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19
ABRAM
Trying to stay away from Cambria has proved to be more difficult than I anticipated. If it weren’t for the shell company, I would have just flown straight to the Caribbean and actually enjoyed my time away from the club. Now, her involvement in my life has started to become precarious and inflammatory, no matter how much I like her.
I’ve altogether given up on my sabbatical from the club and decided to return to work a few days after my confrontation with Cambria. I know she isn’t working tonight, so I’m surprised to see her hanging around the bar area when I arrive.
At first, I’ve resolved to just take the high road, walking over to my office to sort through some more bullshit paperwork that Isaac has left for me.
My temptation to see what Cambria is up to eventually wins. To my annoyance, I feel a much stronger rush of endorphins when I give up the moral high ground and choose to give in to my petty, jealous side.
What would Cambria be doing here by herself?
Usually, when she’s at the bar drinking, she’s talking shit with Ariella, who also isn’t here. She’s just sitting by herself at her workplace on her day off.
Not suspicious in the slightest.
Even though I’m still pissed at her for embarrassing me in front of Amelia, I can’t help but stare at her still. She’s wearing a skimpy blue backless dress with a body chain that goes all the way down her spine, drawing my attention to how smooth and toned her body is. Her hair is lying across her shoulders, perfectly flat ironed and sleek enough to catch every bit of light cast from the stage.
When she turns her head, I can see that she’s wearing deep red lipstick. I’ve never seen her in lipstick before, but I’m enraptured by it.
I’m entranced by her beauty until the moment I see her stand up and join another man on the other side of the bar. She’s immediately all over him, placing her hand on his knee and laughing wildly at everything he says.
It’s all clearly a performance, and the man she’s with has absolutely no idea. I hate to think of what he’d do if he knew.
If she were working, it would make sense, and I would encourage it as long as she was bleeding the man dry of his cash. Girls like her are so good at pretending to give a shit that they can get the most emotionally stable, resolute man to ask for her hand in marriage.
But she isn’t doing any of that.
This is all a show for me.
The skin on the back of my neck prickles with irritation that I try to bury by making my own drink and sitting down at the bar. My attention is laser-focused on Isabelle, who dances on the center stage tonight.
Isabelle isn’t my type at all. She’s short and a little overweight with a poorly-installed weave and a Monroe piercing. She acts like a teenager who was given absolutely everything and still turned into a complete fuckup. But she’s the girl closest to me as far as proximity to the bar, and it doesn’t matter how much I dislike her. All that matters is that Cambria sees and gets angry.
I watch Cambria out of the corner of my eye, and I can see her actions and expressions growing more and more desperate for my attention. She continues to glance at me with fewer minutes between glances, almost like her attention is going into labor until she gives birth to a screaming, bloody tantrum.
Hurting people like Cambria isn’t something I enjoy doing, but I do get some satisfaction out of watching how upset she gets when she can’t hold back anymore.
She storms over to me with her drink in her hand, eyes on fire in the blue and purple lights of the stage area. “What the fuck is your problem? Why don’t you give a shit that I’m flirting with someone else?”
I turn towards her, careful to keep my body language as neutral and unbothered as possible. “What do you mean? Why are you shouting? This is your workplace, remember?” I reply calmly.
“Oh, right, because you’re the goddamn king of professionalism, fucking me in your office,” she shouts, her hand wrapped so tightly around the glass that I’m worried it will break if she gets anymore upset.
“Cambria, you need to calm down. You’re making a scene,” I say, keeping my voice down to maintain whatever semblance of control I have over the situation. I could have her thrown out, but that would seem petty and weak of me.
“I still can’t fucking believe I trusted you. You’re a sociopath. You took care of me after the accident, and now you’re fucking other women behind my back,” she replies, her voice breaking as her anger dissolves into sadness and perceived betrayal.
“I already told you I wasn’t fucking that woman. She was a part of the escort service, and she needed a job. That’s it,” I say with annoyance.
She stands up straighter, anger flashing in her eyes once more. “Oh, am I supposed to be impressed that you shut down your escort service? The fact that you had an escort service already should have shown me that I’m too good for you.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, well, you’re not. You work for me in a strip club, so maybe you should stop letting your ego take over when you’re angry. It’s not a good look on you, and neither is that fucking red corset that you always insist on wearing when you dance. You look like a Halloween devil with a third of the sex appeal.”
Her eyes widen, and she loosens her grip on her drink, almost dropping it to the floor. “Everything you do is a fucking performance. You never meant anything you said to me before, so why should I believe you now?”
“You shouldn’t, just like I shouldn’t have believed you when you said Jaden was nobody,” I reply.
