CHAPTER NINE
Tabby
Even though I felt the blindfold being lifted off my face, I could’ve sworn it was still on. I was standing in pitch blackness no different than when my vision had been obstructed by the soft fabric. Owen’s presence behind me was like electricity, hot and prickling, but it wasn’t a comfort. I wanted to turn around and ask him what was going on and where we were, but I knew better. I may not have known him all that well, but I knew better.
Then, as if on cue, a light flashed on. I was blinded in an entirely different way now. Colored spots floated in front of me, and I had to squint to even be able to tolerate the sudden brightness. When I’d adjusted enough to be able to at least see outlines, I realized Owen had moved around to stand next to me, and he was resting a hand on a freestanding podium atop which sat a single lamp, a pen, and a piece of paper that was sure to be the confidentiality agreement he’d told me about.
“This isn’t the beginning to some kind of hazing ritual, is it?” I asked him dubiously, eyeing the contract.
He exhaled a mild chuckle, but I couldn’t see his facial features, let alone the grin that was surely on his lips. “No,” he said. “This is the NDA. No more, no less. You sign this, you walk in, and that’s it.”
I stepped toward the podium and picked up the pen, but before I placed the ink tip to the paper I focused in on the tiny text. There was a lot of fine print to be read, and though the document was a single sheet, it was laden with an extraordinary amount of information. I paused with the pen in mid-air.
“You know, I usually don’t sign things without at least looking them over first,” I told him.
“That’s a good policy,” was his vague response.
I pressed my finger to the first line and started to read. It was written just like any other formal document and read more like a renter’s lease than an entrance form to a secret society. After a paragraph, my attention was waning and my curiosity bursting, so I scribbled my signature at the bottom of the form along with the date and turned to Owen.
“There.”
“You can’t have read it all so quickly,” he chided.
I shrugged. “No, I didn’t, but I trust you.”
This time, I was able to make out his face as he raised a brow and acquired the characteristic smirk that had a way of making me wish we were alone and naked.
“Very brave of you.” His voice lowered. “Or very foolish.”
I gave him another shrug. “I guess we’ll find out.”
“I guess we will,” he conceded, tilting his head toward me. He cocked his head at a door I hadn’t noticed before thanks to its dark, almost black wood construct. “Shall we?”
Nodding, I took a step toward the door. His hand moved to the small of my back, and the next thing I knew, I was looking at a sinner’s paradise.
Blackness was everywhere, not the suffocating kind of blackness a blindfold offered but the luxurious velveteen blackness of glamour. Jet curtains mounted against the ceiling lined the walls completely from one end to the other and flowed in waterfalls to the floor, which reminded me less of carpet and more of shorn raven feathers. Swaths of inky fabric swooped across the ceiling from all corners to meet in the middle, from which hung a grand chandelier of gold and crystal. Round tables of varying height and diameter stood on charcoal legs and hosted a diverse array of chairs. Armchairs upholstered in tuxedo material, barstools of cast-ironlike metal, and high-backed dining chairs resembling thrones fit for Dracula. In fact, the only sources of color I saw came from the blackjack tables’ felt tops and the selection of premium liquor displayed behind the twin bars on either side of the room. It should’ve felt like I’d stepped into a high-class haunted house of sorts, but it didn’t. It felt chic and expensive and powerful.
Bass was thumping in the distance, and a momentary craning of my neck revealed a second room with a DJ and a dance floor bathed in swiveling neon lights. This discovery prodded my curiosity to look in the opposite direction. I saw a third room, but this one was quite the opposite of the second. It was completely unlit, save for a stage at the farthest end with a dozen spotlights shining in a perfect line. Nobody appeared to be in there, but the double doors leading into it were thrown wide open as if the room was on display.
There were people in the main room where I stood with Owen, however. Men of all ages, each one dressed in a suit as expensive as I estimated Owen’s to be, milled around the bars and occupied the card tables. A quick headcount indicated there were at least forty of them, and I was certain there were more in the nightclub-style room. Mingling amongst these men were slim, well-made-up women in dresses shorter than I would’ve worn and heels higher than I could’ve imagined walking in. Most reminded me of strippers with their obviously dyed hair and surgically-enhanced chests, but some were more akin to societal socialites who probably knew where the soup spoon went in a place setting and competed in equestrian competitions as girls. They weren’t altogether loathsome just on appearance, but I definitely felt extremely out of place.
“Driscoll!” A man no older than twenty-three or -four raised a hand into the air and wound his way between the tables toward us. In tow behind him was one of the Barbie women, tall and leggy and oh-so-blonde, but she had a sweet face and friendly eyes. As they drew up, she smiled kindly at me while her beau clapped Owen on the shoulder. “I thought you’d disappeared off the face of the Earth. You didn’t show up to the auction Saturday night.”
I smothered a grin as an image of Owen holding up a paddle at a snooty art auction crossed my mind. He, on the other hand, didn’t seem thrown in the slightest.
“Something else had my attention Saturday.” Applying pressure to my back, he motioned to me and added, “Tripp, I’m pleased to introduce you to Tabitha Rickard. Tabby, this is Tripp Lubbock. He’s a legacy member and one of the worst card players you’ll ever meet.”
“Except when you’re in the room,” Tripp shot back at Owen. He extended a hand to me. “A pleasure to meet you, Tabitha.”
“Tabby, please,” I replied, shaking his hand.
He smiled, but the smile was the kind that felt restrained, like he was hiding something. I released his hand rather quickly. He didn’t appear to notice, or if he did, he had no reaction. He reached for his date to introduce her. “This is Marina. Her first time here was Saturday.”
