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My head felt as heavy as my heart, and I sat on a barstool, leaned to the side, and supported my head on my hand. There was something sticky against my elbow, but I didn’t have it in me to care. It was time to get this over with. Time for my nightmare to begin. I kept reminding myself that there was nothing any of those leering, handsy men could do to me. That I was already broken. It wasn’t working, though.
“I want you to take me with you tonight.”
Her blinding smile fell, and she pursed her lips. “Why on earth would you want to go to a strip club?”
“To earn a quick buck,” I said with what I hoped was a nonchalant shrug.
Her nose wrinkled like she smelled something bad, and I sat there feeling like I did the time mom grilled me about the money missing from her purse. Of course, I took the blame for it. The alternative was further crushing my mother with the reality that her high school sweetheart was a sorry excuse for a man besides being a drunk.
“How much do you need?”
“I’m sorry what?”
“I already told you I had money saved up. Just tell me how much you need, and I’ll give it to you.”
“I see what’s happening here. You think I’m not pretty enough to earn it the same way you do.”
It was a low blow, using my insecurities against her. Part of me hoped she’d just be straight with me. Tell me what I already knew. That I was the ugly, broken twin.
“What?!”
Her face turned red, and all her muscles tensed up. For a minute, I wondered if she was going to explode. This was a side of her I’d definitely never seen before. To be honest, I didn’t know she had it in her. Though I wasn’t sure why she was getting worked up. She had to know she was the prettier twin, everyone else certainly did.
“You take that back right this minute!” Cherry stamped her foot. “You know that’s not why I offered to give you the money.”
“What the fuck is going on here?”
It wasn’t bad enough that Cherry was threatening to throw a wrench in my plans. Plans that made me gag at the thought of them but were essential to getting her clear of the mess she’d gotten herself in. Now Hunter had to show up and witness my humiliation. Fuck my life.
I turned to him, hoping to downplay how badly I needed this to happen. “Cherry’s making a big deal out of me wanting to work with her tonight.”
His light eyes slid down my body, his jaw clenching. Why did his disapproval have to sting this much? You’d think by now I’d be used to falling short when being compared to Cherry.
My stomach bottomed out at the realization he was about to say I wasn’t sexy enough to be a stripper. I panicked. That was the only explanation I had for the word vomit that fell out of my mouth.
“Don’t all guys have a twin fantasy. The club would make a killing with both Cherry and I on stage together.”
His mouth thinned into a tight line before he bit out, “Not me.”
I was debating what he meant by that when all of a sudden he was in my space, towering over me.
“Let me make myself perfectly clear. You need money, you come to me. You do not step one foot inside that strip club unless you want me to slaughter every man there for daring to look at what’s mine.”
Holy balls! He must have short-circuited my brain because there was no part of what he just said that should turn me on. It was totally, unequivocally, fucked-up. Yet, here I was, staring up into his light eyes, eating that shit up like he was chocolate ice cream, and I was on my period.
He cocked his head to the side. “Maybe you need to be reminded who you strip for. That I’m the one who owns your body. I’ve shown you what happens to good girls.”
A shiver slid down my spine at the word good girl, like he’d conditioned my body to respond to those words.
“Now, it’s time I show you what happens to the bad ones.”
Wait. What?
The steel bands of his arms wrapped around my waist as he hoisted me out of the chair and threw me over his shoulders. Women’s rights and all that jazz demanded I be indignant, that I order him to put me down. Secretly, his actions made me giddy until he walked away from the bar. My sister stood there, eyes wide, lips parted, watching him carry me toward the stairs.
As she disappeared from view, I wondered how I was going to look her in the face tomorrow without turning eight shades of red. Worse yet, how in the hell was I supposed to get the dirt I needed without stepping foot inside the strip club because I had no doubt that Hunter would follow through on his threat.
A little thing like Brandy had got the drop on me when men had been trying unsuccessfully for years. In a matter of days, she’d unraveled my sense of control and taken away my ability to think clearly. As fucked-up as this sounds, she could put a gun to my throat right now, and I’d still fuck her senseless. Did that mean I had any intention of staying away from my little liar? Fuck no.
