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I need to get the hell out of this place before I rip out her extensions.

The next night Amy wound her way up the stairs to the VIP area of the club. She stood in front of one of the biggest men she’d ever seen who had managed to stuff himself into a pinstriped suit.

“Ticket?” he asked.

“I’m with Lawrence Murphy,” she said.

“Sure you are. I need to see your ticket.”

“Amy!” Lawrence shouted from a couch behind the man. “You made it. Let her through Jimmy, she’s with me.”

Jimmy smiled down at her, stepped aside, and held his arm wide so she could see where Lawrence and the rest of his friends were sitting.

Besides Lawrence, she recognized two other people out of the eight or nine stuffed around a miniature table strewn with shot glasses. She looked for a place to sit and was pleasantly surprised when Jimmy brought over a chair for her. Before she even had a chance to cross her leg, Lawrence was leaning over to talk to her.

“Looks like you’ve made another conquest,” Lawrence whispered in her ear.

“Don’t be an idiot.”

They both watched as Jimmy settled back to his post and then Lawrence glanced around the table. “Amy doesn’t think that Jimmy likes her.”

The table erupted in laughter.

“Sister, you have no idea the kind of looks you were drawing,” one of the most beautiful women Amy had ever seen, told her.

“Hell, I’ll take you home and prove how much I like you,” Steve, one of the men she did know, said. Then he winked.

“I’ll have to pass, I don’t think your wife would approve.”

“I wouldn’t,” Charlene said as she pulled Steve close.

“There’s a reason I wanted you to come out tonight, Amy. I want you to meet my friend Charlie Richardson. He’s here from Minneapolis checking some things out.”

Amy frowned. “Didn’t I see you last night at our restaurant? You ordered the applewood smoked pork tenderloin, with the puff pastry.”

The man laughed at her. “What wine did I order?”

“You went with the Louis Jadot St-Aubin Chardonnay when we didn’t have the Moone Tsai Chardonnay from Sonoma. Just to let you know, I made note of that to see about adding that to our menu.”

“Good choice,” he smiled. “I served it in my two restaurants and it was a hit. I would have added mushrooms to the puff pastry if I were serving the dish.”

Amy closed her eyes and thought about the meal, imagining it with the buttery texture of finely chopped mushrooms in the pastry, and almost moaned at the thought. When she opened her eyes she saw Charlie laughing.

“I see you agree.”

“I absolutely do.”

“Can I be blunt with you, Amy?”

“Sure. I prefer blunt, it’s one of my favorite flavors.”

Charlie and Lawrence laughed.

“She’s not kidding, blunt is her favorite. That’s one of the reasons it’s killing her working for Noreen Galloway,” Lawrence said.

Charlie made a face like he had stepped in dogshit. “Don’t get me started. Her and her husband’s reputations have made it all the way to my neck of the woods. Not the best.”

I wonder what his rep is like.