Chapter Four
Billy Barton wonders if his hair is thinning, then decides it doesn’t really matter.
His assistant buzzes in from his desk outside his office: “Alec Martin is here to see you.”
Billy says to send him in. Alec is, at the moment, his most valuable asset at the magazine.
The cover story he wrote last year about the city’s burlesque scene was one of his best-selling issues to date.
It was a rare bright spot in an overall dismal few quarters for magazines.
Sure, he’d known going in that it was a tough business.
But lately, he feels a sense of doom. The media landscape is shifting, and he’s afraid of getting buried.
Billy does not like fear. No one does. But Billy, unlike many people, spent most of his childhood mired in it.
Homosexuality was not considered a viable life choice in the Barton household.
He always felt that if the truth about him were discovered, he’d be cut off.
That fear, and subsequent shame, are something he’s still working out.
He tried therapy, but that was a useless waste of time and money.
But his sessions with the dominatrix are helping. A lot.
“Come in, come in. Close the door,” Billy says when Alec walks in. “Have a seat.”
Alec settles in and Billy relishes the delicious moment before delivering good news. He enjoys few things more than doling out plum writing assignments to his favorite staff. He feels like Santa; every new issue is Christmas morning if you’re one of the chosen few.
“We’ve confirmed Emma Holland for a cover.” Emma Holland is a gorgeous young starlet who just shot a breakout film that insiders whisper will make her the next Meryl Streep. “I need you to fly to L.A. next week to do the interview.”
As expected, Alec’s face lights up at the news. He’s a handsome guy, even more so when he’s pleased. Fortunately, Billy has never been particularly attracted to him. He never sleeps with “civilians,” only actors and models.
“Fantastic,” Alec says. “It’s gonna be great. I promise.”
Billy nods. He has no doubt. “Oh—and apologies for missing Mallory’s birthday bash. I had a late business meeting.”
“No problem,” Alec says.
But Billy is starting to wonder if maybe it is a problem.
He’s started to feel addicted to his sessions with the dominatrix.
And this would be okay—despite her exorbitant fees—except for one thing.
She’s started performing at the Blue Angel.
It’s a little too close for comfort. He’s all for worlds colliding—it makes things fun.
Except when one of those worlds is his deepest, darkest secret. With Violet at the club, he’s afraid it will all come to light. And that would destroy him.
Mallory steals a glance outside the twentieth-floor conference room window of the law firm. Park Avenue is lined with traffic, but rush hour is technically over. She’s looking at Friday night, out-on-the-town traffic, and this means she’s late for the club. Extremely late. Again.
But despite Agnes shaming her to the contrary, Mallory does actually need a day job. Her mother used to say, “Love doesn’t pay the rent.” Well, neither does burlesque.
Last year, she thought her legal career was over before it even really began: First, she failed the bar exam.
Then, employed as a junior associate at a white-glove firm pending her retake, she got busted for performing at the Blue Angel.
And was promptly fired. It was shocking, and not something she wanted to happen, but it was in many ways a relief.
For months, she’d been second-guessing her decision to become a lawyer.
It had been her parents’ ambition for her, not her own.
So in that sense, losing her job was liberating.
But she quickly realized that dancing at the Blue Angel as her sole means of employment was not financially viable.
And a headhunter found her a paralegal position at a boutique firm specializing in divorce law.
While she’d been trepidatious about stepping back into a corporate environment, it proved to be a good decision; she’s been pleasantly surprised by how much she enjoys working in the law without the pressure of making it her entire identity.
The conference room where she’s been working all afternoon has a long walnut table, Aeron chairs, and a statement light fixture overhead. A wall of built-in shelves holds legal reference books, while another is filled with abstract prints in bold colors.
Across the table, her boss flips through the files she had spent all week painstakingly organizing.
“I think we’re in good shape,” he says, moving the color-coded manila folders into a box.
Gavin Stone is in his early thirties, with a thick head of chestnut brown hair and the ice-blue eyes of a Siberian husky.
He’s undeniably attractive, but the fact that he’s her employer makes it easy to forget that.
“We’re done?” She fidgets with the handbag on her lap. Inside, her phone has been vibrating with messages; she imagines they’re something along the lines of Where the fuck are you?
Gavin smiles to himself, shaking his head.
“Am I making you late for clubbing … or whatever it is you kids do on a Friday night?”
“Us kids?” she says, frowning. He’s only about seven years older.
Although since he’s a successful divorce attorney with his own boutique firm, it feels like there are generations between them.
His endless calm under pressure makes it seem like he’s a real “adult” while she’s just barely passing as one. “Yeah. Something like that.”
Let him think she’s going clubbing. Or drinking.
Or just running out to get laid. Anything but the truth.
The thought of Gavin knowing about her night gig makes her stomach knot up.
After all, he does serious work. Family law is high stakes.
As he often reminds her, they’re dealing with people who are at a low point: They’ve lost love. The thing that matters the most.
Sometimes, when she’s reading through the files of paperwork about people’s messy lives, she thinks about the flaws in her own.
She wonders how, and if, she’ll ever reconcile the contradictory sides to herself: Mallory, the responsible person who wants to earn a decent salary and have a conventional, committed relationship with her boyfriend, and Moxie the burlesque performer who lives on the edge. And likes it there.
“All right—get lost.” He smiles and winks at her—professionally, of course.
She checks the time on her phone—7:45. Then she checks her texts. The latest message from Alec reads: Hey, legal eagle, the show must go on. Justin Baxter sending a car.