Candy, who had indeed been flirting with Dexter, one hand fully plastered on his large chest, turned to glare at Lacey, angry embarrassment written across her face. Obviously she wasn’t keen on her potential prey knowing she had a baby.
Lacey didn’t bother to wait for her response before letting herself into her office, which, to Suro, looked like it belonged to an accountant on one side, with several files and paperwork strewn everywhere, and a daycare teacher on the other, with a play pen, colorful foam mats on the floor, and baskets of toys. She set the baby she called Spidey near one basket, then took Ben from Suro’s arms and set him down on the floor.
“Go for it,” she said to both of them.
Then she stood just in time to confront a furious Candy. “I can’t believe you blew up my spot like that!” the heavily weaved dancer screeched at her, but as quietly as possible so Dex wouldn’t hear her.
Lacey rolled her eyes. “Well, I can’t believe you left two babies alone in your apartment to talk with a man who’s only interested in other men, so we’re even.”
Candy’s face screwed up. “He’s gay? How do you know that?”
Lacey shook her head. “Candy, please go open the club doors. I’ll be up later with Spidey and Ben to re-explain to you the terms of the co-op babysitting agreement and we’ll have a discussion about whether you want to remain a member.”
Candy who’d been smiling so sweetly at Dex just a minute ago, suddenly morphed into a neck-rolling stereotype. “Don’t tell me how to raise my child!” She shot a pointed look at Suro who stood surveying the situation with a cool, assessing eye. “We under new ownership now. And he might not let you run us like old Tony did!”
Lacey looked like she was about two seconds from slapping the much taller woman. But instead she repeated, “Open up the club and return to your apartment. I will be there soon to talk to you.”
Candy opened her mouth to argue further, but her sense of job preservation must have won out, because she ended up just huffing out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
As soon as she was gone, Lacey’s fierce boss persona disappeared and she was once again the tired woman Suro had seen coming down the stairs.
“Seriously, what are you doing here?” she asked, as if he were no better than Candy and trying her patience.
What are you doing here?
He slammed into her, his lips taking possession of hers before her back had even hit the wall. But even with his body pressed flush against the soft lusciousness of hers, he wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, trying to bring her closer.
The office, the strip club, his plans—all fell away as he lost himself in her softness, which felt even better than he remembered. It had been three long months of explicit dreams and being forced to quell his ongoing desire for her with his own hand, and now he was burning out of control.
As was she, he soon realized. She not only kissed him back with just as much fervor, rubbing her lush body against his, but her hands were everywhere, in his hair, under his shirt, even on the calf of his left leg.
But then Suro realized she couldn’t possibly kiss him like this and get her hands to his calf at the same time. Also, whatever had been patting on his calf just moments before was now full on climbing it.
He abruptly broke off the passionate kiss and looked down to find the little black baby who had been on the other side of the room just a minute ago, crawling up his leg like a koala. And suddenly it became clear why his nickname was Spidey.
WHAT WAS HAPPENING? What was happening?
What was happening?
Lacey barely had a chance to process that Suro was here, standing in her office in the strip club where she worked, before he was kissing her, flash-bombing all her senses and making her forget her job, her situation, and the fact that her one-night stand had not only paid her daughter’s tuition, but had also just shown up out of the blue to purchase the strip club she worked at. While he was kissing her, none of that mattered. The only things that existed were her and Suro and the fevered kiss they were sharing.
But then Spidey brought them both back down to earth as he steadily inched his way up Suro’s leg. Just when she thought this situation couldn’t get any more surreal…
“I’m sorry,” she said. “He likes to climb.”
But before she could reach down to pick up the child, Suro did, settling the little boy at his waist and handing him his smartphone to play with before turning his attention back to Lacey.
“You should be sorry, Lacey.”
Lacey didn’t need ESP to figure out that he wasn’t talking about Spidey.
“I’m sorry about that, too,” she said. “But again, what are you doing here? You bought the club? And I’m assuming you’re the one who paid off Sparkle’s tuition.”
