Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 68249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
And wouldn’t in the foreseeable future.
I’d raised my white flag.
Ron patted me once on the arm. “I’ve got to go. I’ve got a shift at the Bahamas in a half hour, and I’ve got to pick up Nessy from the sitter after that.”
“All right,” I said.
Veronica gave me one last conciliatory pat then backed off. She walked down the road, her handbag clutched to her side.
“Ron!” I yelled after her.
“Yeah?” She looked back at me but didn’t commit to turning all the way around.
What could I say? Sorry? She wouldn’t accept apologies, and I still hadn’t left Jax’s apartment. His offer to stay after the month was up had solidified in my mind as both an option and a potential defeat.
Veronica shifted, impatience in the set of her sun-browned shoulders, beneath her neat summery dress. She shaded her hand from the sun overhead.
“Thanks for coming,” I managed. “You didn’t have to.” Handing over the keys had been a royal kick in my ass. A final “fuck you” from the beyond.
“No problem,” she said. She hesitated, a small spring of hope blossoming behind her eyes. It was doused just as quickly as it’d appeared. “I really gotta go. I’ll call you some time, OK?”
“OK.”
Veronica hurried off toward the corner. She disappeared soon enough, and I was alone again, kind of. There were still people in the street, cars, businesses operating, and a sun shining overhead. Birds in the sky. But none of that made a whit of difference to me right now.
One passion was gone—it might not be gone forever, and sure, I could probably get a job at another school or studio, but this had been my dream. My other passion, the deep-seated desire to hold a little girl or boy in my arms, to raise my child, was on the back burner too.
There was only one place I wanted to be right now. Only one comfort I’d seek, and it was in Jax’s arms, even though doubt still circled through me. Two weeks of dancing and sex and baths and him demanding I stay, and the doubt still remained. We were so different. Our lives were so different.
But I still want him.
I jogged to the taxi stand, not daring to look back at the studio.
Forty-five minutes later I was in front of Club Queen.
He’d told me this morning he had business to attend to here, that there was a problem with some of the dancers—hiring and firing, that sort of thing—but I couldn’t wait to see him. God, if this was entirely inappropriate, then so be it.
I walked past the doorman, who gave me a polite nod and smile, then right up to the reception desk. The guy who’d been behind before—moustache and gray hair—was nowhere in sight.
I checked my watch. It was just past nine o’clock in the morning, and the hall beyond those doors—the one that brought back some seriously sexy memories—was silent. No thump of enticing music.
“Hello?” I called out.
Quiet. No, wait, not quiet. A noise broke from the corridor to my left. I walked over to it, peered up a flight of stairs lit by shell sconces. The door at the top of the stairs didn’t carry a plaque, but I’d have bet my left boob it led into an office.
“—you know.” A woman’s voice.
The rumble that followed, words inaudible, was definitely Jax’s.
Yeah, definitely his office.
I stepped closer, lifted my fist to knock, but stalled.
“I can’t give you any leeway on this, Cherry,” Jax said, voice louder now. “What you’ve done is irresponsible, dangerous, and totally unprofessional.”
“Mr. King, please, I only did it because Jessica wouldn’t let me take her shift. If she’d just given it to me I wouldn’t have—”
“Enough,” Jax said, and his tone brooked no argument. “Cherry, you tampered with Jessica’s heels. She fell and broke her leg. You’re lucky she’s not suing you. Fuck it, you’re lucky she’s not suing me, because then you wouldn’t just be out of a job in this business for however long it takes you to find one, you’d be out of a job for good.”
Silence.
God, no wonder he’d had to come in. Some other girl had broken her leg because of this woman? This was the world Jax dealt with on a daily basis. Women who sabotaged each other and got into catfights and used their bodies to get what they wanted.
“Mr. King, I—I’m sorry, all right?” Cherry warbled. “I promise, nothing like this will ever happen again. I told you, I’m desperate. I’ve got those college fees to pay and—”
“I know your son has moved out,” Jax said. “And I know he’s not interested in going to college. You’ve been lying to me, Cherry.”
She made a squeaking noise like a mouse that’d been stepped on. Ew, that was a terrible thought.
“You’re dismissed,” Jax said.
“Mr. King, please,” she squeaked.