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I’D HELD BACK AS LONG as I could, but when I heard Andreas’ tone change, I knew I had to step in and do something. I couldn’t let anything happen to my father, and there was no way I was going to let him lose this place, either.
My mind had been racing since the moment I had seen Andreas enter our store. So, he was the one who had us over his knee? That seemed about right. I wondered if he had been aware of that when he had picked me to dance with. Was this part of his sick little game, using me the way he wanted to? Trying to make it so he had control over me at every turn? As though he didn’t command enough of that already. I felt like I was going to scream. I wanted him out of here, but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get rid of him until I had given him a decent offer that would allow my father off the hook. Even if Andreas was the last man who deserved something like that.
I curled my hands into fists at my sides, pulling myself together. I had an offer for him. And I knew my father wasn’t going to like it, but we were beyond the point where we could be picky about what exactly it was we were going to do. If we had been willing to push a little further before this, we wouldn’t have been in this mess in the first place, and I wasn’t going to let my father’s reticence get in the way of that any longer.
“What is it?” Andreas prompted me. I took a deep breath.
“You just bought that club, didn’t you?” I asked him. “Hennessey’s? And you’re trying to do it up?”
“I’m trying to attract a higher class of clientele,” he replied.
“I can help you do that.”
“And how exactly do you intend to pull that off?” he replied, cocking an eyebrow. He had a point. Where we were standing right now, it might have been hard for him to see that I could bring a certain level of class, if he let me – that I would be able to cut to the chase and lift the other girls who worked there up a little. They were already great at their jobs, knew how to hustle guys to get anything and everything they wanted, but I could go a little further and ensure that they were locked and loaded when it came to making sure they could really move.
“I’m a dancer,” I explained. “I was trained properly and everything. I teach classes now, and I could spend this summer teaching the other girls at the club how to dance.”
“And what difference do you think that’s going to make?” he asked bluntly. I knew what he was trying to say. It wasn’t as though many of the guys in there were looking for someone who could show off a refined range of perfect dancing skills. They were looking for someone sexy, someone who could turn them on for long enough that they could forget about the amount of money they were dropping on her to make them feel that way.
“If you’re going to lift the tone of the club, you need more than just strippers,” I told him, bluntly. “You want girls who really know what they’re doing. Trust me, the difference is immediate – people will notice. I’m offering to do it for free, too, so it won’t cost you anything...”
“Just dropping this debt?” he asked, and I nodded, chewing my lip. I knew it was one hell of a big swing, but we needed something like that right now, something that would allow us to get out of this hole, and this was the only thing I could think of that would come close to doing just that. Not exactly what I had been dreaming of when it came to using my dance training, but if this is what I needed, I would do it.
He paused for a moment and looked between the two of us. I could tell he was pondering it. He knew as well as I did that Hennessey’s was a pretty down-market place right now, and that working with the girls to improve their dancing would help lift it. If he was investing all this time and money into other parts of the club, why not this one, too? And if it would allow my father to go free of his debts, then I would do it. I would do anything, as long as it meant we didn’t have to deal with this guy again.
“How long are you offering this for?” he asked.
“Three months,” I replied. “Starting next week.”
My heart was hammering in my chest. I felt like I was actually getting somewhere, and the relief was tangible. I needed to go through with this, I needed to convince him this was worth dropping the debt for. I knew it might not be easy, to get through to him the way I needed to, but if I didn’t put something out there then my father was going to be on the line.
And there was no way I was going to let that happen.
“Will you perform, as well?”
I nodded, without thinking. I already did, so what was the problem with agreeing to a little more? At least it might get him to agree to this sooner rather than later. My father stiffened beside me, but I ignored him. This wasn’t about him right now, this was about me – about me, doing everything I could to get us out of the mess we were currently stuck in.
“Meet me outside the club tonight,” he told me. “Early. Six at the latest. And we can talk about this more, okay?”
“Okay,” I replied, breathing a sigh of relief. It wasn’t a straight-up yes yet, but it wasn’t a no, either, and I would take that any way that I could. I was scared shitless right now, scared that something was going to happen to my father, and I prayed Andreas would see fit to give us some reprieve if I offered up my skills.
“Fine,” he replied, and he looked between the two of us once more, as though deciding if this was really how he wanted to go about it. And then, finally, he turned and stalked back out of the door, on to the street outside, and he was out of my family’s store at last. That was all that mattered right now. I felt my shoulders sag with relief, and prayed that would be the last time he ever had a reason to talk to my dad in person.
“Nadia, you don’t have to do this,” my father told me at once. I knew he would hate the idea of me working for someone like Andreas, but honestly, I couldn’t see much other way out of the mess that was our lives right now.
“Do you have any other ideas?” I asked him, and he looked down at his feet. He knew I was right, he just didn’t want me to have to deal with that man any longer than I needed to.
“I don’t,” he muttered. “But I... I don’t want you around that man. I don’t want you having to use your training for something like that...”
“We need to make money,” I reminded him, as gently as I could. “I don’t like it either, but if it means he drops the debts, we can’t pass up that chance, can we?”
He looked up at me again. He looked so old all of a sudden, so tired, and it made my chest hurt to see him that way. It wasn’t fair that he had struggled so much in his life, and now had to face the reality of me going to work for someone he clearly couldn’t stand.
“He’s a dangerous man,” he warned me. “You don’t let yourself get any closer to him than you have to, okay?”
“Dad, I’m not going to,” I promised him. “You have to trust me, okay? I can handle myself.”
I could tell from the way he was looking at me that he didn’t exactly believe what I was saying, but he didn’t have it in him to argue right now. He was exhausted. Exhausted with everything that had been going on, how long he’d had to live this life, how scared he probably was that something was going to happen to me as a result of everything he was trying to do. I wished I could just tell him not to worry, that he had nothing at all to concern himself with, that I would figure this all out, but he was my dad. He was never going to entirely take his hands off the wheel and let me run the show. He still thought he should be the one in charge, the one protecting me.
“You spent so long looking after me,” I reminded him, gently. “So long, Dad. I just want to do that for you now, okay?”
“It’s not right—”
“It’s fine,” I cut him off, firmly, before he could go any further. Our lives weren’t going to be made any easier by him blaming himself for everything that was happening.
I reached over to give him a hug. I knew there was hardly anything I could do to make him feel truly better about the way all of this was going, but the last thing I needed was him beating himself up like crazy when that wasn’t going to help anyone achieve anything. He was struggling to accept that it was my turn to step up and do what needed to be done, but there was no way I was going to let anything get in the way of that. I loved him, and I would do anything it took to protect him. And if that meant sacrificing my summer to Andreas Salieri, then I would do it.
I headed to the back room again, figuring that my father needed a little time to come to terms with everything that had happened. And hell, I knew I did, too. I couldn’t believe I had really just offered myself up to that man on a plate. I hated him, I really did, and he was a part of the kind of world that I had always wanted to stay out of.
I might have been able to, had it not been for the debt my father owed. But for now, I was willing to do whatever it took to make sure that our family were able to cut ties with that awful world once and for all. Even if it wasn’t something I wanted to do, even if the thought of spending that much time around Andreas was already setting my teeth on edge.
I needed to get this done. And if a few months working closely with him would do it, then it would be worth every single damn minute of it.
