One Day (The Private Club #3)(23)
Author: J.S. Cooper

Chapter 9

Present Day

Meg

I walked through the corridors aimlessly. I felt empty inside. The phone call had changed something in me. It had made me completely raw inside. As soon as Greyson had received another call from Patsy, he’d had to leave. He had asked me to wait so we could talk, but I’d slipped out of the bedroom as soon as he’d left. As far as I was concerned, I needed to get out of the club.

I didn’t want to see Ryan again and I didn’t want to be around Greyson any longer. I could no longer play the ignorance game. He was evil—pure evil. Maybe there was some good in him that was aching to break out, but I couldn’t be that woman to wait and see if it was going to happen.

I rounded the corner where the nursery was and stopped suddenly. The door was slightly ajar, and I walked up to it carefully to peek in. I saw that there was a baby in one of the cribs and the room was filled with some people. I recognized Patsy and Greyson but there was a man and a girl I didn’t recognize.

“She said she won’t go without the baby.” Patsy sounded annoyed.

“Jessica, you have to go.” Brandon stroked her shoulder.

“I don’t want to go without my baby.” The girl shook her head and started crying.

“I will make sure they take care of you.” The other man spoke up. “This is for the best of you and your baby.”

“But I don’t want to go.”

“You have to go.” Patsy stood in front of her. “They are waiting for you, Jessica. They’ve been waiting for a week.”

“But my baby!” the girl cried and then the baby started wailing.

“We will take care of your baby.” Greyson rubbed his forehead. “You have my word.”

“But what about me?”

“You’ll be taken good care of.”

“That’s what you tell all the girls.”

“Well, it’s true.” Greyson looked annoyed. “I have to go.”

“But, Greyson.” Patsy reached out to stop him and he pushed her away.

“Take care of this, Patsy.” He strode towards the door and I backed away fast so that he didn’t see me.

I ran quickly to the his office as I knew that that was the way out. My heart was beating so quickly that I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I reached the hallway where I had sat outside on that first day and stumbled and fell to the ground in tears. I could barely see where I was going. I jumped back up, dried my eyes, and took a deep breath. I had to get out of this place and I had to leave now.

I ran through the entrance to the gates and was just about to leave when I froze. I knew that he was behind me, even though he hadn’t said a word.

I turned around slowly and stared at him. He looked at me wordlessly and stayed still. He didn’t move towards me and I didn’t move towards him. We just stared at each other in silence. His face looked remote and closed off, and I knew he could tell that I’d been crying.

He finally spoke. “Were you going to leave without saying goodbye?”

“I didn’t think it was needed.” I shrugged and looked away.

“You were just in my arms a few minutes ago.” His eyes questioned me.

“You left me to go and send someone else away.” My voice broke and he frowned.

“What are you talking about?”

“I saw you with the girl and the baby.”

“Oh.” He ran his hands through his hair. “That’s my business, Meg.”

“I can’t believe you can stand there and say that so calmly!” I shouted, angry now. “As if it’s no big deal.” I walked towards him now. “You can’t just treat women like that. It’s not right.”

“I told you I’m not a good man.”

“I didn’t want to believe you.”

“You should have believed me.” He sighed and took a step towards me. “Brandon was always the weaker one.”

“So? What does that have to do with anything.”

“That’s why I told you and Katie that everything was my fault.”

“Huh?”

“In the club. Maria’s death. Everything. I take responsibility for it all.”

“It is your fault.” I paused. “Or are you saying it’s not really your fault?”

“I wanted Katie to believe it was all me.” His eyes drilled into mine. “I wanted to absolve Brandon in her eyes.”

“Are you saying it wasn’t all you? Is Brandon still involved with the trafficking?”

“What?” He frowned. “No, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Then explain it to me.”

“Will you come back inside?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Tell me now. Tell me here.”

“When we started the club, I was a spoiled, cocky rich boy. I wanted to own the world. I wanted to provide a club for the richest men in the world to enjoy. Part of that enjoyment came from women.”

“Prostitutes?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.” He sighed. “The lines are blurred. The women knew what they were getting into and none of them had to do anything they weren’t comfortable with.”

“I see.” I looked away as a heavy feeling filled me.

“The club grew quickly. All the richest men in New York wanted to join the club. Then we got businessmen from LA, London, China—all over the world.”

“I see.”

“Word spread that we had the most exclusive club in the world. But no one knew exactly what was going on. We had so many different rooms and so many different levels, and each level had access to something different.”

“So men paid to have sex with women.”

“Essentially, yes,” he sighed. “I’m not proud of myself or what the club became, Meg. Every day, I wish that I hadn’t started the club.”

“Sure.”

“The day that Maria died was the pinnacle of all my bad days. I’d been starting to regret what the club had become, but it was that day that I realized that it needed to end.”

“What happened to her?” I looked at him with worried eyes. I was scared that he was going to tell me something terrible.

“She shot herself in the head.” His eyes were wide with pain, and I took his hands into mine. “She called Brandon right before she did it. He walked into her room a few minutes after it happened.”

“Are you sure it was her?” I asked, unconvinced.