Very Bad Billionaires (42 page)

CHAPTER 4

I slipped the pill from her palm as she pulled away, but couldn't bring myself to move my hand toward my mouth. I just stared at it: small, white, powder-perfect. It sat primly in my palm like it could have been anything. Baby aspirin, even.

I leaned forward, speaking lowly enough that only the two of us would be able to hear. “What
is
this, exactly?”

She shrugged and traced a finger seductively around the rim of her near-empty glass. “Sedative. Sorta. It's a party drug, and it'll fuck you up like nothing else. It's about the strongest thing you can possibly get your hands on, and I worked
hard
to get to a place where I could get hold of it. Now I’m
sharing
it with you.”

“I don’t know…”

She rolled her eyes dramatically. “It’s customary to say thank you when someone gives you a gift, you know.”

“I feel fine, though. I’m getting warmed up now.”

“Just take the fucking pill. Jesus,” she snarled, her eyes flashing bright in the dim room. “Always second guessing me. I told you it's going to help you. What more do you need to know?”

I narrowed my eyes a bit, hesitating for a long moment before asking something I was not entirely sure I even really wanted the answer to. I knew I was on the last dock of the far end of her patience, about ready to slide off to nowhere if I didn’t watch it. 

“Rachel, where did you get this?”

She groaned, leaning back in her seat. She arched her back and her eyes travelled down the front of her minidress, appreciating the perky nubs of her nipples through the fabric. Satisfied, she glanced back up at me and raised her brows.

“That's none of your business. It’s real, and it’s safe. Filled at a local pharmacy if you must know. Are you going to take it or not?”

Staring straight into her bright blue eyes, I popped the pill into my mouth, subtle and slow as if I was yawning. She laughed silently at my dramatic pantomime. After I chased it down with the last of my martini, I realized it may not have been the best idea to wash a sedative down with alcohol.

Instant regret.

The thought occurred to me that if I hurried, I could go throw it up in the bathroom and not tell her. She lowered her chin and squinted as though reading my mind and I just settled back into the chair.

Crap. Crap crap crap.

I’ve never had a high tolerance for drugs. In high school, my sometimes-boyfriend Randy always laughed and called me the “one-hit wonder,” because a single lungful from a bong would have me stoned off my ass, gibbering and paranoid all night long. But then horny as hell too, so that was all right.

It was going to be an interesting night, if nothing else. Maybe I
would
be someone worth talking to as she promised, but it wasn't going to be for the reasons she seemed to be hoping for. I was going to be a total mess.

“That's better.” Rachel gave a soft smile then, reaching out to tuck my hair behind my ear. The wild night breeze had blown it around a little, and I'd hardly thought to fix it once we got in. The heat from her fingers on my ear was tender, almost sisterly. “You know I'm just looking out for you, right? I wouldn't give you anything that would hurt you. You're too important to me.”

I nodded silently, distracted by the feeling of the tiny pill sliding further and further down my throat. Her fingers lingered on the edge of my ear and then she gave it an affectionate little pinch. My cheeks burned dimly and a smile crept across my lips.

I always felt so torn when she acted like this. One minute, she behaved like I was just an inconvenient tagalong and the next, she was spoon-feeding me praise. Maybe she thought I was like a stubborn farm animal, too stupid to just follow her directions. But once she'd pushed me through, she comforted and encouraged me and I couldn’t help but just wag my little tail until I fell over.

As the pill inched its way toward my stomach I tried to keep track of it, imagining its edges dissolving into powder, then the powder bouncing like tiny ping pong balls into my bloodstream like an animation on a TV ad. I thought I could feel it for awhile, all effervescent and blue, fizzing as it dissolved. I smiled back at Rachel every time she glanced at me, imprisoned in my chair under her oversight. Then I couldn’t feel it anymore at all.

CHAPTER 5

Rachel let her hand slide down and away, coming to cross with the other beneath her bust. Her head swivelled around again, sweeping her gaze across the patrons like a prison searchlight.

