The Private Club 3 by J. S. Cooper, Helen Cooper Page B

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.
    “Yes.” He nodded. “She left a note and the police verified that the gunshot was self-inflicted.”
    “Oh my God.” My eyes widened. “Why did she kill herself?”
    “She thought she was in love with Brandon. He rejected her. She got high on drugs, saw him with another girl, and I guess that was it.”
    “That’s awful.” I stared up at him. “Absolutely awful.”
    “I told Brandon not to mess with the girls, but he never knew how dangerous it could be. Neither of us really knew how damaged most of the girls who worked at the club were. We had a lot of drug addicts, former prostitutes, runaways, abused girls.”
    “That’s horrible.”
    “Yes.” He nodded sadly. “It broke us both when she killed herself. Brandon left the club right away. He blamed himself for what happened. He didn’t want anything to do with me or the club.”
    “He couldn’t have known she would kill herself.” I sighed. “That’s horrible. Why did he tell Katie she was his college girlfriend though?” I frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”
    “You’d have to ask him.” He shrugged. “I don’t know much about his life after he left, aside from an incident he had with Denise and a couple other girls we fired a few years later.”
    “Denise?” I looked at him blankly.
    “She was a girl who worked at the club.” He sighed. “But it doesn’t matter. That’s not my story to tell.”
    “So what happened after Maria killed herself?”
    “I closed the club immediately. We refunded all the yearly dues, and I tried to think what I could do to make amends.”
    “What happened to the girls?”
    “They freaked out. They made good money at the club, even though they hated it. Brandon and I pooled together and gave each woman who went to rehab a million dollars upon successful completion.”
    “Wow . That’s a lot of money.”
    “We made a lot of money.” He shrugged. “Neither Brandon nor I have ever experienced a life without a lot of money.”
    “That must be nice.”
    “Not really. You don’t notice or appreciate it when you’re born with it.” His eyes looked away from me. “So do you hate me yet?”
    “No.” I shook my head. “I don’t hate you.”
    “I