She escorted Lilah down a long hallway and through a series of doors into a room that was like the lobby of a fine hotel. Expensive but inviting furniture was clustered in small seating areas throughout. The music she’d heard was coming from a man playing near an indoor waterfall that seemed to be flowing over the panoramic windows overlooking the city. It gave the room the impression of being underwater in a magical world.
They passed through this room into a darker, more crowded area filled with overstuffed chairs and sofas upholstered in velvet. A bar stretched across the far end. Several women about her age in similarly sexy dresses walked around carrying trays with drinks and food.
Eva led her through this room and into another. This next one was cavernous, with arching windows that stretched up three stories and a vast, empty floor that made her think of waltzing.
“Drink station is over there. The service elevator that brought you here is right behind it. Carl is working the bar for you,” Eva explained, introducing Lilah to a bright-eyed, overly solicitous man who looked like he could be eighteen or thirty.
Brown hair, brown eyes, and a Ricky Martin vibe that made Lilah smile back when he extended his hand, looked her up and down and declared, “I wish I could work a corset and dress like that.” Carl looked down at her feet and gasped. “There’s hope for me yet!”
Puzzled, Lilah shook his hand and asked, “What do you mean?”
“If someone makes sexy heels in your size, I might have a fighting chance,” he replied in a conspirator’s tone. Lilah was too charmed to be offended.
Eva smiled politely through the exchange, then winked at Carl. “You’ll show Lilah the ropes?”
“I’ll show Lilah how we take care of our fine patrons, Ms. Eva.” Carl made a very discrete kiss in Eva’s direction as she moved away from them. Eva didn’t appear to walk. She glided from person to person, always in control.
“I know,” Carl began, “that you are freaking out on the inside. We all do our first few days. You can’t believe you’re making this kind of money, and you’re terrified you’ll screw it all up.”
“Yes!” Lilah whispered, finally exhaling. A bad case of the nerves made her forget to breathe.
“Don’t worry. As long as you’re discreet, you’ll be fine.”
“After signing all those nondisclosure agreements and confidentiality statements, I won’t say a word. I’m scared stiff.”
He laughed, flashing her a smile so white it had to come from a tube. “Good. You’ll do well. You’re gorgeous, smart, and you have great shoes. What else do you need to know to work here?”
“Um, where the drinks are.”
He held out his hands like a magician’s. “That is where I come in.”
For the next hour, Lilah tried desperately not to think about Gavin Stanton. Carl made it easier than she’d have thought. Between learning which trays went with which drinks, how to understand the boundaries of her section of the floor, and all the rules of the bar, she didn’t have much space in her head.
The Platinum Club operated under a set of rules that were so different from any bar or restaurant she had ever worked in. This was like culture shock. No money changed hands. Ever. There were no tips. No bills. No tabs. All the money was handled behind the scenes. Lilah didn’t even need to keep track of billing drinks to each member.
All the servers were expected to do was take the order, deliver the order, and stick to Rule Number One: the members’ needs must be met.
Lilah bit her inner lip at the memory of how she’d almost met one very big need of Gavin Stanton’s.
“You all right? Overwhelmed?” Carl asked as he finished explaining the nicknames for some of their liquor. There was no top shelf here, like in other bars.
It was all top shelf.
Lilah’s mind was spinning. Her pay alone was more than most of her computer science major friends in college. They’d expected to start at near-six-figure salaries. Lilah was making piles of money to just take a drink order and deliver it?
What was the catch?
“I don’t understand this place,” Lilah confessed. “It just seems too easy.”
Carl’s eyes clouded a bit with an emotion Lilah didn’t understand. “Let’s put it this way, Lilah. This is an easy job. But it’s the hardest easy job you’ll ever have. Staying quiet is your job. Remember that, and you’ll be fine.”
She just nodded.
Ding! An elevator arrived filled with people talking, business terms flying fast and furious among the small group.
Carl’s eyebrows waggled. “Let’s get this party started. You ready for showtime?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, and one more thing.” Carl’s face went from playful to dead serious. “Don’t ever sleep with any club members.”
“What?” Lilah’s face flushed at his words. Was it that obvious what had happened with Gavin in the elevator?
“You heard me.” He leaned in and looked around. Lilah had the creeping suspicion he was looking for Eva. “Grounds for termination. Immediate dismissal.”
“Oh. Right.”
“And even worse...” He frowned and looked down at her feet. “They make you leave the shoes.”
Gavin took a seat in one of the sub lounges at the far back of the club. Special half-wall pods, shaped like a large, padded egg, filled the room. This was part of the club’s allure. In the middle of a party, you could come into a pod, plug in a headset, and conduct business.
He shoved earbuds into his rushing ears and turned on a stupid sports talk radio channel. But endless hand-wringing about football was the last thing he needed right now. He grunted derisively and changed stations. Soccer, that sounded much better.
With shaking hands and a mouth that tasted like Lilah, Gavin needed to tune out the world. In the elevator, he’d begun to shift. To a human, the change was so subtle. To him, it was enormous. His joints had loosened, the familiar gooseflesh on his back a sign of the fur beginning to come in. Chest hair thickened. His voice dissembled. His sense of smell became acute. Ten more seconds and he would have gone past the point of no return.
She stripped him of every shred of self-control.
He inhaled deeply and nearly choked on his own desire. Looking around wildly, he found the source of the scent.
His fingers.
Raking his hands through his hair, he sat forward, elbows on knees. Jesus. What had he been thinking, lunging at her like that in the elevator? The sheer need to touch her was too strong. The magnetic pull was too intense.
She was too damn beautiful.
“Gooooooooaaaaaaal!” the announcer screamed in his ear. He ripped the earbuds out and flung the phone on the floor.
Those brown doe eyes, shocked and then greedy for his touch. The full swell of her hips and ass made his hands itch to claim her. The line of her jaw as it moved while they kissed.
And that moan as he brought her ecstasy.
Three more seconds and his belt would have been undone, pants open, and he’d pump into her against that elevator wall, her hands above her head, her mouth smothered by his lust as he drove her to climax, calling his name.
He could see it.
The scene that did not happen was burned into his brain.