CHAPTER ONE
Adara
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The clock on the wall wasn’t able to keep up with my racing heart as I checked the time… again. I blew out a breath. It was almost time to go out on stage, and my hands were sweaty, my stomach threatening to expel the carb-free low-cal dinner I’d barely eaten.
Behind me, the door to my dressing room opened, but I ignored it and took a quick look in the mirror to assure myself I looked the part I was about to play.
Dark hair reflected red highlights in an elaborate twist on top of my head, check.
Sparkly purple eyeliner brought out the violet in my dark hazel eyes that could never decide if they were blue or green, check.
Hideous scar, check.
“What are you doing, Adara? You’re on in fifteen minutes and you’re not even dressed.” Brandy’s words were laced with a hint of panic, and I turned to find her surveying my dressing room like she owned the place… which she practically did as the manager of Jewel.
She’d always been like that — bossy as hell — even when we’d shared a room in high school. I met her the first day I was moved into foster care. And while she had a tendency to plow over people, she’d always had my back.
“Ady, I’m wearing your mint-green sweater to the concert,” she’d say, stretching my favorite article of clothing over her boobs, which were two sizes too large for her small frame. And much bigger than my average ones.
It didn’t matter that I’d complain as she put the finishing touches on her perfect makeup application. She’d be out the door before I could convince her to leave my wardrobe alone.
Later, she’d bring my sweater home smelling of smoke and men’s cologne. I’d be pissed, but she was usually too drunk to care, and she’d just pass out on her bed, my sweater beyond hope by morning.
Brandy took what she wanted, but only because she never had anything unless she did. That was why I let her get away with so much. After all, she’d always been there for me when it mattered.
Like when Nate…
I sighed and turned away from the thought, then took a deep breath.
Today, Brandy wore an expensive black suit, the skirt cut too short for decency, the neckline plunging deep into those enormous breasts. Her perfect salon-styled platinum blonde hair swept upward in dramatic waves, highlighting her expertly made-up face.
She was a walking doll, twenty-four years old, just a year older than me. The expression on her face was a strange mix of anxiety and Xanax-level calm.
“Sorry, Bran, I’m just…” Not sure I can go out on that stage.
“Act lively, Ady. You’re at the most exclusive men’s only club in the world and it’s Friday. Money night.”
“Shush, Brandy, don’t call me that. What if someone hears?” I didn’t care if it was the most popular night, the evening most of the men let loose from work and spent more money than other nights. I didn’t care about most things. I didn’t recognize myself anymore or the life I was left with.
“God, okay, okay.” She rolled her eyes and threw up her hands, nearly exposing her panties. “Sorry, Mona. It’s not like this place isn’t full of secrets.”
The men’s club clients were a who’s who of the most powerful men in business, entertainment, and government. Everything that happened within these gilded walls was held in the strictest of confidence. With the Jewels it was different. More cutthroat.
I’d only been here for two months, but already, I wanted to scratch my way out. Too bad I didn’t have anything to go back to now. Brandy had snatched me up out of my darkest days, rescued me from destitution. I’d had a long way to fall from the top, and while I appreciated her for all she’d done, sometimes I felt like gravity had crushed me on the way down.
I met her gaze. “I know what you’re thinking. Why would it matter if my secret got out? After all, I’ve already lost everything.”
Well, not absolutely everything. I’d somehow managed to hold on to a miniscule piece of my pride.
I wasn’t a prostitute, but most of the other women inside Jewel were. Not surprising. Prostitution was one of the oldest professions in the world. Even Jesus chilled with prostitutes. The Jewels, as the working women of the club were called, sometimes made as much as thirty thousand dollars a night. The lowest bid for an evening was ten grand, and the girls received a small percentage of their price, which was still a hunk of money.
On the outside, they looked like they had it made — this was a good brothel, with pampered harlots shagging the rich and famous. The two or three thousand a night they earned was much more than street prostitutes saw from their efforts, but there were expenses to keep the women dressed, fit, and ready for servicing the high-end needs of the clientele. There was a price that wasn’t monetary too.
The women worked hard and put up with strange requests. Some had regular customers, and not all were kinky and deprived, but most of the men had specific desires that were expected to be met without complaint. They didn’t pay top dollar for a hug.
Brandy huffed impatiently. “Can you save the drama for after the show, please? We have a full house tonight. The girls thought you were going mental. Apparently, Janis was in here earlier wanting to borrow something, and you were a human statue. Snap out of it.”
I shook my head, unable to believe how callous Brandy could be at times. She was hotter than hell in her tight, sparkly outfit, but sounded like a drill sergeant. “There’s no drama. I’m trying to adjust. It’s hard to go from where I was to…” I waved my hand around the small room, “this. I’m a Grammy award winner, for goodness sakes.”
Brandy narrowed her eyes, her chin lifting as if I’d insulted her personally. “Well, you can’t be headline news every day, Ad—” She shook her head and gave me a tight smile. “Sorry… Mona. And you can’t stop assholes from being assholes. However, if you could try and do normal for a minute, that would be great for me.”
