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“Their star performer?” Joe sipped his beer. “I hear she’s one-of-a-kind.”
Clearing his throat, Nick sprawled back in the booth. “She is that.”
“Have there been any more problems with her?” Joe sounded only casually interested, but Nick’s guard immediately went up.
“Problems?”
“Threats, freaks trying to grab her?”
Nick sat up straight. “No. What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t Harry even tell you why he hired you?”
He had, but only in the most general terms. Nick didn’t realize Rose had actually been threatened. “What do you know?”
“Just what the guys were whispering about when we were working at the club. That there had been a few incidents that had disturbed Harry and scared the dancers. Especially the featured one.”
Harry Black had said almost nothing about any specific threats. Rose had said even less. Why would they hire him and then tie his hands by not giving him all the information he needed to do his job? He just didn’t understand it. “Maybe whoever was causing the problems got caught and the threat has been eliminated,” he murmured, speculating out loud. “Because I haven’t gotten any kind of specific heads up.”
Joe kept his eyes on his beer, for some reason not looking Nick in the eye. Which made him wonder about his brother’s interest in the stripper.
He immediately discounted any suspicion that Joe was interested in the woman for himself. He was married to the sexiest kindergarten teacher ever born, and he adored her and their baby daughter. Besides, of all the Santoris-who’d been raised to equate cheating with a mortal sin-Joe was the very last one who’d ever stray.
“Well, if I were you, I’d stick close to the featured attraction at Leather and Lace. I think she might be more of a target than she or Harry would like to admit.” Shaking his head, Joe added, “There are some really sick guys out there who like stalking vulnerable women.”
Suddenly feeling on edge, Nick nodded, anxious to get to the club and question Harry Black. He didn’t particularly want to confront Rose-not alone, anyway-but one thing was sure. He had been hired to do a job: protect her. It was about time he stop letting his physical response to the woman interfere with doing that job.
And it was well past time for him to stop letting his feelings for Izzie Natale consume so much of his attention that he didn’t even realize a stalker might be threatening someone he’d been hired to protect.
That had to end. Starting right now.
So it looked like Izzie was finally going to get what she wanted. Him…out of her life.
“HEY, SOMEBODY SENT you flowers.”
Izzie hesitated, her hand on the doorknob of her dressing room. One of the other dancers, a young blonde with a sweet smile and a killer body, approached her. “They were waiting on the stoop at the back entrance when I got here. Had your name on the envelope. I put them in your dressing room.”
Izzie’s first reaction was a tiny little thrill as the image of Nick’s handsome face filled her mind. But it quickly dissipated. Nick had no idea she worked with him every Saturday and Sunday night.
Damn good thing. Because if he found out now, after she’d had such incredible sex with him, he was going be mad. More than mad-irate. Especially because of how insistent she’d been that it was a one-shot deal.
Boy did she wish it didn’t have to be a one-shot deal. She still got shaky and shivery and weak and wet thinking of that amazing interlude in the van. It had been the most intensely sensual experience of her life.
But not to be repeated. Never.
Not as Izzie. Not even as the Crimson Rose. Because now that he’d had her naked in his arms, it was all too possible that he’d recognize her as Rose. Dancing and interacting with him at work was going to be difficult enough. If she let him get close-the way she’d invited him to that night in her dressing room-there was no way she’d be able to keep her secret.
So tell him the truth.
The idea had merit and Izzie knew it. Part of her truly wanted to-it wasn’t easy maintaining a double life with no one to talk to about it. He’d listen-she knew he would. And she even suspected he wouldn’t judge her about what she was doing. Given the things he’d said about feeling so hemmed in by his own family and their expectations, she thought he might even understand. A little.
But telling him-bringing him in to her alternate life-would mean involving him deeper in her real one. Each secret shared would be another rope tied to her body, holding her down, dragging her back into the world she’d fought so hard to escape.
If he knew she was Rose, there would be no reason they couldn’t get more involved, at least at work. That, however-a secret, sordid affair conducted in dressing rooms and closets at Leather and Lace-wouldn’t be enough for him. She knew it down to her very soul. He’d insinuate himself in her daily life, start tangling her in the ropes of a relationship, make her fall for him even harder…so he would be even harder to leave.
