Only one rushes over to me.
“Cinderella?” she says.
I nod. It’s the stage name I’ve been using at Miss Candy’s. Seemed fitting at the time.
“I’m Rose. George asked me to show you the ropes tonight.”
There’s always one mother hen in every club—an older woman who realizes she’s losing the fight against gravity and decides to make herself useful in other ways. At Miss Candy’s, it had been Tina, the aging bleached blonde who took me under her wing from moment one. Here, it’s the aging redhead Rose, who clucks over me as she guides me toward the metal rack of costumes.
When I reach for the schoolgirl uniform, she intercepts my hand. “No, that’s for later. Put this on.”
Next thing I know, she’s helping me into a black corset with crisscrossed laces and a lacy black thong.
“I’m dancing in this?” I can barely breathe in the corset, let alone reach in front of me to unlace it.
“Forget what’s up top.” She laughs when she notices my halted breathing. “Just wiggle that bottom of yours and ride Richie Rich’s pole, and you’ll be fine.”
I give her a blank look. “I thought I was going on stage?”
“George didn’t tell you? You’re doing a private dance in the VIP lounge now.”
What? But I just got here. From my experience at Miss Candy’s, normally you dance on stage a few times before any of the customers request a private show.
“Must be one of your regulars from your former club,” Rose guesses when she notices my confusion. “Richie Rich just waltzes in here like he owns the place, hands George five hundies, and tells ’im to send you over.” She winks at me. “Play it right and you’ll squeeze a few more Benjamins outta him.”
Then she’s gone. Flouncing off to one of the other dancers, while I stand there debating if this was a mistake.
I like to play it off like I’m tough, and yeah, I am, to some extent. I’ve been poor and hungry. I was raised by a stripper. I know how to throw a punch if I have to. But I’m only seventeen. Sometimes that feels too young to have lived the life I have. Sometimes I look around at my surroundings and think, I don’t belong here.
But I am here. I’m here, and I’m broke, and if I want to be that normal girl I’m desperately trying to be, then I need to walk out of this dressing room and ride Mr. VIP’s pole, as Rose so nicely phrased it.
George appears as I step into the hallway. He’s a stocky man with a full beard and kind eyes. “Did Rose tell you about the customer? He’s been waiting for you.”
Nodding, I swallow awkwardly. “I don’t have to do anything fancy, right? Just a regular lap dance?”
He chuckles. “Get as fancy as you like, but if he touches you, Bruno’ll haul him out on his ass.”
I’m relieved to hear that Daddy G’s enforces the no-touching-the-merchandise rule. Dancing for slimy men is a lot easier to swallow when their slimy hands don’t get anywhere near you.
“You’ll do fine, girl.” He pats my arm. “And if he asks, you’re twenty-four, okay? No one over thirty works here, remember?”
What about under twenty? I almost ask. But I keep my lips pressed tight. He has to know I’m lying about my age. Half the girls here are. And I may have lived a hard life, but no way do I look thirty-fricking-four. The makeup helps me pass for twenty-one. Barely.
George disappears into the dressing room, and I take a breath before heading down the hallway.
The sultry bass line greets me in the main room. The dancer on stage just unbuttoned her white uniform shirt, and the men go wild at the first sight of her see-through bra. Dollar bills rain on the stage. That’s what I focus on. The money. Screw everything else.
Still, I’m so bummed at the thought of leaving GW High and all those teachers who actually seem to care about what they’re teaching. But I’ll find another school in another town. A town where Callum Royal won’t be able to find—
I halt in my tracks. Then I spin around in a panic.
It’s too late. Royal has already crossed the shadowy VIP lounge and his strong hand encircles my upper arm.
“Ella,” he says in a low voice.
“Let me go.” My tone is as indifferent as I can make it, but my hand shakes as I try to pry his off me.
He doesn’t let go, not until another figure steps out of the shadows, a man in a dark suit and with the shoulders of a linebacker. “No touching,” the bouncer says ominously.
