Four Seconds to Lose: A Novel Read online

  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 dour 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 if 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.

  Cain leans back against his desk and folds his arms over his chest, only accentuating the defined muscles in his shoulders and biceps. “Do you have a preference?”

  I keep my face composed—I’m an expert at stone cold—while I struggle to decipher his question. Preference with what exactly? The desk? The floor? That couch? Is he seconds away from undoing his zipper?

  Either Cain interprets my long pause as confusion or he replayed the question in his head and realized how it could be taken because he adds very clearly, “On the stage. When you’re dancing.”

  I exhale and silently admonish myself. “I’m pretty good on a pole.” That isn’t a lie. That’s actually a discredit to my talent. I’ve been in gymnastics since I was five, so my body is strong and limber. Then, two years ago, I needed an excuse to visit a specific dance studio in Queens once a week so I enrolled in a pole-dancing class. Not under my real name, of course.

  It turns out I took to pole-dancing naturally. I just haven’t worked up to the move where I drop my clothes.

  “Okay,” Cain says slowly, his jaw shifting, appearing as if in thought. He hesitates for a second. “Full nude or topless?”

  “Topless.” I shouldn’t be so eager. I’ve heard what these girls wear as bottoms and they may as well be completely naked.

  Cain’s eyes automatically drop to my chest when I say that, and they seem to settle there. His entire form is frozen in place.

  As if he’s waiting.

  Of course he is. He wants to know what he’s putting up on his stage.

  A quiver runs through my stomach. I can do this. This will be way less mortifying than the last time. Trying to pace my breathing before my heart explodes out of my chest, I quickly slip my thumbs beneath the spaghetti straps of my lemon-yellow sundress and pull on them until they pass the balls of my shoulders. With a sharp inhale, I let my arms drop and the dress goes with it. I intentionally didn’t wear a bra today. I figured that would make this uncomfortable process quick and a tiny bit less embarrassing. The last thing I wanted to do was fumble with bra hooks . . .

  Because that would make standing in this man’s storage-room office in my white thong that much more awkward than it is already.

  Cain’s lips part but not a sound comes out of him as his eyes widen for one, two, three, four seconds. And then it’s as if he wakes up, because he’s suddenly moving. Standing, unfolding his arms, and taking steps forward to reach me quickly, I watch with my lungs constricting as he crouches down in front of me and grasps the straps of the dress poo
led around my ankles. He pulls my dress back up, his fingertips leaving hot trails against my skin as he affixes the straps. If my body weren’t already as stiff as a corpse, his touch probably would have made me shudder.

  Locking eyes that look wise beyond his years on me, he says in a strained voice, as if he’s holding his breath, “You don’t have to do that for me. In fact, I ask that you please don’t do that for me again. Ever.”

  I swallow and nod, my cheeks flaming, somehow more humiliated by his reaction than had he groped my breasts like that other pig. Spinning on his heels, he marches over behind his desk, a grimace on his handsome features. I don’t know if I’ve done something wrong or if I have the job.

  I need this job.

  Cain speaks up again. “Just stage dancing? What about private dances?” I see his gaze on me from beneath a fringe of thick lashes. “I don’t charge any stage fees, so what you earn up there, you take home.”

  The small exhale escapes my lips before I can stop it. When I came up with this plan two weeks ago, I wasn’t fully aware of the inner workings at these clubs. But you can find anything on the internet. I found out that many owners charge a high stage fee, so the girls actually earn their money working hard on the floor and in the private rooms. Rumor has it that, though illegal, many of them do “extras,” on top of the lap dances. The idea of stripping on a stage in front of people is a giant pill to swallow for me. But lap dances . . .

  I’ll do it.

  I have to do it, I remind myself.

  When I ran out of Sin City that day, I was sure that my plan was dead in the water. I mean, how was I going to perform daily lap dances when I couldn’t even get through my interview!

  But Ginger told me that Penny’s is different. That Cain is different. That no one in the private rooms will be taking their pants off, and that doing “extras” is one of the only ways that you get fired at Penny’s.

  Cain sounded too good to be true.

  Setting my chin with steely determination, I say, “Both, please.” Swallowing the revulsion bubbling up in my throat, I clarify with a struggle, “I want to work the private rooms as well as the stage.”