The Dare Collection September 2019. Stefanie London

      ‘I was furious.’ And I had been. I could still feel the rage coursing through my veins to this day, boiling me dry. The sheer betrayal of it. Seb had been my closest friend and he was supposed to have my back. He wasn’t supposed to completely ignore me, treat me like I was just a know-nothing kid from a shitty council estate. He’d been shocked when it had all fallen apart, as if he hadn’t been warned that something like this was going to happen. Warned by me.

      After my father’s rejection of me, Seb’s refusal to listen had been too much.

       You could have talked to him at any time over the years. You didn’t have to turn your back on him so completely. But you did, didn’t you?

      ‘If it had been only my money that had been lost, it wouldn’t have been so bad,’ I went on, shoving the thought of my own culpability in the destruction of our friendship aside. ‘But it wasn’t. It was all my mother’s savings, too. He told me to relax, that we could get more money from somewhere else, but he was rich. Of course he could get what he wanted, whenever he wanted it. He even offered to put in my share for next time, but I refused.’ The embers of that anger burned sullenly inside me, turning my voice into a growl. ‘I didn’t want his fucking money. I didn’t want to have to be beholden to someone who didn’t listen. Someone who should have been my friend.’ I stopped, trying to get a handle on myself. ‘Anyway, I swore I’d make it on my own from then on. So I went out and tried to raise as much cash as I could, doing what I could. Street fighting was lucrative, paid cash, and I could earn it relatively quickly.’

       Plus, you enjoyed it.

      Yes, there was that. The gangs and the dealers threatened and intimidated everyone on the estate, my mother and me included. And it had given me immense satisfaction when I’d finally grown into my height and build, and I’d earned a reputation for being a mean son-of-a-bitch, to pay back that intimidation in kind.

      After that knife fight, no one had messed with me again.

      ‘What about your mother?’ Ellie asked. ‘She can’t have thought fighting was a good idea, surely?’

      I bared my teeth, remembering Mum’s disapproving face. ‘No, she didn’t. She said the money didn’t matter, but she was wrong. She’s always been wrong about that. Money always matters.’

      Especially when it had been money she’d worked hard for. Money that would have given her the kind of life she would have had if she hadn’t had me.

      There was a brief silence, Ellie’s gaze uncomfortably sharp. Uncomfortably knowing.

      Shit, I’d been too vehement, hadn’t I? Too angry. Betrayed too much.

      ‘Anyway, I got the money back,’ I went on, too quickly. ‘And I made my fortune. And I want those islands because Dumont wants them, too, and so I’m aiming to buy them out from under him.’

      ‘So...this is revenge or something?’

      I smiled. ‘It’s a reminder. That I’m still here. And that I haven’t forgotten.’

      She looked at me for a long time, not saying anything.

      Then she put her glass down on the table and said, ‘If I do this, you’ll give Australis some more time, right?’

      ‘Yes. I’m a man of my word.’ That was the one good thing people could say of me. When I gave my word, I stood by it. ‘Plus, I can introduce you to a few key people at my club. You might find future sources of income for your own project.’

      Strangely, colour rose in her skin and she looked away. ‘I need to get Australis back into the black before that happens.’

      Her response wasn’t what I’d expected—given the sparkle in her eyes when she’d spoken about it before, I’d thought she’d be excited to talk about it. But again, this wasn’t about her as a person. This was about her as my date.

      ‘So, do we have a deal?’ I asked, leaving the subject of the car alone. ‘You’ll come to Dubai?’

      She glanced back at me, her expression unreadable.

      And a word escaped me, a word I never said to anyone. A word that I didn’t need to say to her, not given the power I had over her. Yet it came out all the same.

      ‘Please.’

      Her expression softened. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Okay. We have a deal.’

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

       Ellie

      THE FIRST THING I realised on accepting Mr Evans’s deal was that I had nothing to wear. Or at least nothing that a ‘serious girlfriend’ would wear to a billionaires event in Dubai.

      I didn’t wear dresses or skirts or make-up—I hadn’t since my mother had died—and had never seen any reason to start. But even I knew that I was probably going to have to scrub myself up for this. Sadly, my chauffeur’s uniform—the nicest, most professional clothing I had—was probably not going to work.

      Which meant I was going to have to buy something nicer.

      However, that required a level of female know-how I did not have.

      A couple of my flatmates could have helped, but I was reluctant to tell them what was going on. They knew me as Ellie the chauffeur and the thought of asking them to help me buy dresses made me feel strangely self-conscious.

      Luckily, Mr Evans had an assistant called Petra, who soon took charge of Operation Get Ellie Ready for Dubai by taking me out on a shopping spree the Saturday before we were due to leave.

      It took me all of two seconds to realise that the shops she was taking me to were so far out of my price range they might as well have been the sun to my poor, poverty-stricken Pluto, and that there was no way I could afford it. I quickly told her the situation but she informed me crisply that this was a business trip and that Mr Evans would cover any and all expenses. Then she ignored my protests, dragging me into yet another designer shop on Bond Street.

      She was very good at getting her way. Some of the dresses and skirts she made me try on I protested about, uncomfortable at seeing myself in the mirror looking so...female. But again, she ignored me. She even got me into a gown—a green thing made out of some gossamer-like fabric that wrapped around me like a second skin—and then bought it, not even blinking at the outrageous price tag.

      Business expenses. Bloody hell.

      Eventually I gave up protesting. If Mr Evans wanted to pay for all that bullshit, who was I to argue? He could probably pass the dresses on to his next girlfriend anyway and, besides, I had bigger things to think about.

      I called Dad that night with the good news that Mr Evans wouldn’t be pulling his investment from Australis any time soon, and he seemed pleased, though, as always, it was difficult to tell.

      He didn’t thank me—both of us knew that if it hadn’t been for Mark we wouldn’t have been in the position of me having to go to Mr Evans to start with.

      Yet, even though I’d expected it, Dad’s response sat in my gut like a small piece of glass, cold and sharp. He didn’t ask how I’d managed to get Mr Evans to listen and I didn’t tell him.

      He didn’t need to know that in return for doing what I had for Australis, I had to promise to go as Mr Evans’s date to some billionaire event in Dubai.

      I still didn’t know why I’d agreed. I’d demanded at least that Mr Evans tell me his reasons for lying to some guy so he could get a bunch of islands and also get one over on his half-brother.

      I hadn’t expected him to tell me, but he had. And it was clear that as much as he was angry with his half-brother for losing the money his mother had invested, he was also angry at himself, too.

      The