All Chapters of Claimed as the Wrong Bride: Chapter 11 - Chapter 13

The Meridian on a weeknight had its own particular rhythm, lower in volume than the weekend, more consistent in temperature. The regulars came on weeknights. Men with established patterns, familiar faces, who knew the rules and followed them and came because this was part of the structure of their lives rather than an occasion. She understood this. Structure was something she had built for herself from nothing and she did not judge the forms other people's took.She was early enough to have the dressing room mostly to herself. She changed into the red set, checked the garter straps, hung her bag in the locker with the practiced efficiency of someone for whom this sequence was as automatic as breathing, and sat down at her mirror.Priya came in while she was starting her eyes, dropping into the chair two seats down with the specific quality of someone who had been waiting to say something and was deciding how to say it."You were off," Priya said."I had things.""Three days of things.

She went on at nine. The room received her the way the room always received her, with the particular quality of attention that meant Mona Lick was on and the evening had properly begun. She took the pole. Started slow. Let the music do what the music did and let her body do what her body knew.The thinking part of her mind ran its separate track in the background.Track one: the warehouse number and the probate dispute and how long she had before circumstances changed in a direction she couldn't counter.Track two: Bastien Leclair and the twelve month binding period and what a practical management strategy actually looked like for a legal problem she had not yet fully mapped.Track three: the specific and inconvenient memory of a courtyard and precise patient fingers and the way he had watched her the entire time without looking away once.She shut track three down. She was working.She climbed. The pole cold and familiar in her grip, the muscle memory taking over the moment her hands