Page 31 of Auctioned to the Billionaire Bodyguard

Enzo nodded. He took a moment before saying, “You got Nico’s advice about running a legit strip club, correct?”

Axle frowned but nodded. “I did.”

“I want in. I’ll invest in it and make it as luxurious as this one.” He turned to Nico and Carmen who were staring at him open-mouthed. “Of course, I’ll want it to be very different from Sugar. I don’t want to be direct competition. I want to go after a slightly different clientele. I want the club to have a differentfeel. I want the dancers to be a bit more… suggestive… than they are here. And I want the VIP rooms to be more accommodating.”

For the first time Axle’s face showed real concern. “I don’t want to run a whorehouse out of the VIP room. I want everything to stay legal.”

“As do I.” He drank some more whiskey while he looked over the glass at Axle. “My dear sister,” he held out his hand towards Carmen, who gave him a wry grin, “is a lawyer. The best in this town. She knows exactly how to interpret the laws in a way that gives us more leeway than you might think.”

Axle turned to Carmen. He’d been looking at her a lot, obviously admiring her looks. Now he looked as if he was impressed with everything else about her. “As long as it’s legal, I’m fine with it.”

Enzo nodded. “It will be.” He stood up. “I’ll be in touch.” He started to walk off.

“Wait,” Axle said, “that’s it? You’re going to handle Gray Bones?”

Enzo tossed back the rest of his whiskey and left his glass on the table. Then he tossed a few hundred dollar bills on the table for Nora and gave Axle a bored look. “Consider it done.”

He walked off. I stared after him, torn between being impressed and being scared.

Nico chuckled. “Sometimes my brother scares even me.”

Axle didn’t say anything. He looked a little shaken up. “I guess that settles everything I needed from you here,” he said to Nico. He nodded at me. “Thank you for the information. I know it can’t have been easy to bring all of that up again.”

It hadn’t been. “I’d do just about anything to help those women get out. It’s… not a good place.”

CHAPTER NINE

Jess

The next day at breakfast, Nadine started up again. “Jess, I want to give you whatever you need. I know you want to go to college, and Reynolds and I want to take care of it. I’ll get you a car, too, and you can either stay here with us, or I can buy you a little house, and…”

I held up a hand. “Nadine. That’s too much. I appreciate your offer. Truly, I do. But I stopped by West Bay University the other day, and they said as long as I could re-take an entrance exam and do as well as I did after high school, they’d honor my scholarship. They still had everything on file.” I sighed. “You know, I was all set to go there before poor Mom fell apart. She was strong for so long, but she just… broke.”

“I’m so sorry, honey.” She patted my hand and looked pained. “He was a real son of a bitch.”

“He was,” I agreed. “Anyway, the rest of what you were talking about, I want to earn myself. I appreciate everything, I really do…”

“I’mgoingto buy you a car.” Nadine got fire in her eyes and there was a set to her mouth that made my eyes widen. I’d never seen her look like that before except when she’d talked about potentially murdering Skeeter.

“Okay.” I agreed, suddenly realizing there might be another side to the sweet sister I’d gotten used to being around.

“I’d be happy to help you out, too,” a familiar, deep male voice said from behind me.

I turned to see Byron. I shook my head with a smile. “You’ve done enough already. I have an appointment to talk to Carmen and Nico today about a job.”

No one looked happy. Reynolds, Nadine, and Byron all had sour looks on their faces.

“As a hostess,” Byron said. It wasn’t a question.

“Sure,” I said, lying. I was a good dancer, and I liked it. Plus, I already knew I wouldn’t have to do anything with the men unless I wanted to. Which I didn’t. I’d had enough of that to last a lifetime. The only time I wanted to go down on a man or have sex is if Iwantedto be with him. Not because it was part of my job.

Nadine narrowed her eyes at me. I think she knew the truth, but she wasn’t going to out me to Reynolds or Byron.

“Good. It would cause a scandal if the sister-in-law of the mayor was a stripper,” Reynolds said, adjusting his tie.

Nadine rolled her eyes. “Please. You ended up married to mebecauseyou saw me as a stripper.”

Reynolds grinned and got a naughty gleam in his eyes. “Well, that’s true, isn’t it, honey? Maybe you should remind me of one of your routines before I go to work?”