Four Seconds to Lose

  And I had to convince Delyla to go back to counseling just last week because she started cutting again. And two weeks before that, we were rushing Marisa to the hospital with complications after the back-street abortion that her asshole boyfriend convinced her to undergo. She hasn’t even made it back to work yet. And the week before that—

  A knock on my door only seconds later makes my temper flare unexpectedly. “What!”

  Ginger’s face pokes in.

  Taking a deep breath, I gesture her in with a “sorry,” silently chastising myself for barking at her.

  “Hey, Cain, my friend is coming in to meet you tonight,” she reminds me in that low, husky voice suitable for phone sex companies. The customers here love it. They love everything else about her, too, including those naturally large breasts and that sharp-witted tongue. “Remember? The one I mentioned earlier this week.”

  I groan. I completely forgot. Ginger sprung it on me last Friday as I was refereeing an argument between Kinsley and China in the hallway. I never did agree to meet with this person but I didn’t say no. Ginger is clearly taking advantage of that. “Right. And she wants a job as what again? A dancer?”

  Ginger’s head bobs up and down, her wild short hair—colored in chunks of platinum blond, honey, and pink—in styled disarray. “I think you’ll like her, Cain. She’s different.”

  “Different, how?”

  Ginger’s hot pink lips twist. “Hard to explain. You’ll see when you meet her. You’ll like her.”

  My hand finds its way to the back of my neck, trying to rub the permanent tension out. It won’t work. Weekly trips to a massage therapist do nothing for the kind of knots this place creates. “It’s not about liking her, Ginger. It’s about being overstaffed. I don’t need any more dancers or bartenders right now.” Given ­Penny’s reputation, this place has basically become the crème de la crème of adult entertainment clubs. I don’t take walk-ins or random applications. Employment is by referral only and turnover is low. Aside from Kinsley, I haven’t hired anyone new in almost a year. Too many dancers means catfights over money.

  “I know, Cain, but . . . I think you’re really going to like her.” Ginger has been bartending for me for years, longer than anyone else. I trust her opinion of people. The three others she recommended turned out to be outstanding employees who are now on healthy life paths, leading far away from the sex trade business. Hell, she’s the one who introduced me to Storm—my shining success story!

  After a long pause, I ask, “And her preferences? Is she . . .? Not that it matters, of course.”

  Teal-green cat eyes sparkle as she smiles at me. “I’m pretty sure she’s into dudes. Haven’t seen the proof yet, but that’s what my vibe tells me. Unfortunate for me.” I’ve come to truly appreciate Ginger’s sexual orientation. There’s never been that awkward moment with her, where she’s decided that I would welcome her hand on my cock. She’s one of the very few female employees I can say that about. It’s one of the reasons why I get along with her so well.

  “Her name?”

  “Charlie.”

  “Real or stage?”

  She shrugs. “Real, I think. ‘Charlie’ is the only name she’s ever given me.”

  I pause to take another sip of my drink. “You vetted her?” Ginger knows the requirements. No track marks. No pimps. No prostitution. I have zero tolerance for drugs and prostitution. I’d get shut down in a heartbeat if the cops caught on, and too many people rely on Penny’s to let that happen. Plus, there’s no need for it here. I make sure the girls can rake in the money safely, without selling the last shreds of their dignity.

  Her curt nod answers me.

  “Experience?”

  “Vegas. She had a couple of interviews here, including one at Sin City.” Ginger’s brow arches meaningfully. “You know what Rick makes them do.”

  I lean back in my chair. Yeah, I’ve heard what Rick’s requirements are for getting and keeping a job in his club. The fact that the guy’s a fat, sweaty tub of hair doesn’t help. “She didn’t comply?”

  Ginger giggles. “She barely made it out of there without puking, from what she told me.”

  I nod slowly. That definitely earns her a few points with me. I want to help out every woman who feels she needs to take her clothes off to survive but I’m only one man, and not every woman is strong enough to avoid the pitfalls of this industry.

