The Billionaire's Hidden Heir

Chapter Five

Brianna’s POV

Dominic Vance's office sat behind a locked door at the back of the club, past the bar, past the private rooms with their heavy curtains, in a space that looked more like a business office than anything you'd expect from a man who ran girls in and out of a place like The Onyx Room. Brianna sat across from his desk with her legs crossed and her expression carefully neutral.

"She said yes," Brianna told him.

"Good." Vance didn't look up from the papers on his desk. "She's exactly what he asked for. New face. Sweet. The kind of girl who makes a man feel like a king instead of a customer."

"She trusts me," Brianna said. "I want that on the record. Whatever this turns into, she trusts me, and I brought her to you."

Vance finally looked up, and something in his expression made Brianna sit up a little straighter. "You worried about something, Brianna?"

"No. I just want to be clear about my cut."

"Your cut's the same as it's always been." Vance leaned back in his chair. "This client is different, though. Bigger. Julian Whitmore. You know the name?"

"Should I?"

"Private equity. His family's got half of Marchmont Hills in a trust somewhere. He's in town closing a deal, celebrating tonight with his people, already three drinks in by the time he called ahead." Vance smiled, a slow, calculating thing. "Man like that doesn't remember mornings the way regular people do."

Brianna's stomach did something uneasy that she pushed down fast, the way she'd learned to push down most things that made her uncomfortable lately. "So what, we just get Mia in the room and let her do her thing?"

"Something like that." Vance slid a folder across the desk toward her, and inside it were photographs of a private room at the club, angles marked, small red circles drawn around spots along the ceiling molding and behind the bar cart. "I need you and the girls to make sure certain equipment stays in place tonight. Nothing complicated. Just don't let anyone move the furniture."

Brianna looked at the photographs for a long moment before she understood what she was looking at. Cameras. Hidden in the molding, behind the cart, angled toward the bed.

"What is this?" she said slowly.

"Insurance," Vance said. "A man like Julian Whitmore doesn't get where he is by being careless. But even careful men get drunk sometimes, and drunk men do things they regret in the morning. That kind of footage is worth more than a hundred nights of dancing, if it's ever needed."

"You didn't say anything about cameras."

"I'm saying it now."

"Does Mia know?"

"Mia doesn't need to know anything except that it's one night, good money, dancing and company, nothing more." Vance's voice hardened slightly. "And you're going to make sure she believes that, because you brought her here, and you're the one standing to lose the most if this doesn't go exactly the way I need it to go."

Brianna sat very still, the folder open in her lap, the little red circles staring back up at her like something she couldn't unsee now that she'd seen it. She thought about the apartment she'd just signed a lease on, the new floors, the leather couch, all of it paid for with money that had come from nights just like the one being planned for tonight.

"She's my friend," Brianna said, quieter now.

"Then be a good one," Vance said. "Get her ready. Get her there. Let the night happen the way it's going to happen, and in the morning she'll have more money than she's ever held at once, and you and Tasha and Renee will have exactly what I promised you when this started."

Brianna closed the folder slowly and set it back on the desk, and when she stood up to leave, her hands weren't quite steady, though she pressed them flat against her thighs so it wouldn't show. She told herself, walking back out through the club, past the heavy curtains and the low music and the men already gathering at the bar for the evening, that this was just business. That Vance knew what he was doing. That whatever happened in that room tonight, Mia would walk out with more money than she'd ever seen and no memory of anything worse than a good time and a generous client.

She told herself that all the way back to the apartment, where Mia was already waiting, already trying on the dress Tasha had picked out for her, laughing at something Renee said, completely unaware that the folder full of photographs existed at all.

"You okay?" Mia asked, catching Brianna's face in the mirror. "You look like you saw a ghost."

"I'm fine," Brianna said, forcing a smile onto her face. "Just tired. Big night ahead of us."

Mia smiled back, trusting, the way she'd trusted Brianna since they were girls together in a neighborhood that never gave either of them much reason to trust anyone. And Brianna smiled back at her reflection in the mirror, already knowing that whatever happened after tonight, this would be the last night Mia ever trusted her completely, and there was no way now to stop what had already been set into motion.