She continues past me into the living room. I inhale deeply to steady myself.
I tell myself to keep walking, but something holds me back.
Her presence pulls me back.
A blonde girl rubs the redhead’s arm, flashing her an encouraging smile. Red looks nervous, and she’s right to be. If it wouldn’t blow my cover and scare the living shit out of her, I’d take her by the hand and drag her out of this poisoned playground.
But what the hell am I even thinking? She’s just another pretty girl, like all the rest. Even so, I can’t shake the feeling that she’s the key to something. The answer to a question I hadn’t thought to ask.
A server offers the girls champagne. The blonde takes two glasses and hands one off to her friend. Red’s dress rides dangerously high as she follows the blonde to a set of stiff-looking chairs. Both girls look older than some of the others here, but it’s impossible to tell for certain.
I scrub a hand over my face. The last thing I need is an excuse to linger that isn’t tied to the case. Then again, leaving too soon might look suspicious. I park myself beside a grand piano where a group of girls are taking turns playing “Do-Re-Mi,” and watch as Red taps her foot against the chair leg.
My gaze travels all the way up her creamy legs to the round tits she seems determined to suffocate.
All it’d take to give her breasts a chance breathe in that tight getup is a quick downward tug, and out they’d pop. Beauty laid bare for my eyes to feast on.
The blonde whispers something in Red’s ear. Red shakes her head frantically. Blonde says, “I’ll be right at the bar,” then heads off with a stockbroker who’s been eye fucking her since she walked in.
I’m of the mind to march over there, throw Red over my shoulder, and haul her perfect ass out of this million-dollar dump. Poor girl’s a sitting duck for the sort of men who’d prey on her brand of helplessness and then toss her aside like a used condom.
An eruption of giggles at the piano reminds me once again that I can’t afford to single out one girl at the expense of others. But fuck if I can take my eyes off the lustrous pearl in a sea of glaring gemstones, sipping champagne all alone—
Or my dear friend, State Treasurer Harvey Wilkins, who’s headed straight for her.
Chapter Three
Holly
I don’t belong here.
I repeat the words to myself like a mantra. I do not belong here.
My foot tap-tap-taps on the chair leg, as I watch Kenzie work her magic by the bar. Laughing at jokes that aren’t funny. Smiling just enough to convey interest without coming off as desperate. Each hair flip and slow blink is a carefully choreographed dance step intended to entice.
The moves would probably work even if she wasn’t gorgeous, but she is. I’ve done a good job accentuating her cheekbones, balancing highlight and bronzer so that the light hits the high points of her face just right. She’s got the sort of ski-sloped nose you’d expect to find on a doll, not a living, breathing human woman.
I’m not saying I’m ugly in comparison. I’m just not pretty in the same way Kenzie is. She brightens any room she enters, while I stand in the corner praying not to be noticed. Where she’s warm, I’m cold, jittery, like a nervous cat. The moon to Kenzie’s sun; I expect she shines even brighter beside me.
I remind myself Kenzie’s good at this because she’s had to be, and she’s just as good at turning it off when needed. Some guys will take a polite smile as an invitation to invade your personal space.
Others don’t need any prompting at all.
The men here seem to appreciate the dance, like it’s a type of foreplay. I watch them watching her, drinking her in like a glass of champagne.
For the tiniest of moments, I’m jealous. Not because I wish they’d look at me that way, but because of how easily it comes to Kenzie. People are drawn to her in ways they simply aren’t drawn to me. Because she doesn’t instinctively give off a don’t-talk to-me vibe.
Apparently, that vibe isn’t enough to turn away the white-haired geezer shoving his crotch in my face.
“Aren’t you the sweetest thing,” he says, standing over me, his hand resting on the back of my chair.
“Am I?” I sip champagne and glance anxiously in Kenzie’s direction, but she doesn’t turn toward me.
“I think you might be the prettiest peach in the room.”
I instruct my eyes not to roll as I finally look up at him. My pulse picks up speed. The old man smiles, and his teeth are blindingly white, like he had them bleached this morning.