Page 1 of Velvet Sin
1
DANTE
“Congratulations, Mr.West.You own a new club in Las Vegas.”Blake Reed, my business manager, shook my hand once I signed the last of the paperwork.“It’s about time.How long did it take me to talk to you into this?”
“I love it when you can’t leave well enough alone.”I gave him a sour look, heading to the bar on the other side of my office on the second floor of my club.The action was unfolding downstairs, with monitors revealing images of happy, horny customers who paid handsomely for admission to one of the most exclusive establishments in LA.Within only a few months, we would be ready to expand to Las Vegas for the first time.
My hometown.
I most certainly needed a drink.
“What finally convinced you?”he asked.The distant, distracted quality of his voice made me glance over my shoulder.What I found wasn’t surprising.He was watching the feed from the main floor, observing the revelry taking place as people dressed in all levels of club and kink gear mingled, drank, and danced.His work took place behind the scenes.I doubted there were many chances in his everyday life to observe the sort of foreplay going on in the middle of the dance floor moments after he’d completed a deal.
“I ran out of reasons not to.”That was pure bullshit, not that he would know any better.Blake and I had worked together for years, and there wasn’t a day I had come close to regretting our relationship.That didn’t make us good friends.Truth be told, I didn’t have many.Close business relations, sure, but those relationships carried strict boundaries.There were aspects of my life no one knew about.Parts of myself I kept private.
Like the fact I’d promised myself I wouldn’t go back there.Spending the weekend was one thing—scoping out the competition, seeing what the club owners in Sin City considered elite, exclusive, and coming up with ways to outdo them, to make my brand the go-to in discreet, adult entertainment.
But expanding there?
Blake considered it a no-brainer, and maybe it was.I mulled it over as I took the first sip of my scotch.People traveled to Vegas to be bad.Some, if not most, longed to forget the so-called real world, to live like kings and queens, if only for the length of time it took between flights.They paid through the nose for the privilege too.Why not get in on some of it?
“I’m damn glad,” he announced, still distracted by the decadence downstairs.“Talk about untapped potential.Now that the Jones’ clubs are closing, there’s a vacuum.”Dick Jansen had run three of the most popular and profitable adult clubs in Nevada, but he was an old man and no longer had an appetite for business.Rather than sell out to someone like me, he had chosen to close down, take his money, and live the rest of his days on a beach somewhere.
Once rumors of his retirement had started circulating, there was no feasible way to turn Blake down when he suggested expansion yet again.I couldn’t come up with an excuse that wouldn’t get me laughed out of the room.
To me, though, it was no laughing matter.Vegas held nothing but darkness.Memories I’d suppressed for years, telling myself the past was dead and gone.That there was no need to dig up what remained.
Because there was another side to the sparkle of the strip.The city was a beast built only to consume.To take.Sure, the façade was pretty, and it fooled a hell of a lot of people every single day.It destroyed lives too.Preyed on those too weak to recognize the pile of shit they’d landed in.“That pathetic son of a bitch gambled away the mortgage again.”A familiar childhood refrain.
I drained my glass and went back for more.
“Honestly, I don’t know how you stay up here all night with so much going on down there.”Blake could not stop looking at the monitors, and I couldn’t blame him.He worked in an office, took meetings, handled our legal team.What was every day for me was still exotic for him.
“I love a good steak,” I mused, joining him with my refreshed drink.“Prime rib, preferably, but I wouldn’t turn down a porterhouse if it landed in front of me.Medium rare, tops.”
“Your point?”he asked, chuckling as he managed to pry his gaze from the feed.
Lifting a shoulder, I concluded, “If I ate it every day, I would get tired of it.”
“Gotcha.I see how it would get boring.”He finished his drink, checking his phone.“Better go.I don’t feel like getting bitched out for running late.”
“A new woman?”I asked, vaguely curious but more interested in a blonde lingering on the fringes of the crowd below.She was a virgin to the scene—anybody with eyes could tell once they observed the way she stood with her arms folded over her middle, chewing her lip, her eyes shifting around.Most of her face was concealed by a black lace mask, but she could not conceal her nerves when a man with a neck as wide as his head approached her.His body language screamed his intentions, something she picked up on immediately.Those intentions left her shaking her head before moving on.
Good for her.
“The same woman for the last few months, hence getting bitched out.Take a woman to dinner enough times, and she thinks it gives her the right to carry your balls in her purse.”He shook my hand one final time after gathering the contracts I’d signed.“I’ll follow up with you tomorrow.”
I was really glad to see him go since there was only so much sidestepping I could do when it came to explaining my reservations about expanding.I didn’t have the luxury of warm, happy memories when I looked back on my youth.There were good times, sure, and plenty of people had it worse than me.
It wasn’t as if I’d be going home with my tail between my legs either.Far from it.I was more successful than I ever dreamed of being only ten years ago when I left home for the last time after graduating college.I had packed up my things, along with a shit ton of bitterness and regret, and I’d moved to Los Angeles.Since then, I’d opened the clubs both here and in New York, where countless patrons relied on my staff to be discreet, professional, keep them safe, and let them feel free in a way they couldn’t in their daily lives.I was providing a service, and I had made a mint.
I could sail into town with my head held high.
What a stark contrast to the way I’d left, with my ex’s sobs still fresh in my ears while Mom begged me not to go and leave her on her own.“Who’s going to be the man of the house when I don’t have you?”
My hand tightened around the exquisite crystal tumbler until I felt every facet beneath my fingers.This was why I didn’t want to remember.Why I had gone out of my way to avoid my hometown for anything longer than an overnight or weekend stay.There were too many memories of too many fuck-ups.Too many times I’d fallen short.I wasn’t that stupid, thoughtless kid anymore, and I didn’t owe my mother a damn thing either.She had lived comfortably from the moment I started making real money.
Mom wasn’t my true concern.She existed on the periphery, a vague, shadowy obstacle I could easily avoid if I chose to.I was only thinking of her to avoid my real problem.