“You know, there are a lot of
real
nice men here,” she sighed with a shrewd nod. “Men of means. Real men. Might just bag yourself a sugar daddy if you play your cards right. Doesn't even have to be a rich man, honestly. How long has it been since you had a good fuck, anyway?”

The suggestion turned my mood sour almost immediately, and I couldn't help but respond a little bitterly.

“I don't need to tie myself down to a man for money. That's the whole reason we're doing this, isn't it?”

Rachel just rolled her eyes, groaning loudly.

“Well, isn’t it?” I persisted. I leaned closer to her, aware that my fingers knuckled the table’s edge a little harder than I wanted.

“Yeah, yeah. Just settle down a little,” she muttered, not looking me in the eye.

“I’m just saying that, uh… You know you said—”

“Are you high already? Drunk?” she sneered, her eyes squinted into slits. She leaned forward, resting her cleavage on the table’s edge and I worried for a brief moment that she would knock it over.

“No, I’m fine… I just wanted to say that—”

“You totally are,” she shot back with a smirk. “You are already stoned.”

“I’m not,” I croaked out over suddenly parched lips. Her lipstick seemed to become very bright, a neon smear that hung in the air. She swayed back and forth slowly, bobbing her head just enough, like a cobra.

“Stop that,” I whispered.

She chuckled low in her throat.

“Stop what? I’m not doing anything.”

She’s not doing anything. Stop talking. You sound high.

A long silence passed between us before the tension was broken by a man sidling slowly up to us. His hair was a gorgeous shade of auburn and wavy like I'd never seen. It coiled close to his head and my fingers itched, just thinking about touching it.

As he leaned casually between us, resting his forearms on the edge of the table, I let my eyes wander down the length of his ropy arms. He was fit, but didn't seem to be straining to burst out of his clothes like some of the self-absorbed bodybuilder types I'd seen. I stared up at him and he flashed me a little smile.

He must have seen my surprise, because he quickly brought his lips tight together and turned to Rachel. I rolled it back in my mind like an instant replay: he had smiled and I had winced.

Nice one, Jolie. What are you, 12?

But I couldn’t help but stare again. His teeth were jagged and crooked like they'd been knocked out and put back in wrong. Everything else about his appearance screamed money, from his immaculately tailored trousers and shirt to the subtle paisley print of his dark tie. The teeth just didn’t fit the rest of his physique. How did that happen? I wondered why he never did anything about it, latching onto that thought to keep myself from drifting off too far.

The world seemed to dim and dull a bit before bursting into a radiant mess of sensations, the lights and sounds of the bar at once overwhelming and sedating. I held tight to the table, trying to keep my composure as everything slipped out of my control little by little, like a sandcastle crumbling under the repetitive assault of the tide. What used to be regular lights turned into pulsing starbursts. The French techno wound itself into manic gibberish over a relentless throbbing beat.

Rachel sent a little knowing smirk to me across the table, but the man's attention was firmly on her. I was thankful for that at least. I managed to find something like a smile and stretched it over my sticky teeth. Rachel shot me a tight scowl. Apparently I had missed the mark.

Imposter.

Why didn’t I go stick my fingers down my throat when I first thought of it? Why? Now I was stuck in the middle of a luxury club with a swiftly declining ability to control what my face was even doing. I stretched my neck, shrugging my shoulders hard to try to order my muscles back into sense, convinced people were starting to notice me, to talk about how I didn’t belong there.

Perching my elbows carefully on the edge of the table, I folded my fingers under my chin. That seemed natural. Practically incognito. The man was talking and if I really concentrated, I could tune him in like an old radio. He had a very nice voice, smooth and a little high. It sounded like some kind of candy. Maybe taffy. I bet he sang in church or something.

“Listen... Fun as all this flirting is, you know why I'm here.”

Rachel feigned surprise and confusion, palms out, motioning toward me. I felt myself sway nearer to her.

“Ah, maybe you're looking for Rachel there, hm?” she purred with a wink.

