Page 31 of The Billionaire

“A few of those men are pure evil.”

I swallowed hard. Not the man I was with. Did she ever meet him? Not the man with the tender eyes who touched my heart. Who—

“What did you really think . . . That because of your looks you hit the jackpot? That these men just pay astronomical amounts each and every time an invitation comes?”

Well . . . actually, yes.I honestly thought I genuinely experienced a miracle.

“Look at me, if an invitation comes again, do not accept it. Under any circumstances, do not do it. And I’d start looking at school on the East Coast. You’re in a lot of trouble McKenzie.”

“But how?” I felt like crying. I felt a frog in my throat. But what about all the other women? There had to have been a hundred or so? Is that why they were all put into colors? But some of the women seemed to enjoy the club. This didn’t make sense to me. Wouldn’t something like this get out in the press if the men were truly threatening their lives?

I thought back to the movie The Skulls. I had seen the movie in high school. The secretive The Skulls and Bones society at Yale seemed so fictitious, yet here I was and I felt like I was dealing with the same group of men, yet older.

And probably richer.

I shuttered at thought.

“I was just like you, you know. Bright, young, innocent. Full of dreams. I wanted to be an actress yet the money here, well, the rent, the life style here is very hard to maintain.” She crouched over her legs and looked down at her running shoes.

I wondered how old she was. She had thin legs and beautiful olive skin. Had she been with this club for years?

“I too received in invitation in the mail when I was at a dire need. I was about to lose my rental and would be penniless, homeless! My folks in London are gone. So with no one or nowhere else to turn, and with much trepidation at the promise of such money, I went. Oh, I know, a dream! So much money and you’ll have your freedom to pursue what it is you want. But all money comes at a cost.”

Not believing what I was hearing, I stuttered the words. “But, no, no one else warned you? How can a hundred women be locked into this system? Logic says there would have to be a leak somewhere. Somehow.”

She raised an eyebrow passed her dark oval sunglasses.

“Oh, you’d be surprised.”

I shook my head in disbelief.

Maybe she was trying to scare me. But why?

“I just want to go to Stanford and go on with my life.”

“Maybe you’ll be an anomaly, a lucky one. Maybe your debt was paid the night you came. The only way to be sure of that is if you never go again.”

“And the women that are there apparently out of curiosity?”

“Like I told you in the restroom, curiosity killed the cat. Good luck in the race.”

She got up and walked briskly away in the fall morning. Even though I wanted to follow her, I knew I should let her go. She already told me what she wanted to say.

The message was loud and clear.

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