I didn’t think that clubs with velvet ropes and VIP lines were a real thing. I always thought that they were a Hollywood fantasy. But here we were, me in my worn jeans and my origami swan t-shirt, Aric in a polo and jeans with designer names attached to them, fast approaching the chrome and black glass front of BeauMonde.
We rolled up in Aric’s silver Jaguar E-type convertible. He handed the keys to a young man without even looking at his face. I couldn’t fathom handing over that much equity to anyone without at least a few references. Another man in the same black uniform as the valet opened my door and stepped aside to let me out.
“Aric, I really don’t know about this.” I chewed my upper lip with a vengeance. Everyone in the very long line behind the velvet rope was dressed to kill, or at least seriously maim. The short, slinky dresses on the girls probably cost as much as a few month’s take at the pub. Sequins and glitter and gemstones sparkled before me. I looked down at myself and nearly bit a hole through my lip. “I…”
“You’re fine.” Aric waved his hand dismissively. “They’re overdressed. They’re the ones who have to prove themselves to get in.”
I arched a brow. “And we’re…?”
He took me by the arm and led me past the velvet ropes to face off with the largest man I had ever seen in my life. The black t-shirt painted onto his rippling muscles strained tighter as he crossed his massive tree-trunk arms.
“Sup, Mr. Beauvais?” His voice reverberated over the thumping of the bass in the club.
“Hey, Tony.” He squeezed my arm a little tighter. “Got some royalty on my hands. VIP booth open?”
Hard, coal-black eyes scanned over me. The tiniest smile flitted across the very square jaw. “For you? Always.”
“C’mon, yer majesty. Let’s go.” He gave my arm a tug.
I looked up at the bouncer. “Thank you.”
He looked startled. The smile flickered again. “Yes, ma’am.”
Aric gave my arm a yank, and I was awash in flashing lights and punishing levels of electronic music. I winced at the volume. My tastes ran more to the kind Kitty brought into McKinnett’s on Thursday nights. Music played on barstools by people with acoustic instruments. This hurt.
“Don’t thank the staff. No one thanks the staff.” He laughed in my ear.
I grabbed his hand and removed it from my arm. “I AM the staff,” I reminded him tersely.
He glanced over at me and saw the set of my jaw. “Would you be more comfortable behind the bar?” he asked with a snort.
“I would, actually.”
He shook his head and offered his hand. I did not take it. He rolled his eyes and began to stalk toward a booth in the back. I followed as best I could, picking my way through the dancing, drunken crowd. Fortunately, I had plenty of practice.
The booth was paneled with mirrors and cushioned in actual black leather. Glass walls surrounded it. Aric opened the door and sketched a mock bow. “Yer majesty.”
“Stop calling me that.” I stepped past him and slid into the booth. The lights were brighter in here, just bright enough to show us off. It felt like a posh interrogation cell. Or a fishbowl. We were on display, above the crowd and apart. I hated it instantly.
Aric slid in beside me and made a gesture over his head to someone I didn’t see. His arm slid behind me, his fingers trailing across my shoulders. I startled, then edged slightly away. I didn’t want to like how his touch felt, but it sent a thrill down my spine anyway. He didn’t move his arm, but his hand rested itself on the cushion behind my shoulder.
“Why did you bring me here?” At least we didn’t have to yell anymore.
He sniffed. “I brought me here. You just tagged along.”
I rolled my eyes at him. Whatever. “So, what do you do here?”
“Chill. Let the peasants watch me. Dance, if the mood takes me.” He shrugged languidly. “What do people do at your…pub?”
“Drink. Spend time with friends. Socialize. Play darts.” I studied the crowd below us. People writhed against each other on the dance floor. Their bodies twined like they were connected, but their eyes were on everybody else. Cellphones were hoisted into the air every few seconds for selfies. Selfies with drinks, selfies with each other, selfies of the writhing couples on the dance floor behind them. Guys approached giggling clusters of scantily-clad women. Some were absorbed into the clusters. Others were repelled with apathetic glares and mocked soundly once they slunk back from whence they came.
A pang of homesickness hit me in the gut. Kitty would have damned them all as tourists of the worst kind. I missed her. I missed Missi. I even missed Billy, though not as much as he would have liked me to. I missed my regulars. I missed the wood paneling on the walls and the smell of stale beer and whiskey.