Royal releases my arm as if it’s made of lava. He spares a grim look at Bruno the bouncer, then turns back to me. His eyes stay locked on my face, like he’s making a pointed effort not to look at my skimpy outfit. “We need to talk.”
The whiskey on his breath nearly knocks me over.
“I have nothing to say to you,” I answer coolly. “I don’t know you.”
“I’m your guardian.”
“You’re a stranger.” Now I’m haughty. “And you’re interfering with my work.”
His mouth opens. Then closes. Then he says, “All right. Get to work then.”
What?
There’s a mocking gleam in his eyes as he drifts backward toward the plush couches. He sits, spreading his legs slightly, still mocking me. “Give me what I paid for.”
My heart speeds up. No way. I’m not dancing for this man.
From the corner of my eye I see George approaching the steps of the lounge. My new boss stares at me expectantly.
I gulp. I want to cry, but I don’t. Instead, I sashay over to Royal with confidence I don’t feel.
“Fine. You want me to dance for you, Daddy? I’ll dance for you.”
Tears prick the insides of my eyelids, but I know they won’t spill over. I’ve trained myself never to cry in public. The last time I cried, it was by my mother’s deathbed, and that was after all the nurses and doctors left the room.
Callum Royal has a pained look on his face as I move in front of him. My hips roll to the music, as if on instinct. Actually, it is instinct. Dancing is in my blood. It’s part of me. When I was younger, Mom was able to scrape money together to send me to ballet and jazz classes for three years. After the funds ran out, she took up the teaching part herself. She would watch videos, or crash classes at the community center before they kicked her out, and then she’d come home and teach me.
I love to dance, and I’m good at it, but I’m not stupid enough to think it’ll ever be a career, not unless I want to strip for a living. Nope, my career will be practical. Business or law, something that will earn me a good living. Dancing is a little girl’s foolish dream.
As I run my hands seductively down the front of my corset, Royal lets out a groan. It’s not the groan I’m used to hearing, though. He doesn’t look turned on. He looks…sad.
“He’s rolling over in his grave right now,” Royal says hoarsely.
I ignore him. He doesn’t exist to me.
“This isn’t right.” He sounds choked up.
I toss my hair back and jut my boobs out. I can feel Bruno’s eyes on me from the shadows.
A hundred bucks for a ten-minute dance, and I’ve already gyrated away two minutes. Eight more to go. I can do this.
But evidently, Royal can’t. One more sway and both his hands clamp down on my hips. “No,” he growls. “Steve wouldn’t want this for you.”
I don’t have time to blink, to register his words. He’s on his feet and I’m flying through the air, my torso slamming into his broad shoulder.
“Let me go!” I scream.
He’s not listening. He carries me over his shoulder like I’m a rag doll, and not even Bruno’s sudden appearance can stop him.
“Get the hell out of my way!” When Bruno takes another step, Royal booms at him. “This girl is seventeen years old! She’s a minor, and I’m her guardian, and so help me God, if you take one more step, I will have every cop in Kirkwood swarming this place and you and all these other perverts will be thrown in jail for endangering a minor.”
Bruno might be
beefy, but he’s not dumb. With a stricken look, he moves out of the way.
Me, I’m not so cooperative. My fists pound against Royal’s back, my nails clawing at his expensive suit jacket. “Put me down!” I shriek.
He doesn’t. And nobody stops him as he marches toward the exit. The men in the club are too busy leering and hooting at the stage. I see a flash of movement—George coming up beside Bruno, who furiously whispers in his ear—but then they’re gone and I’m hit by a gust of cool air.
We’re outside, but Callum Royal still doesn’t put me down. I see his fancy shoes slapping the cracked pavement of the parking lot. There’s a jingle of keys, a loud beep, and then I’m propelled through the air again before landing on a leather seat. I’m in the back of a car. A door slams. An engine roars to life.
Oh my God. This man is kidnapping me.
3
My backpack!
It has my money and my watch in it! The backseat of the behemoth Callum Royal calls a car is more luxurious than anything my butt has ever touched in my entire life. Too bad I won’t have time to appreciate it. I dive for the door handle and pull on it but the stupid thing won’t open.
