"Rose." He says my stage name like he's tasting it. "Or should I say... Claire?"
My heart stops. Actually fucking stops. Then restarts with a painful lurch that makes me grip the edge of the sink.
I turn slowly, makeup wipe still clutched in my hand. "You're not supposed to be in here."
He leans against the doorframe, all designer jeans and smug entitlement. "Funny running into you. Didn't expect to see someone from Advanced Biochem grinding on a pole."
And then it hits me all at once. He’s Theo Mason, from my class.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
The fluorescent lights suddenly seem too bright. Exposing. I'm half-dressed, vulnerable in a way that has nothing to do with skin and everything to do with worlds colliding that were never supposed to meet.
"Get out," I say, but my voice betrays me. Trembles when it should be commanding.
"Don't be like that." He steps closer. His cologne is too strong, something expensive trying to mask the whiskey on his breath. "Your secret's safe with me."
Lies. Those words are always lies.
"What do you want?" I already know. Men like Theo only want one thing when they have leverage.
His smile stretches, slow and predatory. "Just some private time. The kind you give all those other guys." His eyes travel down my body, lingering on the sports bra, the tiny panties I haven't had time to change out of. "Unless you want everyone at school to know how you pay your tuition."
There it is. The threat. The knife against my future.
"That's not happening." I reach for my bag, for my phone. Security will come if I call. Richard Blackwood doesn't tolerate customers harassing his dancers. It's bad for business.
Theo moves faster than I expect, his hand closing around my wrist. Not hard enough to bruise. Just hard enough to stop me.
"Think about it, Claire. Med school applications coming up. What would the admissions committee say?" His thumb strokes my pulse point, a parody of tenderness. "All those ethics questions they ask. All that judgment."
My future flashes before me. The rejection letters. The whispers. The doors closing before I ever get a chance to walk through them.
I could kick him. Six-inch platforms aimed at his groin. I could scream. The other girls would come running.
But then everyone would know. Word would spread. The careful wall between my worlds would crumble.
"Let go of me." My voice is ice now. The cold fury that lives beneath my skin when I'm cornered.
"Just one night." His grip tightens slightly. "That's all I'm asking. You do it for strangers all the time."
"Problem here?"
The new voice slices through the tension like a blade. Deep. Authoritative. Belonging to the man now filling the doorway behind Theo.
Ian Harris. Head of security. Six-foot-something of controlled menace in a black button-down and slacks. His face is a study in restrained anger—jaw tight, eyes narrowed, body coiled like he's calculating exactly how much force it would take to remove Theo from the premises. From existence.
Theo's hand drops from my wrist like I've suddenly caught fire.
"Just talking to an old friend," he says, voice light but eyes darting toward the exit.
Ian doesn't move from the doorway. "Locker room's off limits to customers." Not a request. A statement of fact. The kind backed by consequences.
"We were just finishing up," Theo says, edging toward the door. He glances back at me, a promise in his eyes that makes my stomach turn. "See you in class, Claire."
The name hangs in the air between us. A bomb detonated in slow motion.
Ian's expression doesn't change, but something shifts in his eyes. Recognition and understanding.
