Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 90899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
I swallow hard and gather my courage, pushing aside the last of my nerves and doubt.
I’ve come this far.
No turning back now…
three
ANTHONY
From what I’ve seen thus far, it’s no wonder The Garden is the hottest ticket in town. It’s not just the top-secret, salacious, borderline-unattainable nature of membership that has the Who’s Who of New York dying to step through those big ebony doors.
The club is simply…perfect.
It somehow manages to be both grand and cozy at the same time. From the jaw-dropping period luxury of the bar to a library fit for a lord’s manor in the Scottish Highlands, I see how it could become a place you would never want to leave.
And I haven’t even been downstairs yet…
Twyla insisted on giving me the full tour herself later this evening, as soon as she finishes an intake appointment with a potential client.
The clientele is as impressive as the club itself. Wall Street movers and shakers mingle with elites from the theater and fashion world, international businessmen and businesswomen, and a handful of socialites. There’s a fair amount of diversity, but all of Twyla’s members have one thing in common—they’re offensively wealthy.
Maybe it isn’t offensive to most people, but for a man raised in Red Hook, Brooklyn, who never knew if there would be money for fruit or a school field trip on a given week, the amount of wealth most of these people have is obscene. The amount of wealth I have is obscene, but I do my best to spread my good fortune around.
I’ve worked incredibly hard for everything I have, but I’m not naïve enough to think that hard work is the only reason I achieved success.
I also got very lucky.
I won the genetic lottery in the brains department, had a loving family who stepped in to care for me when my drug addict mother left me on my grandmother’s doorstep, and joined the banking world in between financial crises. I had time to solidify my position when so many other young geniuses were scapegoated when the housing market tanked a few years later.
I’m very aware of my privilege, a thing that sets me apart from many of the people sipping hundred-dollar-per-shot whiskey in oversized tumblers or ordering appetizers off a menu where a fifty-dollar Ceasar salad is the most affordable option.
Still, I’m not a fish out of water.
I’ve been a millionaire for a long time and a billionaire for three mind-boggling years, my net worth ballooning as the longest bull market in recent memory lifted the tech stocks in my portfolio to new heights.
As strange as it seems to the struggling kid still alive inside me, I belong here.
But this girl…
This young woman, with the glossy brown hair partially tied back in a black velvet bow, plush, bow-tie lips, and big blue eyes that dart around the club like she’s looking for snipers hidden in the bookcases…
I have no idea what she’s doing here. Her lightly scuffed shoes and worn vintage dress make it clear she doesn’t have the financial means to be swimming in these waters, but it’s her expression that makes me ache to get her out of here. She looks like a five-year-old on her first day of kindergarten—intimidated, terrified, and certain the older kids are going to eat her for lunch.
I’m making a mental note to ask Twyla to make sure someone looks out for this kid while she’s here, when her wide-eyed gaze shifts my way.
Our eyes lock for a brief, electric moment—a moment during which the woman’s perfect mouth parts and heat flashes in her eyes. Instantly, she’s transformed from a fish out of water to a siren, luring men to their deaths on the sharp rocks at the edge of the sea.
She bites her lip, arches her full brow the slightest bit, and I’m suddenly certain that she’s thinking of all the ways she’d like to devour me.
All the ways she’d like to be devoured…
And then, the moment’s over.
She turns to follow one of the hostesses through the secret door to Twyla’s inner sanctum, and I’m left staring at the wooden panel through which she disappeared, thinking more unexpected thoughts.
I hadn’t planned to engage in anything salacious tonight. In my head, I thought maybe I’d end up watching. Or more likely, spending the evening with Twyla in the library, catching up.
But I’m here and already way outside my comfort zone…
Maybe it would be okay to approach the girl with the ocean eyes, to ask her why she’s at The Garden tonight, and see if I can’t be the man to fulfill every one of her carnal fantasies.
I turn my attention back to the book I pulled off the shelves, but Great Expectations has lost its appeal.
The only expectations I’m concerned with are the ones the woman in black velvet is detailing to Twyla right now.