I knew her frustration wasn’t entirely with me. She was too young to be playing the role of business manager, housemother, and shrink to unbelievably gorgeous but broken women.
Despite my understanding of her role in all of this, I couldn’t relax.
“Sure. No problem. Normal coming up.” My voice rose an octave, the hairs on my neck standing up as sarcasm dripped from my words. “I’ll just put this little getup on, and me and my fucked-up face will hobble out to the stage and pretend my life isn’t completely over.” In spite of knowing my anger was irrationally directed at a woman I loved, the only friend I had left, I still lashed out at her.
“Your life is not over.” Closing her eyes for a beat, she took a deep breath, and when she focused on me again her whole demeanor was different, calmer. “I made sure of it. Now, I want you to take a second to be thankful. You’re not a rock star anymore, Adara slash Mona, you’re just like the rest of us now, but we don’t have it so bad. I wish you’d realize that.”
“I’ll never be like you.” I didn’t mean to say it, but the words were out, hanging between us.
Her chin tipped up another fraction. “Jack Marshall made an offer for you.” Her tone was one she used with the other girls, never me. “It’d be a chance to earn back some of the money Nate’s family stole from you.”
I stared hard into her eyes, our reflections meeting in the mirror. “We discussed this before I came here. I won’t sell myself. Ever.”
She rolled her blue eyes. “You sold yourself every day before. On the cover of CDs, t-shirts…”
She was waging her own war, and I knew it, but I wasn’t a willing ally. All those rich men sitting out there getting rock-hard while fantasizing about their dream night with a woman featured in a glossy catalog. They were nothing to me. Billionaires picking women from a menu like they were filet mignon. To Brandy, though, this was everything, her fucking utopia.
“Doesn’t Jack Marshall have a new wife and a baby, anyway? These men disgust me, and I’ve been in even lower places than this before, so I know disgusting when I see it. I’ve played to packed stadiums. I danced on that damn dancing show everyone loves, for god’s sake. I’m not stooping to fucking Jack Marshall.” I didn’t know why I was antagonizing her, but I felt like a fight. I needed to duke out the demons in my head.
Her eyes narrowed. “Well, that’s what you might have to do now. No one out there knows shit about your Grammy or the stadiums you’ve filled. Here, you’re just a prelude to a good fuck.” Brandy tucked a stray hair into the heavily hair sprayed twist on my head. “Yes, Jack has a new baby, the time men need their paramours the most. Now, dear, take it or leave it. This is your life, and if you don’t get out on that stage on time, dressed and ready for this, I will have no choice but to end your contract.”
Housemother had won over friend, and while I’d goaded her to it, I wondered if she would carry through with her threat.
“I’m the best thing you have going here,” I reminded her, quietly adjusting my black lace butterfly mask over the garish scar that crossed over my eye, running from my left temple and cutting deep into my left cheek.
It’d been two years since the accident and still the scar was impossible to miss. One hundred stitches and a couple cosmetic surgeries had not been enough to erase that ugly mark.
“No, Gina’s pussy is the best thing that has ever happened to this place.” Bran’s matter-of-fact tone was like a new stab to an old, festering wound. Brandy Collins was just as misleading as the mixed drink she was named after. She was sweet with a kick that took you by surprise when you thought it was going to go down smooth.
She’d been my best friend growing up in foster care, and was eventually adopted by her aunt because her mom was too much of a drug addict to get her back legally. She did see her mother at times though, unlike mine.
My mother never came for me. Typical Annie story, only the sun didn’t come out… I was never adopted, never had a family of my own.
Never would now.
The last time I saw my mom was when I was twelve, in court with my social worker. She seemed really happy and looked clean and pretty. Pride for the way she had changed practically burst from my chest that day, and I just knew I would be home with her in no time. The judge gave her a list of things she had to do to reunify with me, and I never saw her again. I’d never even met my dad.
When my mom’s reunification time was up, I was sent to a group home. My foster mom and dad had four other foster kids, Brandy being one of them. The only thing I’d had left of my old life was my voice, and that saved me… and in a way, Brandy saved me too.
“Seriously? Gina’s damn dick ditch?” I decided not to let her get to me, and instead of showing my hurt feelings, I goaded her. “You ever try it?” I knew she messed around with girls from time to time, but Harmon Adler, the owner of Jewel, was her everything. She didn’t play at being disloyal to him and had expressed several times that this was the best she would ever get in life.
“No, but maybe you might want to. It might take that crazy edge off.” She was half kidding, trying in her own way to slide us back to normal again.
“Think I’ll take a rain check.” I slipped my leg into its flesh-colored brace. It wasn’t too bulky but kept me from falling over.
“Don’t knock it, a good muff munch might be all you need to straighten yourself out.” Her tone was serious, but she twinkle in her eye was anything but.
We were good.
