The Dare Collection January 2020. Lauren Hawkeye

it a holdover from my childhood, watching my mother and her friends get ready for their performances at the burlesque club where they’d worked. I hadn’t been allowed to see the show, but I’d loved watching them get ready. My always happy, always laughing mother, gossiping as she painted her face and did her hair, making herself look beautiful. The smell of greasepaint and hairspray in the air, the sparkle of jewelled and feathered costumes glittering in the light.

      I had been a serious, quiet kid and she had taken her job of making the hand-to-mouth existence we led back then very seriously, trying to make it fun. Trying to get me to smile. It had mostly worked.

      Until she’d died of cancer, of course.

      But I didn’t think about those days. Instead, I buried them under glitter, good times and the joy of hunting down the perfect jewel. And the Red Queen had led me on quite a hunt. I’d loved every fucking second of stalking that piece down, but now it was safe in the vault in my office, I was going to have to find something else to turn on my hunter’s instincts...

       That waitress, perhaps?

      Ah, fuck. That’s right. The damn waitress.

      Pushing myself up and out of the couch, I excused myself to the ladies and made my way through the crowd towards Clarence, the head of my personal security team, checking on people as I went like the good host I was.

      Everett was here—he’d been in Hong Kong for one of his hush-hush meetings—and he gave me a look from where he was standing by the pool, lifting a blond brow. If Ulysses had been here, he would have scowled, but Ulysses wasn’t here. He was in London, where he always was, managing Black and White’s money from his bank of computers, boring bastard that he was.

      Not that Everett was any more exciting. He was a man of few words and fewer smiles, and took his role of being responsible for company-wide security far more seriously than he should have. The guy really needed to lighten up.

      I shook my head to indicate everything was fine and he gave a nod, turning his attention back to the action in the pool, where a famous actor and an equally famous musician had got rid of their clothing and were playing a game of naked tag.

      Looked like fun. Sadly, I had business to attend to before I could join in.

      I spoke to Clarence, gave him a description of the waitress and he assured me it would be dealt with. Then I stepped inside the penthouse—one of many I had around the world, though this one was my favourite—moving through the sleek, open-plan spaces full of people to my private office. I unlocked it and stepped inside, closing the door for some quiet, and took out my phone to give the catering company director a fucking piece of my mind.

      I couldn’t have people I didn’t know and hadn’t invited wandering around my party, not given the whole reason the parties worked was because of my stringent privacy rules. Not to mention the security concerns involved.

      Still, Everett only hired the best, so it probably wouldn’t take Clarence and his boys long to locate my little waitress and show her the door.

      I hadn’t bothered getting my office redone after I’d bought the apartment, and consequently it was all pale wood and pale carpet, a Swedish furniture designer’s fucking wet dream. Not to my taste. Good thing I didn’t spend much time in here—I didn’t like to sit still, and preferred to dictate while I was doing something else rather than being tied to a desk.

      Wandering over to the window, I paused beside it as I reached to grab my phone out of my pocket.

      The room was sound-proofed, but I could still feel the heavy beat of the music through the thick, pale carpet on the floor. Neon-stained light from the city outside shone through the office’s windows and over the pale wood of my desk.

      Not quite hiding the tip of someone’s foot sticking out from under it.

      I went very, very still, the muscles in my shoulders tightening.

      It had been years since I’d had to deal with a physical threat, not since money had taken me away from the clubs and the security jobs I’d once worked to pay for my sister’s schooling. But, even if I hadn’t had an eidetic memory, I’d still have remembered how to deal with said threat. It usually involved me picking up the person involved by the scruff of their neck and throwing them bodily out of the door. And making sure they didn’t bother me or mine again.

      Slowly, I got my phone out, making it look as if I was staring down at the screen and not at the tip of the foot sticking out from under my desk.

      It was small and encased in plain black leather. So, not a guy, then.

      I tilted my head, also spotting an edge of black fabric. It was as plain as the leather of the shoe and it looked cheap.

      Who’d be wearing plain shoes and cheap fabric to one of my parties?

      It wasn’t hard to figure out, not when there were at least five or more people wearing exactly that combination, all of them circulating with trays of food and drink.

      The catering staff.

      ‘If you’re looking for more Cristal,’ I said calmly to my little waitress, because of course it was her, ‘You won’t find any under my desk.’

      She didn’t move.

      Was she trying to pretend I hadn’t seen her?

      Irritation sat in my gut. Fucking security should have picked up on anyone reckless or stupid enough to try and get into one of my parties, but clearly they hadn’t. And now it was my problem to deal with.

      Everett was going to have some explaining to do, that was for sure, because not only had she somehow crashed my party, she’d also managed to get into my private goddamn office. My private locked goddamn office.

      Which changed things. That lock should have kept out even the most professional criminal and yet some random waitress had managed to unlock it and slip inside.

      No. That wasn’t happening. And this woman wasn’t a waitress. I’d bet my billions on it.

      If she’d been a guy I’d have reached down, hauled him out and dragged that sorry motherfucker to Clarence myself. But she wasn’t a guy. She was a woman; I’d never touched a woman in anger and never would.

      Still, there were other methods.

      ‘Don’t bother hiding,’ I said coolly. ‘I can see your foot. You’ve also got approximately five seconds to get the fuck out from under there before I call security.’

      There was another moment of silence.

      Then the little foot shifted, there was a rustling sound and a figure moved out from under the shelter of the desk, straightening up as she got to her feet.

      Sure enough, it was the waitress.

      The waitress who wasn’t on the catering company’s staff list.

      I took another long look at her.

      She was small, the top of her head just about equal to my shoulders, her figure in the catering company uniform lush and curvy. She smoothed the plain black dress nervously, the neon from the city outside shining directly on her face.

      Her eyes were the colour of dark, bittersweet chocolate, tilted up slightly at the ends like a cat’s. She also had a strong jaw, a determined chin and an adorably upturned nose. Her mouth was wide and generous, her skin smooth as old ivory, and her hair was the glossy brown of chestnuts.

      Unconventional, that was for sure. Which from my point of view was far more intriguing than beautiful. When it came to jewels, flawless stones were supposed to be the finest and most expensive, but I preferred my gems to have irregularities. It made them much more interesting.

      ‘Uh...hi,’ she said, her voice low with a pleasant husk to it, her accent very definitely English. ‘Guess you didn’t expect me to be in here, right?’

      I lifted a brow. ‘What gave it away?’