Beautiful Beast (Gypsy Heroes #3)(2)

She smiles back tremulously, her eyes moist with invitation. In a practiced gesture of seduction, she looks down and bats her waterlogged eyelashes coquettishly.

‘What’s your name?’ I ask her.

‘Bubbles.’

I hide a smile. ‘Right, Bubbles. Want to tell me what happened?’

She turns bright red. ‘Martin fired me,’ she confesses painfully.

‘Why?’

‘I … I … let a customer … uh … touch me,’ she reveals.

‘You must have known you’re not allowed to. Why did you do it?’

She looks up at me, her eyes large and begging. ‘I swear I didn’t want to. I told him no, but he said if I didn’t allow him to he would call for another girl. I’ve only been here for a week and I’ve hardly made enough to cover my house fees. He was the first man who asked me for a private dance. I didn’t want to break the rules, honestly I didn’t, but at the same time I didn’t want to lose my best chance to make some money, especially after he told me that everyone did it.’

She opens her left palm in an appealing gesture. ‘So I told him I needed to go to the toilet and I went out into the club and asked Nikki for advice, since she’s the best earner in the club.’

Her face becomes bitter. ‘She told me I’d be stupid to let such a high flyer escape. And that any of the other girls would have touched him without a second thought. “It’s totally harmless. Just touch him from the outside of his clothes and no one will be the wiser,” she said.’

I frown. ‘Were you not told there are cameras inside every booth?’

‘Yes,’ she admits sadly. ‘And Martin has just taken me to his office and made me watch myself act like a fool. But Nikki convinced me that the cameras are just there for show. That there is no film in them and no one actually monitors them. I know I did wrong, but I truly believed her. She is the star of this club. Nobody makes more money than her. I’m a nobody; I’ve just started working in this club and I’m no competition to anybody, so I never thought that she would play such a dirty trick on me. How wrong I was.’ Her voice is filled with regret.

She leans forward suddenly, her face intense. ‘I felt I had no choice. She told me that if I don’t start earning money soon I will be thrown out because I was taking the place of a girl who could be earning big money for the club. I really didn’t know what else to do.’ Her face fills with sadness. ‘I have commitments. My mother, my babies. I have twins in Brazil. My mother is taking care of them. I need to send money back. They need me to survive.’

She is so young, it never occurred to me that she is a mother. ‘How old are you?’

‘Nineteen.’

I nod and gaze at her. She lacks confidence, but Brianna did not make a mistake taking her on, and Nikki had good reason to try to eliminate her. She has something very special, and one day she will be a valuable asset to this club and great competition to Nikki.

I put my brandy down. ‘I’ll give you another chance, but if you ever break any of my club’s rules again, you’re out and, as per industry practice, your name will be circulated to all the other clubs.’

She clasps her hands together, her eyes shining with gratitude. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much, Shane. I promise on my two children’s lives I’ll never let you down.’

‘Good.’

As if unable to contain her excitement she bounces out of her chair like a puppy.

‘Go home, Bubbles. I’ll have a word with Martin later.’

She comes close enough for me to feel the heat coming off her body and, tipping forward in her flashing wedges, plants a feather-light kiss on my cheek. I cock an eyebrow and she lets her heels drop back to the ground and, slowly, licks her thickly glossed lips. Yes, Bubbles definitely has something.

A ripe, tight, eager *. Very predictably, my cock is interested, but my cock is always full of bad f*cking ideas. Girls like Bubbles, they look like they’re figuring on a cheap thrill with a hot, hard dick for the night, but that’s like watching a snake slither up to you and thinking, Awww … look, it wants a little cuddle. Take it from me, they don’t even give you a chance to take the condom off before they’re making wedding plans in their heads. Me, I like a little bit of Angela, Pamela, Sandra and Rita.


I pull a fifty from my shirt pocket and hold it between my index and forefinger. ‘Take a taxi home tonight,’ I tell her.

Disappointment flashes in her chocolate eyes, but she takes the hint and deftly plucks the note from my fingers. The same action has been performed ever since man first invented currency, and its primal nature tugs at something in me. Have I really done Bubbles a favor today? She’s na?ve and innocent now, but one day she will learn all the things that strippers learn about men, and their greed, and their lust, and their ugliness. She will learn to exploit those qualities and she will make lots of money, but will that really be a good thing?

‘Don’t do anything the little voice inside you tells you not to,’ I tell her.

She nods slowly. ‘You are a very beautiful man. Not just your face and body, but your heart too,’ she whispers. She pauses for a moment. ‘I promise you will never regret this decision.’

Then she walks out of my office and closes the door quietly behind her.