Page 36 of Lethal Torture

Pigalle Mayfair,where I keep my main office, is a mile and a half from my apartment. Normally I arrive in a chauffered car. The day after I sign Mak’s contract, however, I arrive on foot, long before sunrise. I’ve already run five miles, done a hot yoga workout, and had an ice bath.

If I keep this up, I’ll be a fucking machine.

The truth is that after calling Mak, I could have run a marathon and still had a sleepless night.

And not only because the memory of Luke’s unwavering eyes watching me come makes every cell of my body tingle in an entirely unprofessional fucking way.

I wanted to prepare for his arrival.

That’s a lie.

To preparemyselffor his arrival.

Theater is everything.

It’s a lesson I learned early on. Set the stage, place the props. Put on your costume, paint your face, and say your lines with enough conviction to make your audience believe it’s real.

That is what business comes down to, really. Especially my kind of business.

And after my utter failure in the Viewing Gallery, I need to ensure that today’s performance is world-fucking-class.

I open the wrought iron gate and follow the path up the stairs into Pigalle Mayfair. This early before dawn the marble foyer is still and silent.

I take my private lift to the penthouse. It occupies the entire top floor, since it serves as both my business center and my official residence, the place where I hold the cocktail parties and fancy dinners my kind of business sometimes requires. If my Lowndes Square apartment is a cozy space of worn timber floorboards and mellow afternoon sun, the Mayfair penthouse is a vast, elegant display of polished marble and discreet lighting.

It’s not really to my taste, but then I don’t have to live in it.

I do, however, maintain a private bedroom suite here, since if I have to pull an all-nighter, which happens more often than it probably should, then I like to be comfortable. I keep a walk-in wardrobe stocked with designer clothes for every occasion, including workout gear for the fully equipped gym on a lower floor of the club. The bathroom is done in black marble, with a rain shower I can get lost in and a Jacuzzi I’ve never gotten around to using. The bed is vast and incredibly comfortable, crafted by the genius Swedish designer who supplies all my establishments.

The designer was once a burlesque dancer in my first club. All of the girls in my clubs have ambitions beyond their current roles, which I strongly encourage.

I know what it means to work in one thing while you dream of building another.

I gave the designer the start-up funds to take her business to the next level and have been enjoying a decent share of the profits ever since.

I invest in a lot of start-ups.

I love the challenge of building a business. Of taking one pound and turning it into a million. Of creating irresistible places, and products, that give people exactly what they didn’t know they needed.

And I’m fucking good at it.

It took a decade of building up my clubs, and seeding many other small businesses, before I truly allowed myself to acknowledge that.

Up until I banked my first billion, I still felt like a phony, a fucked-up little girl just playing a part. I felt convinced that, sooner or later, someone would expose me as a fraud and I’d be sent back to the gutter I came from, humiliated and broken.

Imposter syndrome,they call it, apparently. I read that in a magazine one of my dancers left lying around.

I strip and head into the shower, reveling in the steady jets massaging my body. I’m pumped after my morning workout, blood pulsing as I mentally run through my look for the day. I have an early-morning meeting with the home secretary that I would normally dress conservatively for.

Directly after that meeting, however, is my first with Luke. Which means I need to find something a little more... arresting.

Let Luke Macarthur find out exactly who—and what—he’s dealing with.

I always start my costume from the skin up. That means layering my signature scent, starting with the body wash. I soap myself with a generous amount as I think through my lingerie choice, deciding on a mint silk ensemble and a sheath dress in the same color with a scoop neck and a slit up one side which,teamed with killer heels, caused a British Cabinet member to trip over his own feet in the Savoy at a recent lunch.

I comb conditioner through my white-blonde hair, the one part of my costume I never need to think about. My hair falls to my waist, but nobody ever sees it that way. I’ve been wearing it in the same French twist since I was a teenager, swept straight back from my face, its length disguised by the clean style. I don’t do messy buns or short crops. I like the unsettling use of direct eye contact with no distractions.

Direct eye contact.