Chapter Three
Alana
She was pleased to be back at work, for things to be back to normal.
Thrilled, even. Because she was busy, as always.
And being busy meant that she didn’t have to think about her kiss with Drew.
Her drunken kiss with Drew, she corrected herself.
It didn’t mean anything. Friends drunk kiss each other all the time, right?
She shook her head, as if shaking such juvenile thinking from her mind. She had better things to do.
Buzz. Buzz. She ceased her daydreaming and pulled up her phone. It was Ruby, messaging her from her honeymoon. They had made it to Hawaii.
She smiled down at the photo she’d sent of her and Josh on a private beach, cocktails in hand, their wedding rings glinting in the sun.
Beautiful, you both look so happy. I should open a matchmaking sideline xx
She was joking ... but maybe she should.
If she could set people up and make them look that happy, then she definitely had a career in it.
She sat back in her desk chair, casting her eyes over her office, pleased to take a break from screens.
Glitter still lingered on her desk, but that was the only sign of a wedding party getting ready.
She smiled. It really had been a beautiful day, there was no getting around that.
She ran her finger over the remaining glitter on her mauve notebook.
Purple. She loved the color, any shade of it.
Being in the foster system meant sharing rooms all her life, so as soon as she could, she filled her apartment and her office with her favorite color because she was deprived of it when she was a child.
There had been no painting her room with her mom or building a bookcase with her dad.
Her phone rang. She checked the caller ID. No rest for the wicked.
“Samuel, hi, how are you?” she asked the human version of a storm cloud. He was useful though, super useful, despite his demeanor. And he had kids, so she really didn’t feel like firing him and taking away their security.
Some cutthroat businesswoman she was.
“As your assistant, you instructed me to find leads while Katie is out on maternity leave.”
Silence. Does he expect me to say something?
Fortunately, he continued, “And I have found a lead. Or to be more precise, they found me.”
His robotic tone of voice made her reach instinctively for her extra-shot hazelnut latte. “That’s great, thank you, Samuel. Will you forward me their details?”
“That is the point. They. They are a group and wish to join as such.”
That piqued her interest. “Right, and who are they? Who do they work for?”
Silence.
“Are you keeping me in suspense, Samuel?” she joked.
Nothing. She didn’t think Samuel would know what a joke was if it sprang out of a jack-in-the-box and punched him in the face.
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
Seriously? This wasn’t a lead. This may not be his job, but he knew better than to bring her random people without at least doing a cursory check. A fucking Google search would be better than nothing, for God’s sake.
“Just email me over the details, thank you, Samuel.”
After a few minutes of watching her inbox, his email pinged with a name and contact number.
Brilliant. Not even the names of the rest of the people who wanted to join.
She sighed. Was there even any point in having this number searched?
She could talk to this ... Max Billington and see how this had all come about.
His name sure did scream money, but she’d never heard of him before.
She typed in his number, making sure to withhold her own. He answered on the third ring.
“Hello, this is Alana from Club Billionaire, my assistant forwarded me your details. How can I help?”
“Hello, Alana,” the deep voice on the other end of the phone answered.
It was a voice that made her sit up a little straighter.
A voice that commanded her full attention, whether she liked it or not, and, so far, she didn’t.
She didn’t like potential clients having the upper hand, knowing more about her and her business than she knew about them.
God, she couldn’t wait for Katie to get back; she would eat this man for breakfast.
“Max, I presume?”
“You presume correct.” A beat of silence. “I’ve heard wonderful things about your little ... club, and I’d like to join. How soon can we make this happen?”
Whoa, pump the brakes there, buddy. Who does this guy think he is?
“I’m afraid membership isn’t something we rush into here. There are extensive requirements that need to be met. But let’s start with the most basic, seeing as I know nothing about you, Max. What do you do?”
There was silence for a moment. She held the phone away from her ear, and then put it back again.
“I’m in the pharmaceutical business. You can look my business up online: Finding You. It’s a business I started with some close associates, who are now my friends, and we will all be requiring membership, the five of us.”