What the hell is she doing?

I couldn't figure out if I'd heard her correctly, or if my addled brain was swapping words around like some kind of three-card Monte. Bronson turned to me, the smile just peeking out. I watched him intently to see if he would show his teeth again.

“So you’re Rachel, eh?”

I nodded, my head slightly wobbly on my neck.

“Okay… so tell me what I’m getting into.”

I shrugged coyly, unsure how to move the deal forward. I felt Rachel’s eyes boring into me and cringed in my skin. Even without looking at her, I could sense the small, frustrated shake of her head.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, I imagined a scene transition like in a movie: a horizontal swipe that transformed me into her from top to bottom like a window washer’s squeegee. The smile I gave him was bored and confident. Sultry. Supreme. It was Rachel’s smile.

“It’s a sort of sedative,” I sighed like I had already explained this to him a thousand times. “It's a party drug, and it'll fuck you up like nothing else.”

“Like nothing else, huh?” he said, tipping toward me.

“It's about the strongest thing you can possibly get your hands on.”

“Where’d you get it?”

I felt my eyebrows go up, up, up at the corners and I just stared at him until his brow twitched and he glanced away.

He snorted uncomfortably and cut his eyes toward Rachel, puffing up defiantly through his chest. “Well… I’ve been everywhere. I really doubt you’re going to show me anything new.”

I shrugged one shoulder, throwing my hair back over one side and looking away like I was already mentally moving on to more interesting prospects. Rachel leaned in, eyes gleaming, apparently satisfied with the quality of my impersonation of her.

“Like, whatever, Bronfield,” I drawled, my eyes fixed on a far corner of the room. The television had switched to a commercial about travel or maybe a foreign beer. Images of white beaches and sky blue waves toppled over each other.

“Bronson,” he corrected me in a low, frustrated voice. Tiny bubbles of excitement burst just below my surface. Messing with him was really pretty fun. I could see why Rachel always looked so pleased.

“Yeah, I heard you,” I sighed after a long pause. Then I rolled my head toward him and sucked my lower lip between my teeth, wetting it with my tongue. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rachel duck her head to stifle a giggle. “Listen. This is medical-grade stuff, straight out of a pharmacy in the neighborhood. You won’t find anything cleaner, and we both know you can’t get it
anywhere
unless you’re already dying. You in? Because if not...”

He cocked his head, working his jaw back and forth. His eyes seem to harden as I stared at them, turning from light brown to coppery and metallic as an old penny.

He nodded firmly.

“Yeah. Okay. That's what I'm after.” He shoved his hand into his pocket for the money, absolutely no-nonsense and ready to be done with the transaction.

Rachel reached out suddenly, giving a soft tap to his arm and gently pivoting him to face her. She looked up at him with a smouldering, hungry stare.

“Why don't we talk about the nitty gritty, hm? Rachel here was just about to leave to meet a man over at the bar.”

I was?

Bronson frowned back at me, looking me up and down but then half-shrugging. Leaning on one forearm, he edged closer to her and quirked an eyebrow in challenge.

Rachel jerked her chin toward the bar and the first man in a suit she saw. His back was toward us, arms crossed in front of him. Over the curve of the leather chair, I could only make out the cut of his dark suit and the gleam of his hair.

My mouth fell open in protest. I wasn’t ready to be small-talking more strangers and really just wanted to hover at the table while she finished with Bronson. Hadn’t I done enough for one night? But she shooed me away, stabbing a very purposeful fingernail toward the man sitting at the bar by himself, her glare hard and impatient.

“Go on,
Rachel
,” she crooned through gritted teeth. “That man looks like he could use some company. I’ll finish your business.
Go.
”

Grudgingly, I slid from the bar stool and onto the tipsy platforms of my high heels. With a hard tug at my skirt I was suddenly standing upright again in the sea of people and music, trying to gain some sense of composure. The air and sounds swirled like oil, and I floated away like a toy boat in the direction she had pushed me.