Page 5 of State of Ruin

“I’m serious.” I turn to him. “Who at Alchemy do I need to hit up to lock this down? Can I get a proposal to her some way?”

“I am so tempted to set my stepmother on you next time she’s over,” he says. “She’d have your WASPy little guts for garters. But until then, like, what do you actually want?”

What do I want?

I want her.

I want her to myself.

I want her tied up and bent over and willing to let me do whatever the fuck I want to her, because—and I would die before admitting this to Wolff—her face is the reason I didn’t get myself laid last night, and it’s also the only thing I thought about during that fucking strength class just now. I like to move on shit when the urge strikes me; I like to close, and fast.

I want to close on her.

And fast.

“An hour with her,” I blurt out. “I want an hour in a private room with her.”

“Okay,” he says, sounding weary, “so what’s your offer?”

I do some quick math. Assuming she works, say, four shifts a week, she can’t be on more than twenty-five hundred a month before tips. “Ten grand,” I say. “For an hour.” Surely even Miss Absolutely Not can’t turn up her cute little nose at four months’ salary for an hour?

“I’ll take it to Katrin,” he says impassively, and I inwardly cringe like a schoolboy. Katrin, the club’s general manager, is formidable, to say the least. Apparently, Wolff’s stepmom hired her personally to rule it with an iron fist. He says overprivileged little shits like us (his stepmom’s phrase) need to know they answer to someone both female and indomitable so that we don’t try to overstep, or blur lines, or indulge in any of the other liberties that we might think our wealth and status entitles us to.

I should probably pray hard that word of my proposal for Elyse doesn’t reach his family’s ears. But hey, who cares? She’s an adult. I’m an adult. I’m offering her a lot of money for the privilege of showing her a good time. There are many women who’d pay me ten grand to fuck me.

More to the point, I want her. And I always get what I want.

“Thanks,” I tell Wolff.

He hops off his barstool, grabbing his to-go cup. “I’m hitting the showers. I assume this was the pretext for inviting me to share this special beverage with you?”

“Fuck off,” I say instead of the truth, which is far too embarrassing.

He gives me a little nod. “Thought so.”

“Jesus Christ.” He’s so tiresome. “Look,” I say. “Just make the call, would you?”

CHAPTER 4

Elyse

When Katrin drops by the bar with a request to go with her to her office, it’s early in my shift. The vibe in the main first-floor area at this time of the evening is more casual, post-work drinks than let’s go upstairs and get laid. The live performance hasn’t started yet—they have one every night here—and the music pouring through the space has a chilled beat.

Pixie told me that the original London club is in a beautiful white townhouse in an upscale part of the city, whereas the vibe here is pure Meatpacking: industrial and hip. I guess you get a lot more space here than you would uptown, and it really is huge. I love the vibe in this part of town and in the club itself. Alchemy has a certain clientele: wealthy enough to afford its astronomical membership fees and liberated—or even hungry—enough to pay those fees for access to unlimited sex.

Hungry is the correct term. There’s a hunger here among the members. They work hard and play hard. They have boundless appetites and even more boundless energy.

Good for them.

I, on the other hand, am dead on my feet. I took Sylvie to the hospital and then came into Manhattan for an e-commerce job where I modeled womenswear for J.Crew’s petite range. It’s tedious and tiring, and this kind of job always demands as many shots of as many outfits as they can possibly wring out of you.

But as I’m five foot four, Gucci isn’t exactly banging my door down, so catalogue work is my bread and butter. That and a bit of face work—jewelry, makeup, Instagram cosmetic brands. Nothing that brings in the megabucks. Although my rep at Vantage NYC, Olivia, tells me she’s submitted me for something that could be more exciting, so there’s that. She seemed enthused when she mentioned it, but I’ve learned the hard way that allowing yourself to hope when it comes to the more lucrative modeling contracts is as pointless as allowing yourself to hope that Prince Charming will ride through the streets of Bayonne on a white steed, seeking you out. It all comes down to probabilities. I was awful at math, but even I know that the thousands of insanely beautiful women on the top agencies’ books make my chances of landing a career-making job tiny at best.

Anyway, I’m exhausted. So it’s with pleasure that I sink down into the armchair in Katrin’s office, a small room off the main bar. As she takes her seat in the chair across from me, I wiggle my toes inside my stilettos as discreetly as possible.

“How are you settling in?” she asks. Her smile looks a little awkward, which makes alarm bells ring. Am I in trouble? Have I upset any of the members—any of my coworkers? No and no, as far as I can recall. I like Katrin. She doesn’t mess around, and I can’t imagine she tolerates anyone messing her around either, but that’s what makes her a good boss. She’s a straight shooter, from what I’ve seen.

“I’m great, thanks,” I tell her. “I’m enjoying it a lot.” All true.