The Dare Collection January 2020. Lauren Hawkeye

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       CHAPTER ONE

      Thea

      I ALWAYS KNEW that breaking into the skyscraper apartment of Damian Blackwood, one of richest men in Hong Kong, would be a risky move. But he had something I wanted, so I had no choice.

      His security was insane, though, and the only time I’d been able to get into his apartment unnoticed was during one of his infamous parties, when he himself would be distracted and there would be too many guests wandering around for security staff to discover that there was at least one person in attendance who shouldn’t be there.

      Privately, I was pleased with myself that I’d even managed it, since the parties were notoriously difficult to get into, even impossible, for those not in the know. Blackwood liked to keep his parties very, very private and very, very exclusive.

      I was not exclusive. I was an unremarkable woman of indeterminate parentage, ordinary in every way. I was someone you wouldn’t look at twice, which was what made me so good at what I did. You couldn’t be a good thief if you were memorable. Or, at least, you didn’t last long if you were.

      Still, a lack of invitation hadn’t stopped me from going where I wanted before, and it didn’t stop me now. I’d managed to get hold of an ID and uniform for the catering company dealing with the event, and had distracted security from looking too closely at their staff lists by undoing an extra button on said uniform and bending to grab the pen I’d ‘accidentally’ dropped.

      It had worked like a charm. Mr Chen had always told me to use whatever I could to my advantage when it came to jobs, so I did. Being a woman was sometimes a pain, but it came in handy every so often.

      Especially because men were idiots.

      Now I stood on the huge rooftop terrace of Blackwood’s Central District apartment, trying to balance a tray of glasses and bottles of Cristal in my sweaty palms.

      Music drifted in the air, a hard, driving beat, while beautiful and very famous people dressed in high-end couture talked, danced, drank and laughed. Through the heaving crowd partying on the terrace, wait staff like myself moved, dressed in black, distributing eye-wateringly expensive drinks and tiny, exquisite canapés that would satisfy exactly no one’s appetite.

      Over by the deep blue of the infinity pool came a splash as some idiot pushed another idiot in, followed by screams of laugher and shrieks. A third idiot—some famous actress in a white cocktail frock, probably worth more than my tiny Mongkok apartment—jumped in too. Then, after a lot of splashing, she held a ball of white fabric overhead to much cheering.

      Clearly we’d reached the naked part of the evening.

      I’d spent quite a bit of time researching Blackwood’s parties beforehand and apparently anything went. Nakedness. Public sex. Blatant social climbing. Line dancing. It was all out there for anyone to see and join in.

      Rich people... They were a whole thing.

      Mr Chen, my mentor, had once told me to expect anything when dealing with the very wealthy; that the old saying about absolute power corrupting absolutely was true and that it applied СКАЧАТЬ