My eyes shift to the driver. It’s reckless as hell but I don’t have any choice—I lunge forward and grab the shoulder of the driver whose neck is as big as my thigh. “Turn around! I have to go back!”
He doesn’t even flinch. It’s like he’s made out of brick. I tug a few more times, but I’m pretty sure that short of stabbing this guy in the neck—and maybe not even then—he’s not doing anything unless Royal tells him to.
Callum hasn’t moved an inch from his side of the rear passenger seat, and I resign myself to the fact that I won’t be exiting the car until he okays it. I test the window just to be sure. It remains stubbornly closed.
“Child safety locks?” I mutter, even though I’m sure of the answer.
He nods slightly. “Among other things, but suffice it to say that you’re in the car for the duration of our trip. Are you looking for this?”
My backpack lands in my lap. I resist the urge to rip it open and check if he’s taken my cash and identification. Without either, I’m completely at his mercy, but I don’t want to reveal a thing until I figure out his angle.
“Look, mister, I don’t know what you want but it’s obvious you have money. There are plenty of hookers out there who will do whatever you want and won’t cause you the legal trouble that I could. Just drop me off at the next intersection and I promise you’ll never hear from me again. I won’t go to the cops. I’ll tell George that you were an old client but that we hammered out our issues.”
“I’m not looking for a hooker. I’m here for you.” After that ominous statement, Royal shrugs out of his suit coat and offers it to me.
Part of me wishes I was just a little bolder, but sitting here in this super fancy car in front of the man I’d just used as a pole is making me feel awkward and exposed. I’d give anything for a pair of granny panties right now. Reluctantly, I slip the jacket on, ignoring the uncomfortable pain the corset is causing me, and clutch the lapels tight against my chest.
“I have nothing you want.” Surely the small amount of cash shoved into the bottom of my bag is peanuts to this dude. We could trade this car for all of Daddy G’s.
Royal raises one eyebrow in a wordless rebuttal. Now that he’s in his shirtsleeves, I can see his watch and it looks…exactly like mine. His eyes follow my gaze.
“You’ve seen this before.” It’s not a question. He shoves his wrist toward me. The watch has a plain black leather band, silver knobs and an 18-carat gold housing around the domed glass of the watch face. The numbers and hands are glow-in-the-dark.
Dry-mouthed, I lie, “Never seen it before in my life.”
“Really? It’s an Oris watch. Swiss, made by hand. It was a gift when I graduated BUD/S. My best friend, Steve O’Halloran, received the same exact watch when he graduated from BUD/S, too. On the back it’s engraved—”
Non sibi sed patriae.
I looked up the phrase when I was nine years old, after my mom told me the story of my birth. Sorry, kid, but I slept with a sailor. He left me with nothing more than his first name and this watch. And me, I’d reminded her. She’d playfully ruffled my hair and told me I was the best thing ever. My heart lurches again at her absence.
“—It means ‘not for self, but for country.’ Steve’s watch went missing eighteen years ago. He said he lost it, but he never replaced it. Never wore another watch.” Royal releases a rueful snort. “He used that as an excuse for why he was late all the time.”
I catch myself leaning forward, wanting to know more about Steve O’Halloran, what the heck ‘buds’ is, and how the men knew each other. Then I give myself a mental face slap and slouch back against the door.
“Cool story, bro. But what does that have to do with me?” I glance at Goliath in the front seat and raise my voice. “Because both of you just kidnapped a minor, and I’m pretty sure that’s a felony in all fifty states.”
Only Royal responds. “It’s a felony to kidnap anyone regardless of age, but since I’m your guardian and you were engaging in illegal acts, it’s within my right to remove you from the premises.”
I force out a mocking laugh. “I’m not sure who you think I am, but I’m thirty-four.” I reach into the backpack to find my ID, pushing aside the watch that’s a perfect match to the one Royal has on his left wrist. “See? Margaret Harper. Age thirty-four.”