His face remained unreadable. “You met Dexter briefly at the picnic, and you’re aware we’re business partners, yes?”
“Yeah,” she answered, wondering what that had to do with anything.
“We met in college, remained in touch, and now we run a high-end security business together. Many people assume Dexter is the muscle and I’m the brains. However, you should know something going forward.”
He took a step closer, suddenly seeming much more sinister than she remembered, despite the baby in his arms. “Dexter is a computer genius who just so happens to be built like a brick wall. He meets with clients and secures contracts and sets up teams if needed. He’s the face of our business, but I’m the enforcer. Though he handled the transaction with your former boss, I’m the one who owns the club now,” his eyes became icy slits. “And I do not take kindly to insults.”
A thread of real fear twanged in her heart. “What does that mean?” she asked.
His face relaxed and he once again became the mostly impassive man who had picked her up at the bar. “It means I’m in charge now. And I’d like my tour.”
CHAPTER 7
“I’m in charge now.”
It had been two weeks since Suro had issued that ominous edict, and Lacey was still confused as all get out.
After he more or less threatened her with God knows what, she’d picked Ben up, and given Suro, Dexter, and Spidey a tour of the club, introducing them to their day shift dancers and bartenders, explaining the club’s hours, pointing them to the books, and then guiding them upstairs to the two floors of one-bedroom apartments they now also owned.
Dexter asked a few questions throughout the tour but Suro remained silent. Neither of them, she could see, were big talkers, but Suro made his partner seem like Chatty Cathy in comparison.
“Let me get this straight,” Dexter said at the end of the tour. “You manage the club from eleven in the morning to eight at night six days a week, you’re in charge of the books, you’re the superintendent of the apartment building, and you run this daycare—what did you call it?”
“The Single Mother Babysitting Co-op. And usually it’s not this bad.” She indicated Spidey, who was still in Suro’s arms, content and happy as if he hadn’t just met the man less than hour ago. “Most of the girls are very responsible and grateful for the free daycare.”
“She’s been letting this Tony take advantage of her,” Suro said to Dexter as if she hadn’t even spoken.
“Tony pays me really well for what I do,” she said. “I work a long shift because I need the hours, plus I get a free apartment for acting as superintendent, and because he okayed the babysitting co-op, we have much lower turn over than most strip clubs, which makes my job a lot easier. Tony’s one of the kindest men I’ve ever met, so don’t even try to throw dirt on him around me.”
Suro turned cool eyes toward her. “Or what?”
“Listen,” she said. “I’ve had a really long morning, and quite frankly, you’re beginning to get on my nerves. Don’t ‘or what’ me about Tony. He’s like my second father, and I don’t want you talking about him like that, okay?”
Dexter actually laughed. “Well, look at that,” he said to Suro. “She’s actually pretty loyal.”
“When she isn’t running,” Suro responded.
After that, she babysat both babies in her office while Dexter and Suro went off to talk about something in Tony’s office, which was now their office, and Dexter left the club shortly after.
Then…nothing.
She suspected Dexter had gone back to wherever he lived when he wasn’t helping his partner buy strip clubs, but Suro came to the club every morning around eleven and stayed until six. Sometimes she spotted him at the bar, silently observing the club’s activities with a glass of Yamazaki, a Japanese whiskey, in one hand.
Occasionally, she could feel his eyes on her, especially when she had to attend to some of the dirtier parts of her job, like having patrons thrown out for not obeying the rules when it came to where they could touch the strippers. But he only intervened once.
She’d been in the middle of explaining to a drunken patron that no, she wasn’t a stripper, and the slacks, sweater vest, and high-necked blouse she was wearing while doing her rounds wouldn’t be coming off for his entertainment, when the patron decided to take matters into his own hands.
“C’mon, don’t be a prude, baby,” he said, yanking at her sweater vest. “Show us your tits!”
“Let go of me!” One moment she was trying to tug her sweater down and at the same time, get to her walkie-talkie in order to call security. And the next, Suro was pulling the guy off of her.
