Page 9 of Dirty Deal

How many times in her life has Lena Merritt done manual labor? Not many, I’d say.

“You’d better get started.”

* * *

Two hours later, Lena sighs and swipes her arm across her forehead. She’s kneeling in the center of the shoes, with smears of polish on her bare arms and legs. Her own heels have been kicked off, abandoned by the armchairs with her carefully folded coat. She’s barefoot, dressed only in a silvery cocktail dress—the world’s most unlikely maid.

Ariq pokes his head around my office door, sending a baffled frown in Lena’s direction before glancing at me. I rise from behind my desk and stroll over to meet him.

“Everything alright?” I ask, voice lowered so Lena can’t hear.

It’s a Tuesday night, but the casino floor is packed with high rollers, same as every night. Fortunes will be made and lost before sunrise.

Ariq nods. “Pretty tame down there. We had some washed up film star in here earlier throwing his cash around, but he dried up within the hour.”

Typical.

As though magnetized, Ariq’s gaze slides toward the other end of the room again, to where Lena sits hunched over a kingdom of shoes. Temper flaring, I snap my fingers in front of my assistant’s face.

“Eyes here, Ariq.”

I’m being a prick, but my right hand man snorts with amusement as he turns back to me. “Sorry, boss.” The sudden itchy sensation on the back of my neck is unwelcome. I feel seen, and I don’t fucking like it. “Do you need anything else for the Merritt girl?”

No. Yes.

“More shoes,” I murmur. “She’s getting through them faster than I thought.” Doing a better job than I thought, too, and that fact grates on my nerves. When did Lena Merritt ever polish a pair of shoes before? When has she ever lifted a single manicured finger? It makes no sense. “Go to that thrift store downtown—the huge one that opens late. Buy every pair of leather shoes they have, and tell them we’ll drop them back polished in the morning.”

Ariq’s eyes twinkle. “This is a strange new hobby for you.”

I shrug. “Guess I’m a philanthropist now.”

“Or a foot guy.”

My surprised bark of laughter makes Lena sit straighter. She turns in our direction, suspicion etched on her delicate features, but I show her my back. Rude, but satisfying.

“Bring as many pairs as you can find,” I say softly. “I don’t care where you get them. I don’t care what it costs. I want her hunched over, working until dawn. I don’t want her to ever get the polish out from under her nails.”

Ariq nods once and raps his knuckles on the door frame. “It’s done.”

When the door clicks shut, we’re left alone once more. City lights glitter through the floor-to-ceiling windows, and my laptop screen glows on my desk. There are a thousand more important things for me to do right now, a hundred more pressing concerns, but my legs carry me over to Lena anyway. She stiffens as I get closer, but otherwise she doesn’t react.

“This suits you,” I say, crouching by her side in the glow of the floor lamp. My forearms rest casually on my knees as I survey the freshly polished shoes. The whole office stinks of leather and polish, but the smell is strongest over here. My nose wrinkles. I’ll need to air the room out once she’s gone. “You’ve found your calling, princess.”

“So I have,” Lena agrees, reaching for another shoe. Her tone is bored, like she’s completely unbothered by the task I’ve set her tonight. Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t. Either way, I’ve got four more nights after this to ensure that she’s well and truly broken. The Merritts will know better than to come crying to me for help ever again. “Keep them coming, Weston.”

Thatpisses me off. My hands bunch into fists before relaxing again, my arms still propped on my knees.

“Let me guess,” I say. “You used to do this for your father. Bet it was a way of showing you were daddy’s special little girl.”

Lena reaches for the next shoe, her movements robotic. “Nope.”

She barely glances at me as she works, smoothing the polish carefully over the leather, her silvery dress draped over her thighs to pool on the floorboards. Like I’m a distraction, nothing more.

My hackles rise.

This woman. Always so fucking infuriating.

“When, then?” I grit out. “When did you learn to do this?”

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