Stripped Bare (Stripped #1)(23)

It was unnerving how quickly we’d gone from Mr. Rykman and Ms. O’Halloran to West and Mia.

“Yes,” I answered. “Vicky sent me up.”

“Sure, come in.” He opened a door, a phone pressed to his chest with the mouthpiece covered. “I’m just finishing up this call.”

I nodded and pushed the door back almost closed as he crossed the room and then dropped into a large leather chair and said, “Sorry, I’m back. Go on.”

I held my purse close to me and looked around the room. It was spacious—at least half the size of the club downstairs, and one wall was entirely compromised of desk space. There were numerous cupboards beneath the top, but three chairs were lined up in various places. Large, brand-new computers peeked out from behind the black chairs, and there were noticeboards with all manner of things pinned up and hanging between the windows.

Ahhh. So upstairs had the windows.

I looked to the other side, which was much calmer. A huge sectional sofa faced a television set, and the coffee table in between them had two papers and a dirty coffee mug. I scanned the space for a coffee machine, but I didn’t see one. There was a door just up from the sofa, almost directly opposite the one I’d walked through, so I guessed there was a kitchen back there.

“Sorry about that,” West said. “I was just talking to Beckett—that’s my business partner. He’s away on family business and was checking up on next door. That’s his baby. He’s not very much of a dancer these days.”

“Dancer?” I raised an eyebrow. Was that the official name of a stripper? There wasn’t much dancing from what I’d seen.

“He’s not like me.” He flashed me a half grin and motioned toward the sofa. “I wasn’t expecting you this morning.”

“Well, I meant to e-mail yesterday, but I got caught up working, so I grabbed brunch and headed over here on the off chance I’d catch you.” Not entirely a lie. “I have a bunch of stuff I’d like to talk about. Do you have the time?”

“Sure. I’m just doing paperwork, and anything to get out of that.” He sat next to me on the sofa. “What do you want to talk about?”

I pulled my laptop from my purse, set it on the coffee table in front of me, and opened it for it to load up. “I actually had a question that’s been bugging me.”

“Go on.”

I peered up at him out of the side of my eye. “When my boss called you and told you I’d be taking over here, did you know who I was?”

“You mean before I walked up to that table and my cock got the shock of its life?”

“Be serious.”

“No. I thought it was coincidence.” He rolled his shoulders and leaned back on the sofa, stretching one arm out across the top. “Did you know you were coming to me?”

I shook my head and shifted around. “She never told me your first name. Then I would have known. It’s not exactly a common name.”

His lips twitched. “The club didn’t give it away?”

“No. I thought you were just a stripper my best friend had lassoed into giving me a lap dance to pay me back for the one I’d bought her.”

“Ah, yes. She was very persistent that it had to be the best and in a private room, much to your other friend’s annoyance.”

Jaz. Yep. I can imagine that.

“And you offered yourself.”

He held his hand out, wearing a cocky grin on his face. “I am the best.”

“I’d agree with you, but that’s not the purpose of this conversation. I was just curious.” I cleared my throat and turned back to my laptop.

It had loaded, so I typed my password and hit Enter. While it finished, I pulled the papers out from the file and grabbed the paper-clipped sheets with the logos. “Before I forget, do you use social media?”

He looked at me blankly. “We have a Facebook page, but I don’t think anyone posts on it. Beckett and I certainly don’t. We can’t exactly post live shots.”

“Okay.” I scribbled that on the top of another sheet. I’d find it later. I just needed it written down. “We’ll come back to that. Anyway, after I’d looked over everything yesterday, I decided that rebranding was the first thing we needed to focus on. Everything else will fall in, so I worked on three logos. They’re very different, as you can see.” I spread the sheets out in front of him on the table.

West sat up and looked at them. “Talk me through them.”

“Well, this one is basic. Just the name, but very bold, very bright,” I said about the first, colored in red and yellow. Then I moved to the second. “This one is a midpoint between the three designs. The shot glasses and the pole design show what it is, and the mixture of script and serif fonts, both keeping the purple color, change it up. It’s kinda busy, but I didn’t know if you’d like it. The third is probably my favorite.” I didn’t want to admit it, but I’d spent the most amount of time on this one. “The pink-and-green script fonts contrast perfectly, and the silhouette of a muscular man flexing shows it’s definitely a ladies club.”

“I like it.” West took the sheet from the table. “And this? What does it say?” He squinted and leaned in.

“Oh... I played with a tagline. I meant to delete it.”