My day starts like any other, with the alarm going off just after midday and bitching from a hung over Lolita, the girl I share a room with. She’s twenty-four to my twenty-one. Those measly three years are one of many reasons she hates my guts.

The other reason is because she thinks I’m standing in the way of her promotion to become one of Clay’s Entertainers.

To keep The Villa’s Entertainers exclusive enough to attract wealthy patrons, Clay limited the girls to a cozy dozen and instituted a fancy booking system that involved said patrons going on a waiting list. Lolita was gagging to be promoted after one of the Entertainers fell down the stairs and permanently damaged her back. Clay promoted me instead, earning me an enemy for life.

But the truth is Lolita was overlooked because she sucks at giving blow jobs and she sucks at fucking, although she’s moderate at hand jobs. The one thing she does excel at is pole dancing, courtesy of some fancy ballet training she received from rich foster parents before they decided she was the wrong side of adorably nuts and tossed her back into the care system.

For the last six months, I’ve endured her vitriol. Recently, after overhearing her tell one of the girls that she hates my hair and intends to cut it off while I sleep, I’ve taken to sleeping with my hair carefully pinned to my skull and secured with a swim cap.

It’s uncomfortable as hell, but so far I’ve woken with my mane unmolested.

I hear her moving around in the room and pretend to be asleep. My first client isn’t until two, so I have time to wait for her to shower and leave before I get up.

I also have time to go over my plan, make sure every angle is covered. It’s only a matter of time before Clay discovers the documents in his safe are fake. I’m one of a handful of people allowed in his inner sanctum. He doesn’t know I’m aware of the existence of his safe, but that won’t matter. I need to be far away from here when he connects the dots, because then he’ll know I’m the only one with the answers he needs.

Answers I promised to take to the grave.

Behind me, I hear Lolita disappear into the adjoining bathroom. I peel the swim cap off my head and moan in relief as I take out the hairpins.

Once all the pins are out, I sit on the side of my bed and massage my sore scalp. This is getting really old. I return the cap and pins to a different hiding spot, this time in the zip up section of Lolita’s least favorite handbag. She found three of my previous hiding spots and slashed the caps to shreds. I would be amused by her antics if I weren’t so goddamn fed up with wasting precious time to go to the sports store in Getty Falls to replace them. The last time I went into the store, the cashier looked at me funny. I could tell he was dying to find out what sex toy I intended to fashion from a swim cap. I remained silent and let him conjure up his own pathetic fantasy.

I’m in the middle of laying out my outfit for the day when I hear a knock. My grip tightens around the pearl choker my client favors. The only people who knock on the doors of the North Wing are people who don’t belong in the North Wing.

The North Wing is strictly out of bounds to patrons of The Villa and most of the male staff. It’s where the girls in the upper echelons of The Villa hierarchy have their sleeping quarters. The only way to access it is through a set of double doors in the East Wing, via a security coded entrance, which is also monitored by two of Clayton’s bodyguards twenty-four-seven.

At this time of day, before The Villa’s doors open, the only person who could be knocking is—

“What, you’re too good to answer the door now, are you?” Lolita pauses in the bathroom doorway, her wet hair clinging to her damp skin, a towel draped over her voluptuous figure.

I force my fingers to release the choker and walk to the door. I gulp down my relief when I see who it is, although it’s short lived.

“Hey, Ridge,” my roommate greets sultrily from behind me.

The mountain in front of me barely acknowledges her with a nod before his gaze drops back down to me.

Great, something else for her to hate me for.

I stare at Ridge Mathews.

Of all of Clay’s minders, he’s the one that frightens me the most, and most of them are ex-military or mercenaries and pretty damn scary to begin with. They’re supposedly here for our protection, but I’ve seen the way Ridge’s eyes follow me when we cross paths. I suppress a shudder and maintain a neutral expression.

“Clay wants to see you, asap.”

Six words no girl at The Villa wants to hear first thing upon waking up. Or at any time during a twenty-four-hour cycle.

In the mirrored picture next to the door, I see Lolita’s expression drop from sneer to sympathetic for a split second before she catches my gaze and normal service resumes.

“Oops, has Daddy’s little girl been naughty?” she sniggers.

“Shut up, Lolita,” I throw over my shoulder.

She laughs, drops the towel and walks bare ass naked to her closet. “Come find me after if you need cooling cream for your paddled ass.”

I don’t bother responding to her. To Ridge, whose gaze is fixed on me the whole time with an intensity that is extremely unsettling, I say, “Tell him I’ll be there in twenty minutes. I need a shower.”