Owen leaned forward to shake her hand, and I followed suit. Learning Marina was practically as new to The Club as I was eased the apprehension I felt exponentially, because I would at least have someone to commiserate with about the uncomfortableness of being the new girl if Owen happened to wander off to converse with other members. She had a warmth about her I was drawn to, and I would’ve engaged her if Tripp hadn’t pulled her back against him as soon as her hand loosened from mine.
“If you want a drink, you might want to grab it soon. I think things are supposed to start in a few,” Tripp advised.
Owen nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.” His fingers crept around to my side, and he clutched me a bit closer. “Good to see you again, Tripp.”
“Don’t be a stranger,” the younger man replied. He zeroed his gaze onto me. “You either, darling.”
As Owen steered me toward the nearest bar, I refrained from glancing over my shoulder to see if Tripp was watching us walk away and murmured, “What’s a legacy member?”
“It’s someone who comes from a family of members,” Owen explained. “In Tripp’s case, his father is a member, although he hasn’t made an appearance for six or seven years.” Reaching the bar, he tapped the countertop to get the bartender’s attention.
“And what’s with the possessiveness?” I went on.
He gave me a veiled smirk. “What possessiveness?”
“Oh, come on,” I snapped. “He grabbed Marina like we were planning on dragging her out to the limo, and you’ve still got a vice grip on me.”
Owen licked his lips, and I could have sworn I heard a whisper of a chuckle underneath his breath. When he answered, though, his voice was steady and his expression straight. “I like to feel your body against mine.” He leaned closer and the electricity between us crackled again. “Cosmopolitan?”
It took me a second to realize he was asking about my desired drink. “Sure,” I said, frowning slightly. Something was off. I didn’t feel like something was wrong, per se, like I was being set up for some awful traumatic experience or anything, but there was definitely a level of secrecy still being maintained that I hadn’t expected. I’d signed their fancy little NDA, after all.
He had just finished placing our drink order when a familiar face ambled over to us. It was the bald man I remembered from the casino when Owen and I first met, the one who’d been at the blackjack table where Owen had played out our first Christmas bet, landing me the gig at the restaurant. His beady eyes were reluctantly fixed on Owen, though they twitched like they wanted to zip in my direction, and a sheen of sweat glittered on his nonexistent hairline.
“I didn’t know you were coming tonight.” He sounded almost suspicious, but there was the friendliness of familiarity in his tone too.
“That’s probably because I didn’t tell you,” was Owen’s comeback. The comradery between them was evident despite their exchange, and I wondered if this shiny-headed man was more than just a fellow Club member. Their body language and faux-aggression toward each other made me think of two school-aged boys vying for dominance on the playground. “Howie, meet Tabby.”
“Like a cat?” Howie asked, hooking a single brow high enough to wrinkle his forehead.
I nodded. “Exactly.” I didn’t mention that Owen had picked up the nickname “kitten” for me in our brief time together, but the reminder made the space between my legs feel achingly empty again. God, something about Owen had me way too horny way too often.
“Howie and I have known each other since elementary school,” Owen revealed, handing me a martini glass filled to the brim with sugary pink goodness.
“Oh, so you’re from Maine too?” I asked Howie, instantly interested in talking to him. If they’d known each other that long, he was sure to be an excellent source of funny and embarrassing stories I could use to my advantage — or laugh at endlessly, at least.
Rather than nodding or confirming my question, however, Howie’s other eyebrow lifted to join the first and his neck bent at an awkward angle as he surveyed Owen. “Well, you two have certainly gotten personal, huh?” He spoke as casually as if he was discussing the weather, but his expression was stiff with disapproval.
I leaned back on my heels and took a drink, uncomfortable. Either I’d said something I shouldn’t have, or Howie was just a very strange, rather rude individual. Owen didn’t shrink back from his friend’s glower, however. On the contrary, he seemed to grow an inch and adopted a look of defiance.
“Yeah, we have.” His voice had an edge to it. “We talked about a lot of things. Tabby’s great to talk to. She has a very open mind. Actually, it was her idea for me to bring her here tonight. Isn’t that open-minded? Now she’ll have been through The Blackjack Club.”
I got the impression Owen was talking in some kind of code because his answer to Howie didn’t seem to completely mesh up, but Howie evidently understood. His shoulders relaxed a bit, and when he turned toward me again, he was noticeably more amicable. “Well, I’m glad to hear it. And I’m glad to meet you, Tabby.” He jutted his hand out a little clumsily, and I shook it. “Make sure to let me know if this fool bothers you in any way, all right? He’s got a habit of annoying the crap out of anyone he talks to.”
I laughed softly as Owen cast Howie a glare. “Okay,” I agreed. I felt a lot better about Howie already.
“Good.” He winked, tapped a finger to his head in a lazy salute toward Owen, and strode away.
Owen swirled his amber beverage in his glass as he watched Howie depart. “Sorry about that,” he muttered.
“About what?”
“He wasn’t exactly polite.”
I shrugged. “Apparently, he’s learned from the best.”
“There’s that mouth again,” he said, eyes flashing.
My nether region gave a single throb, reminding me of our tryst in the limo, and I sucked a large swill of cosmopolitan into my mouth. Before I could come up with a witty retort, a polished female voice rose through the entire room at an amplified volume.
“Please gather in the Harrison Ballroom. The auction is about to begin.”
I looked around, including up at the ceiling, to locate the source of the voice, but I saw no mounted speakers nor a sprayed and styled woman speaking. Owen’s hand found my lower back again, and then I was steered from the bar toward the room with the stage and the twelve spotlights. It seemed I was about to learn the real mystery behind The Blackjack Club.