Page 10 of Hotter than Wildfire

The lion or the lady, every time, every day.

And now toss exhaustion and sleeplessness into the mix. How to choose?

She looked the receptionist in the eyes. Ellen was a good judge of character, and now she had to trust her instincts. The receptionist looked back at her calmly, seemingly undisturbed that the lunatic lady, who looked as if she hadn’t slept in three days because she hadn’t, was staring her in the face, taking minutes over a decision that shouldn’t take a second.

Except—like all her decisions this past year, her life hung in the balance.

The receptionist stayed calm, eyes kind. Maybe she was used to desperate people. Maybe the desperate were tossed up on this doorstep daily.

“Okay,” Ellen finally said, clutching her hands. Please let this be the right choice. She sent the prayer up to whoever was up there, who’d been noticeably absent lately. “I’ll see Mr. Bolt. Thank you.”

The receptionist nodded. “The second door to your right. Mr. Bolt’s name is on the door. He’s waiting for you.”

Ellen nodded and slowly made her way to the big corridor on the right. As she passed in front of the receptionist’s desk, she looked up and Ellen saw understanding in her eyes.

“It will be okay,” the receptionist said softly. “Don’t worry. Mr. Bolt will make it okay.”

No, it wouldn’t be okay. It would never be okay again.

Harry sat at his desk, trying to clear his mind of his last client, London Harriman, heiress to a real estate empire. She wanted him to stop publication of a sex tape by a tabloid website.

She didn’t mind that the sex tape was going to be put online, mind you. Oh no. She’d recorded it specifically in order to release it and she’d assured him that it had been shot ‘professionally’. No, what had got her panties—or lack of panties—in a twist was that she wouldn’t be in control of the timing or the release venue.

She wanted him to stop the gossip website from putting it up. She’d handed him a copy with a coy smile, saying she wanted him to watch it. So he’d understand.

London had come on to him, real heavy, but then Harry imagined that London came on to anything with a penis, particularly if that man could even marginally help her in her goal of becoming the Socialite Sex Goddess of the World.

She was beautiful and buffed to a shine, with perfectly round breasts and duck lips, wearing what he imagined at a rough guess—Sam’s wife Nicole would probably know the amount down to the dollar—to be about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of…stuff, from the designer purse, designer shoes, designer shades to the big flashy designer jewels.

She’d carefully and slowly crossed her legs, showing a pantyless crotch that had been shaved except for a little landing strip in the middle, so she had a designer twat, too.

Harry hated this shit, but he had been designated by Sam and Mike as the go-to guy for the asshole clients and he owed his two brothers so much he accepted the Asshole Detail without complaint.

Plus, they both knew that he was constitutionally incapable of being rude or discourteous to a woman.

His curse.

After quoting double their usual fee, Harry got the details, the copy of the tape of the delectable London fucking the man du jour, and the name and website of the so-called journalist who was going to post the tape tomorrow.

Five minutes after the door had closed behind London, Harry had found the file on the online tabloid’s servers, degraded it, left some spyware and a very clear message that any attempt to post the file would lead to the entire archives of the site being degraded beyond repair, effectively putting them out of business. He toyed with the idea of signing the message The Twat’s Avenger, but decided not to. It was touch and go there, for a moment, though.

Have to get your jollies where you can.

Five minutes, fifty thousand dollars. Not bad. And twenty five thousand of those fifty were going into their Lost Ones Fund, their own personal Underground Railroad.

Twenty five thousand dollars from London’s trust fund would not be used to buy a fur or a week at a fancy spa or luxury rehab or a Rolex. That money would be spent on some abused woman who was running for her life. Most of the women who came to them left their homes under cover of darkness with nothing but the clothes on their backs, sometimes—tragically—with their kids. They did that because if they stayed, they’d be beaten to death.

Harry and his brothers gave them a new life and enough money to start that life.

Great, great feeling. Maybe he should have charged London triple their usual fee? Buy some safety for a lot of little kids, that would.

He was frowning over that when Marisa announced the next client, a Ms. Nora Charles.

She’d had an appointment with Sam, but Sam had called to say that Nicole was having bad morning sickness and he’d come in when she was better.

Harry knew his brother Sam. Not even the threat of nuclear war would keep Sam from Nicole’s side when she wasn’t feeling well. Sam would stay by her side until she felt better. That was the bottom line.

Harry respected that. He liked Nicole, a lot. And he liked it that she made Sam so happy. Well…happy. Sam seemed really happy with her in between panicking whenever he saw danger to Nicole around every corner. And now that there was a kid on the way, whoa.