“You look like someone died.” Aric waved his hand again, and the door to the booth opened. A slim woman in a chic black dress stepped in. Her hair was styled into an artfully tousled pixie cut with a fireworks display of sharp highlights. She was model-pretty, waif-thin, blue-eyed and everything I’m not. I longed for a shadow to meld into.
“What’s your pleasure?” she asked breathily.
Probably you. A surge of inexplicable jealousy rose in my chest. I squashed it, horrified. If he latches on to her, you can go home. No loss. Right? I looked at him. To his credit, he looked bored. At least he wasn’t going to glom onto some bimbo right in front of me. He’d probably at least wait until I went to the ladies’ room.
“Bottle of Dom. Two glasses.” He rolled his head to look at me. “You drink, right?”
I nodded silently. Oh. She works here. I’d had a few drinks in my life, yes. Most of them legally, in the past week. Champagne, though. That was new.
The waitress flashed him a flirty smile and slipped back out the door, completely ignoring me. I felt like I was back in high school. I watched as another cluster of giggling girls shut out another would-be suitor, snickering behind their hands at him. Maybe I was.
Aric was studying me, head tipped back, a half smile on his face. “This is where you belong.”
I snorted. “Like hell.”
He looked mildly affronted, but continued. “You are royalty. You should be above it all, waited on, cared for.” His eyes flashed wide, like he hadn’t meant to say the last part out loud. It was fleeting. He played it off with a wave of his hand. “You’re going to need to learn how to separate yourself from the proles. How to rule.”
A bitter taste rose in the back of my throat. “And your family are the ones to teach me, is that it?”
He sat up sharply, his arm yanking itself from behind me. “I’m not like them.”
I laughed out loud. “Rich, elitist, think you’re better than everyone?”
He shrugged. “I am.”
My eyes rolled hard enough to make me dizzy. “You are a piece of work, you know that?”
He smirked.
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
The smirk faded, replaced by a sullen pout.
The waitress returned and slid a silver tray with an ice bucket full of bubbly in front of us. She flashed him another sparkling, perfect smile. This time, he returned it. That tendril of jealousy flickered again. He glanced at me just in time to see it, and the smirk returned. Asshole.
He poured a couple of glasses of champagne and slid one in front of me. I took it and sipped at it cautiously. The tiniest bubbles I’d ever felt sparkled over my tongue.
The smirk deepened. “See? The good life is good.”
I snorted into my glass, then set it down. “The champagne is very nice. Thank you.” My voice could have re-frozen the ice in the bucket.
“What? Just ‘nice?’” He twisted the stem of the glass between his fingers and studied my face closer. “Wow. You really hate this, don’t you?”
I took another sip. “Remarkably perceptive of you.”
“The club or the company?” He smirked.
I didn’t answer.
He set his glass down and looked out over the crowd. His eyes were pensive, almost thoughtful.
“My parents are assholes. My brother is worse.” His voice was flat, expressionless. “They kiss the Council’s ass every second of every day, and to hell with anyone who gets in their way.” He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, then looked back over the crowd. “I’ve gotten in their way. I wasn’t supposed to be the one who found you. My brother…” He laughed bitterly. “My brother has been groomed to be the mate of the Shadow Queen from birth. I was an afterthought. An accident. Something they’ve made very clear to me my entire life.”
My gut warred with my brain. “So you’re wining and dining me to, what, woo me over? Win me before your brother can?” I pushed my champagne away. “Is that what all of you are doing? Am I some sort of status fuck?” Suddenly, I wanted to throw up. “Mates of the Queen, they probably get all sorts of benefits, right?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” Aric’s sneer returned. “You’re not my type. And the others are too stupid to be that ambitious.” He sniffed. “They actually like you for some damned reason.”
“So what’s this all about, then?” The wanker doth protest too much. “Why bring me here?”
“To warn you.” He slugged back the rest of his champagne and thunked the glass down firmly on the table. “My family does not have your best interests at heart. They have their own interests, and that’s it. They don’t care about me, they don’t care about you, they just care about power. And you are power.” His eyes locked onto mine and stared into my soul. “We may not like each other much. Or at all. But no one deserves my brother.”
I swallowed hard, then nodded slowly.
“We should get back.” He started to slide away from me. I caught his hand before he could leave.
“Hey.” Our eyes met again. I smiled at him. “Thanks.”
His eyes softened for half a second. His hand gripped mine, then gently pulled away.
“Whatever,” he murmured, then opened the door.