Five of them? What did they think this was?
Some kind of subscription where you could just sign up on a whim?
Or maybe this was a guy who was used to getting what he wanted.
The wealthy often were. She’d dealt with some entitled pricks, sure, and maybe he was just another to add to that long list of names.
Her patience was running thin, like a thread that she could see unspooling in front of her.
“Look, I’ll have my assistant send over the initial query form and we’ll go from there.
Before I do that, may I ask how you came to hear of us?
We always like to ask. It’s good to see where our business comes from. ”
He chuckled. “Smart lady. But I’m smart too, and I like to keep my cards close to my chest, Alana. As long as we’ve got that clear, as you say, we’ll go from there.”
The line disconnected. She stared at her phone for a moment, as if that would explain this baffling call.
She sent Samuel a text, instructing him to send the form, and then send that form to Lily, an ex-FBI agent and background checker extraordinaire.
In the meantime, she did a quick Google of Max’s name and the business.
Just some rudimentary website and a few grainy-looking photos. She huffed, shaking her head.
The following day, she flicked through Lily’s email, and, no surprise, they were dodgy as fuck.
She glanced through the sea of red, feeling like she was back at school and her teacher had just graded her math homework.
No fucking way, Alana, was written in bold, the letters glaring up at her from the email. Well, at least Lily and I are on the same page there, she thought.
Her phone rang, the sheer loudness of it causing her to jump in her seat.
It was Lily. “Hello Lily, thanks for sending that over, I’m looking through it now.” She scrolled through even more red flags. “And this is why I pay you the big bucks.”
“Yeah, so, addendum, I just ran his name through the system.”
Lily still had access to the criminal database, thanks to paying off a few of her ex-colleagues to kindly look the other way, and thank goodness she did.
She closed her eyes. “Yes...”
“I’d just like to reiterate my previous point of no fucking way.
You do not want this guy as a client, let alone anywhere near your club.
I’m surprised he used his real name; he goes by several aliases, and he runs one of the biggest drug operations in Atlanta.
Seems he wants to go legit with his business, and by legit, I mean sell to the billionaires of this world, for whatever reason.
I’m sure he’d like to get some dirt on them, threaten them, rough them up a little, extort them for loads of money . .. you know how it goes.”
She didn’t.
Lily continued, “But that’s my best guess.”
Who had she been talking to? She swallowed. “He’s dangerous?”
She already knew the answer, but she needed to hear it from Lily’s lips.
“Very. He’s linked to all kinds of shady dealings, right down to murder. I think he has quite a few cops on his payroll to be getting away with the kind of shit he’s been doing. Just ... be careful, Alana.”
Her heart swelled. She’d never even met her in person, but she couldn’t help but think of Lily as a friend.
It was clear Lily was protective of her; she even sent the odd ex-agent to come and patrol outside the club on some nights where they’d had shady characters try and apply for membership before.
She swallowed. Shady characters, yes, not murderers.
“Thanks again, Lily,” she said, hanging up the call.
She knew what she had to do, and she got straight on it.
She used the email address Samuel had provided for Max and sent him an email, a polite rejection of his request to join the club.
There were extensive background checks, and he didn’t quite meet the requirements, blah, blah, blah.
She added her signature and pressed the send button.
The whoosh represented the lessening of a little stress.
****
The following night, in a midnight blue dress adorned with stars, she did her typical run through the club, stopping by tables, letting the members see her face.
“A!” Rick waved her over.
She smiled. Rick was one of her favorites. He’d gone into business with his sister, an influencer and lover of makeup, and he being a scientist, together they had made and sold their own line of cosmetics that now graced nearly every store known to man.
“How’s business?” she asked.
“It’s booming.” He grinned. “How’s business for you?”
Her smile faltered slightly. It faltered even more when Drew joined him at the table. His icy blue eyes searched her face, like he knew there was something below the surface. Even Rick’s lazy smile faltered for a moment, his eyes flicking between them like he was watching a tennis match.