He plucks the identification from my fingers. “Five foot seven inches. One hundred and thirty pounds.” His eyes flick over me. “Felt more like a hundred, but I suspect you’ve lost weight since you’ve been on the run.”
On the run? How the hell does he know that?
As if he can read my expression, he snorts. “I’ve got five sons. There’s no trick in the book that one of them haven’t tried on me, and I know a teenager when I see one, even beneath a foot of makeup.”
I stare back stonily. This man, whoever he is, is getting nothing from me.
“Your father is Steven O’Halloran.” He checks himself. “Was. Your father was Steven O’Halloran.”
I turn my face against the window so this stranger doesn’t see the flash of pain that crosses my expression before I can bury it. Of course my dad is dead. Of course.
My throat feels tight and the awful sensation of tears pricks at the back of my eyes. Crying is for babies. Crying is for weaklings. Crying for a dad I never knew? Totally weak.
Over the hum of the road, I hear a clink of glass against glass and then the familiar sound of liquor splashing into a tumbler. Royal starts talking a moment later.
“Your father and I were best friends. We grew up together. Went to college together. Decided to enlist in the Navy on a whim. We eventually joined the SEALs, but our fathers wanted to retire early so instead of re-upping for duty, we moved home to take up the reins of our family business. We build airplanes, if you were wondering.”
Of course you do, I think sourly.
He ignores my silence or takes it as approval to continue. “Five months ago, Steve died during a hang-gliding accident. But before he left…it’s eerie, almost like he had some kind of premonition”—Royal shakes his head—“he gave me a letter and said it might be the most important piece of correspondence he’d ever received. He told me we’d go over it together once he got back, but a week later, his wife returned from the trip and informed me Steve was dead. I set the letter aside to deal with…complications regarding his death and his widow.”
Complications? What did that mean? You die and then that’s it, no? Plus, the way he said widow, like it was a nasty word, makes me wonder about her.
“A couple of months later, I remembered the letter. Do you want to know what it said?”
What a horrible tease. Of course I want to know what the letter said but I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of a response. I fix my cheek against the window.
Several block
s whiz by before Royal gives in.
“The letter was from your mother.”
“What?” I whip my head around in shock.
He doesn’t look smug that he’s finally gained my attention—only tired. The loss of his friend, of my dad, is etched all over his face, and for the first time I see Callum Royal as the man he professes to be: a father who lost his best friend and received the surprise of a lifetime.
Before he can say another word, though, the car comes to a stop. I look out the window and see we’re out in the country. There’s a long flat strip of land, a large one-story building made of metal sheeting, and a tower. Near the building is a large white airplane with the words “Atlantic Aviation” emblazoned on it. When Royal said he built airplanes, I didn’t expect this kind of airplane. I don’t know what I expected, but a huge ass jet large enough to carry hundreds of people across the world was not it.
“Is that yours?” I have a hard time not gaping.
“It is but we’re not stopping.”
I pull my hand away from the heavy silver door latch. “What do you mean?”
For the time being, I shelve the shock of being kidnapped, of the existence—and death—of the sperm donor who helped make me, of this mysterious letter, to watch in open-mouthed amazement when we drive past the gates, past the building, and onto what I presume to be the airfield. At the rear of the plane, a hatch lowers and once the ramp hits the ground, Goliath motors up the incline and right into the belly of the plane.
I twist around to look out the back windshield as the hatch closes loudly behind us. As soon as the door of the plane shuts, the locks to the car doors make a soft snick. And I’m free. Sort of.
“After you.” Callum gestures toward the door Goliath is holding open for me.
With the jacket clutched tightly around me, I try to gather my composure. Even the plane is in better condition than me with my borrowed stripper corset and uncomfortable heels.
“I need to change.” I’m grateful I manage to sound halfway normal. I’ve had a lot of experience being shamed, and over the years I’ve learned that the best defense is a good offense. But I’m at a low point right now. I don’t want anyone, not Goliath or the flight people, looking at me in this getup.