Fallen Angel (Club Burlesque) Read Online Free Page A

the door from inside the backseat, and she climbed in beside him. The driver was a beefy guy with a crew cut. He wore sunglasses even though it was close to midnight.
    “Hey,” Ryan said. He was smoking a joint and offered it to her.
    “No, thanks. So where are we going?”
    “Well,” he said, taking a hit. “The Blue Angel was sort of the preshow for us. I’m meeting some buddies at the Slit.”
    The Slit was a club on the edge of the East Village. It was a much trendier and more high-profile scene than the relatively underground Blue Angel, complete with velvet rope front door, bouncers, and a dress code. It called itself burlesque, but it was really just a high-end sex club. Violet had gone a few times. Most of the acts were borderline misogynist: girls sticking knives in their pussies or getting tied up and whipped by guys calling them whores.
    But that wasn’t why she was going to say no tonight. Even when she was out with friends for a casual night, she had very little patience for sitting in an audience while other women were the center of attention. And that dynamic was out of the question for her night with Ryan Ellison.
    “I’ll pass,” she said.
    “What?” He looked at her like she had just sprouted a second head.
    “I’m not interested.”
    Ryan told the driver to pull over.
    “What’s wrong? Are you offended or something?”
    “No—not at all. In fact, if you want another show tonight, I can suggest a better one. Very exclusive. Very, very exclusive.”
    They exchanged a look. It took a minute, but Ryan’s million dollar movie star eyes clicked with comprehension.
    “Back to the Rivington,” he told the driver.

3
    A man dressed in a white tuxedo showed Mallory and Alec into the Baxter’s infamous art deco apartment at 40 Bond Street.
    “Please remove your shoes,” he said. Mallory looked at where the man was pointing, and sure enough, there were racks of expensive heels by the door. It looked like the shoe department at Bergdorf’s.
    Mallory and Alec removed their shoes and placed them on one of the racks. She felt strange in just her stockings, but was distracted from her discomfort by the sight of the giant “fishtank” hanging in the foyer. Bette had told her about this, but still, it was startling: it wasn’t actually a fishtank; it was a giant glass cube that housed a constant rotation of gorgeous young women. They lounged around inside, doing their nails or their undergrad homework or talking on their cell phones. Mallory found the concept incredibly offensive, but Bette had told her how much the Baxters paid the girls, and suddenly they seemed a lot less exploited. Tonight’s exhibit was a busty redhead wearing black yoga pants and an off-the-shoulder T-shirt from Barking Dog café. She was either watching a video or reading something off of her iPhone.
    “Interesting,” Alec said.
    Mallory shot him a look.
    “What? Is it not interesting? I’m just stating the obvious. Jeez.”
    Mallory looked around the room, taking note of the boldfaced names. Marc Jacobs. Jessica Szohr. Arianna Huffington. Graydon Carter.
    And Billy Barton.
    “Ugh, Billy is here,” Mallory said. Billy Barton was an affected, twenty-seven-year-old Manhattan trust fund kid who owned and published the men’s lifestyle magazine Gruff . Which made him Alec’s boss. “I knew we shouldn’t have come.”
    “Please—just relax. I need to talk to him anyway. He left me four messages today that he has a great assignment for me, and every time I called him back his assistant said he was in a meeting. So let’s just make the rounds, I’ll talk to Billy, and then we can go.”
    Justin Baxter, dressed in an impeccably tailored dark suit, noticed them from across the room. He excused himself from his conversation with a handsome, dark-skinned man she recognized as Dominick Monde, head of Tout Le Monde Films.
    “Ah, let them eat cake!” Justin said, hugging her warmly. “Amazing outfit! Did you two come