Chapter three

The bruise was the problem.

Serena angled the mirror, tilting her chin, as she touched the bruise. She winked in pain as she reached for her foundation and started layering.

No one could know. Especially not Mia.

The door swung open before she finished.

Lila didn't wait for any response. She walked straight to Serena and pushed the hair back from her face.

The silence that followed felt suffocating and heavy.

"Victor?" Lila asked in disbelief.

"One of his men." Serena replied slowly as she continued her make-up.

Lila's jaw tightened. Her hands curled at her sides, the way they always did when her anger needed somewhere to go.

"One day," she said, "that bastard will find out what it feels like."

"I just need Mia through her exams." Serena picked up her mascara wand, keeping voice steady. "After that, I'll figure out the rest."

"You can't carry this alone." Lila said soberly.

"I don't have a choice."

Mr. Shawn appeared in the doorway. He studied both ladies for a while before talking to Serena.

"Serena. The VIP from last night. He's asking for you again."

Lila's eyebrows lifted. "Same client?"

"Same client." Shawn nodded once. "He doubled the payment."

The mascara wand stopped in midair.

Doubled.

Serena ran the number in her head – rent, groceries, part of Victor's debt. That will cover up the two weeks he'd handed her like a live grenade and she could finally have breathing space without constantly looking over her shoulder in fear.

"I'll do it."

~~~

Fifty floors above the city, Daniel Hawthorne wasn't listening to a word of the presentation in front of him.

The charts. Acquisition numbers. The merger his teams had spent six weeks building.

None of it held his attention.

He kept seeing her – the dancer with the haunted blue eyes and the smile that stopped at the corners of her mouth. The pain she'd tried to hide beneath her mask.

Small. 

Fresh. 

Careful.

He'd noticed anyway.

"What did you just say?" he asked absent-mindedly.

The financial director stopped mid-sentence in confusion. "Sir?"

"The last five minutes. Repeat it."

No one moved. No one spoke. His teams suddenly found the table fascinating.

Daniel closed the folder in front of him.

Fifteen years running this company, and he had never once lost the thread of a meeting not until today.

"We'll continue tomorrow."

"Sir, the merger timeline–" One of his team's members tried to convince him but Daniel wasn't having it.

"Tomorrow."

He stood up and walked towards the door. No one argued as they just watched him leave the board room.

~~~

She still didn't know his last name.

That fact had followed Daniel out of the boardroom, into the car, up fifty floors, and back down again. A woman who danced wild and dangerously. He found her amazing and exciting.

He couldn't stop thinking about her. How she held the pole, swinging her legs wildly as she opened them slowly.

Fuck!!!

That drove him crazy. 

He told himself it didn't matter as he just wanted to have a taste of her.

But those aren't true. He wants a taste of her and he wants her just to himself and no fucking one else.

He's Daniel Hawthorne and he can get whoever he wants and that includes the forbidden stripper in club hallow.

~~~

The amber light glowed beneath the door of the private suite, same as the night before.

Serena smoothed her dress, straightened her spine, smacked her red lips and pushed inside.

There was no security this time. No assistant was waiting outside for him. No interpretation between them at all.

Just Daniel, sitting at the couch with a glass of whiskey and an expression she couldn't quite name.

Their eyes met.

But neither of them spoke.

She'd catalogued every way men looked at her in this room with hunger, entitlement, the nervous energy of someone who'd paid for something and would definitely get what they want. VIPS has no limits unlike the regulars who just spray them money and look at them with watery eyes and mouths. They couldn't touch. That's the rule.

Daniel looked at her like a problem he'd been turning over for hours. And hadn't solved it yet.

His gaze dropped to her temple.

She'd done a careful job with the concealer.

His jaw shifted, barely. She knew, with a small cold certainty, that he'd seen it anyway.

She looked away first.

The music started.

Serena breathed in, rolled her shoulders back, and let her body take over . Her movement filled the space where flopping would cause trouble. But hers were practiced. graceful. Professional.

She felt his eyes on her through every dance.

He looked at her and it wasn't like the way other men watched. It was something quieter. More deliberate.

It made it harder to disappear into the performance the way she usually could.

When the last note faded, she turned towards the door, reaching for the exit.

"Wait."

His voice is low and even. Not quite a command, not quite a request but somewhere exactly between the two.

She stopped and looked back.

Daniel set his glass down with a soft, deliberate sound.

Daniel crossed the room towards her before she could ask why.

He didn't stop at a respectable distance. His hand found her waist, drew her in, and his mouth was on hers before her brain could process what was happening. 

For one traitorous second, she kissed him back.Then she shoved him off and slapped him.

The sound cracked through the suite.

Daniel didn't flinch. He touched his jaw like he was cataloguing the sting.

"I'm leaving," she said angrily as she turned to leave.

"You got paid for VIP," he said. "Read the contract. There's no clause that says I can't touch you."

Her mouth opened. Nothing came out.

"There's also no clause," he added, "that says you get to leave before I'm satisfied with your service."

Her hands curled at her sides. Every instinct told her to walk anyway.

But she thought of Mia. Of the number Shawn had said. Of the two weeks Victor had handed her like a grenade with the pin already pulled.

She stayed reluctantly.

"Dance for me," Daniel said. "Again."

She looked at him with a killer stare but he just ignored her.

"Closer this time," he said as he sat down. "In my lap."

Her jaw tightened. But she crossed the room as she lowered herself into him.

His hands didn't move. His eyes never left hers. As she rocked him hard as the song played. Daniel held her ass and spanked it as he rocked her ass alongside.

When the song ended, she tried to stand, but his grip on her hips held her exactly where she was.

"I have a deal for you," he said quietly. "One you're not going to walk away from."

She went still.

"I don't make deals with strangers."

Daniel almost smiled.

"You will with this one.”