Chapter 4: Starling for One

The Night Heron looked like a different building with the chairs on the tables.

Tavy let me in through the kitchen at one-fifteen and held up a hand.

"Ten thousand, wired to the house," she said. "He didn't blink."

"I know."

"I'm going home.

"The bouncer's gone, the cameras are off, and I'm in my pajamas by two."

She squeezed my arm.

"Jess.

"You don't have to."

"I know that too."

"Say it anyway."

"I want to."

She looked at my face a second longer, then grinned.

"Go be a menace."

I changed in the dark.

Platinum wig, black lace, the red heels I'd worn a hundred times.

I didn't look in the mirror.

At half past one I walked out onto the empty stage.

One chair stood in the middle of the dance floor, turned to face me.

Carlisle sat in it in his shirtsleeves, with his jacket off and his cuffs rolled to the elbow.

Both his hands were under his thighs.

He'd done it before I'd said a word.

The bass came on low, from a speaker I couldn't see.

I started to move.

I had danced for a thousand strangers in this room, and every time I'd gone somewhere else behind the mask.

This time I stayed.

I came down the steps one slow stair at a time, and I watched him watch me.

He didn't blink.

His eyes followed my hips, my mouth, my hands as they slid up the lace at my ribs.

When I reached the chair I stopped an inch from his knees.

"You haven't moved," I said.

"You said not to."

"Good."

I turned my back to him and rolled down, slow, until the back of my thighs touched his knees.

He made a sound in his throat.

I straightened and turned again, and put one heel on the chair between his legs.

"Look at me."

"I am."

"No. Look."

He looked.

I took my time.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Fake Debutante and the True Billionaire from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.