After flirting with Marco’s driver, he told me Marco would be at the Black Bar at midnight. It wasn’t hard to get the information out of him. I pretended I was interested in the driver, but I can’t even remember his name. The only person on my mind is Marco.

I want his boss, who could easily be George Clooney’s twin brother with a smile that he uses on the girls who pass him by. Tonight, I’ll make sure he uses it on me. I’ve got the dress, the heels and I’m ready to make him suffer the same way he made me suffer three years ago when my dreams were shattered, and he tore them into little pieces.

As soon as I arrive at the bar, I spot him in black pants and a matching shirt leaving the limo and then walking into the bar as if the world belongs to him. That’s what powerful men like him think, but he’ll soon find out it’s not the case as far as I’m concerned.

The sidewalks are packed with women and men queuing up waiting to gain entrance into the famous bar. Not him. Just a nod and a stride and he’s allowed to enter. I’ll have to join the queue and wait to see if I can get in there.

I need to get in there.

Being left on the curb isn’t an option.

I’ve been standing for over an hour, I’m about to give up hope, when a guy bumps into me. It seems that they prefer couples to get in at the moment. There’s been too many single women going in and there are rumors of them cracking down on prostitution. I start to panic, as I worry that maybe I won’t get in. I decide there’s only one thing to do about it. Make sure that I use my new found talent in flirting to be sure we get in together.

“I think that they’re only allowing couples. And I can keep you company tonight,” I purr as the guy edges closer toward me.

He stands and looks me up and down for a second. That’s all it takes. I look hot, there’s nothing that hasn’t been left to the imagination as he cups my butt. I don’t say a word, because I have a feeling about tonight. Nothing’s going to get in my way, including this creep.

Finally, I manage to get away from the creep and I’m thinking that maybe I’m out of my league. It’s too expensive and with the little money, I have in my purse I’m not sure I’m even going to last one week, let alone one month in New York. I just didn’t want to stand next to the creep any longer. Who was no longer satisfied with touching my butt, but every asset on my body and when he wanted to give my mouth a rinse with his tongue, I knew I had to draw the line. I told him I was going to freshen up in the bathroom and he seemed to think that was an open invitation to join me, until I pushed him away.

I’m sitting at the bar, regretting that I pushed him away cause now I have the prostitution thing to deal with again. “Can I have another soda please?”

The bartender’s looking at me as if I’m a piece of dirt. Everyone’s ordering cocktails, beers and buckets of champagne and the only thing I want is a soda. He nods as he starts taking soda and pouring it in the glass as if it’s a painful thing to do.

I left Townsville, and soda wouldn’t even cost a dollar. Here it’s like five dollars for a small bottle of soda.

My dress is so short that I feel as if my panties are on display and too low to even think about wearing a bra. I bought it on sale and thought the girls here wore things like this to clubs.

I knew I couldn’t get into the bar without the creep, because I definitely look like a girl on the pickup. I’ve only been in the city for one week, and I’m not going to get disheartened this easily. I just need to give it a chance. Especially, seeing as I’m using my flirtation skills to get into bars and information. Something I never could imagine doing, before I got here.

I bought the dress with only one mission in mind. To get the attention of the one man I’ve been watching all night. He hasn’t even blinked an eye in my direction. I notice that he likes girls who are taller, more filled out and don’t leave as much to the imagination. It’s almost as if he likes classy girls. Which is something that I thought he wouldn’t like, and I feel as if I’ve completely misjudged him.

Then again, what do I know? He has a little gray in his hair, which I think is done on purpose, because he’s not even forty yet, but his body says otherwise. Even in the fitted matching black shirt and pants, I can tell he works out. Not too much so, he looks like a meathead, but enough to show he’s fit. Besides, I’ve seen him jogging a few times in the park. I watch his long arms and legs stride. I don’t even think after he’s finished the five-mile jog that it tires him in the morning. He looks just as refreshed as he did before he started jogging. I love watching the muscle tone of his legs, then again, everything about him is something to be admired including his almond-shaped amber colored eyes which could easily send me into a daze.

I shake my head as I watch a girl approach him. Jealousy runs through my spine about the man that I’m following for revenge. I want to seduce him and then make sure that he knows what it feels like to be completely humiliated as he did with my family.

Girls have tried, red-haired, blonde and even dark hair like me and he rejects them. I can’t figure out what he wants, and it leads to frustration as he starts moving through the bar. It’s as if he’s subtly checking something out, at first I thought it was the women. They flirt, try and dance with him and yet he keeps moving. All the blondes don’t get close enough to him. I’m not blonde, but maybe this dress isn’t the type he’s attracted to. I hate this, I left home at twenty-one with as much money as possible, and it doesn’t feel like enough in this city. I’ve been working double shifts, cleaning and doing every job under the sun just to get close to him.

Last week, I came to NY on my twenty-first birthday telling Mom that I wanted to experience something new. When I was eighteen, I thought I was going to college. Until I found out that even with my straight 4.0 GPA I’d worked like crazy to achieve in high school. It wasn’t enough to get a college scholarship. My college fund was gone, the house I’d lived my whole life in was gone too, and it was all down to one man. Marco Raco.

He’s the reason I’m sitting in the Black Bar. The reason I’m watching him like a hawk. From the moment I rented my overpriced room outside the city, I had to figure out how to get close to him. To make him pay for what he did to my family.

My plan had been simple at first. Get some money, come here and destroy him. I’ll make sure he pays for what he’s done to my family. But I found out that rent prices are great online, but in reality, if I wanted a decent place to stay I’d have to pay a lot more.

I’m so lost in my thoughts that I don’t look where I’m going. There’s been more than one man attempt to touch my ass or even worse, my breasts, but I’ve avoided them. Without looking and avoiding the creeps that have been trying to buy me a drink in exchange for a night, I hop off my bar stool and—

Smash.

My soda drops to the floor, and I bump into a girl who drops to the floor. I didn’t realize my actions would lead to something magical. Something that would make coming to the bar worth every penny from the dress to the overpriced soda and I was just about to find out what it was and I’ll know my trip to New York had been far from in vain.