Page 20 of The Good Girl Effect (Salacious Legacy #1)

Jack

J ulian is sitting smugly across from me at the table, and I glare at him as Phoenix stands at the front of the room, going over the dismal numbers from last quarter.

Everything with the club is going to shit. It’s his fault, and he knows it.

“We need to cap attendance lower and increase security,” I say when Phoenix is finished.

“How is capping attendance going to improve these numbers?” Julian asks.

“We were overcrowded last weekend, and it created security issues,” Phoenix adds, taking my side.

“So we increase security,” Julian argues.

“Increasing security doesn’t change the fact that the building can only hold so many,” I reply with a tense, angry tone.

“Nobody wants to go to an overcrowded sex club,” Elizabeth says flatly while staring at her phone.

“Exactly,” I say, glancing over at her and hoping she’ll look at me for even one second.

She doesn’t. “It should be more exclusive,” I say, straightening my spine and loosening my tie.

“We’re not even vetting membership anymore.

We can’t have a sex club that’s full of unchecked, drunk partiers.

That’s not how Ronan and Matis ran L’Amour, and that’s not how we should run Legacy. ”

Julian shakes his head without looking at me. I see the way his jaw clenches as he heaves a sigh.

He hates me, and that’s fine. I’m not doing this to get in his good graces. I’m doing this to prolong my godfather’s legacy and set my sister up for success after I leave. I can’t walk away knowing she’ll have Julian’s mess to clean up later.

“So what are you suggesting?” he asks. “We close down the club and only open to a select few?”

“Yes,” I reply confidently.

He finally turns my way. “It’s easy for you to say, Jack,” he bites back. “You’re not here half the time, and if you are, you’re fucking around in the BDSM room. And we all know you’ve got one foot out the door already, don’t you?”

It grates on my nerves to hear him talking about my plans and my life like he knows a damn thing about me. “And what about you, Julian?” I fight back. “You’re not here out of the goodness of your heart either. We all know you’re just here to have a place to party and get laid.”

“Enough, both of you,” Phoenix snaps from the front of the room.

Elizabeth lets out a huff.

As of now, it’s only the four of us. Amelia and Weston don’t bother to even show up to most meetings.

Everything we started nearly one year ago is falling apart. It’s embarrassing. Our parents left us the keys to success, and we’re throwing them away.

I just keep telling myself it doesn’t matter. I’ll be gone, back home in California soon. At least I tried to work with the team to make it better. At least I stuck around for this long. But no one can expect me to endure this any longer.

“Why don’t we all just accept defeat?” Julian says dramatically.

“Do you even care about this club?” Phoenix asks with a shake of her head.

“No, obviously not,” he replies sarcastically. “I don’t care about anything, right?”

“Let’s just finish this meeting,” I say, rubbing my forehead with a sigh.

“I think this meeting is over,” he mutters, standing from the table and marching out the door.

What a prick.

Elizabeth doesn’t say anything to either of us before she leaves too. Phoenix and I are left alone in the conference room above the club.

She stares at me with exhaustion in her eyes. “What a mess.”

“Why is he such a self-indulgent asshole?” I say with annoyance.

“The two of you can’t hold a civil conversation to save your lives,” she replies with a tilt of her head.

“Me?” I say in disbelief. “You think I’m part of the problem?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” she replies. “But we can’t run this club when you two do nothing but fight at all our meetings.”

Maybe she’s right. But he’s the one who wants to run this place into the ground. He makes all the wrong choices, doing what he wants instead of what is right. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself.

As for me, I’ve been under a lot of pressure lately.

I’m failing as a father and now as a business owner.

Nothing I do seems to go right. Maybe that’s why I’m actually considering taking on my daughter’s nanny as my submissive.

Because at least that I know I can’t fuck up. That is something I excel at.

I let out a sigh. “We only have six more weeks left of this,” I reply.

“Then what, Jack?” she asks as she drops into a chair.

“I can’t run this place by myself. Julian isn’t going to change his ways.

None of the others even care anymore. What if…

” Her voice trails as she stares down at the table, quietly tapping her finger against the wood.

Chewing on the inside of her cheek, she lets the sentence die.

“What if…what?” I ask.

“What if Ronan was wrong about us?” she says, finally looking up at me.

“What do you mean?”

“Our parents created something great, but they were best friends before they started Salacious. Half of us can’t even get along, let alone run a business together.

He wants us to find our family, but let’s face it.

Your sister won’t talk to you. Mine is with Liam, and God only knows where they are.

My brother is a mess. Your godbrother hates you.

We are no family. And maybe we never will be. ”

Leaning my elbows on the table, I stare at my best friend as I let those words sink in. She’s right. We are no family.

"Nix..." I say carefully. "Was that...why you agreed to this? For family?"

She has always been the smart one—the only true business owner here besides myself. I had always assumed her motives were economically driven. So this…is news to me.

She slumps back in her seat. “I don’t know,” she confesses. “Maybe. That letter he sent us was inspiring.”

I scrutinize her. This isn’t what I expected to hear, and knowing this changes things for me. This whole time, I assumed my best friend would be fine on her own once I left, but now…I’m a little worried.

“Listen,” she says, sitting up. “I can find another job. I can make a business work just about anywhere. But this, the idea that we could bring together our oldest friends and somehow outdo what our parents created, was the first time a business venture sounded like more to me. And I was excited about that.”

I let out a huff. “Outdo Salacious? Nix, we can barely turn a profit.”

In the nearly thirty years since Emerson Grant and the rest of his team opened the doors of the club in Briar Point, California, they have turned the sex club industry on its head.

Phoenix’s parents alone helped branch out the brand into six more clubs across America and set a precedent that was revered for its integrity and inclusivity.

They created far more than a legacy, and the mere idea that we thought we could follow that is embarrassing.

“But maybe it’s not about profit, Jack,” she argues. “Maybe it’s about creating something special.”

For some reason, my mind instantly goes to Camille when she says that. I would love to bring her here. It’s a thought that’s crossed my mind more than once. If she genuinely wants to learn more about this lifestyle, then she deserves a safe and inspiring place to do that.

But she deserves better. Everyone does.

“What are you thinking?” Phoenix asks, noticing me deep in thought.

“I’m thinking you’re right. But we only have six weeks left. What do we do?”

“We shut down and start over. And we do it right this time,” she replies.

“Julian will never go for that.”

“Fuck Julian,” she argues.

My brows jump upward at that. I’m normally the one cursing his name.

Before I can respond, Phoenix continues. “We can have vetted membership this time, exclusivity, and standards. Drink minimums and real workshops for those who want to learn.”

I know she’s right. Hell, Phoenix always is. But I still feel as if I’m lacking the motivation it takes to pull this off.

“You want me to call them all back in?” I ask.

She scoffs. “They won’t listen. Let’s give it the rest of the weekend, and then we convince them.”

"If we leave Julian to his own devices, he'll get the club shut down on his own. What if we get out of the way and just let it happen?"

“That’s maniacal, Jack,” she replies with a nervous laugh.

“I don’t care. He wants to pull in a crowd, then let him. He’ll overcrowd this place, make a mess of the whole club, and Matis will have no choice but to step in and shut it down.”

Phoenix is chewing her lip again. She doesn’t like this idea, I can tell.

But I love it. I think I’ve been wanting this for a long time, to let Julian truly crash and burn.

And once he does, Phoenix and I will have free rein to make the choices that need to be made.

Let that spoiled brat see what it’s like when he finally does get his way.