Page 5
Grief needed something to do.
So, I put it to work.
CHAPTER 1
Alessia
Nocturne, Manhattan
Powerful men often said the most interesting things when they thought the woman on their lap was too naked and too stupid to understand them.
It was one of the first things I learned at Nocturne. The second was that a man who called himself generous usually tipped badly. The third was that the ones who made a production out of respecting women were almost always the first ones to test where the touching rules ended.
Mr. Grant Martin had managed to prove all three before midnight.
He sat in the center of a curved velvet booth on the VIP floor with his expensive suit jacket folded beside him, his tie loosened, and his wedding ring tucked into the coin pocket of his trousers. He believed he had been subtle about removing it. He hadn’t been. I’d watched the gold band disappear into his pocket before his second drink arrived, right around the time he started telling his business partner how much his wife trusted him.
I moved slowly between his knees as the music rolled through Nocturne, all low bass, smoky vocals, and the occasional bright chime that echoed the crystals on my costume throwing black and silver flashes across the walls. Martin stared at my breasts while I slid one hand over his shoulder and turned just enough to let my hips brush his thigh.
He forgot I had ears after that.
“The inspector signs tomorrow,” his partner said, leaning closer over the table. “Assuming the rest gets delivered.”
“It will,” Martin replied. “I’m going to pay the driver in cash. The paperwork goes through Hollis Development. Nothing will come back to us.”
His hand lifted toward my hip, but I caught his wrist before he touched me, making the correction look like part of the dance as I guided his hand back to his own thigh. My smile never changed.
“No touching,” I whispered against his ear.
Martin grinned, his breath heavy with bourbon. “I thought the rules were flexible up here.”
“They aren’t.”
His partner laughed, and Martin gave me the same look powerful men had given women for centuries whenever they realized beauty occasionally bit back. From the expression on his face, he was mildly offended, a little aroused, and deeply confused.
Fucking idiot.
I turned before he could decide whether to argue, letting the thin black fringe along my hips sweep across his knee as I moved to the music. Behind me, the conversation resumed almost immediately. When the song ended, Martin slipped several folded hundreds beneath the strap at my hip. His fingertips lingered half a second too long.
I stepped back, and he looked disappointed.
“Come back later,” he said.
“I’ll consider it.”
“You always say that.”
“And yet, you keep paying me to say it again.”
His partner laughed again, louder this time, and Martin reached for his drink with a muttered curse. I left them with their bourbon, all while knowing that they had learned nothing about themselves.
“Until next time, Vesper,” Martin said with a crude wink.
At Nocturne, I went by the name Vesper.
The real me, Alessia Caruso, paid rent, argued with utility companies, bought groceries for her grandparents, and ignored phone calls from men in Sicily who believed shared blood entitled them to an answer. Vesper wore a black fringed bodysuit covered in crystals and cut high over her hips, thigh-high stockings, and a narrow velvet choker that made men imagine all sorts of things I’d never promised them.
Vesper didn’t have a father.
