and contemplated what to do next.
She sent it to voicemail and started brushing her teeth, frustrated and nervous.
What if they’re calling you because Jake Novak was interested in you? Maybe he sent someone to track you down and ask you on a date on his behalf.
That didn’t sound like his style, but she’d heard of famous guys contacting publicists or agents to get a girl’s number.
Still, whatever the reason for the calls, Raven didn’t want to deal with it this morning, still hung over, slightly regretful, and needing to get to work so she wouldn’t be late for her shift.