  I’ve seen too many of them fall fast.

  And trying to catch them over and over again is so very exhausting.

  Taking in Ginger’s exotically beautiful face, I finally ask the big question. “What’s her deal, Ginger? Why strip?” With a finger, I slowly trace the rim of my glass. There’s usually a good reason. Or a bad reason, depending on how you look at it. As far as ratios of completely normal to fucked-up employees go, the numbers generally weigh in heavy for the latter. “High school dropout with no future? History of abuse? Douchebag boyfriend wanting extra cash? Daddy issues? Or is she just looking for attention?”

  Ginger’s head tilts as she murmurs in a dry tone, “Jaded much?”

  I throw my hands up in the air. “You’re the exception, Ginger. You know that.” Since the day Ginger walked into my office—on her eighteenth birthday—I’ve never had to worry about her. She comes from a stable, abuse-free home and she has never even batted an eye at the stage. Her purpose is straightforward and honest: save enough money to open an inn in Napa Valley. With the kind of money she rakes in here, I’d say she’s getting close to that dream.

  After a pause, she shrugs. “All I know is she wants to make good money. But she seems to have her head on straight, since she didn’t take the other jobs.”

  Because she probably figured out she’d be sucking cock in the private room . . . With a deep exhale and my hand pressed against my forehead, rubbing the frown smooth, I mutter, “All right. We’ll see.” Am I really going to do this right now? What if she’s another Cherry? Or Marisa? Or China? Or Shaylen? Or—

  “Great. Thanks, Cain.” She pauses, her curvy frame—dressed in cut-off shorts and a tank top for setting up the bar—leaning against the door frame. “You okay? You seem worn out lately.”

  Worn out. That’s a good way to describe it. Worn out by week after week, month after month of brazen customers, everyday ownership issues, and employees who can’t seem to straighten out their lives without someone running interference. Throw in police attention—because they assume, based on my past and my current business, that I’m following in the footsteps of my ­parents—and you’ve summarized my life for the past decade.

  It’s enough to make any rational person quit.

  And I have considered quitting. I’ve considered selling Penny’s and walking away. And then I look at my employees’ faces—the ones who I know will end up at a place like Sin City without me—and the metal teeth of the trap around my chest dig in tighter.

  I can’t abandon them. Not yet. If I could just get this lot out and safe, without adding any more problems to my plate, I could live out my life somewhere quietly. A remote beach in Fiji is sounding pretty damn good.

  None of those thoughts ever gets spoken out loud, though. “Just haven’t been sleeping well,” I say to Ginger, pulling on the fake smile that I’ve mastered. It’s beginning to feel like a suffocating iron mask.

  By the way Ginger’s brow pulls together, I know she doesn’t believe me. “Okay, well, you know you always have my ears if you want ’em,” she offers, grinning playfully as she rolls her hips and winks. “And nothing else.”

  Her soft laughter follows her out the door, temporarily lifting my dour mood as I set to preparing payroll for the small army of dancers, security, kitchen, and wait staff I have under my employ. Serge—a forty-eight-year-old retired Italian opera singer—­manages my kitchen as if it were his own, but I handle everything else.

  Unfortunately, the d
our mood returns with a vengeance twenty minutes later when Nate’s call comes through. “His blue Dodge is here.”

  My fist slams down against the desk, rattling everything. “You’re kidding me, right?” I take a moment to gain control of the rage bubbling inside me. Nate doesn’t bother to answer. The two of us have always had an easy back-and-forth banter, but he knows what not to joke with me about. Fuckheads taking advantage of women is one of those things.

  “You want me to go in?” Nate offers.

  “No, wait outside. If he’s back, he’s probably carrying.” As stupid as this guy is, he must have learned after the last time. “I’m on my way. Don’t go inside, Nate.” I throw that last warning in with a stern voice. I couldn’t bear to lose Nate over this. I shouldn’t even have let him get involved. I should have made him go to college and lead a normal life. But I didn’t, because he’s all I have and I like having him around.

