Page 1 of Slumming It

Prologue

Reese

In the crowded nightclub, I was heading toward the door when I felt a hand on my elbow. I turned to look and saw a pretty blonde in a short red dress. With a drunken laugh, she said, "I know whoyouare. You're Reese Murdock."

No shit.

I made a show of looking at her hand. "Sorry, you've got the wrong guy."

I wasn't sorry. I was just irritated to be bothered by a chick who thought that a nice rack in a tight dress gave her a ticket to the big leagues.

Call me an asshole – and plenty of people did – but I knew what I was worth, and it was a fuck-ton more than whatevershewas offering. I knew her type. Now that she'd gotten a grip, she'd be harder to shake off than a mongoose on a snake.

Sure enough, her grip only tightened as she said with a slurred giggle, "Don't worry. It's not like I'lltellanyone." With her free hand, she put a manicured finger to her full red lips and cooed, "It'll be our little secret."

Secret, my ass.

Even if I gave her what she wanted – attention, a diamond something-or-other, or a good time in the sheets – she'd be telling the whole world faster than I could say Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.

And yeah, that would be the mongoose.

But I was nobody's prey, and I didn't like being hunted. I gave her hand another pointed look. "Try someone else. I'm not interested."

Her hand dropped, and she stared up at me as if I'd just called her mother a twat. "You don't have to be so mean about it."

If she thoughtthatwas mean, she should've seen me negotiating that deal in Miami. But I didn't owe her anything, including an explanation, so all I said was, "I'm sure you'll get over it."

But just as I was turning to go, she said something that had me stopping in my tracks. "At least I'm not like thatothergirl. She's up in the balcony, telling everyone she's your date."

Fuck.

Emily?She wasn't my date – at least not for real. She wasn't even a friend. Her last name made her the polar opposite even if she was too clueless to know.

If anything, she was bait.

I'd dressed her up and trotted her out like a juicy scrap of meat. But sometime within the past ten minutes or so things had gotten too hot in the proverbial kitchen, and I'd stepped away to catch some air.

Unlike the chick in red, Emily hadn't been coming on to me – not in the least. But shehadbeen getting under my skin.

Like an itch I couldn't scratch, she was making me all kinds of crazy, which was why I'd been heading for the door.

Ten, maybe fifteen minutes.I'd figured that would be plenty long enough to get my head back in the game where it belonged.And what game was that?

Payback.

That's why I was here – in this pretentious club in this decidedly unpretentious town.

I was still mulling my options when the chick in red said, "And at leastI'mnot getting tossed out."

I froze. "What?"

"Oh, yeah," she said. "They're gonna tossherout, like quick."

The hell they would.

It wasn't that I cared. I wasn't that kind of guy. But Emily wasmyplaything, not theirs. Or at least that's what I kept telling myself as I turned and began striding back the way I'd come.

I glanced up to see Emily on the upper level, surrounded by a couple of burly bouncers and two brunettes who had some payback coming of their own. I picked up the pace, jostling aside a group of football types making their way down the wide open stairway.