Page 69 of A Dark Duet

Jaden points at him while still staring at me with a heartless expression. “Stay out of it, Jake,” he warns.

“Bastard,” Giselle says with a hard edge to her voice. My eyes find hers and she glances at me and a secret message passes between us. A silent communication in a language only made for us, created by us. What is left of me is breaking. My heart and every feeling I had inside, diminishing into the darkness that lives inside of me. A suit of impenetrable armor taking over inside of me.

“Brie,” Giselle calls out.

My eyes are still trained on hers and she knows. She knows I’m getting lost. Every man I have ever come across hurts me in some way or another. I thought the exception was Jaden. He promised to protect me. He would whisper it every time we were together in bed. He wants to be free of me. There is no use or need for me in his life. No girl wants to find the man that she loves and trusts in a closed room getting a massage from one of his ex-flames. Out of all the massage therapists he could have hired, why her? The answer is staring right in my face. He doesn’t care about me or how I would feel about it because he doesn’t love me.

“Crying over dumb shit is what will get me hurt inside the cage. I can’t risk it.”

Nate walks up behind Giselle and maybe he sees the look on my face even if he can’t figure out what’s going on inside my head because he says, “Jaden, don’t.”

Jaden gives me a cold, hard stare before his eyes turn like molten steel before he delivers the final blow to my heart.

“Janine, get my shirt. Let’s go to lunch.”

She walks over and hands him the shirt with a coy smile. Pushing myself off the molding of the door, I slip away from his proximity, walking out of his life without another word.

All I take with me is the pain.

Briana

PRESENT DAY

“Are you ready?” Marcus, the private club manager of Equinox, asks.

Taking a deep breath, I glance up at the monstrous man in front of me. “Yeah.”

Tonight is my first night being placed on the VIP list. After working here for almost three years. I have avoided giving private dances to the special clients of Equinox as much as possible. It is a requirement that all dancers be available at the exclusive club. Only members are allowed special VIP status.

After I left Jaden, or rather when he practically kicked me out of his life. I knew I couldn’t keep working at the dance studio or living in his apartment. He made it perfectly clear in front of everyone. He wanted me gone. That whatever we had was officially over.

Giselle knew I would leave quietly. She knew I couldn’t continue to work at the dance studio with Jaden so close or live in an apartment he pays for or drive a car he bought me. I left everything behind except what I came with. Basically, the clothes on my back. I needed to find work and the only set of skills I had that could earn cash fast was pole dancing. I was officially back where I started after leaving my mother’s trailer. She warned me I would end up being a whore and that I was damaged, just like her. No man would want a stripper raised in a trailer park. I guess she was right. The rumors that I hated, spread by Jace, were right. This is where I ended up. This was my future.

A friend back at the Porcelain Doll house where Giselle and I worked put a good word in for me at an underground club for elite members only. Basically, the superrich. Men that wanted to enjoy the company of a dancer without anyone being privy to it. That includes paparazzi, wives, children, or the media. Every member is screened medically and financially.

“You know the rules,” Marcus says and I nod, letting out a deep breath.

“I’m just nervous. This is my first time being alone with a man in the VIP room.”

“Remember, all you have to do is say no. You don’t have to do anything you feel uncomfortable with.”

One night in the VIP room pays for two of my courses in the physical therapy program. It was never my intention to allow myself to be taking strange men in the VIP room, but it was also a requirement to at least have one when I was hired. It is outlined in the job description at Equinox, and it was also highlighted in the contract they made me sign.

Marcus has been making excuses for me since I started. The other girls haven’t said anything, or they haven’t noticed but the men have requested me, but I have made excuses. I need this job because the money is quick, and it allows me to attend school during the day and pay for all my basic expenses. I have six months left to finish the program and then I’m officially a physical therapist.

I began taking loans when I started six and a half years ago, but I’m tapped out. Even when I was with Jaden, I never asked for a dime to pay for school. He offered to help me out once but I quickly turned him down. School was something I wanted to accomplish on my own. It was a way to prove to myself that I could do it. That I wouldn’t end up like my mother said I would, a whore no one wanted.

My luck with student loans had run out when the financial aid adviser called me into his office and told me I couldn’t take out any more loans. My face fell and my stomach bottomed out. The only option I could think of was the VIP room.

Something I told myself I would avoid as much as possible until I finished school. My plan was to never take anyone in the VIP, but my luck had run out.

I keep telling myself it doesn’t matter anyway. I’m just a shell to be used. Nothing more. Nothing less. Most of them just look at my body and palm their cocks and throw money at me when I’m dancing on the floor.

“Got it, Marcus.”

“You’ll do great. You know where the panic button is and I’m right outside the door.” Easy for you to say. You don’t have some creep getting off with the image of you or touching your skin. Just the thought of what awaits me behind the door has my skin crawling.

“I know. Thank you.”I could do this, I tell myself.

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