Page 5 of Loving Lex

“Apologies,” he said, looking slightly confused but relieved that he didn’t need to actually rescue me. “But since the... well, theincidentsthat happened here a few months back, we keep a close eye on our female customers.” His eyes went wide. “I mean—on thesafetyof our female customers. And personnel. Just wanted to—”

“Incidents?” I asked, putting him out of his misery.

“Just some—stuff,” he said, chuckling nervously as he tugged on his clip-on tie. “Would you like me to valet your car for you?”

“No, thanks,” I said. “I’m good.”

I hit the button and sent the window back up again, staring unseeing at my phone until I felt him walk away. I tossed my phone onto the passenger seat and blew out a sigh of relief. And mortification. I was drawing attention to myself, sitting out there like a fool. Probably looked like a drug dealer or a hooker, meeting up with her john in the parking lot. I needed to go in and be a big girl and get this shit over with.

Glancing at the dash clock again, I sighed. Twenty-five minutes now. Five until my scheduled appointment with someone named Bailey.

I flexed my fingers and tried to shake off the nerves. Most people wouldn’t be having an anxiety attack over a job interview for a waitressing position. Even one at a strip club.

I closed my eyes as I recalled that asshole by the mailboxes at home with the sexy Hemsworth eyes, saying I looked like a spoiled rich girl from a reality TV show.

Duchess.

My eyes burned with the truth in that perception, and I willed back the tears. Not because a hot guy had called me out and embarrassed me, although there was that. But he didn’t matter. The tears I was having a hell of a time fighting were because of the people that did. Or that used to, anyway.

The people like myawesomenew stepmom who told my father I was spoiled and overly indulged and talked him into removing my name from the credit card accounts, “for my own good.” Followed closely by the conversation I overheard when my equally delightful new stepsister, Rachel, told her friends I was a “flaky, inexperienced, Liberal Arts degreed rich bitch that had never dirtied her hands or held a real job”—at our parents’ wedding reception. The same girl I’d covered for when she’d gotten wasted and danced naked on a bar after her boyfriend broke up with her last year. I’d paid her bail and paid off the bar owner to keep him from charging Rachel with assault after she’d punched him in the balls.

How soon they forget.

So, after hearing all this, I might have imbibed a bit too much myself and responded by keying her car. And having it towed. To another city.

Hey, I was pissed. She and I didn’t have to be besties, but family had a code. She broke it. And then took it further, killing any possibility of civil sibling unity by going to my father.

Who took her side.

He gave me an ultimatum. To straighten up, let go of my pettiness, and apologize to Rachel—Apologize to Rachel?—or be cut off. From him. From everything. Lose my paycheck from the firm that wasn’t really a paycheck but an allowance in exchange for online promotion. Any marketing major in their first semester could do what I spent two hours a week doing; I knew it was just a token treat thrown my way, but I gladly took the income and enjoyed feeling like I was a tiny part of things. But that would go if I couldn’t adhere to the way of his new family.

His new family.

“I used to be your fucking family,” I whispered aloud, picturing my dad’s face.

I shook my head and swiped under my eyes, unwilling to let him get under my skin now. That had been three months ago. I’d taken all my remaining cash and opened a new account, packed up my clothes and everything I could fit in my car and a friend’s truck, and left my high-rise apartment on the outskirts of Vegas to start a new life.

Not gonna lie—I’d thought it would be easier. An act of rebellion, freedom, and adventure that would bring my father around when he missed me.

That adventure now had me living in a crappy apartment complex off the strip in a sketchy neighborhood, my stomach growling from having nothing but ramen noodles the last two days, about to go beg for a job at an upscale titty bar off Fremont, with Louboutins on my feet.

I rested my forehead on the wheel and prayed that the “servers needed” in the online ad was just for waitressing.

For one, I couldn’t dance for shit. I’d never waited tables either, for that matter, but if word got out that Shay Steele, daughter of the managing partner of Steele, Sloan, and Chenowick, the highest profiled, highest priced law firm in Nevada, was taking off her clothes in a strip club, my father would... well, I guess he’d just be ticked off, because there wasn’t much else he could do to me.

I palmed my keys and plucked my phone from where I’d laid it on top of my mail, stuffing all of that into my Kate Spade shoulder bag.

“Okay,Johnny,” I said under my breath, thinking of my annoying neighbor who looked a hell of a lot more like Thor than the silly buff cartoon character I’d labeled him with, but I’d never tell him that. Those eyes of his might light up some long-neglected parts of me, and in another life, I’d be all over that, but I didn’t have time for that now. “Let’s see if I can prove you wrong.”

Admittedly, my “tittybar” thought was way off the mark. I couldn’t even, in good conscience, call this place a strip club. It was, quite honestly, one of the classiest clubs I’d ever been in, and my circles—my former circles—frequented the best. Yes, there was flesh everywhere, from dancers and performers and waitresses alike, and my senses were slapped from every angle as I walked through. Not only visually.

Beautiful, sexually charged sensuality emanated from every space like it was piped through the air vents. Aromas of sinful, delectable foods made my mouth water. Colorful drinks glowed in lit containers. Sexy music pumped through hidden speakers at just the right volume. Pole dancers twisted on poles at least twenty feet up, watched from balconies upstairs that looked to have private rooms. A giant Cameo pendant adorned one wall behind a staircase that rivaled the Titanic’s.

Everyone and everything was absolutely stunning. As I passed a gorgeous blonde making love to a hydraulic stage with nothing on but a black thong and a matching glittery bandit-mask over her eyes, she arched her back like a cat and blew me a kiss.

I chuckled and let out a breath as I pushed inside the giant doors to the Sizzle restaurant. It took me a moment to absorb the quiet. Evidently it was in between serving hours, so the only people in there were the few enjoying a drink at the bar.

Okay. I’d made it here.

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