“I think I’ll grab another drink,” Rick said, standing to go to the bar.
No, that couldn’t happen. She couldn’t be alone with Drew yet; she wasn’t prepared for it.
She began to protest, but then Drew cut in, “Another cider for me, and Alana will take ... let’s see,” he looked at his watch, “a red wine,” he concluded, with a smile that melted her heart.
It felt good to be known. But then why wouldn’t he know her?
They were friends. They’d spent enough time together to learn each other’s drink preferences.
She knew that after this third cider he would switch to water, as he was working tomorrow and wouldn’t want a headache.
See, friends knew stuff like that about each other.
She nodded her head more at her thoughts than at what he’d said.
Once Rick had left, she sat on the sofa seat, as far from him as she could get.
“What? Can’t look at me now? Alana, look at me.”
The softness of his tone and the look of seriousness were cause for concern.
“I’m sorry about the wedding ... the last thing I want is for things to be awkward.”
“It was both of our faults.”
That glimmer was back. “Because we can’t resist each other? I knew it.”
“It can’t happen again,” she said.
“Can’t or won’t?” he countered.
“Is there a difference?” she shot back.
“Yes.”
She scoffed, but then realized that with every sentence they had spoken, they had been moving toward each other, like there was some invisible pull. He reached out and stroked her dress with his pinky, such a featherlight touch she wouldn’t have been sure of it if she weren’t watching him.
“I like this. It’s like the night sky, beautiful and untouchable, a bit like its owner.”
His eyes sparkled as he spoke, like the lights in the room had decided that’s where they should be, that’s where they should shine, and she couldn’t look away, even if she wanted to.
Her breath caught in her throat.
He wasn’t supposed to say stuff like that, he wasn’t supposed to look at her like that. Jokes were fine, flirting was fine, but this ... this was new.
“Here you go,” said Rick, putting down the drinks.
Mercifully, Roy spoke in her earpiece.
“Sorry,” she mumbled to them both, patting her ear. “Duty calls.”
She quickened her steps towards her office, pleased to have an excuse to leave.
“What was that, Roy?”
“Just thought you should know, had to turn away some particularly insistent assholes.”
Her mind immediately flew back to Max and his gang.
“Just thought you should know,” he repeated.
“Yes, yes, thanks Roy.”
“Hopefully just some drunkards who heard the music, thinking it was a club anyone could come to, but I’ve called down Kev and Henry to join me on the door, just in case.”
“Good thinking, thank you.”
She turned the handle to her office and shut the door.
It wasn’t until the chair spun around that she saw there was a man in it.
A terrifying-looking man, hugely muscled with jet black hair with a stripe of white through it.
That wasn’t the terrifying part. It was his smile, like he had practiced the art of it in the mirror.
The kind of smile that promised violence, that wasn’t pleased to see you, that cracked at the edges, like if she pulled it the thread would come undone.
“Alana. How lovely to put a face to the name.”
She willed her racing heart to calm. “Max, I presume?” she said, repeating the line she’d used on the phone a day earlier.
“My friends and I were very ... put out when we received your email.” He stood.
“You see, we aren’t used to rejection. But no matter, I thought I’d make an appearance, to show you just how keen we are on joining your little club.
” He walked over to her, but not before picking up a large bag.
He chucked it at her feet, and she couldn’t help but flinch.
“I think that should be more than sufficient.” He kicked the bag over, and money spilled over the floor like blood.
She bit her cheek. How dare this man? This was her club, her baby, and he was threatening it. She found her voice, tilting her head up to meet his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Billington, what I said stands. You aren’t welcome here. Now, I’m going to have to ask you to leave, this is private property.”
He clicked his tongue. “Alana, Alana, Alana, you can call me Max. After all, we are going to come to know each other very well.” The lift in his voice, the tilt of his head, everything was predatory, and all her instincts screamed run, run, run.
Her hand scrambled for the door handle, but not before it flew open.