Page 11 of Savage Seduction

Mom had never liked it, but I’d assured her I’d never be a dancer or hostess. That this work was only until I graduated and got a proper job. Even so, she’d begged me to get an admin job.

“It’s not safe,” she’d said. “It’s sordid. What place will hire you after you’ve worked at a brothel?”

“A private members’ club.”

“That’s fooling no one. They even named it Bordello!”

I’d laughed and said I didn’t plan on putting it on my CV. And anyway, the contacts at Bordello might even be the ones that end up giving me a legitimate job. And what other job would pay a nineteen-year-old more than some city bankers earned? Far more than Mom earned as a stylist at a department store, the only thing she’d been qualified for after Dad lost everything.

“You and me against the world, kid,” I’d reminded her.

Those were the words she’d said to me after she’d finally recovered from losing Dad, dragged herself out of depression, and managed to get her first ever job.

And now I was working too and able to help her out. I’d been so proud to be able to take her out to nice places for dinner, buy her a handbag she’d dreamed of for her birthday. Save a little against a rainy day.

Then on a Saturday night, I’d come home from work in the early hours of the morning and found her on the kitchen floor, neck twisted horribly, not moving. I’d thought she was dead.

Every moment of that ordeal was seared into my mind. Me screaming her name, rushing to her side, calling an ambulance.

She’d still been alive. Barely. For hours before I’d come, she’d lain there, unable to move, unable to phone for help, knowing she was dying. I couldn’t imagine the horror of what she must have felt.

If I’d had any normal job, I would have been home with her, had dinner with her, caught her before she fell and broke her neck. Instead, I had been blithely working at the job she’d hated, blissfully unaware, and barely returned in time to save her.

When she’d gotten well enough to speak, she’d told me that she’d gotten dizzy during dinner. Put her head between her knees. Next thing she knew, she was on the floor, unable to move.

She still couldn’t move, not even after the surgery to relieve pressure on her spine. Not her legs, not her arms. Not even swivel her head. Her last bout of pneumonia six months ago had nearly killed her. After that, she’d lost all hope of recovering. She’d withdrawn into herself for months. Some days, she hadn’t even spoken a word.

And if Toby sent that video to her now, her heart would be broken forever,

Huddled against the lockers, I wrapped my arms around my knees and sobbed my heart out.

And then I wiped away my tears, and I phoned Toby. “What do you need me to do?”

Chapter 4

BETH

I stared at myself in the mirror, telling myself I was just as sexy as any of the dancers. That I could do this.

Who was I kidding? The girl looking back at me was trembling. I’d spent half an hour applying and re-applying my makeup, trying to add smokiness to my green eyes and sultriness into my full lips. I had gathered my wavy brown hair on top of my head, tendrils left loose to sweep my bare shoulders.

My back was bare too, and my chest all the way down to a deep cleavage. The strappy blue dress was like one I had seen Lady Margaery Tyrell wear to seduce her despot young king on TV, and I even looked something like her, but I was no seductress.

Dolly’s red dress was in the bin, and I was back to being plain old me. Afterwards, I had decided the woman in the red dress was what he had lusted after that night. It’d had nothing to do with me.

Before Toby, I’d only had one proper boyfriend years ago, and that had fizzled out after I’d started working all hours at home and here to look after Mom. And our fumbled attempts at sex had not a seductress made. Nor had my hasty, strangely functional encounters with Toby after he’d clocked off from late night drinks with the lads after his oh-so-demanding job.

I rubbed my cheeks. Was I wearing too much blusher, or not enough?

“Fuck,” I said softly.

Mom hated that kind of language. I’d picked it up here, to make myself feel more like a badass bitch who didn’t give a toss, which was what Dolly said I should pretend to be. Don’t be all naïve and innocent all the time, she’d said. It’ll attract all the creeps.

I let out a shaky breath. All I had to do was go downstairs and take Marco DeAngelis a drink and slip into his booth and whisper something sultry in his ear. Remind him of the naughty things he’d done to me that night.

But even the thought of that had me shaking.

I reminded myself that I didn’t actually have tosleepwith him to get this sordid thing done. Though Toby had implied I should, the bastard.

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