CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Owen
Not a soul was in the ballroom, not even Amanda, but that worked in my favor. I crossed to the side of the stage where Amanda’s podium permanently stood. It was currently doused in darkness, which was a benefit to my stealth but a hindrance in my search for such a tiny device as the microphone Tabby needed. I fondled the shelves, running my hand over pens and pads of paper and other miscellaneous items I couldn’t identify by touch alone. I contemplated pulling my phone out to light up the area, but I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.
My palm skimmed over something small and smooth, and I was reminded of the remote to the vibrating panties. I knelt down and pulled the item out from the podium cubbyhole. It was a microphone that looked more like a Bluetooth earpiece. I straightened up, curled it up in my hand, shoved my hand into my pocket, and returned to the reception room.
Tabby was standing by herself against a wall with the expression of a fish out of water. I didn’t blame her. If the news story had never come out, I would’ve bet my last dollar she would have been surrounded by members had I left her alone. Now, however, she was a pariah. I only considered it a miracle she wasn’t being attacked with accusations. Ducking past several groups of familiar faces, I sidled to her and gave her a peek of the microphone I’d thieved.
“Where can I put it?” she whispered, looking down at her body. She was in the red dress I’d hoped she’d pick — though it still revealed more to my associates than I would have preferred — and there didn’t appear to be anywhere to hide the device. Of course, that had been her intent in choosing such a flimsy outfit — to disband any suspicions anyone might’ve had about her sneaking in with wires — but we had to get creative now.
I pulled her back into the dance room, away from prying eyes. She started plucking along her immodest collar, and I rolled my fingers between her hem and thighs.
“Don’t start that here!” she scolded.
“Oh, please, sweetheart,” I drawled with a roll of my eyes. “I’m not that much of a letch.”
“Well, we can’t put it down there anyway. We need to make sure it can pick up anything anyone says to me, and I’m not really fond of the idea that all the guys in this place would be able to hear what it sounds like up close when I walk.”
I happened to agree with that point, so I joined her up top. The seam where her strap met her bodice drew my attention. It was thick with a small fabric overlap, and a snag where the sequined mesh had broken from the rest left a miniscule poof. I was suddenly very glad she’d borrowed clothes from Heather because if I’d taken her shopping like I’d offered there was no possibility she would’ve been wearing anything with a defect.
“Here,” I said, sliding the hook around the strap and tucking the microphone bud between the split mesh and silky fabric underneath. “There’s a little bump now, though.”
She looked down at my handiwork, then grabbed a few of the sequins at the top of the tear and pulled. The threads came loose and the unsecured fabric puckered, creating the illusion that the bulge was just a symptom of the snag rather than a product of a foreign object.
“Wow. You have a knack for ruining things.”
Tabby smiled, but the smile was strained. I could tell her nerves were starting to take over. Her eyes were less focused and darted a little too quickly to any movement she caught. When I bent a little to look at her directly, she averted her gaze. I took her chin between my thumb and forefinger to force her face up to mine.
“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” I told her seriously. “We can leave right now.”
“No, we can’t,” she replied, trying to shake her head against my hold. “You said yourself these men are able to affect my career, my life, all that. I need to clear my name. And I want to get you out from under their radar too.”
“I can handle everything. You’re not obligated to make a situation right that you didn’t screw up in the first place.”
She smiled again, a little more softly this time. “I’m not obligated, but I want to do it.”
I studied her for a second. If I witnessed the smallest sign in her features that she was horribly uncomfortable with what she was about to do, I would yank that microphone right off her dress and drag her from The Club kicking and screaming if necessary. I, myself, wasn’t comfortable with any of this, but the nymph was so damn headstrong I might as well have run myself headfirst into a brick wall in trying to convince her out of it.
All I saw looking back at me was iron determination.
“Fine,” I growled. “Just don’t forget to turn that thing on, or it’s all for nothing.”
When Amanda summoned the participating ladies to the gathering room, I kissed Tabby deeply, swatted her ass, and watched her walk tentatively through the ballroom with the other women, Pippa included. I felt sick to my stomach.
For a long minute, I didn’t hear anything except the low hum of chatter and the clinking of glassware on bar tops. I was seriously contemplating storming back there and extracting Tabby from the mix when a horrible, squealing shriek sounded over the speakers. Conversations stopped. As the sound ebbed, a voice rose crystal clear through the room.
“Didn’t think you’d have the balls to show your face here again.”
“Why? I have nothing to hide.” This was Tabby, and I was pleased to hear she sounded cool and confident.
“You’re nothing but trash, and you coming back proves it,” Pippa hissed. She was speaking in a harsh whisper, but the power of amplification made her voice more than audible to the many sets of male ears in the reception room.
I heard Tabby sniff with dismissal. “Is that why you went to Owen’s house? Because you can’t stand to see him with trash?”
“I don’t give a fuck who he spends his time with!”
“That’s not what I heard,” Tabby calmly replied. “My sources tell me you were trying to sleep with him and he turned you down.”
There was an unidentified shuffling sound, and when Pippa’s voice came through again it sounded louder. I guessed she’d taken a threatening step closer to Tabby, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “If I were you, I’d be grateful for every second I spend with that man because, in the end, he’s going to realize he can do a lot better and throw you away like the garbage you are,” she snarled.
“Like he did to you, you mean?”
“You and I aren’t even in the same league, bitch.” Either she’d moved even closer, or she was raising her voice because Pippa sounded like she was in the room with the throng of members now. “There is no way Owen Driscoll would choose an ugly, broke nobody like you over me.”
I heard a snicker timed so perfectly I almost beamed with pride. “But he did, Pippa. And that’s why you’re trying to hurt him now, isn’t it?”
“You know what? You two are perfect for each other. You think you’re untouchable, but you’re not.” I could feel it coming, the confession, and I was holding on to my drink so tightly that steam rose on the glass surface above my hand.
“Is that why you tried to hurt him by leaking The Club to the press?”
Pippa laughed but the sound was bitter. “Doesn’t look like I hurt him too much, did I. Or all the assholes out there who have to pay for a piece of ass.”
I looked around, watched the faces of the “assholes” around me, pleased at the fury I saw there.
“So you tipped the press to hurt all of them?” Tabby asked, and I was so fucking proud of her I could burst with it.
Another bitter laugh. “All, yes, but especially the bastard you’re fucking. I hope my little tip to the press will teach him he’s as breakable as anybody else, and I hope the only thing you’re left with is a guy who lost everything.”
There it was. Easier than I could have believed.
I looked around the room. Not one man was moving. Nobody spoke. Everything was still.
And then there was uproar.