Mirage - Alice Tribue Page 0,4
as I grab another glass from a server passing by. I look at my assistant, Ivy, who looks equally as bored as I am. Leaning in, I whisper in her ear.
“Thanks for coming tonight. I couldn’t do another one of these alone.”
She gives me a smile in response. Ivy has been working with me from almost the beginning because finding people who I trust is difficult. Sure, they all sign NDAs, but Ivy is one of the few who I naturally trust. It’s been my experience that most people are not good; given the chance, they will hurt you at every turn, do what they have to do to get ahead in life, and not care about the carnage they leave behind. For this reason, I limit my interaction with people to just a few close friends; the few people who I know would have my back no matter what.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch movement and look up. Across the room, a woman pulls her arm away from her date just as a server passes by. She looks hurt, angry even. Unfortunately for her, she’s bumped into the server and his tray of champagne comes crashing down, the sound of breaking glass causing the majority of the room to go silent. As she hurries off, embarrassed I’m sure, her date runs after her. The waiter begins to pick up the broken pieces of glass and the chatter around me resumes. Just as I’m turning my attention back to Ivy and the group of associates standing around me, a man bends down to silently help the server with his cleanup. I don’t know why, but I can’t tear my eyes away from him. As if he can feel my eyes on him, he looks up and our gazes lock onto one another. My breath hitches, and I’m suddenly stuck—unable to move and unable to look away. Something passes between us, an unexplainable jolt of electricity that I cannot understand. His black suit is tailored to fit his lean body perfectly, and his unruly brown hair is styled in a short spiky mess on top of his head. For a minute, I imagine running my hands through that hair while he hovers over me in bed. What the fuck am I thinking?
Just as I turn away, I catch a hint of a grin on his lips. Geez, I need to get laid. There’s been no one in the three months since Collin left, and the drought is starting to affect me. Maybe I just need more alcohol, I think, replacing my empty champagne glass with a fresh one as Ivy and I excuse ourselves from the group chatter.
“Are you trying to get drunk? At least have a few hors d’oeuvres first, Victoria.”
I smile, linking my arm through hers.
“I know. Copious amounts of alcohol are how I manage to get through these events. If I’m borderline wasted, it makes it almost tolerable.” We both giggle and make our way to the buffet table to snack on a few crudités.
“If you hate these things so much, then why do you come to them?”
“Because it helps me to maintain the appearance of legitimacy.”
“It is legit.”
“Yes, parts of it, and I have to keep them up, make sure that they’re successful, to cover up the parts that aren’t.”
“Well, whatever you’re doing, it’s working.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh yeah, clients are happy, employees are happy, and I just splurged on a pair of silver Louboutins there’s no way I could afford if I wasn’t working for you.”
I smile at her assessment of my success. She’s right though, business is good. Great, actually; if there’s one thing that always holds true, it’s that sex sells. It’s taboo; no one likes to talk about it, but everyone wants it. It’s a billion dollar industry and I’m just collecting my piece of that pie. Fundamentally, I know it’s wrong, but if it were not me, someone else would be doing it. If there’s one thing I can be proud of, it’s the classiness of my business. How can selling sex be classy? Just go stand on a street corner and see what those girls go through—addicted to drugs, pimped out, beaten, abused. That’s not how I run my business, and I take pride in the fact that I can give these girls a safer lifestyle.
I step into the bathroom for a few minutes, having lost Ivy to a young man who looked more like a male model than a well-to-do