Page 98 of Filthy Elites

She frowns at me and ignores my hand as she reaches up, grabbing onto the handle above the door and swinging down all on her own. When she means to take her bag with her, I grab it—pulling it from her shoulder and toss it back into the front seat. "Leave it,” I order. “You won’t need it.”

Her lips part, but I turn and start walking towards the front doors of the restaurant, tossing my keys to the valet as I go. It gives her no time to argue and little chance to get away as well. She has no other option but to follow me. After all, even she has to realize that the valet won’t give those keys to anyone else but me if he knows what’s good for him.

She trails me, cursing me under her breath in what I’m sure she thinks is a whisper—but what she doesn’t know is I have incredibly good hearing. I’m keeping track of each word and each insult. As amusing as it is, her irritation with me only serves to make wicked dark thoughts dance through my head—Haley on her knees, my cock between her lips. Haley on my lap, bouncing up and down on me as her breasts scrape my chest. My dick practically punches at my zipper, demanding we do something to make these daydreams come true. I ignore the bastard and focus on the task at hand.

The hostess greets us at the front stand, smiling brightly as she holds up two menus and leads us back. “A private table,” I say when she pauses in front of a booth at the center of the building.

She flushes and nods, quickly scooting past it as she leads us down another aisle of tables towards one that’s as far from the front and the other patrons as possible. I nod in acknowledgement and turn to the side as Haley comes up behind me.

“Sit,” I order.

She glares at me but follows the command regardless. The hostess lays out the menus and disappears back to the front, giving us some much-needed privacy. As soon as she’s out of sight and earshot, Haley launches into her tirade.

“Do you do this to everyone?” she demands. “Just kidnap them from their daily routines and order them around like your servants?”

I lift my menu with a smirk and arch a brow at her. “Do you speak like this to all of your bosses?” I ask in lieu of an answer.

“Only the ones who drag me away from my life and go out of their way to frustrate me,” she admits as she snaps open her own menu. “Besides, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re not at the club. You have no jurisdiction here. You’re only my boss when I’m in uniform or at Club Outsider.”

Her pretty blue eyes spark with irritation. I can’t say why that amuses me the way that it does, but her anger makes me think of passion and passion makes me think of … other, more sensual things. Things I should really have no right to think about a young woman who has no business stepping into my world. Yet, here I am—taking her out to lunch with the excuse of asking her questions regarding the drug going around both the club circuit and campus.

There’s a reason it has to be her, of course. Haley Montgomery is one of the few scholarship students given the privilege of attending an elite university such as Eastpoint. Though her major may be in the fine arts department, her talent one of beauty and creation and not of suspicion and truth seeking, she’s intelligent. In fact, according to her test results and her file, she’s got a photographic memory. She’s also connected to both places this dealer I’m seeking has been. If she’s seen or heard something that could connect, I need to know about it.

Haley turns her gaze downward when I don’t respond to her comment, the corner of her mouth tilting up as if she thinks she’s won whatever non-argument we were having. I can’t stop myself from watching her too. The way her eyes flit up and down the menu, scanning. I know what she’s looking for and it’s even more amusing to know she won’t find it. Her lips pinch when she inevitably realizes there are no prices.

“Order whatever you want,” I say, reading her facial expressions more than her mind. “Take it as compensation for answering my questions.”

Her eyes lift once more and meet mine. “Do you take all of the people you plan to interrogate to fancy restaurants?” she inquires.

My lips twitch on their own accord. “I figured it’d be better to sweeten you up since you’re usually so sour to me, sweetheart.”

Her lips clamp shut and she turns her gaze downward once more. Our waitress appears, setting out glasses of water before she takes our order. Once we’re alone again, Haley reaches for her water and sucks back half the glass before pushing it to the center of the table and crossing her arms over her ample chest. I have to force my gaze to remain steady on her face.

“Alright,” she begins, “what’s this about?”

“I have some important questions I need to ask you,” I inform her. “About the patrons at the club and anyone that you’ve also seen on campus.”

She frowns. “Okay…”

I withdraw my cell and pull up a list of dates that I typed out earlier after my second meeting with Cain and Andrei. Though Andrei is Nicholas’ street man, he also holds a powerful position within Eastpoint. Cain, as part of the board of directors, had asked to be involved with the meeting as well. I have a starting point of dates where major events involving the new drug, Haze, have occurred and my plan is to find a correlation with exchanges around then.

“I need you to think back,” I state as I set the phone down on the table and slide it towards her. “To these dates. Do you recall anyone who was at Club Outsider on each of those date?”

“There were a lot of people in the club on these dates,” she says as she scans the list.

“There might have been one or two people who were at the Club each time,” I clarify.

She considers that, her eyes staring down at the dates on the screen for several long moments. As she thinks back, I watch her. Her nose scrunches in concentration and her lashes flutter as her eyes move back and forth over the list. Objectively, she’s not the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. While she has big, wide eyes and full cheeks that are attractive—she’s got small cosmetic flaws that reflect a life that hasn’t been lived with ease.

There are small scars across her knuckles, likely from working with various art tools—I know that part of her instruction includes working with sculpting. Her freckles are light and scattered across the bridge of her nose and as I peruse them, I note a small mole just under one eye—barely perceptible but still there nonetheless. They’re nothing that might detract from her beauty, but had she been born as one of the elite they would’ve been removed by her parents as early as infancy. There is a certain status and look those of the upper echelon require from their offspring. It’s the type of appearance control that doesn’t lead to the same uniqueness that people like Haley Montgomery have. To me, however, her lack of perfectionisbeautiful. It is who she is.

“I can’t tell you names,” she says, pulling me from my thoughts, “but a few regulars come to mind.”

“Would you be able to pick them out of a crowd?” I ask, reaching for the phone as she nods.

I flick through the applications on my screen until I come across the club’s security footage. I click on it and scroll back to the list of dates and timestamps, thankful that I had my IT guy pull some stills of suspicious persons from the club on the same dates. I open the file and hand the phone back to her.

“Go through those,” I say. “And tell me if you see who you’re thinking of.”

---