AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I socialize and schmooze when I need to. When there’s someone to impress or a deal to close. As pathetic as it sounds, I don’t socialize just to be social. I’m more comfortable sitting back and observing, letting others be the center of attention.
“What about you, Oliver?” Levi asks, right after I’ve taken a bite of steak.
I chew and swallow. Sip some water. “What?”
“Are you dating anyone? I never see you out. Or Crew.”
I cut another piece of meat, focused on the plate. I’m surprised by how I immediately think of blonde hair and blue eyes. After tonight—assuming she shows—I’ll never see Hannah again. I’m definitely not dating her. But it’s been a while—forever, maybe—since a woman captured my attention as effortlessly and entirely as she did.
“Crew is married,” I reply, dodging the question.
Edmund chuckles before tossing back some whiskey. “We both know that doesn’t mean anything. Couples have arrangements.”
“They don’t have an arrangement,” I say, cutting my meat more aggressively.
“Of course not. He marriedScarlett Ellsworth. Can you blame him?” Admiration fills Mason Jenkins’s voice before he knocks his water glass over. He just laughs, tossing his cloth napkin on the table in a half-hearted attempt to clean up the mess. “She’s a fucking—”
“Remember she’s my fuckingsister, before you finish that sentence.”
All the other conversations at the table die off as Mason leans back in his chair, lifting both of his hands in an overdone show of passivity. I’ve never called Scarlett my sister before. Never even referred to her as my sister-in-law to someone. My family is messy and lacking a matriarch. But I consider Scarlett a part of it.
“Wasn’t she your fiancée first? Keeping it all in the family, Kensington?”
I flinch. The negotiations between my father and Hanson Ellsworth were never publicized, but plenty of people assumed Scarlett would be my bride, right up until her engagement to Crew was announced.
And Mason’s question hits home in a different way than he intended. My father buried the affair with Candace so deep it can never be dug up. Any other married woman, and it would have been dangled over my head in a lifetime of blackmail. But it embarrasses him too, even more than me. A dent to his pride, knowing his much younger wife looked elsewhere.
“Shut up, Mason. You weren’t invited to be a dick,” Chase says.
A few of the guys chuckle in response, and it breaks the sudden tension around the table. Conversations about cars and sports pick up again.
After dinner, we duck into a magic show taking place across the street. It’s mostly card tricks, and I focus on each flick of the magician’s hands, noting each flip and shuffle to catch the clues.
We’re all handed playing cards as we leave.
One side has the magician’s contact information, for marketing purposes. I smile to myself, imagining how my father and Crew would react if I hired Blaine Burke Magic to entertain at our next company event.
The other side looks like a normal playing card. I end up with a six of spades.
I slip the card into my pocket, playing with the thin edge as we walk along the sidewalk. Our destination looms up ahead, a giant, green champagne bottle withCabaretwritten inside of it above the entrance. Yellow lights frame the windows, doors, and beige stucco siding.
Champagne Cabaret has a modest exterior in comparison to its immediate neighbors. To the left is a bar with pink panels attached to the siding, creating a rippling waterfall effect. To the right is a wedding chapel, white with a miniature imitation of Vegas’s iconic welcome sign out front.
A line has already formed to enter the club but we’re waved past it after Chase says something to the bouncer.
“City law says clubs can have full nudity or serve alcohol,” he tells us, beaming like a little kid on Christmas morning. “This is the only place that has both.”
“What’s the point of the law, then?” Garrett whispers to me.
I shake my head and smile, glancing around the interior of the club as we walk deeper inside. It’s even darker in here than the steakhouse was, all the furnishings in various shades of black that create a mysterious, sultry atmosphere. It feels like you could do anything in here and it would remain a secret in the shadows, which is the exact point.
“Whoa,” Mason breathes, looking upward.
I’m still annoyed with him, but I follow his gaze.
The ceiling is high, the interior not two stories like the outside suggests. Swings are suspended twenty feet overhead, the shiny metal flashing in the lights then rotate slowly around. There are women in lingerie perched on each swing, the wandering lights illuminating a glimpse of skin here and a peek of lace there. They move in perfect sync with the slow, sensual beat sliding out of the speakers, a rhythmic pulse that sounds like sex.
“Thatshould be illegal,” Garrett says. But there’s an admiring note in his voice as he watches the hypnotic sight, which is reflected on every guy’s face here. “What if one of them falls?”