Before she could finish pushing the talk button on her walkie-talkie, Suro slammed the guy’s face into a nearby pole with a graceful efficiency that almost made it seem incongruous when he pulled the man’s head back and revealed his now bloodied nose.
Without exchanging one word with Lacey, he took the guy by the back of his collar and all but dragged him screaming in pain out of the club. A few minutes later he was back in his regular spot, leaning against the bar as if he’d never moved in the first place.
Strangely enough, she still wasn’t getting a crazy stalker vibe off of him, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t fully creeped out. There was the mystery of how he’d tracked her down, why he’d bought the club, and most of all, what he wanted from her.
Half of her wanted to confront him and demand answers, even though she knew it was unsafe to invite any more of his attention than she already had. The other half was screaming, “Run! Run!”
But she couldn’t run. Not yet. It was easy enough to slip out of a hotel room, but if she wanted to run, that would mean money. A lot of it. She’d not only have to get Sparkle and her a brand new set of IDs, complete with back story, but she’d also have to send Sparkle back to public school, and have enough money leftover to keep them in room and board until she could find another accounting job that would let her work under the table. Even the money she’d saved up for Sparkle’s tuition wouldn’t be enough. No, she’d need at least thirty thousand to comfortably relocate, and she’d need at least until Christmas to save up that much money.
The Sunday after Suro unexpectedly beat up the handsy patron, she took a substantial amount of money out of the security box Tony gave her for Christmas a few years ago. “Just in case we ever get raided by the Feds. You and Sparkle can run and know your valuables are safe. I’ve also got a key, so if I need to get you a message, that’s how we can do it without you having to figure out how to call me on a line the Feds could trace.”
It had been one of the most thoughtful gifts she’d ever received and had caused Lacey more than a little guilt. As far as Tony knew, she’d come to this country illegally when she was a child and though she’d lost her accent, she still hadn’t managed to gain citizenship.
If they got raided, it was true she’d have to run and leave everything but Sparkle behind, but not for the reason Tony thought. The truth was, she couldn’t risk getting detained for using a dead woman’s identity. Detainment meant her picture would be put through the system as they tried to figure out who she really was. And though it’d been ten years since she fled the East Coast, she knew Sparkle’s grandfather would never stop looking for her, not until she was dead.
That night she took Tony up on his dinner invitation and asked him to work on getting her the documentation she needed.
He gave her a worried look. “What’s going on, kid? Why you so scared? From what I hear, the new guy’s keeping everything the same.”
“He is,” she assured him. “He lets me and the night manager run things, and so far there haven’t been any problems. I just like to have a back up plan, you know?”
“Awful expensive this back up plan of yours. And you say the new owner ain’t got nothing to do with it?”
The problem with Tony being like a father to her was he could read her like she was his daughter. “Truthfully, I’ve been thinking I should have an extra set of docs on hand for a while now. You leaving and the new guy coming in was a good reminder of that.”
This explanation only made Tony’s forehead scrunch up more. “I’m assuming you still don’t want to tell me why you need to work under the table in the first place.”
She shifted in her chair. “I told you…”
“Yeah, you told me you had immigration issues, but you’re a bad liar. You’ve been working for me for years and you’ve put together a babysitting co-op, figured out basic plumbing, and cooked my books so well, I’ve never even been audited. But from what I can see, you still haven’t even begun to apply for citizenship. You’re more concerned about laying low than setting yourself up legitimately in this country.”
She folded her arms and turned away from him. “Trust me, Tony, it’s better if you don’t know.”
Tony sighed. She knew he worried about her, but at the end of the day, he wasn’t really her father and getting fake IDs was one of the things Tony knew how to do. “Okay, kid, I’ll get you what you need, but like I said, your back up plan’s going to cost a pretty penny.”
So after paying Tony for the new IDs and back stories, she decided to stay on until Christmas, even if having Suro this close was driving her crazy, physically and emotionally. Her mind was telling her to stay away, but her body was having a hard time forgetting the one night they had shared, the way his hands had felt on her skin, the way he’d made her come as if her pleasure were his personal mission in life.