Velvet Passions: 1. The Velvet Room

Rose’s heels clicked nervously against the black marble, every step echoing louder than she wanted. The underground hall smelled faintly of sandalwood, smoke, and something sweeter she couldn’t place. She smoothed her trembling hands down the curve of her red dress—the dress they had chosen for her. Too tight, too short, cut to leave her bare beneath.

It wasn’t a place you found on advertisements. The Velvet Room didn’t need them. It lived in whispers. A secret club beneath a luxury hotel, hidden behind a door guarded by men in black suits and accessed only with a password that changed every night.

“You don’t audition here,” the red-lipped manager had said earlier, studying her pale skin, her nervous eyes, her shaking hands. “You survive here.”

Rose hadn’t known whether to shiver or nod. But she hadn’t argued. Rent was overdue. Her scholarship was gone. And no one else wanted to hire a girl who had too much desperation shining in her eyes.

So she’d let them s