Page 1 of One Midnight Kiss

1

FOX

What the hell?

I adjusted the black mask covering the upper half of my face, feeling like I’d wandered into a nineteenth-century fever dream when I stepped into the grand hall of the ancient Parisian manor. It was just past ten, but the Epice de Vie Ball was already in full swing. A hundred masked faces swirled under the sultry lighting, which washed everything in shades of red and gold.

A little voice in the back of my head whispered at me. Run.

This was some weird shit, and I wasn’t sure I wanted anything to do with it. I knew the rich and famous were rumored to get a little freaky, but honestly, where was the line between too much velvet and just enough? This place oozed opulence and indulgence of the likes I’d never seen, and opulence was my bread and butter.

But I was intrigued.

“Curiosity killed the cat,” I muttered under my breath and took another step deeper into the room. “But it died happy.”

When the invitation to the ball had landed on my desk a week before Christmas, I’d laughed. It looked like the kind of thing you’d find in a Dan Brown novel, with ornate gold script on thick cream paper and the words Epice de Vie embossed in the center. At first, I’d thought it was a joke. Some weird prank or an invite to join the illuminati, the lizard people, or whatever secret society was the flavor of the month.

Then I’d considered the possibility of it being an invitation to a high-end sex club, which wouldn’t have been out of the realm of possibility given my reputation back in the Pacific Northwest. In my circle of millionaires and billionaires, it wasn’t all that far-fetched. I had certainly heard of some wild parties and been to a few myself. Nothing distasteful but definitely wild.

I’d decided to throw caution to the wind and check it out. I would have been left wondering what I’d missed if I didn’t go. So, I RSVPed.

And now, here I was.

I moved through the room, my black-on-black suit blending in with the dark tones of the decor. Black seemed like a dominant color in the room, although plenty of the women were wearing jewel-toned dresses that made them stick out. Everywhere I looked, there were masks and extravagant outfits featuring feathers, lace, and velvet. I had never seen so much jewelry. It felt like an advertisement for Tiffany’s.

I looked at the masked faces, but all I could see were lips and eyes. Not even the whole eye. It was impossible to tell if I knew anyone here and I liked it that way. It gave me a strange sense of freedom—a break from the recognition I’d grown used to in Silicon Valley.

I’d done my homework before coming, of course. I dug into the event as deeply as I could, stretching my tech muscles and tapping into the fleet of barely twenty-year-old software geniuses who worked for me. We had found nothing about the host of the party.

We’d located a shell company with its fingers in various industries but no names. No guest list. No photos. It was like the party didn’t exist outside of this manor tonight. The only people that knew about the party got one of the invitations. That meant big names were here, hiding behind the secrecy of their masks. I imagined I was in a room full of celebrities, CEOs, and the uber elite. These were the kinds of people whose faces usually graced the covers of magazines. People who were among the richest people in the world.

People like me.

I smiled thinking about the others in this room. Did they know me? Did anyone recognize me? This could be fun. A lot of fun.

Although the last thing I wanted to do was fuck around with a married woman and end up making a powerful enemy. I was going to have to be careful that my fun didn’t cross any lines.

I made my way to the bar, excited to see what they were going to be serving. With a crowd like this, they would be serving top shelf stuff.

A couple heads turned as I approached, but I ignored their hidden faces. The bartender also wore a mask but not much else. In a skimpy scrap of lace lingerie, the woman’s curvy body was on full display. I ordered a whiskey, neat, and leaned against the polished wood counter, taking in the room.

The rule about no phones had annoyed me. Imagine my surprise when I showed up at the door and was asked to hand over my cell. It was a red flag, but it also gave me a level of comfort.

Whatever happened in this room tonight would stay in this room.

But I would have loved to text Jerrod and Wilder right then. I wanted to tell them about this place. And I kind of wanted them to know where I was just in case this party was some kind of thing I didn’t get to walk away from. They would think I was crazy for being here.

The party had a sexy, secretive vibe that reached into the marrow of my bones. It made me want to find a willing partner and take them back to my swanky hotel room overlooking the Seine. I wanted to fuck while wearing our masks and not knowing each other’s names.

The crowd moved in waves as hauntingly beautiful music filled the hall. Violins, cellos, and piano blended together along with instruments I couldn’t identify. It was sultry and sexy and felt like someone was running a feather over my skin.

I swirled the whiskey in my glass before taking a slow sip. Watching the room, I soaked up every piece of information available. I watched how certain masked men glanced at specific women and couples that hugged each other just a touch too tightly while talking to others. Who knew who? Who had premeditated meeting here under the mystery of the ball itself? Who was using the glitz and glamor to camouflage secret affairs?

There was a sickly sweet smell in the room. A combination of expensive perfume, liquor, and maybe arousal. Like a rush of pheromones. It was intoxicating, a sensory overload that had me feeling relaxed yet wired at the same time. I took another sip, feeling the smooth warmth of the liquor slide down my throat.

The bar area started to feel stuffy, crowded with masked faces. I downed the rest of my drink and pushed off the counter, heading for the staircase at the far end of the room. Upstairs had to be quieter, away from the noise and the haze of cigar smoke and potent perfume.

I stepped onto the landing and immediately noticed a shift. The energy up there was different—calmer, but charged, like the air before a thunderstorm. Several rooms had their doors open, revealing intimate spaces filled with clusters of people deep in conversation. I was afraid to look too closely. This felt like it might be the kind of party where some freaky shit happened in those out of the way spaces.