few young girls who were mingling with the men in the intimate setting.
Curious glances were cast their way, and a few of the girls eyed Nathan with brazen interest, but he didn’t so much as give them a second glance-much to their disappointment.
As Nathan led her to a bar set up in the corner of the room, Nicole noticed a couple of the girls from the nightclub, and others she didn’t recognize. With the provocative way most of them were dressed, they appeared of legal age, but she knew just how deceiving an outward appearance could be and suspected that most of the girls were minors.
She scanned the room for Holly and anyone resembling the photograph Nathan had of Angela, but didn’t see either. The night was still young, though, and Nicole hoped before the evening was over they’d see both girls.
“What can I get the two of you to drink?” the bartender asked.
“I’ll take a Johnnie Walker Black on the rocks, and she’ll have a pina colada,” Nathan said.
The bartender smirked at her frothy choice of beverage, but Nicole was grateful that Nathan had ordered her something light and fruity-definitely a young girl’s type of drink with minimal alcohol involved. While hard liquor seemed to be flowing freely, she wasn’t about to dull her senses when she needed all her wits about her tonight.
Unfortunately, when she took a sip of her pina colada, she nearly choked on the amount of rum the bartender had added, to the point that she couldn’t taste much else. She winced as the liquid burned its way down her throat, and she wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that he’d been specifically instructed to kick up the volume of alcohol in the drinks to loosen everyone’s inhibitions.
Especially the girls’.
As Nathan led Nicole away from the bar, he glanced at her in concern. “Are you okay?”
She managed a nod and blinked back tears. “This drink started a fire in my belly,” she said beneath her breath. “I’ll just pretend to sip it until I can discreetly get rid of it somewhere.”
“Good idea,” he agreed. “By the way, Gwen is in the room, so try to keep your contact with her to a minimum.”
After their encounter at the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Nicole couldn’t risk Sloane’s assistant recognizing her, even if Nicole did look completely different from her reporter persona. So, while the other woman made sure everything was running smoothly and the girls kept the male guests happy, Nicole kept her distance and her gaze averted.
Fifteen minutes later, Sloane entered the room, fashionably late, with Holly trailing by his side like an obedient puppy following its master. She was wearing a black halter-style dress that was cut much too low in the front, her expression teeming with desperate adoration as she looked up at Sloane, who appeared completely indifferent to her painfully obvious infatuation.
Sloane greeted a few of the other men nearby, then took Holly by the hand and pulled her forward-not to establish her as his girlfriend, but to introduce her to one of the gentlemen in the group who was staring at her with lust in his eyes. Holly tried to take a reluctant step back, but Sloane’s grip on her arm didn’t waver.
He bent and said something in her ear that instantly turned her submissive. With one last look of longing at Sloane, Holly allowed the other gentleman to tuck her arm in his and followed him to a couch in a secluded corner of the room so the two of them could be alone.
Without thinking and acting purely on instinct, Nicole started after Holly, and it was Nathan who brought her to an abrupt halt.
“Let it go,” he murmured, his tone low but firm. “I know it’s difficult to watch, but that’s not what we’re here for and you don’t want to draw Gwen’s attention.”
Oh, God, she knew he was right and was grateful that he’d snapped some sense back into her. She understood that she couldn’t save every girl in this house, but there was something about Holly that made her feel like a protective older sister. It was difficult to watch her self-destruct while Sloane couldn’t care less and had no qualms about passing her off to another man.
“Come on, let’s mingle,” Nathan said, and led her in the opposite direction of where Holly had gone.
They spent the next half hour getting acquainted with the depraved men who’d been invited to Sloane’s weekend soiree. From a distance, between playing the part of Nathan’s young girlfriend, Nicole continued to watch Holly as she consumed a few martinis, popped some pills, and half smiled at the man who’d pulled her onto his lap and was slipping his hand beneath the short hem of her dress. Holly appeared too wasted to care that she was about to be sexually assaulted.
Unable to stomach the disturbing sight, she turned away and set her still-full drink on a passing tray holding dozens of other glasses just as dinner was announced. Everyone headed into the dining room and chose their meal from an elaborate buffet spread that Nicole normally would have enjoyed. Tonight, she had no appetite, but forced herself to take some of the fruit and chicken to keep up her energy.
She and Nathan sat down at the far end of the long table, and before the chairs around them could fill up, Sloane came up to them with a petite blonde on his arm. With her hair falling halfway down her back in soft spiral curls, and wearing a pink baby-doll dress, she looked very sweet and much too naive. Her brown eyes were glassy, her body language lethargic, indicating she was either drugged or inebriated, or both.
“Nathan, this is Lisa,” Sloane said as he pulled out the vacant chair next to Nathan for the girl to take a seat. “She saw you in the other room and is quite taken with you. I thought the two of you might like to get to know each other better.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lisa,” Nathan said, and did as Sloane expected and turned his gaze to the young girl.
Clearly, Sloane was anxious to find a girl to Nathan’s liking in exchange for Nicole.
Sloane slid into the chair next to Nicole; one of the hired staff set a plate of food in front of him, and delivered one for Lisa, too. He instructed the waiter to pour them each a glass of wine, then he picked his up by the crystal stem and tilted it toward Nicole in a toast. She touched her glass to his and forced a smile.
He looked into her eyes, and she nearly jumped out of her skin when he splayed a hand on her thigh beneath the table and gave it a squeeze. “To an unforgettable weekend.”
Her belly lurched at the insinuation in his tone, and unable to find anything witty to say in response, she gave him a nod and sipped her wine. She also very subtly shifted closer to Nathan, and Sloane took the hint and removed his hand from her leg. For now. Unfortunately, her show of modesty seemed to fascinate him, and she had a feeling the man liked a challenge when it came to seducing a girl.
“So, are you having a nice evening so far?” Sloane asked as he cut into his prime rib.
“Yes, I am.” With Lisa doing her best to flirt with Nathan and keep his attention on her, Nicole had no choice but to converse with Sloane. She and Nathan had yet to see anyone who resembled Angela, and until they learned where she was, they had no choice but to play Sloane’s game his way.
“Good. It’s important to me that all my guests are happy, so if there’s anything at all you want or need, you only have to ask,” he said, his gaze warm and indulgent. “Also, I don’t believe I told you and Nathan, but tomorrow night is a masquerade theme, which makes the parties more interesting and fun. I’ll have outfits and masks delivered to your room tomorrow afternoon.”
She infused a believable amount of excitement into her expression. “I’ve never been to a real masquerade party before. Will it be like that Mardi Gras parade they have at the Rio?” she said, referring to the Vegas hotel that was well known for its carnival production.
He chuckled at her guileless enthusiasm. “Yes, it’s just like that, but so much better here at my place since all of us are a part of the Mardi Gras experience.” He winked at her.
Dinner couldn’t end quickly enough for Nicole, and as soon as everyone finished eating, Sloane announced that the entertainment would commence in the playroom downstairs. The guests filtered out of the dining room, and Nicole trailed behind with Nathan, not in any big hurry to be in the midst of such vile debauchery.
They were among the last to arrive, and already guests were pairing up with one or two of the girls and heading off to private rooms, the grotto, or hanging out in the main bar area. Out of the corner of her eye, Nicole saw Holly disappear by herself into the restroom she’d seen during the tour Sloane had given them earlier. Since this was most likely her only chance to talk to Holly privately, she decided to take advantage of the opportunity.
