Contents
Note to Readers
I LOVE MY line of work. People bitch and moan about their careers but not me.
Clients task me with a job and I get it done. I don’t run an empire. I don’t employ anyone full-time. I only have myself to watch out for and that’s the way I like it.
This job earned my family back a shred of their respect a decade ago and I’ve been dishing the dirt on corrupt arseholes, playboys and spoilt little rich girls ever since.
I didn’t set out to be a private investigator. It’s a job that chose me when my family needed it most and it turns out I’m a natural. If there’s dirt, I’ll find it.
And right now, that dirt is sitting across the softly lit room from me.
Only this kind of dirt I cannot dish.
It crosses a line that even my skewed moral compass cannot abide.
‘Come on, Ash, what gives?’
I raise my eyes from my untouched pint to see Jackson grinning at me from the other side of the bar. ‘Where’d you come from?’
‘We’re short-staffed tonight. I’m helping out.’
‘A bit beneath you, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Nah, I kind of enjoy it.’
He scans the darkened corners of the room, the various people making out, and barely raises a brow. And why would he? This is his life day in, day out. This is his club—Blacks—complete with sex on tap, catering to the British elite. The upper crust. A circle to which I once wholeheartedly belonged and now wouldn’t piss on if it were on fire.
These people have money. Enough to pay for the exclusive membership and the non-disclosure agreement that comes with it. Anything goes within these walls—within reason—and no one on the outside is any the wiser. Including my client. But the presence of my target—her—tells me there’s more to Coco Lauren than what the world sees. What the press witnesses. And that’s what I need to tap into, to expose, if I’m to get what I need and deliver what my client demands.
‘Jesus, you need something stronger than a pint, judging by the look of you.’
I barely acknowledge his observation. Truth is, what I need is something that gets her to step out of line, outside of this safe haven where I can’t say anything without compromising my friend’s business.
He backs up and snatches a bottle from the side with two shot glasses, smacking them down between us. ‘You never come here, so I repeat: What gives?’
The truth will only piss him off, and I’m not about to lie, so I stay quiet and his eyes narrow, his powerhouse of a frame turning rigid. If he wasn’t my oldest friend I’d think he was about to punch me.
‘You’d better not
