A Million Guilty Pleasures (Million Dollar Duet 2)

Polly did the giggle-snort thing again, and then Dez moved aside to usher us inside.

“Is he gone?” I asked as the door closed behind us.

“I think so, but he always leaves out the back door, so I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? You didn’t check?” The incredulous tone was evident in my voice even though I was still whispering. I held up my phone to show her the text she’d sent. “You said you’re not pregnant!”

“Well, I might be a little bit knocked up. Those tests aren’t always accurate.”

I was going to kill her. I was sure the murderous glare in my eyes made that fact perfectly clear, but my death glare—which I’d practiced for years to get just right—never had any effect on my best friend.

Dez shrugged like it was no big deal. “Fuck it. If he’s here, I figure we can knock him out.”

I pulled her in close so she could hear me. “Um, Dez? These outfits might make us look like super-badass ninjas and all, but um, we’re not.”

“Now what are we supposed to do?” Polly’s shoulders slumped in defeat. I knew it was killing her. Proper planning defined her life, so to have to wing it meant certain disaster in her book.

I threw my shoulders back and straightened to my full height. “We’re going to go find out if he’s here, and then we’re going to get that damn contract,” I said assertively, taking control of the situation. “Now let’s get our ninja on.”

The club was dark, though the emergency exit signs provided a minuscule amount of light. Of course Dez knew the layout like the back of her hand, and I knew the direction to the basement from my last trip there, so we were good to go.

As we descended the stairs, I almost expected the club’s doorman to be waiting at the bottom with that damn clipboard that made him think he was a god or something. But he wasn’t there. In fact, it was completely dark, so dark we had to trail our hands along the walls for some navigational guidance. Before we got to the end of the hall, I could see light filtering out from under a door and hear music coming from inside the room.

Scott was still in his office. And then we heard voices coming from the back of the building, headed our way.

Polly grabbed the back of my shirt in her fist, and I did the same to Dez in turn, slightly yanking her back.

“Someone’s coming! Now what?” I whispered, hurriedly.

Dez yanked my hand off her shirt and turned on me. “Don’t get your thong in a twist, Lanes, and shush before they hear you. I’ve got this covered. Come on.”

Polly and I followed her down the hall, and we managed to make it inside a little closet that was right beside Scott’s office without making too much of a ruckus. No sooner had we gotten inside than the other voices stopped outside the door.

“Have fun, mate,” a male voice said.

“That’s Terrence,” Dez whispered.

“Who’s he talking to?” I strained my ears, but all I heard was the opening and closing of Scott’s office door.

“So what? We’re just going to wait here until they leave?” Polly asked.

We were packed in the tiny space like sardines, but it wasn’t like we had any other options. “Yeah, pretty much so,” I said.

“Not necessarily.” Dez maneuvered herself so that she could turn toward the wall that was on the opposite side of Scott’s office.

“What are you doing?” I asked when she started fidgeting with something that looked like a sticker on the plaster.

She pulled at it and then a beam of light shot through a hole. “I might have had a little safeguard placed in here in the event that some hottie was down for some kinky fuckery in the form of a closet quickie.” She shrugged. “This way I could check to make sure the boss man wasn’t looking for me.”

“You’re an evil genius, do you know that?” I asked, impressed with her ingenuity. “A total slut for gettin’ down and dirty in a supply closet, but a genius all the same.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said with a cheeky grin. “The best part is that these walls are paper thin, so the challenge to stay quiet while fireworks explode from my girly bits is particularly erotic.”

I shook my head at her and leaned toward the hole. When I saw who was in the other room with Scott, I gasped and shot up straight, bonking Polly in the nose in the process. “Holy crap!”

Dez cupped her hand over my mouth because my whisper was definitely in danger of becoming a whole lot more than that.

“Christ!” Polly touched her nose gingerly. “You mind telling me why you’re trying to break my nose?”

I pulled Dez’s hand from my mouth. “It’s David!”

Polly dropped her hand, her nose forgotten. “That asshole is here to steal the contract!”

I heard voices, so I leaned back over to look again, wanting to make sure I hadn’t been seeing things. Sure enough, David was sitting on the leather couch next to Scott’s desk. His face was puffy and bruised from his recent beating, courtesy of one Noah P. Crawford.

Scott’s desk, by the way, was loaded down with blocks of what looked to be cocaine.

“Oh my, Jesus! Dez, give me your phone,” I told her, reaching blindly behind me.

“What? Why?”

“Just put it on video and give it to me. Hurry!”

Dez slipped her phone into my hand and I put the lens over the hole, making sure to get a good view on the phone’s screen. Dez wasn’t kidding; those walls were paper thin. I could hear every word they were saying.

“What the hell happened to you?” Scott’s voice had a bit of humor to it. I sort of wanted to laugh, too.

David put his fingers to the cut over his swollen eye. “Kickboxing accident. I missed the bag.”

“And what, kicked yourself in the face? A lot?”

“Shut up. You got another shipment of coke so soon? That’s risky,” David said, changing the subject. He sounded none too happy.

“It’s not a new shipment. There’s been an increase of in-house requests. Both from those little snot-nosed brats upstairs and the gentlemen down here looking to score a whore and more.”

“You’re expanding to college kids? That’s not something we’ve discussed. Last I checked, we’re partners on this.”

“We are. That’s why I called you in.” Scott stood and walked around to the front of his desk, leaning against it and crossing his legs at the ankles. “So let’s talk about it.”