I stood with great effort, feeling naked in the pale leotard that hid my body, along with the gauzy, iridescent gown that floated around me. While I wasn’t fully exposed, the contours of my body were well-defined. I had butterfly wings, but I’d put them on just before the show, or I would be knocking precious trinkets from their perches every move I made.
I was ready-ish.
Brandy’s muscles visibly relaxed. “I know this isn’t what you wanted.” Absently, she stroked the gossamer gowns hanging on the rack near her, sympathy in her expression. “But it’s your reality now.”
“Yeah.” I gathered the wings into my arms, trying to swallow the knot that manifested in my throat and conceal the hurt begging to seep out of me.
“None of it was your fault. If his family hadn’t taken everything, you’d be somewhere else, maybe even back in the spotlight where you really belong.” Like the Brandy I knew well, she both encouraged and damned in the same breath.
“I’ll never be back there.” My life was hell, but going back, facing what happened, I could never do that.
At least here, at Jewel, I was safe. I had to remember, no matter how bad it got, I was safe here… with Brandy. Behind the mask.
“You had nothing to do with his death, Adara. Sorry… Mona.” She sighed and pressed her fingers to her temples, as if attempting to cement my stage name into her mind. “His family had no right to blame you. You were both victims. It’s just, you never have been one to fight back, you let people run all over you and now you’re here. I can’t do more for you than give you a place to work and live. The money’s good, right?” Her smile would have been infectious if I had any feelings left other than anger and grief. She’d always had that magnetic smile.
When we were teenagers, she’d say something like, “Adara, let’s go to the liquor store and get beer.” She’d hit me with that smile, and the next thing I knew, I’d be sitting on the ground behind the liquor store sipping from a tall bottle wrapped in a brown bag.
She wore that same smile when we were sitting in the police station, waiting for our foster father to pick us up after we were caught underage drinking at a party.
“Party… was… da… bomb!” she’d cheered in the back seat of our foster father’s SUV, and even he fell under her spell, which propelled us into uncontrollable teenage giggles.
There wasn’t much giggling going on these days, but her smile still did the trick. I smiled back, and even as the now unfamiliar muscles went to work in my face, it was just easier to give in.
“The money’s fine.” I patted my hair like I thought I was a diva, tilting my hip in an outward thrust. “I’m in it for the fame anyway. Who doesn’t want to be a butterfly?”
We both laughed as I turned and checked my mask again in the mirror. I never took it off. I had a drawerful of different ones, in many colors, but for Jewel, I preferred black. Made in Europe, the lace on the mask was exquisitely beautiful, contoured to cover the ugliness underneath. My masks were the few things I possessed that really belonged to me.
Because so very little belonged to me anymore. The smile faded as the memory assaulted me, refusing to leave me for long.
After the funeral, Nate’s family sued for our estate since we weren’t married and hadn’t been together long enough for common law. Somehow, they’d won. They got everything, our house, our money, our Grammy. That gilded gramophone and this scar were all I had left.
I could’ve fought them to retain what I needed to finish the surgeries necessary to minimize the scar, but I didn’t have any fight left in me. Not that there was that much money left. Nate had managed our money, and I’d been too in love at the time to realize I shouldn’t have trusted him so much. The gash on my face was the only thing I possessed now that connected me to the man I thought I’d grow old with.
I faced Brandy. “Okay, I’m ready.” I wasn’t really. Who was ever ready to perform for a bunch of lust-infused billionaires? In the two months I’d been doing it, I’d been sick with nerves every time.
“Well, girl, you look stunning, and you’re only fractionally less famous than Gina’s golden vagina.” In a casual motion, she turned for the door, throwing back over her shoulder as if it were an afterthought, “You should give Jack Marshall’s offer some consideration. All you’d have to do is let him have you for one night.” Her smile bedazzled the words, almost making them seem like the deal Jack was offering would be a good thing for me.
Brandy could convince a person to buy shit in a ziplock baggy if she sold it with that smile, but she would never… ever… sell me that.
The blood in my veins heated up. “There’s one thing that keeps me from jumping from the roof, Brandy. I’ve never sold my body for sex.” How dare she insinuate that I should even remotely consider Jack’s vile proposal.
She lifted a shoulder and tucked a strand of long blonde hair behind her ear. “He’s into straight-up vanilla, all you’d have to do is lay back and enjoy the ride.”
“Fuck you.” I wished I had the energy to throw something at her.
She had the balls to wink at me. “Yes. All he wants is to fuck you, just once. Don’t throw this away so fast. It’s a chance to earn back some of the money Nate’s family stole from you. Consider it, that’s all I ask.” She glanced at her watch and snapped her fingers. “Okay, time’s up, get your ass out there.”
Brandy shuffled behind me as she shooed me out of my dressing room. I really wanted to hate her, but I hated myself more. Brandy was just being Brandy. She’d never changed, never had to.
I took a deep breath, quieted my mind. Just go out there and do what you do best, Adara.
Shit… Mona.