Page 33 of Bossy Ex's Brother

“I’m not stopping you from taking tips, just simply letting you know that you won’t need them. You’ll be paid a flat salaryanyway in addition to the dancing fees, and there will be a salary increase to accommodate any loss of wages that might incur from the new rules. But trust me, you’ll make enough money to cover it.”

“The boss agreed to this?”

All eyes turned to me, and I raised an eyebrow at Jane. She hadn’t discussed the part about me covering the difference in salary beforehand. Probably on purpose, too, because she knew I would have shut it down flat. She gave me a look that was half pleading and half apologetic.

I ran the quick calculations in my brain and then sighed. “Fine.”

Relief flashed through the dancer’s faces, and they settled down.

There was some grumbling when she told the guards that they were responsible for enforcing the new rules. Some of them looked eager, though. After I asked them to lay low, most of my men stayed away from any fighting and were probably getting bored with the peace. I was sure they were looking forward to muscling their way around again.

I would have to talk to them and tell them not to take it overboard.

Pretty soon, the meeting was over. As the staff filed out, I walked over to Jane.

“How was it?” she asked, and I saw a tendril of nervous doubt that was completely hidden throughout the entire presentation. It surprised me—both that she hid it so well and that she would show me that vulnerability.

It made me want to comfort her.

“Not bad,” I reassured her. “Although they’re right to be worried. These are some pretty big changes.”

“I know.” She nodded. “But it will work out. Trust me.”

“Will it? Most of the guys who come here want to see tits and ass and don’t give two shits about the creativity of the dancers,” I told her. “Now you’re telling them that instead of just taking off their clothes, they’re gonna have to do more elaborate choreographies?”

“Will you just let me try?” Her gaze was pleading. “Please?”

I watched her face and her surprisingly vulnerable expression and found myself nodding despite my better judgment. Why not? At most, we lose out on a few thousand dollars. That wasn’t much in the grand scheme of things.

I was more worried, though, that the venture would fail and crush her spirit.

And then I got annoyed at myself because why the fuck did I care?

“You might be losing us a lot of clients with this, though,” I said because I felt like I’d given in too easily.

“Then you’re inviting the wrong clients,” she replied in a clipped tone. “And it’s a matter of finding the right ones.”

I raised my eyebrow, watching her face. Even though she kept it carefully expressionless, I got the feeling there was some tenseness, a defensiveness that she wasn’t explaining.

I wasn’t getting the full story.

“Why do you care?” I asked, and she glanced up at me.

“What?”

“All this is not for nothing. I’m just curious.”

I thought she wasn’t going to answer at first. She continued looking at a spot on my shoulder, and then she sighed.

“My mother,” she finally said. “She used to be a dancer at a strip club down the street from where we first lived. It was a place much seedier than this one. At first, it was just something she did to pay for college, but then she got addicted to a lot of it—the drugs, the fast money, the men…She sometimes told me stories about it when she was not sober enough to know anybetter. At first, she spoke about how she hated the many ways she was treated—the constant degradation, the objectification, the scorn. Then slowly, she got used to it. And over time, she got addicted to it.”

I nodded, finally understanding why this was so personal to her.

“It’s easy to get used to the wrong thing,” I said. I knew that from experience. When the money came fast and relatively easy, it was tempting to cast aside your morals and give in to it. It was why I’d gone so deep into this lifestyle in the first place. I could have remained a simple runner on the outskirts, but instead, I’d sacrificed my sanity. And then, by the time I realized that I shouldn’t be doing this, it was too late.

Finding out about Jane’s mother made me understand so much about her personality.

So that was why she was so stuck up, so bossy. When you went through something like that at a young age, it made you either follow in your wayward parent’s footsteps or hold on to control as hard as you could.

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