Page 30 of Spade

“I’m sorry, but you have me mistaken with someone else, sir,” she whispered. She dropped the twenty that he had handed her and quickly scurried off the stage, not wanting to give him any extra time to talk to her. She had blown her cover, for the first time in almost four years, and that was going to be her undoing. If anyone ever found out about her working at the strip club, she’d never live it down. Juno hated to admit it, but her only recourse was to talk to Saint and beg him not to tell anyone that she worked there. Hopefully, he wasn’t as rough around the edges as she had heard, because he was her only chance at keeping her secret.

Saint

Saint wasn’t sure that it was Juno up on the stage dancing until he looked into her green eyes. She had worn a costume, complete with a mask to hide her identity, and even though she seemed familiar to him, he couldn’t be sure. That’s when he decided to walk up to the side of the stage and hand her a twenty. Up close, he might be able to tell if his hunch was correct—not that it mattered. She was his new sister-in-law’s best friend, and he figured that made her off-limits. Especially for what he’d want from her.

Most of the guys down at the Bastards saw him as boring. He was an accountant by day, but at night he was the club’s Sergeant at Arms, and he felt like a complete badass. He liked being an accountant, as boring as that seemed. He had chosen to go to college for it and when he took the job at one of the largest accounting firms downtown, he felt pretty proud of himself. He was sure that his parents would have felt the same way about him—or at least he hoped that they would have. Losing them at such a young age and having to take care of his little brother, Dare while working his way through college, was a challenge, but one that he didn’t mind doing. He had always been theresponsible one, and maybe that’s why he loved being a part of the Royal Bastards. They made him feel reckless and carefree—two things that he’d never felt before in his life.

Waiting for Juno wasn’t something that he planned on doing, but he found himself sitting outside of the shitty club she worked at for almost thirty minutes. When she finally came out, she looked nervous as hell and when she spotted him in the back of the lot and headed straight toward him, he knew that she was probably going to give him hell. The self-preservationist in him wanted to lock his pickup truck doors and take off, but there was something about the look in her eyes that had him sticking around.

She opened his truck door without asking or invitation, and when she jumped up into the passenger seat and shut the door, he knew that he had made the wrong decision about sticking around. “Um, can I help you?” Saint asked. Sarcasm was his go-to move when he felt out of his element and for some reason, Juno made him feel that way.

“We need to talk,” she insisted. She was a natural beauty but right now, he found everything she was doing to be adorable. That was something that he’d keep to himself though because Juno didn’t look like she was in the mood to hear something like that from him.

“Isn’t that something that you’re supposed to say after we’ve been going out for a while?” he asked. Her gasp filled the cabin of his truck, and he couldn’t help his smile. He liked that he seemed to be able to knock her off her game a bit. From what he knew about Juno, she was considered to be a good girl, but that was only what he had heard around town and down at the club. She and her friends were a bit younger than him and Saint didn’t know them in school like his younger brother, Dare did.

“Very funny, but can you try to be serious for just a minute?” she asked. That wasn’t something that made him comfortable—being serious. He had spent so much of his day being serious, he really didn’t like to act that way after hours.

“Probably not,” he admitted, “but I’ll try.” She rolled her eyes and looked around the parking lot as though making sure that they weren’t garnering any extra attention. “What can I do for you, Juno?” he asked.

She turned in her seat and looked at him again. This time, her eyes were less angry and if he wasn’t mistaken, she looked worried. “No one can know that I work here,” she almost whispered. “I’ve never told anyone about this place or what I do for a living.”

“Ever?” he questioned.

“Not ever,” she said.

“What do Vixen and the others think that you do for a living?” he asked.

“They think that I’m a secretary for a law firm two towns over,” she admitted.

“And they bought that?” he asked.

“Yep, for almost four years now,” she said.

“Listen, I’m not judging, but why be an exotic dancer if you don’t want to tell all your friends what you do for a living?” Saint asked.

“Because it pays the bills,” she insisted. “My parents wanted me to go to college, but school really wasn’t my thing. So, I made up a story about getting a job at a law firm and that seemed to appease my overly religious parents.”

“I see,” he breathed.

“When I saved up enough money to get my own place, that solved my problem of keeping my secret from my parents,” she said. “And the girls all seem to accept that I work at the law firm, so I haven’t had to tell anyone.”

“It must be hard to keep a secret from everyone you know. Have you been able to talk about it with anyone?” he asked.

“Not until now,” she said, nodding at him. “You were the first person from town to recognize me, and that’s why I need you to keep my secret,” she said again. He should have let her off the hook and told her that he wouldn’t tell anyone about her being a dancer, but that would end their conversation, and he was actually having a good time talking to her. Yeah, he was playing with fire, but he just didn’t seem to be able to stop himself when it came to Juno.

“What does your boyfriend think about you working at a place like this?” he asked.

“He doesn’t think anything about me working as a dancer because he doesn’t exist,” she said.

“So, no boyfriend?” he asked.

“Nope, and no girlfriend, husband, secret lover, boo with benefits, or anything else like that,” she insisted. “I’ve never really dated in high school and after I graduated, I got the job here, and never wanted to explain what I do for a living to a man who might tell me that I needed to quit, so I just avoid men altogether.”

He tried to think back through everything that she had just told him, and when he got to the part where she hadn’t dated, ever, he had more questions that he was sure she wouldn’t answer. Plus, her love life wasn’t his business and that was something that he’d do well to remember.

“So, you have no one to talk to about any of this?” he asked.

“No, and as I’ve already said, I’m good with that. Now, will you please answer my question? Will you keep my secret?” He didn’t have to think about his answer. That was the least he could do.

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