He nods, and although his gaze doesn’t skim lower, I feel as if he’s stripped me naked just by looking into my eyes. I step back and shut the door, then continue to the bathroom before Lolita emerges to deliver another dose of envy-laced snark I’m not in the mood for.

I intended to take a bath before work, but I rush through a shower and don a loose sundress and cowboy boots, catch my hair in a ponytail and slide on a touch of lip gloss before I leave the North Wing.

The Villa is a grand residence, despite its soiled reputation. A Pre-Colonial mansion built by a baron with original Deep South roots, the rambling four-story has been revamped with questionable decor but top of the line contemporary amenities, including a security coded elevator that goes straight to the basement, where Clay’s office is located.

I exit to the hum of photocopiers and computers and the occasional ringing phone.

Clayton Getty treats whoring like the rest of the legitimate businesses he inherited from his father. No one has the temerity to question him because he owns every single person in Getty Falls, be it through bribery or intimidation.

To my memory, the only person who ever dared to cross him was the man I grew up thinking was my father. And he paid dearly for it.

As if conjured up from my thoughts, Earl Gilbert—the man who was married to my mother for all of five minutes before he found out I wasn’t his and divorced her—emerges from the door leading into Clay’s office and slows to a stop when he sees me.

“The fuck you dressed like that for?” he sneers the moment he catches sight of what I’m wearing.

“I don’t start work till two. You’ll just have to contain yourself for a while longer before the slutty-outfit parade comes out, Dad.”

His one functioning eye, the one not gouged out by Clayton Getty in retribution for daring to take what was his, blazes holy hell at me. “I told you not to call me that. You keep giving me lip like that, girl, you’ll see what that gets you—”

“Enough of that, Earl. Bicker with her in your own time. Lucky, get in here.”

For the thousandth time, I puzzle why Earl didn’t leave Getty Falls after what Clayton did to him. I can only conclude that either Clayton spared Earl and turned him into a glorified lackey as an example to others or he believes in the keep your enemies closer mantra.

I don’t skirt out of arms’ reach the way I normally do when I’m within spitting distance of Earl because I know he won’t lash out at me while Clayton’s within earshot. Although he hasn’t done that lately even when Clayton’s not around. Not after seeing the way I handled a drunken client recently. Earl knows I’m not afraid to defend myself.

Still, he eyes me with icy malice as I walk past him and enter Clayton’s office.

“Shut the door, Lucky.”

I obey and turn around, the tendrils of fear I felt in Ridge’s and Earl’s presence giving way to the real, unadulterated McCoy.

Clayton Getty is tall and broad-shouldered, his frame more suitable to a farmer or a bounty hunter than to a brothel boss. His dark brown hair is kept neat and his beard trimmed by a once-a-week stylist.

Although Clayton uses the basement of his ancestral mansion as his office, he’s very much the king in charge of his empire. He swivels his throne-like chair as his gaze sweeps me from head to toe.

“Earl has a point, you know? There’s a standard dress code Entertainers need to abide by, even when they’re off duty.”

“Sorry, Clay. Ridge said it was important,” I slip out the white lie.

He stares at me in tight-lipped silence for a full minute. Then he nods. “I wanted to personally let you know that Krakov expects first class treatment today. He mentioned the last time he was here, you seemed a little…off.”

My skin wants to turn itself inside out. I barely manage to hold it together. “I…didn’t feel well. I think I was coming down with a virus.”

“I explained something to that effect, but he’s the customer, after all. Since you’re feeling better today, I think we should go the extra mile to keep him happy, don’t you?”

A boulder lodges in my throat. “W—what do you mean?”

“I mean, we can start off by meeting his plane when it lands shortly before two. We’ll begin to wine and dine him as soon as his feet touch the ground and we’ll continue to do everything in our power to make sure his experience is unforgettable. Can I rely on you to achieve that?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Be dressed and downstairs at quarter to two. Ridge will drive you to the airstrip in the limo.”

On the one hand, I’m two seconds away from emptying the bare contents of my stomach at the thought of going anywhere near Edward Krakov. On the other, I’m giddy with relief that this summons isn’t to question me about the documents I took from his safe two days ago.

I nod and hightail it to the door. I grasp the handle, taste elusive freedom.

“Oh, one more thing, Lucky.”

My heart drops to the soles of my battered boots. I hold my breath, clench my features to neutral and turn.

“My security systems shows my passcode was accessed after hours two nights ago. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

A touch of confused surprise. The minute gathering of a frown. Then mild affront. I’ve practiced it in the mirror a thousand times. “Of course not.” No inflection on any vowel. A perfect, terror-steeped, delivery.

The gold-plated ballpoint pen in his hand rocks back and forth. Back and forth, as he watches me. Eventually, he nods.

“Okay. That’s all.”