Page 8 of Miss Typed

“Yep. See ya at lunch.”

Like me, Teagan needed the money desperately. Her circumstances were even more dire than mine. Her three-year-old niece needed medical treatment for leukemia, and because her older sister didn’t have medical insurance, it meant they were paying out of pocket for the outrageous expenses.

We currently worked together on Thursday and Friday nights at the “restaurant,” which was a cover for stripping.

Yes, I was a stripper on both nights. It certainly wasn’t something my daddy, God rest his soul, would have been proud of. Heck, I was ashamed enough for the both of us. Who ever heard of a virgin taking off her clothes for money? Since we were in a country where stripping was not only illegal, but also held stiff punishments, I didn’t tell a soul. If anyone checked, the restaurant I worked in was a legitimate business, a front for the girls who worked there. We catered to high-end expatriates, mostly British, Americans, and Australians who had the money and power to circumvent the law.

It wasn’t my favorite vocation; however, the ability to make two thousand dollars a week was hard to ignore when you needed the money badly enough. My desperation had caused me to quit school and move from LA eight months ago. With such a large debt hanging over my head back in my home city of Toronto, I didn’t have a lot of options for obtaining the needed cash. Between my office salary and the strip club, I calculated I’d be able to pay off the loan in another four months, by the time I hit my one-year mark at Delmont, and my contract ended.

My older brother, James, had made a deal with the devil. Somehow it had fallen to me, as the next oldest, to get my family out of the debt now owed. With the money my mother made, she could barely keep things together for herself and my two younger sisters. I could only hope the devil was a man of his word and would give me the twelve months we’d negotiated. At the very least, my weekly wired payments to the dangerous loan shark should show I was doing absolutely anything I could to keep my family in their house.

After the debt was paid and my contract was up, I wasn’t sure if I’d stay in the UAE or not. My dream was to finish my degree. However, if Teagan’s niece was still undergoing treatment, perhaps I’d stay here to help fund it. Cancer in a three-year-old. Whenever I thought my life sucked, the sobering thought of what her niece was going through put stuff into perspective.

I concentrated on familiarizing myself with Aiden’s calendar and organizing my desk, and before I knew it, lunchtime arrived. He hadn’t emailed me with a list of things he liked to eat. But he’d said he wasn’t picky. Since I didn’t want him starving while I was at lunch, I decided to head on down to the cafeteria to grab him something. Most of the executives had accounts, so I could only hope my new boss had one set up, too.

No such luck with the account, which meant I paid for the turkey sandwich, chips, and iced tea out of my own money. Lesson learned. I didn’t have the extra cash to spend on myself, let alone him.

After trudging upstairs, I noticed his phone light was off, and knocked softly on his office door.

“Come in.”

“Sorry for the interruption. I thought you’d be ready for lunch.”

He was reading something on his computer screen, looking sexy as hell. Turning his attention to me, he leveled me with his piercing gaze. “Thank you.”

He got up to take the bag from me. “I’ve been meaning to set up an account for the cafeteria but never got around to it. How did you pay?”

“I used cash.”

He immediately reached for the wallet in his back pocket. “Let me reimburse you.”

Much to my shock—I couldn’t imagine my previous boss worrying about me paying—Aiden handed me cash. Too much cash.

I shook my head. “It wasn’t nearly this much.”

“How about you keep the difference for tomorrow’s lunch. I doubt I’ll get a chance to get down there to set up an account before then.”

“I can fill out the form and send it to you for your signature. They’re normally good about setting up an account in a couple of days.”

“Sounds good. Thanks for thinking of lunch. I often forget.”

“Any time. I’m off to lunch myself. I’ll return in an hour.”

“All right.”

He was a man of few words and definitely wasn’t kidding about avoiding idle chitchat. But he also had manners and said thank you. Both were things my last boss routinely left out. I was curious to find out more about Aiden, but it didn’t seem I’d be afforded an opportunity to do so now. I excused myself, relieved I hadn’t slipped up today with more sexual innuendos.

Meeting Teagan for lunch was the high point of my days. I’d been lucky to have her assigned as my roommate in Dubai. Since she’d been here almost a year, she’d showed me the ropes, including a new way of making money. With a personality to match her fiery red hair, and green eyes and luminous skin, it was no wonder she was one of the most popular girls at the club.

“Take a picture of him.” This was one of the first things out of her mouth in the cafeteria as she ate her salad across from me. We saved costs by making and bringing our own lunches on a daily basis. We’d gotten into a routine of grocery shopping, exercising, and driving together to both Delmont Security and our weekend job at the strip club. Thank God I had her here. These last eight months, she’d quite literally been my partner in crime.

“I’m not snapping a photo of my boss. I think he’d notice.” She was curious, and I couldn’t blame her since I’d just gone on about how handsome he was.

“His picture isn’t in the company directory. Neither is his bio. Maybe I’ll come by your desk tomorrow to have a look-see.”

I was already shaking my head. The last thing I needed was for my nosey roommate, who often had trouble exercising a verbal filter, to jeopardize my job with my new boss. “Nope. No way. He stays in his office most of the time anyhow. Must have a bathroom in there. Plus, you don’t have access to come up to the twenty-eighth floor.”

She whistled. “I forgot you’re on the high-security floor. What does he do for the company?”