CHAPTER ONE
ZOE
What do you wear to an interview at a sex club?
I rifle through my crappy wardrobe and groan in despair. I’ve been living in jeans all through college; I’m out in the ‘real world’ now, but without any cash to buy a new wardrobe, I’m stuck with a laundry basket of sweatshirts and a couple of glittery Forever 21 tops that are shedding sparkles over everything they touch. I’m all out of luck.
I catch sight of myself in the mirror. I look like a fresh-faced kid who just got out of school—not the kind of classy, sexy woman Dax Ryan would hire. But I need this job, it could be the break I’ve been working for.
Time for plan B.
“Hey, Tasha?” I call to my roommate. I don’t have to call far. In our shoebox of an apartment, her tiny bedroom is right across the narrow hall.
Her door swings open. “What’s up?”
Tasha is leaning over her dresser, applying eyeliner with the kind of concentration I’ve only ever used for finals and new episodes of The Bachelor. She’s squeezed into a skin-tight mini-dress, with her long brunette hair styled into a perfect sleek cascade that only forty minutes with a hairdryer can achieve.
I would know. I’m the one who helps her get it just right when she can’t reach the back.
“Can I borrow something to wear?” I beg. “Pretty please? I’ve got my interview at the club,” I explain, “And I don’t have anything that’s right for it.”
Tasha’s eyes drift over me. “You can say that again.” She tuts at the sight of my ratty old sweatpants and stretched out T-shirt. Even at home, she always looks like she just stepped out of a Victoria’s Secret ad, in tiny short shorts and silky tanks. But under all her mascara and lipgloss, Tasha is really a sweetheart, which is why she takes pity on me tonight.
“Try this.” She says, pulling down a tiny tube of black fabric and tossing it across the hall. “You’re taller than me, but a little extra leg never hurt anyone, especially when it comes to tips.”
I struggle into the dress. It’s a glorified band-aid, with half the back missing and black straps wound all across the bodice.
“Don’t forget the girls!” Tasha says, throwing me a strapless padded bra that could double as a flotation device. But it does the trick: when I yank everything into place and check out my reflection, I could almost pass for someone with curves. The dress is cut low on my chest, and high on my legs, and with the straps and some boots, it’s sexy, kind of a bondage look.
Perfect for where I’m going tonight.
“Thanks girl,” I tell Tasha gratefully. “And I promise, I’ll have the rent by the end of the week.”
“No worries,” she says sunnily. Her brand new iPhone buzzes on the dresser, and she lights up. “Ooh, here’s my ride. Have fun!”
Tasha picks up her Coach purse, slides her feet into a pair of epic designer heels, and grabs a leather jacket that probably cost more than all my possessions combined. “Remember, you’ve got to wiggle in that thing,” she tells me on her way out the door. “Walk like you’re trying to keep a watermelon clenched between your thighs.”
She winks and swans out.
I head to my window. Down on the sidewalk, five flights below our Brooklyn walk-up, an anonymous black town car is waiting for her.
I let the old bedsheet I’m using as a curtain fall closed. I don’t ask where my roommate gets her money, but I’m pretty sure auditioning for Broadway shows isn’t paying for those new shoes. She’s got a different date every night of the week, but she always meets them at some fancy hotel downtown, and never brings anyone home.
You do the math.
Still, I can’t judge. At least she’s able to pay rent on our rodent-infested shoebox. I’m the one a month behind and still no closer to getting a job.
I flop back on the bed with a sigh—landing right on a loose spring.
“Oww,” I curse, rolling over. “Dammit!”
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I graduated college with a portfolio full of student newspaper clips and dreams of being the next big thing in journalism. My boyfriend, Troy, was a year ahead of me. He’d already moved to NYC and got a great gig at a news blog; he said as soon as I came out, we’d get a place together and he’d help hook me up with a job.
But I guess his plans changed. Because when I arrived on his doorstep with my beat-up old Civic packed full of my worldly possessions, he had a change of heart.
And that change was a six-foot model-slash-DJ named Anya.
“I didn’t think we were serious,” he said, shrugging off every long-distance promise he’d ever made. “It was just talk, you know?”
I sold the Honda, found a roommate and a waitressing gig, and turned all my rejection and anger into pure determination. I’d show him exactly what I’m made of. I applied for every job going and papered the city with my resumé, certain my big break was just around the corner. But here I am, two months later, I can’t even get an interview for an unpaid internship, let alone a real job.
‘We’re not hiring.’
‘Your application has been added to our list.’
‘We’re seeking candidates with more experience.’
It’s a catch-22: I can’t get experience if nobody’s willing to hire me, and nobody’s hiring me because I don’t have experience! I spent four years on my college newspaper, working my way up to editor. I freelanced for blogs, even had a couple of stories published in the local paper, but here in New York City, all that work means nothing.
I’m back at square one.
Today was my last hope—and my best shot. The New York Daily called me in for an interview: my first time actually getting in the door. I was so excited when I walked through the newsroom and felt the buzz of all the ringing phones and people typing at their computers. But my high lasted about as long as it took for the news editor, Charlie Granger, to glance at my portfolio and toss it on his desk.
“I’m sorry, we’re cutting back staff right now, not hiring more.”
I blinked at him, my hopes crashing to the ground. “But, why did you even call me in if there’s no job available?”
He gave me a sympathetic smile. “Look, I like your clips. You’ve got some good stories here. Good instincts. But I can’t use instincts. What I need is stories. Bring me something good, something juicy, and maybe I can swing something.”
Which is why I’m trussing myself up in this ridiculous outfit, layering on the mascara and squeezing my feet into Tasha’s knee-high stiletto boots. Because I need the story of a lifetime to get my career off the ground, and right now, getting this hostess position is the best chance I’ve got. My instincts say there are some serious stories to be discovered at The Underground, and my instincts are never wrong.
I grab my purse and go downstairs, wincing at the boots digging into my toes. But my budget doesn’t stretch to a cab, so the subway it is for me tonight. I head for the station, my stomach jittering with nerves.
What kind of interview is this going to be? Will I have to do regular hostess things like showing customers to a table and checking for reservations, or does the position come with other demands? I mean, it’s not a regular club. The Underground is a super-secretive sex club, catering to the most exclusive clientele.
It was Tasha who turned me on to the place. She heard about a sex club uptown, private members only. The place where New York’s elite go to indulge their dirty secrets. Where politicians, celebrities, and Wall Street hide away under the cover of darkness and let their inhibitions go.
She laughed it off like it was an urban legend, but I did some digging, and quickly found out it’s the real deal. Ruled over by Dax Ryan, the club is totally secretive, completely exclusive—and my ticket to the biggest scoop in town.
If I can get a job here, I’ll be able to snoop around and discover everything that’s going down. If I can get proof of a few big names who use this place, and just what kind of scandals they’re hiding, that should be more than enough to get me a job at the paper, and my first big byline as well.
I can see it now: Zoe Warren, junior reporter, the New York Daily News. I’ll be able to write stories that really matter, pulling in an actual paycheck and learning from the best in the business.
“Aight, sugar?”
A voice snaps me back to reality. A couple of guys are checking me out from across the subway car, their eyes leering. Even under my jacket, this dress is giving them plenty to stare at. “Where you goin’?” One asks. “You got a man tonight?”
Thankfully, we reach my stop and I quickly get out, hurrying to the exit.
There’s only one man I care about tonight: the one guarding all the secrets I’m out to expose. He’s the one I need to fool if I’ve got a hope in hell of pulling this off.
Dax Ryan.
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