Page 9 of The Redemption of Alex Cade
“So, you’re not going to bail on me?” He quirked his head to the side.
“No. And like you say, this fizz is too good to waste.”
“Tsk.Fizz? It’s not a bottle of supermarket own brand Cava, you know.” He tried to look mortified, but the laughter in his eyes—lovely, dark green eyes, framed with long, thick, dark lashes—gave him away.
“Ooh, I love a Cava, especially with a bag of cheese ’n’ onion crisps. But this’ll do.” We both laughed, our gazes locking. The hard beat of the music, muffled behind the glass partitions, faded. He leant forward, just a little, and I mirrored his movements. A shiver rippled through me and heat pooled deep in my belly.
“Shall we, I mean would you like to?—”
Whatever Alex was going to ask me was ripped away as a deafening, primal,savageroar from the heaving dance floor smashed through the silence filling my head; I lurched back, spilling my drink. The three cage dancers had turned into six, two per cage, the simulated sex disturbingly real looking as the clubbers whooped and cheered, clamouring for more. The fire that had heated my stomach quenched, and turned to ice, freezing out everything that had gone before.
“Kit? Are you all right?” Alex looked from me to the dancers, and back again, confusion in his eyes where, for a moment, there had been something else, something I’d wanted. “Are you bothered by the dancers?” His confusion turned to incredulity, before a smirk lifted his lips. “Even if the club scene isn’t your thing, don’t tell me you haven’t seen this kind of stuff in other venues. Dancers are very popular, the clubbers love them. As you can hear.”
Yes, I could hear. I could hear the pack, on the edge of chaos, pulling at the leash and threatening to break it. Angerburst like an ulcer in the pit of my stomach. Anger, and that something else I kept under lock and key.
“No, the club scene isn’t my thing. And as for—for simulated sex for a load of drunk, coked-up guys to get off on, reckon I’ll pass on that.” I could feel the shake threatening to erupt in my voice, but I wouldn’t let it, I wouldnot fucking let it.
I took a breath, attempting to calm a heart that was beating too hard and too fast. Sweat soaked my armpits, and a bead meandered down the valley of my spine. The air in the VIP area was hot and oppressive and pushing down on me like a physical weight. I needed to go, needed to get out. I pushed to my feet, grabbing the back of the chair to steady myself.
“Whoa, come on. They’re performers, they're actors on stage. You said it yourself, it’s simulated. Just calm down.”
He went to touch my arm, but I stepped back, out of reach when only moments before I’d?—
“You’re offended. But what’s going on out there is all part of this business. Being judgmental?—”
“I’m not judging—” And I wasn’t, not the dancers. I would never, couldn’t ever, do that.
“It’s just theatre, designed to take everybody out of their humdrum daily lives.” He jabbed a finger at the dance floor. “Everybody out there is throwing off the shackles of the working week. The boss who gave some poor bastard a hard time for nothing and all in front of the whole office. The disappointment of another for not getting the promotion they’d worked for. The notice of redundancy. Getting over being dumped by the latest arsehole boyfriend. Everything that’s happening out there is making each and every man happy, allowing them to forget all the shit in their lives for a few hours. Where’s the harm in that?
“But just so you know the dancers are very well paid. More guys want to dance at Euphoria than we’re able to take on. They’re not exploited. They have a choice.” He nodded to the cages. “The guys in the middle one, they’re married. It gives them a bit of a thrill, doing this, and their earnings from here paid for the extension on their house. Two of the other dancers are medical students, and doing this is both stress and student debt relief. Everybody out there, dancers and clubbers, are getting exactly what they want. So what’s there to kick off about?”
The roar and chanting from the crowd grew louder, overpowering the relentless thud of the music. Whatever Alex had said about it all being theatre, it was way too real to me.
“Kit, come on?—”
I shook my head, unable to meet his eye, as I grabbed my coat and fled, pushing my way through the crowd, forcing myself not to look back, pursued by the ghosts of my past, and the image of a man it was too damn dangerous to want.
CHAPTER SIX
ALEX
“What got into you last night? I heard you were reading our merry band of loyal employees the riot act in Euphoria. That’s normally my job,” Kelvin said through a mouthful of bacon sandwich.
I eyed Kelvin over my strong black coffee, the only breakfast I needed, in the private dining room of The Blue Angel. It was the jewel in the crown of our private hotels, which was just another term for upmarket brothel. “Just making sure everything was up to scratch. Exactly as we’re doing here.”
We’d turned up early, without notice, to go over business, sending the manager into a flap as Kelvin demanded a breakfast I never wanted, along with strict instructions we were not to be disturbed. The guy ran the place well, and I’d kind of felt sorry for him. Kelvin, though, had delighted in scaring the shit out of him.
“So, what are we now? Some kind of good cop, bad cop routine?” Kelvin stared at me as he dumped three heapedteaspoons of sugar into his coffee and stirred hard, theclank, clank, clanknot helping the dull hangover I had. “Thought the nasty bastard was my role.”
“What do you always say about keeping everybody on their toes? Just following your own very fine example.”
I’d taken Kit walking away from me out on every member of staff I’d come across. And they’d been scared. I’d seen the spark of fear in their eyes, and heard it in every shakyYes, Mr. Cade. No, Mr. Cade. Right away, Mr. Cade,but I’d been both too pissed off and too keyed up to pull back.But Kelvin was right, he was the nasty bastard to my more reasonable approach, as more than once I’d put myself between him and a cowering employee. We complemented each other, he always said, claiming I was the yin to his yang, or some such bollocks. Yes, our employees respected me, asked how high when I said jump, but it was Kelvin they feared. Not the night before, though.
“All right, smart arse. I also heard something else.”
“And what was that?” But I already knew.
“You had a visitor. Champagne in the VIP area. Who was that for, then?”
