Page 1 of The Reluctant Siren
Chapter One
Harlow Dawson sat on the bench in front ofthe locker that had been designated as hers since the day The Hideout openedand wondered if she should even be here.
Maybe instead of shoving her body into a corset and makingsure her butt floss was properly positioned she should be at home, drinking teaand questioningall ofher life choices. Beginningwith the decision to hire Daisy O’Donnell. Sweet girl. Funny. Nice to havearound. Cursed.
Firing her had been an excellent decision, but even weekslater everyone kept staring at her like she kicked a puppy.
A puppy who inadvertently sicced a hellhound on her.
“Hey, you okay?” Chloe Lodge-Taylor looked like she’d comestraight from work, which given the fact that the club didn’t even open untilnine said something about the young woman’s work ethic. She worked for one ofher father’s companies as a junior executive, but Harlow often wondered if thejob wasn’t making her friend utterly miserable. “I heard there was some troublea couple of weeks ago. Sorry. I was in New York last week when Hurricane Daisyreally blew through this time. Then I was in London and Madrid.”
Which all sounded lovely if she thought for a second Chloewas taking some time to smell the sangria. She wasn’t. She wouldn’t have donetouristy stuff. She wouldn’t have taken a spa day or found new friends. Harlowwas worried about her.
But wasn’t she doing the exact same thing?
“Is there a worse storm than a hurricane? Like what if ahurricane also threw bombs all over the place. Shit. I know where they got theidea forSharknado. That writer met Daisy.” Ruby Lockwood poked herhead around the corner. Her locker was on the next row, but it wasn’t like shecouldn’t hear everything that happened in this part of the lounge. “Get this,Chloe. On her very first day…”
“First hour,” Harlow corrected because this was a story theywould tell for all of time.
“On her first day, in the first hour of her employment, ourbrand-new admin not only sicced the deranged Dawson dad on us, but also managedto become a material witness in an ongoing drug investigation. Big Tag wasforced to hire a bodyguard, who Daisy promptly fell in love with. They had tohide out in Sanctum because there was a cartel hit on her. They shot up Nate’snew truck and everything.”
Chloe sat down with a sigh. “Oh, dear. Tell me everyone’salive.”
Harlow waved off the fear. “She distracted the assassinswith her boobs and her dad turned the cartel on itself and all the bad guys aredead. Mostly. And did I mention the fall in love part? I’ve been told I’llreceive the save the date soon.”
It was how things tended to go onthatside of theclub.
The Hideout was made up of what Harlow liked to think of astwo weird cults. There was the one she belonged to, which consisted mostly ofyoung men and women who grew up with parents who played at a clubcalled—sigh—The Club, owned by Chloe’s father, Julian Lodge. And the spy kidswhose parents founded a club called Sanctum, watched over by a man everyonecalled Big Tag, who was a spy. The corporate kids, as Seth Taggart called them,mainly worked in fields like finance and law. The spy kids, well, there was areason they had a conference room that sometimes was filled with people whowent by names like Mr. Black or Ms. White.
Or Ms. Magenta, but at least she knew what to call thosetwo.
Sometimes she worried she fit better on that side of theclub.
Opening a private investigations agency apparently wasn’t onthe same level as Chloe’s junior executive or her own sister’s budding artcareer. Sometimes her dads acted like she was rebelling when they literallymade their living as detectives. Well, outside of the massive trust fund theycame into when they were younger.
“Daisy O’Donnell is getting married?” Chloe huffed. “I didnot have that on my bingo card this year. Her cousin getting a venereal diseasewas, though. Did you see his latest… Do I call them girlfriends?”
“And I’m out.” Ruby disappeared again. “Let me know whenwe’ve moved on to new material.”
Harlow groaned, facing her childhood friend. Ruby had apoint. They’d had this talk before. A lot. “I don’t think he has girlfriends.But then it’s not like you have boyfriends.”
Chloe had been circling Seth Taggart since they were teens,though it didn’t reach the level of enemies who would almost certainly end upas lovers until they opened The Hideout. Chloe had rejected Seth’s advancessince the first night when he offered to top her and she told him she neededmore than he could ever give her.
Sometimes she wondered what would have happened if Chloe hadbeen brave enough to give him a try. If she hadn’t let being burned by someother guy before hold her back.
Like Jensen was holding her back from giving Niall a chance.
Big, gorgeous, sweet Niall, who every sub in The Hideoutthought was absolute forever Dom material. Niall, who had let her know any timeshe wanted to play, he was there.
He had joined the club a few months before, and in all thattime she was almost certain he hadn’t slept with a single sub. At least nothere. He’d never once signed up for a privacy room, and he definitely hadn’tbeen having sex on the floor. She would have heard about that.
“I have a boyfriend, thank you,” Chloe announced.
And Ruby was back because this was definitely new material.“What? Who? The last guy you were with was your college boyfriend, and youbroke up because you knew you didn’t love him.”
A weird smile came over Chloe’s face. A kind of still,expectant smile. A smile that held zero humor and let Harlow know she wasmasking some unnamed emotion. If she was interrogating the other woman, shewouldn’t believe anything that came out of her mouth next. Oh, the basics wouldbe true, but Chloe was hiding something.
“Tom,” Chloe said with a brisk nod. “Yes. We actually brokeup because our career paths diverged. He went to New York to work for astart-up, and I settled in at Lodge Corp.”
