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1
JASE
Ieyed my best friend carefully as we stood outside the meeting room located on the floor below our private offices. Emilia Quinn may have been about four inches shorter than me and looked as sweet as pie, but she was just as ruthless as I was when it came to negotiating deals.
When we’d first formed Shooting Stars Enterprises over a decade ago, with very little money and lots of big plans, we were told over and over we’d amount to nothing.
That New York City would chew us up and spit us out.
But we were determined to prove the naysayers wrong, and with a lot of grit, charm, and sheer hard work, we were now considered among the elite. People flocked to hear our advice. Attended the occasional speech we gave at thousand dollar a head functions. Hung on to our every word as though it was gospel.
After all, you didn’t get to build three incredibly successful businesses and a charitable foundation, and earn yourself millions of dollars in the process, without doing something right.
Our company assets were worth far more, but both Emilia and I had a net worth of around forty million each. The exact figure was something only our lawyers and accountants knew besides us, and we never confirmed or denied any rumors to the contrary.
It was nobody’s business but ours how much money we had. We’d worked our asses off for years to earn it.
But I’d have given up every penny of it right now to see my best friend smile.
She hadn’t done a lot of that since discovering her douchebag boyfriend of eighteen months had been cheating on her with some bimbo he’d picked up at a club.
Our club, which made it even worse.
Meteor was the hottest spot in Manhattan. On one side was the nightclub, open to the general public. The lines on Friday and Saturday nights were usually long enough to make potential patrons wait for hours, and wait they did.
On the other side sat the strip club. It was only open to those willing to pay the ten thousand dollars necessary to become a member, and the monthly fee of five thousand dollars that gave them access to the club at any time of the day or night, all they could eat and drink, and the ability to bring a guest up to ten times a month.
Private lap dances were an optional extra, but sex was strictly prohibited. The members could look all they wanted but were not permitted to touch our dancers. Their safety was not something we took lightly.
Our security team was led by Connor Rayden, a former Marine, whom we both trusted with our lives. He was in his early forties and had been honorably discharged after being injured in action. He ran a tight ship and didn’t tolerate any tomfoolery from the men and women on his team.
Their jobs were critical to ensuring our dancers—and Emilia and I—were safe.
The club staff were all thoroughly vetted and we interviewed each and every one of them personally before they were offered a contract. All private rooms had security cameras and were monitored around the clock.
Our employees knew they had safe, secure employment with us, and jobs at our club were highly coveted.
But at that moment, the only person who mattered to me was my best friend, the one person who’d stuck by my side throughout everything.
I cupped her chin and tipped her head back, just far enough to look her in the eyes. Hers were a beautiful, rich brown, framed with long, dark eyelashes. “Hey, sweetheart,” I crooned softly. “You ready to do this?”
She straightened her spine and a look of determination appeared on her face as she nodded. “Yes. Let’s go crush this asshole.”
The asshole to whom she was referring was Justin Lloyd. He was in his late thirties and owned a small online store that sold sex toys. It was nothing compared to our own store, Hidden Pleasures, which also sold sex toys and lingerie, but he sold one item we’d been trying unsuccessfully to procure for months.
It was a travel-sized clitoral vibrator, which had been endorsed by a famous actress in an interview six months previously. It was no different than other models on the market apart from the color: a rose gold/blush pink combination that was quite pretty—and immensely popular.
Emilia had purchased one so we could see it in person, and we were convinced this particular color combo would sell like hotcakes in our store. The trouble was that the company who’d designed it had refused our generous offers to become distributors, claiming exclusivity with Justin Lloyd.
We’d considered designing and making our own vibrator, but in the end had decided it was a better use of our time and money to simply buy Lloyd’s company from him and acquire it that way. Whatever products he had in stock we’d either sell cheaply or bundle with other products to move, but we were confident the vibrator we had our eye on would be a best seller.
So when we heard through the grapevine he was looking to sell the business for cash, we quietly let it be known we might be interested in buying it. It hadn’t taken long for word to get back to him, and he’d called our office to arrange a meeting within days.
Lloyd was a cocky, smarmy prick who fancied himself quite the playboy. Our paths had crossed from time to time at various business events, including trade shows where manufacturers showed off the latest in the sex toy industry with the hope of picking up a distributor.
“Kiss for good luck?” Emilia’s question pulled me out of my thoughts, and I pressed my lips against hers briefly. It had become somewhat of a ritual for us to kiss before we went into an important meeting.
I opened the door and allowed her to step into the room ahead of me. We shook hands with Lloyd, whom we’d left sitting there for fifteen minutes.