  I’m out of my seat and crouched in the corner in seconds, dialing the safe combination. My fingers wrap tightly around the biting steel of my Glock. I despise myself for touching it. It represents violence, illegality . . . the life and the choices that I’ve left behind, that I would never let consume me again. But if it means keeping Nate and Cherry and her eight-year-old son—the one who dialed my number on Cherry’s cell phone for help when he found his mother unconscious on the couch the last time—safe, then I will jam the barrel right into the scumbag’s temple.

  I’m about to slip on the holster when the door creaks open. “Cain?”

  I need to start locking my damn office door again, I tell myself. Stifling a curse, I slide the gun back into the safe and stand, struggling to keep the venom from my voice as I growl, “Ginger, you really need to learn—” How to knock is how that sentence is supposed to end.

  But instead it ends in a sharp hiss, as I find myself staring at my past.

  At Penny.

  chapter two

  ■ ■ ■

  CHARLIE

  Plan A—Turn myself in and beg for immunity in exchange for information.

  I don’t have enough concrete information to nail him. I’ll probably end up in jail for the next twenty-five years. If I even make it there, alive.

  Plan A – Turn myself in and beg for immunity in exchange for information.

  Plan B—Lose all my identification and fake amnesia so the government will be forced to create new documentation for me . . . eventually.

  What if they put my picture up on the news? He’ll find me. Plus, I could end up locked in a psych ward for an indefinite length of time. And I don’t know that my acting abilities are quite that convincing.

  Plan B—Lose all my identification and fake amnesia so the government will be forced to create new documentation for me . . . eventually.

  Plan C—Buy a new identity and make Charlie Rourke disappear.

  He’s just standing there, boring holes into my face.

  Given that I’ve never laid eyes on him before, I don’t know what his normal complexion looks like, but I’ll bet it’s not the sickly white pallor that I see now.

  As if he’s seen a ghost.

  I try to catch Ginger’s eye, to see if she thinks his reaction is strange, but I can’t.

  “Sorry. I knocked but you didn’t answer,” she offers in apology. It’s true, she did knock, and we waited for close to a minute before entering. I don’t know what he was doing in his office—behind the closed door with a sign that reads “boss man” and pair of lacy underwear pinned to it—but, by the stunned expression on his face, we’ve interrupted something. A glance down confirms that his belt is at least buckled.

  “This is my friend, Charlie, who I told you about.” Ginger’s long, slender fingers point to me and I force a bright smile. “Friend” sounds a bit misleading, seeing as everything I’ve ever told Ginger about me is a deliberate lie.

  I met her only three weeks ago. Her beginner pole-dancing class was just finishing up and she stayed on to watch the advanced class. I guess I impressed her, because she sat through the entire hour and then talked my ear off in the change room afterward about how good I am. I took her proffered number with no intentions to call. The next week, Ginger cornered me after class and wouldn’t leave until I went out to lunch with her. Last week, she coerced me into shopping. There’s nothing wrong with her. She’s twenty-six, but she doesn’t act like it most of the time. She has an easy, genuine laugh and a sarcastic sense of humor. She’s persistent, too. I just didn’t plan on getting to know people, seeing as I won’t be in Miami long. But I guess you could say that we’ve become friends—lies and all.

  It’s ironic that we met when we did, actually. By my pole-dancing skills and looks, Ginger automatically assumed I was a stripper. There was no judgment in those bright green eyes when she asked which club I worked at. That’s why I admitted to the few unappealing adult clubs I had applied to and the appalling “interview” at one called Sin City. The one I had run out of. Her pixie-like face lit up, which was not the reaction I was expecting. Then she explained that she bartended at the best club in Miami and offered to get me a job. She asked about my experience and I, of course, lied. I told her that I had worked in Vegas.

  I left Vegas when I was six. I have certainly never stripped there.

