What did he do for a living? He had that rich-man’s swagger, so something lucrative. Probably a computer geek—someone who spent all day squinting at tiny pieces of code. Or maybe a stockbroker… but he didn’t look like a stockbroker. He was wearing a suit, but there was something in the set of his shoulders that looked less Wall Street and more back-alley Fight Club. A… CEO of… something?
She raised her eyes. He lifted his glass, gaze locked on hers. Juliette’s heart stopped, but then he tipped the cup—one more, please—and turned away. The breath rushed back into her lungs.
Look at me, she thought at him. Watch me. Remind me that I’m worth watching. But he remained stoic, staring straight ahead as if she weren’t even there.
She suppressed a sigh. What had she expected might happen? Absolutely nothing. This was all just a game she played with herself, a fantasy to sustain her.
The fantasy that he wanted her. That he came in here just to see her. That she wasn’t just useful but worth loving. And not being able to have him, the unrequited nature of it, the inherent danger… that was part of the fantasy too.
Her eyes burned, but she took a breath and blinked to clear her vision. Fantasy was all she had until she found a way out of this mess. But one day, she would. One day, her mother wouldn’t be in danger, and she could go back home. One day, she’d have proof that would put a sadist behind bars where he belonged—or under the ground, where he belonged more.
One day, she’d be doing something she loved instead of withering away in jobs like this one, her scar shivering against her chest as if to remind her of the things she’d left behind. The people she might never see again.
Daniel still had her mom under his thumb—had tricked her mother into signing over guardianship and power of attorney. Told the demented woman that Juliette didn’t love her, said she was a burden until Mom had begged him to take care of her instead. He’d put her in a nursing home in Ravenbrook. But she was alive, unscarred—Mom’s okay, she’s okay, she’s okay. For now, that had to be enough.
Abuse didn’t arrive all at once, a neat package full of red flags. It was a slow slide, one you barely noticed until you hit the bottom. Daniel had started by picking away at her self-esteem until he was the only one who made her feel worthy. Then he’d turned her mother, her colleagues, her only friend against her. By the time she’d recognized the abuse for what it was…
The scar on her chest prickled. Daniel had punished her severely for trying to leave. And though she worked in a strip club, though she was covered in ugly scars, she felt stronger now than she ever had with him. She was clawing her way out of the gutter he’d thrown her into—working on it, anyway. The fact that she spent half of her time staring at some handsome stranger, hoping he’d look her way, was proof she still had a long way to go.
The bottle clinked against the glass, loud enough to be heard over the music. Juliette winced. The last thing she needed was to get chewed out by her boss, but Waylon Pierce was not standing in his usual spot by the swinging door. Good. She hated the way the old man looked at her—like he was repulsed. Waylon even forced her to wear a shirt instead of the bikini tops the other girls wore.
Juliette set the bottle aside. It wasn’t that she wanted to bare her breasts to the masses, didn’t even want to dance, though she used to be good at it. It was that the masses didn’t want her to. She used to love being the prettiest girl in the room, and now, men winced when they registered the healed wound.
But… he didn’t wince. Those subtle glances made her remember what it was like to be pretty. Desired more than Desire herself, who was now writhing in the lap of a bearded man who looked like an out-of-work lumberjack.
The scar above her heart twitched again as she made her way around the bar, eyes on the floor. She’d never get used to walking in platform heels, and she couldn’t afford to pay for a lost whiskey, let alone a tumbler.
Another pair of platforms stepped in front of her own, toe-to-toe. Juliette looked up.
Brittany grinned, a bubble-gum chewing brunette with bright pink eyeshadow straight out of the nineties. Juliette forced a smile in return.
“Want me to take that?”
No, Juliette’s brain whispered. But she handed the glass over, and Brittany winked. “I’ll see if I can talk him into a dance while I’m at it.”
“He never gets dances.”
Brittany cocked an eyebrow. “A couple weeks ago, Shonda said she wanted to give him a free one—did you hear that he grabbed some douchebag’s hand when he tried to get fresh with her? He’s like… our unofficial bouncer.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Shonda had left after that night—hadn’t been back since. Girls left here all the time, but the fact that she hadn’t returned to get her share of the tips definitely felt wrong. Waylon took all of their cash at the end of the night, divvied it up once he took his cut. No girl who worked here could afford to forgo that money.
Brittany bit her lip, glanced over her shoulder, then back to Juliette. “He seems… nice.”
Uh-oh. Juliette knew that look. Sometimes new girls imagined a patron might sweep them off their feet. After they’d worked here a few months, they realized these men were all the same: assholes with something twisted up wrong in their DNA. Nice men didn’t come to strip clubs, and they certainly didn’t date those in the sex trade.
Then why did you get so angry when Desire was dancing for him? her brain whispered. Why do you wait patiently until he looks at you? Why do you sometimes imagine it’s him touching you when you go home to your shitty motel room?
For these questions, she had no answers other than that Brittany was right—he did seem nice.
Juliette glanced past Brittany’s shoulder at the man in the chair. Dark hair, vibrant blue eyes still aimed at the stage, a square, stubbled jaw. Muscular—thick through the chest. And so damn confident, the way he always swaggered in like he owned the place…
It wasn’t a good look on most men. He was the exception.
His eyes flicked to hers as if he’d heard her thoughts. Juliette’s heart ratcheted into her throat. How long had she been staring at him?
“Jenny?”
