The Decadent Gift (The Gift #3) - Lauren Blakely Page 0,1

were what I needed most in my life.

Not fantasies. Not mine, and not anyone else’s.

I shucked off those distractions as I stepped out of the store and into the wide hallway.

“Hi, boss lady,” I said into the phone, keeping it as upbeat as she liked.

Trish laughed, a familiar throaty sound. “Haven’t I told you that Queen of the Night will do? That’s all I require.”

It was an apt title, given some of our more risqué clients. “Queen of the Night you are, and I am but your humble servant.”

I could sense the eye roll from across the city. “Please, you’re my right-hand gal, Kate. I can’t do this without you.” Trish’s assurances were genuine, her tone as kind as she was. Despite the you’re-on-call treatment, the woman was warm and caring.

“Which is why I’m calling,” she went on. “I’m on my way to an appointment, but we just landed a new client, and I want you to take the lead. I’ll give you the details tomorrow. It will be amazing, but we need to move quickly for them. They’re rolling out new products right away.”

My ears perked. Everything perked. Trish had been hinting at some new work for her marketing firm, where I was a vice president. New work for us meant potential bonus money for me. And I needed every extra shade of green. Badly. “This is the client you’ve been angling for?”

“Yes indeed. It’s a woman-centric company. The messaging needs to be spot-on for females who love this city. I need you to be my woman on the ground. You know Vegas, you know young women, and you know what makes them tick. Be thinking about girls’ night out marketing.”

Ah, so girls’ nights out—that was what the client did. Perhaps arranged them? Organized bachelorette parties? “What kind of girls’ night out?”

“The extra fun kind,” she said, teasing. “I’ll tell you more in the morning. Must go. My driver is here.”

Before she hung up, I heard her purr, “Hello, Daniel.”

Intrigued, I filed that—hello, Daniel—away. Was she having a fling with her driver?

But now wasn’t the time to linger on my boss’s preferences—there was never a time to do that—so I turned my mind to the scant breadcrumb trail of information she’d tossed out.

Be thinking about girls’ night out marketing.

That was a little broad, and secretive too. But then, so was my job, marketing the after-hours world I inhabited here in Sin City. Most of our clients preferred we operated under the radar, marketing them in subtle, nuanced ways.

I rounded the bend, heading for the restaurant.

A dinner out with my best friends could only help prepare me for this secretive meeting tomorrow to talk about girls’ night marketing.

The extra fun kind.

2

Kate

Through the edamame appetizer, miso soup, and seaweed salad, I pondered this city.

What it offered in nights out.

Vegas was a pleasure palace, and you could have any extravagance you desired for the right amount of money. Everything had a price tag.

It was the kind of city where you could buy, barter, win, or lose anything.

Bets were only the beginning.

You could arrange for nights out, nights in, nights with men, nights with women, and nights with a mix. Like in a cupcake box, you could pick your flavor, make your sampler, and take it home.

Devour it.

Vegas was a hamlet for freedom of the nighttime variety. The city encouraged exploration of your fantasies because Vegas let you shed your inhibitions after dark.

In a city where anything went, nothing stayed forbidden. It was a city of why not.

That was what I would lean on tomorrow during the meeting.

Those notions.

Tonight, though, was for research.

As Lily, Nina, and I moved on to our rainbow rolls, my gaze drifted to a clutch of women in full bachelorette-party garb sauntering toward the sushi joint’s bar.

The bride wore a tiara and a white sash with THE ALMOST MRS. written in black Sharpie across it, while the bridesmaids hyped themselves as THE BRIDE SQUAD. They made a beeline for the bartender, squealing their orders—one cosmo, one lemon drop, a margarita, and a vodka tonic. The woman I pegged as the maid of honor ordered a round of tequila shots.

Perhaps I could learn something useful as prep for Trish’s last-minute assignment. What made a great girls’ night out?

Sometimes you focused on finding sex, and sometimes you celebrated friendships—different strokes for different women folk.

Time to go fishing and see what I might catch.

I leaned in closer to my friends, dropping my voice. “Let’s play a game,” I suggested. “It’ll help me