Chapter 1
Looking in the mirror, I tug on the tight, red mini dress that I’m wearing. It’s hugging my hips like a glove, and my breasts are practically spilling out. The only good thing is that the color goes wonderfully with my raven-colored hair and green eyes.
“I look like a slut,” I complain to Macy.
She comes to stand behind me, perusing my appearance. “Exactly! That’s just what I was going for.”
Turning to her with pleading eyes, I say, “I can’t go through with this. I was drunk when I agreed to it.”
Macy’s blue eyes alight with mischief as she takes me by the shoulders, turning me back around to the mirror. She looks at me in the reflection. “You agreed all the same, McKayla, and you only have five minutes left before you have to leave to meet your date. Now, go put on that sexy red lipstick to match your dress.”
Date.
Funny word for what this is.
Two weeks ago, in a moment of drunken despair over losing my boyfriend of three years, Macy talked me into trying this exclusive and discreet service that she was a member of. It was called One Night Only, and it catered to the rich and sexually depraved of New York’s finest. Macy had been a proud member for the past two years and swore by it.
But then again, Macy is... well, Macy. She is my dearest friend in the world, my roommate for the past six years, and perhaps the weirdest, most ostentatious, and most deviant socialite that New York has ever seen. She graduated from Columbia with me, earning a political science degree that she had no intention of ever using. While I went on to schlep my way through Columbia’s law school program over the next three years, Macy was on the hunt for the future Mr. Macy Carrington.
That’s right… she expects her husband to take her name and refer to himself that way. Her qualifications are clear. He has to be equally as rich as her, wouldn’t mind her taking the occasional lover, and would need to treat her like the queen she believes herself to be.
Until that time, she is happy spending her nights partying and getting her rocks off—her words, not mine—through One Night Only.
Back to that.
It’s a service that is highly secretive, but in major demand. It caters to those people that are looking for one-night stands with a partner who is matched to their specifications and guaranteed disease free. Macy pays an exorbitant amount of her inheritance each month for club benefits, which usually means she’s going on a different “date” at least four times a week.
That puts her square in the category of skankerific, but I still love her more than I love the air I breathe. Macy and I have been together through thick and thin, ups and downs, love and betrayal. She’s stood by me when no one else would, and I give her the love and acceptance she’s never had from her emotionally cold, but uber wealthy parents.
Macy has her quirks—her deviant behavior, for one—but there has never been a more loyal person to me in the world. Besides that, she’s let me live in her Manhattan penthouse apartment dirt cheap for the last six years because I was a poor and impoverished undergrad, and now I’m a poor and impoverished attorney. I graduated from law school a year ago with a crappy job that keeps me busy eighty hours a week and a $120,000 in law school loans that will take me until I am seventy to pay off.
Taking the lipstick from my makeup drawer, I coat my lips with the Hooker Red stain and brush some gloss over them. Even though I’m having major second thoughts about what I’m getting ready to do, there’s also a part of me—deep down—that is thrilled to be doing something so far out of my comfort zone…
Having a one-night stand.
I wouldn’t be in this position had my boyfriend, Pete—aka the Douche—not ripped my heart out six months ago. Over what was, I thought, a romantic dinner that would result in a marriage proposal, he ended up telling me that he wanted to break up. Something about wanting to travel the world as a wildlife photographer and not wanting to be pinned down. I thought that was weird… seeing as how I don’t even think he owned a camera.
So I said goodbye to the Douche, immersed myself in misery and work, and yes, in a night of complete drunkenness, agreed to Macy’s idea that I join One Night Only… at her expense, of course.
By the time I woke up the next morning, with a raging headache and puke in my throat, Macy had me signed up. A simple physical and blood test later, and I was a full-fledged member.
Now I have a date with Number 134—a tall, gorgeous hunk of a man that is supposedly going to put my battery-operated boyfriend to shame tonight. I made sure my application said I was only interested in vanilla sex, and I apparently was matched to someone with the same tastes.
Smacking my lips together, I turn to Macy once more for her final assessment. She gives me the critical eye, running her eyes over me slowly while she taps her finger to her chin. “You are definitely one-hundred percent, perfectly fuckable.”
Rolling my eyes at her, I pick up my clutch purse and double check my contents. Credit card, iPhone, lip gloss, and Mace.
All a girl could ever wish for on a date.
Date.
Funny word.