  After my experience with Sin City, I wasn’t sure if I could go through with it. But when I saw the unusually elegant sign out front—void of any big-breasted caricatures or flashing lights, just the name, Penny’s Palace—I knew instantly that this was the place for me. And Ginger promised me that the owner, Cain, is like none other. The way she talks about him, I’d think he holds some sort of “boss of the millennium” award.

  But he’s still staring me down.

  He hasn’t blinked once.

  I catch the almost indiscernible shake of his head before he offers in a clipped tone, “Charlie. Right. Hi.”

  “Hi.” I was cool and confident coming in here, leveraging countless hours of acting classes to ready my wide, friendly smile. Now, though, under this man’s steely gaze, I hear the wobble with that one tiny word. I step forward and hold my hand out.

  His coffee-colored eyes finally pry themselves from my face to glare down at my hand—without moving—and I fight the urge to retract it. Ginger swore that this guy was first class, but he still makes his money off the sex trade. A lot of things get shaken under this roof and hands are probably not one of them. I never did shake the hand of that slimeball at Sin City—Rick—before he instructed me to climb onto his lap two minutes into my interview. I shouldn’t be surprised by this guy’s reaction.

  These owners are all the same.

  I take a deep breath, reminding myself that I’ve handled my fair share of degenerates and can do this.

  Hell, I’m a degenerate.

  As if snapping out of a daze, Cain finally accepts my hand in his, his eyes locked on mine. “Hi, Charlie. I’m sorry. You just . . . startled me. You look a lot like someone I know.” There’s a pause. “Like someone I knew,” he corrects himself softly. His voice carries with it a smooth, educated sound, which surprises me, given our surroundings.

  “Okay, well, I’ll just be at the bar, getting things set up.” Ginger scoots out of the office, closing the door behind her, leaving me alone with this man. I take a few calming breaths. I’m going to throttle her.

  I don’t know what to expect now. Ginger didn’t tell me much about Cain, other than that he’s really nice and honest, he treats his employees very well, and if I’m going to dance in Miami, then Penny’s is the place to work. She did say that he sometimes comes off as intimidating but he’s just reserved. And he’s got a lot on his plate, running this club.

  She certainly left out details about his physical appearance, I realize, as my gaze skates over his frame to see the well-defined curves beneath a fitted button-down black dress shirt and black dress pants. As i
f that body isn’t enough, his face is flawless—angular cheekbones and a sharp jaw combine to give him a masculine yet almost pretty look. He’s like a sculpture—and about as opposite to Sin City Rick as you can get.

  Basically, Cain is panty-dropping hot.

  That your boss is panty-dropping hot is an odd thing to leave out of the equation. Cain’s the type of guy that makes women lose their words and their train of thought when he walks by. Except Ginger, it would seem.

  But attractive or not, I’m feeling all kinds of uncomfortable right now, as Cain’s hard, intelligent gaze slowly rolls over my body, appraising me. Taking a deep breath, I pull my shoulders back. I hold my chin up. I look him straight in the eye. I do all the things I know to do to appear confident. I will not cower under the intense scrutiny. If I’m going to be up on his stage, taking my clothes off for his customers, I can’t be unnerved by this.

  And so I stand and let him pass silent judgment while I survey his office, taking in all the shelves, crammed with boxes. Aside from the large desk on one end and a black leather couch tucked into a corner, it seems like a storage room. By his appearance, I’d expect something sleek and tidy.

  “Ginger said you have experience?” His tone is gentler than it was when we first stepped in.

  I answer without hesitation. “Yes, one year in Vegas. At The Playhouse.” I fight the urge to start twirling one of my loose blond curls. I know my tells, and that’s one that says I’m lying. Ginger warned me, under no circumstances, to lie to Cain Ford, because he always finds out anyway and it pisses him off when he does. It’s kind of impossible to heed that warning, though, given my situation.

  Plus, I am a very proficient liar.

  And I’m banking on him not doing an in-depth reference check. Short of divine intervention, he won’t find a Charlie Rourke that worked at The Playhouse in Vegas.

  Because Charlie Rourke doesn’t exist.