The Billionaire's Innocent. Caitlin Crews
and down, taking in everything. The short, flirty dress Nora had worn for this strange occasion that drooped from one shoulder but then caught tight beneath her breasts, the shoes that made her bared legs seem twice as long. Every minute detail of Nora’s appearance, making her want to squirm, or cover herself. Or both.
This is her job, Nora had thought, and though that was as awful as all the rest of it, she’d started to feel a bit numb. Which had been a bit like a blessing, all things considered.
“I’m Nora,” she’d supplied when the silence stretched out between them, and the other woman had smiled back at her in a way that had made Nora’s blood chill. She’d had to fight not to shudder, and from the look on Laurette’s face, she’d known it. And liked it.
“It is not your name that matters, chérie. It is all that American old money stamped on your face. They like to look at that while they fuck you in every degrading way they can think of. It makes them feel like the gods they think they are.” The older woman had jerked her chin at the boat. “Climb in. Let’s see how you do.”
Not very well, if the current expression on Laurette’s face was anything to go by.
“Are you feeling all right?” Laurette asked, her voice as concerned as the look in her dark eyes was hard. She dropped her hand from Nora’s arm, but she didn’t shift herself from the arm of the sofa. “A little seasick, maybe? Poor darling.”
“Not at all.” Nora forced a smile she didn’t feel at all. “Why would you think that?”
“Because this is a party,” Laurette murmured silkily. Viciously. “Everyone is here to have a good time. To make friends, have fun. Do you know how to have fun? I ask because no one else is sitting in the corner, frowning at the ground.”
Nora almost laughed out loud, but not because anything was funny. She wasn’t sure anything could ever be funny again, not after tonight.
Get a hold of yourself, she ordered herself sternly. This is about Harlow. And you’re not going to find her if you don’t figure out a way to please this woman. You know exactly what that means you have to do, so stop sitting over here feeling sorry for yourself that your teenage crush has turned out to be a disgusting pig, and do it.
Yes, she knew what she was asking of herself. What she was going to do with…whoever. She’d turned it over again and again in her head, she’d studied the pictures plastered all over the internet of pretty starlets in the grip of repugnant, always older and less attractive men, and she hadn’t been able to come up with a reasonable alternative. It was her fault Harlow had left New York in the first place. This was how she’d pay for that.
She’d rationalized it all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. Some girls picked up strange men in bars every weekend and had sex with them for free, she’d reminded herself. How was this any different? It was probably smarter, really, because if Greer and her friends and certain Vanity Fair articles were to be believed, Nora could come out of this with a hefty addition to her investment portfolio rather than a run-of-the-mill Sunday morning hangover and its attendant regrets.
Of course, she’d also be a prostitute, but that was only a word, she’d assured herself. That dark, hollow thing inside her that whispered otherwise was irrelevant. It had to be. She had no other choice if she wanted to find Harlow.
“I was just getting up now,” Nora said and did so at once, with a bit more speed than necessary. She caught herself before she toppled over and aimed a too-bright smile at Laurette to cover it. “To mingle.”
“This is good,” Laurette said, still in that voice that sounded lovely on the surface but had all those sharp claws beneath, and Nora was certain she felt each one of them draw blood. “Mingling is much better than frowning at the floor, reminding a man of the troubles he is here to forget, mais oui?”
Nora agreed with a vigorous nod and then smoothed her hands down the front of her too-short dress, steeling herself to look around. But not to look too closely when she did, because she didn’t want to see which lissome girls had caught Zair’s attention now. She didn’t want to know anything further about him or his proclivities—
So there was no reason she should have felt something like disappointment, if far sharper, when she couldn’t spot him. Had he already made his choice? Selected a girl as if she were a shiny bit of produce and headed off to get his kicks—whatever those were?
Nora refused to let herself wonder. You’re not here for Zair. You’re here for Harlow.
She had to order herself to focus. She didn’t want to focus.
There were too many people crowding the vast and tastefully decorated room, none of them Harlow, and it was obvious at a glance which people were displaying themselves as the merchandise tonight and which ones were doing the shopping. It wasn’t like a run-of-the-mill, meat-markety Manhattan bar scene at all, no matter how many times Nora tried to tell herself otherwise. There was a different sort of energy in the room, taut and gritty and spiked, that she could feel along the length of her spine every time one of the men looked at her.
Because each man was deciding whether or not he wanted to fuck her, which wasn’t the same thing as hitting on a girl in a bar and hoping for the best. This was a room filled with grim certainties, not any bright or drink-fueled optimism.
Nora had to fight not to shudder, or to break for her freedom and swim back to shore. She had to scream at herself until she managed to smile prettily. To act as though she was happy to be here and having the best time. She had to force herself to look as cheerful as she did available.
And as she looked around she realized that Zair—wherever he was, and she shouldn’t care, she shouldn’t let herself speculate, she couldn’t deal with how awful that was just yet—wasn’t the only person she recognized.
There was a famous director widely lauded for his incisive, intellectual, even feminist films with his arm around a giggling brunette who was letting him fondle her between her legs where she stood. There was an actor best known for his much-celebrated television role as a wise and generous old father figure surrounded by three laughing young girls on one of the sofas, none of them fully clothed. She saw a well-known financier she’d never met personally but had last seen with his wife and daughters at a Manhattan gala to benefit victims of domestic violence, smiling down at a woman Nora recognized as a former runway model in a manner that could only be described as smug.
But Harlow was nowhere to be seen.
Nora felt a rush of something—and she couldn’t tell if it was relief that her friend wasn’t subjecting herself to this horror or a keen disappointment that she was still missing. Both, perhaps. It meant that Nora would have to find out if any of the girls had seen Harlow around, which could take more than this single night—and she knew what that meant. What it would entail. Where this course of action had always been leading her.
Keep smiling, you idiot, she ordered herself. So what if you have to do this more than once? No one here looks anything but happy. You can do it. You’ll be fine.
But it was hard to keep her smile on her face. If that awful woman hadn’t still been right beside her, she doubted she’d have managed it—
“Bonsoir, Laurette.”
Nora recognized Zair’s voice instantly. Worse, she felt it.
It rolled through her like low, ominous thunder and she had to fight to keep herself from flinching. Laurette, who still sat there on the sofa arm studying Nora as if looking for visible cracks, brightened and extended her hands.
And then it was impossible for Nora to pretend this wasn’t happening. That it wasn’t him. Zair was right there, kissing this hard, dangerous woman on one smooth cheek and then the next.
As if they were dear old friends on the best of terms. As if he attended sex slave auctions every night of the week.
Maybe he did.
Nora