Chapter 5

Preston didn't answer. Just had me rushed to the hospital anyway. Paid for a private room. Best doctors in the city.

Real touching.

Next morning? My startup got reported to the SEC. Every file dumped straight onto my dad's desk.

Every investor I'd spent months courting? Ghosted me overnight.

The stripper photos from Mom's funeral? Splashed across every gossip blog in New York.

They were burying me. And Dad went on TV saying he was disowning me.

I had no choice. I swallowed my pride and started calling in favors from the trust-fund boys who used to trail after me like puppies.

Old Shea Gordon—queen of the scene—now sitting there with fresh whip scars, playing nice with the guys who used to beg for my number.

"Shea, sweetheart. It's not that we don't wanna help."

Chad Rowe led the pack. His face said *so sorry*. His eyes were crawling all over my collarbone, licking the healing welts.

"But you crossed Preston. Nobody wants that heat. You know how it is."

He slid a glass of whiskey across the table. That hungry look. I'd seen it before—on other girls.

"Now, if you wanted to party with us a little tonight… maybe we could work something out."

I knew what "party" meant.

Trading skin for favors. Oldest, dirtiest move in the book.

I'd watched other girls get chewed up by it and looked away. Now I was the meat on the plate.

"Chad, that is not why I'm here!"

Ian tried to shut it down. But his family was two tiers below theirs. They steamrolled him.

"C'mon, don't be stingy. You want us to stick our necks out for nothing?" one of them sneered. His eyes made my skin crawl.

"Besides—everybody knows Shea's a good time. Girl booked a whole yacht of strippers. What's a few more of us?"

They started closing in with their glasses. A slow, ugly circle. The hunt.

My face went white. My throat filled with something hot and sour.

Then—

"Wow. Nice party."

Preston's voice. Right behind me.

"How come nobody invited me?"

---