by Claire Kent
He wished Elizabeth hadn’t left. He wanted to talk to her more. He wanted to find out even more about her.
And then he felt worried that he felt that way.
It was one thing to tell himself—and tell Robbie—that he knew exactly what he was doing. And it was another to try to stop himself from feeling like Elizabeth was exactly what he wanted.
What he’d always wanted.
The antithesis of what he’d hated about his life for so long.
As if in response to that thought, his phone rang, and he saw it was his mother.
He stared at the screen for a long time, debating about what to do, before he finally picked it up.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Mattie, I’m in trouble here.”
He didn’t even bat an eye. It was the way she began at least half the conversations he had with her. “What kind of trouble?”
“I’ve got this bastard really mad at me. I think he’s going to hurt me.”
“Do you owe him money?”
“Not much.”
“Mom—”
“It wouldn’t take a lot. Just a G is all I need. Just to get the bastard off my back.”
“We’ve had this conversation. I’m not paying for your drugs. It’s not going to happen.” There was always some kind of sob story—some impending tragedy that would take place if Matt didn’t hand out some money to her. He’d fallen for it over and over again until he finally wised up.
He hated to think how much money he’d given her that she’d just snorted up her nose.
“You don’t understand, Mattie. It’s not like—”
“Look, Mom. I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later.”
He hung up, which was the only way to end the cycle of pleas, sobbing, angry remonstrations, and name-calling that always followed a request for money.
He felt even more restless—and more heavy in his gut—when he hung up.
He wondered what Elizabeth would think if she ever met his mother. She’d probably never had anything so messy touch her in her entire life.
She was using him for his body. There was no question about that. She would never want the rest of him—once she got a taste of what the rest of him was really like.
But Matt knew what he was getting into. He’d been seventeen when he learned to separate his body from the rest of who he was—when he’d started to use his body to stick it to his dad. He could do that now. Use his body to get what he wanted—have some more time and pleasure with Elizabeth.
His body wasn’t who he really was, so she’d never have to know the mess that would always be part of him.
He’d gotten really good at separating them.
—
It was the next morning before Elizabeth realized she’d left her phone in Matt’s office.
The last time she’d checked it she’d been sitting on his love seat, and then they’d started to kiss, so she assumed it had gotten pushed into the crack between the cushions.
She’d been so rattled after leaving that she hadn’t thought to look for it, but when she checked her purse the next morning, it wasn’t there.
She didn’t like to go without her phone for very long. She felt naked without it.
She had no idea what Matt’s phone number was, so the only thing she could do was call the club from her landline. It was ten o’clock on a Sunday morning, so she wasn’t sure anyone would even be in the building, but a female voice picked up on the third ring.
“Oh, hi,” Elizabeth said, wondering who this was. She’d never seen a female member of the staff on any of the evenings she’d shown up at Bare Assets. “I left my phone there last night, so I was wondering if I could stop by and pick it up.”
“I guess that would be okay, if you come over soon. I’ll be here cleaning for another hour.”
And that answered who the woman on the phone was.
“Great. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes. Thanks.”
She slipped on her shoes and drove quickly over to the club. It looked different—almost harmless—in the morning light, with only two cars in the parking lot. A ten-year-old inexpensive sedan and a dark blue SUV.
She wasn’t sure if she should just barge in, so she tapped on the front door. When no one appeared, she tried the door and it was open.
She stepped into the foyer, calling out, “Hello?”
No one answered.
There was supposed to be a woman here cleaning, but she wasn’t anywhere in sight. No one was in sight. The building felt vacant—and so different without the lights and crowds of screaming women.
“Hello?” she called out again.
When no one responded, she headed to the closed office door. She could just grab her phone and leave. No big deal.
She opened the office door quietly, feeling like she shouldn’t be here, and she froze when she saw someone was inside.
It was Matt. His back was toward her, but she could hardly fail to recognize those fine shoulders, the thick brown hair, the firm butt in his jeans. He was leaning over, bracing one hand on the desk—a little like he had last night. But he wasn’t fucking anyone at the moment.
He looked more like he was so exhausted he had to hold himself up.
He was on the phone. “Damn it—how many times do I have to tell you? I’m not going to give you money when you’re just going to go out and snort it up your nose.”
Elizabeth was so shocked by finding him here and by the words that she couldn’t even breathe for a moment.
“I don’t want to hear it,” Matt snapped. “I’ve heard it over and over again. If there’s something you really need, I’ll get it for you. But you’re not getting any cash from me. Not again.”
She wondered who he was talking to, who was close to him with this kind of drug habit. Who could make him sound so angry and broken.
Maybe he had an ex.
Or maybe he had a teenage son or daughter.
The idea was disorienting, since she’d never even considered what his family situation might be like.
Maybe this was why he’d been so hard last night on the waiter who’d brought drugs on the premises.
When the person on the phone evidently started to respond, Matt broke in again. “You’re not going to get me with a ploy like that again. I pay your rent and I bring you groceries. If you need anything else, I’ll get that for you too. There’s not going to be any cash, though.”
After a pause, he made an impatient sound that was loud and throaty, clearly at the end of his rope. “No! Don’t call me again if you’re just going to ask for money. I mean it, Mom!”
Elizabeth gasped as she realized who he’d been talking to, and then her mind finally started to click.
She shouldn’t be overhearing this. He obviously didn’t know she was present.
She started to back out and pull the door closed, but it was too late.
He turned around just as she was making a discreet exit. She saw the expression on his face change—from frustration to shock to outrage to anger.
He strode over to the door and yanked it all the way open. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly, her heart jumping to a fast pace so suddenly it almost hurt. “I’m sorry. I mean, I forgot—”
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he demanded again, bristling visibly and glaring down at her.
“I forgot my phone. Last night. I didn’t think anyone was here. I’m sorry.”
“So you just barge into my office and listen in on private conversations?”
She was starting to get a little annoyed by his reaction. She felt bad about accidentally eavesdropping, but she certainly hadn’t done it on purpose. “You don’t have to jump down my throat about it,” she said coolly. “I called and someone said I could come by to pick up my phone. I didn’t know you were here.”
“Then why didn’t you let me know you were here instead of skulking around listening?”
“I was not sk
ulking!” She was just as angry as he was now. There was absolutely no reason for him to be treating her this way. “I said I’m sorry. Twice. You don’t have to act like I was hiding in the closet, spying on you.”
“You might as well have been. We’ve fucked a couple of times. That doesn’t give you any right to pry into my personal affairs.”
She gasped again, clenching her hands at her sides. “I don’t want to pry into your personal affairs. Your personal affairs can go fuck themselves, for all care. All I want is my damned phone.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
“I’m waiting for you to stop looming in the doorway like a Neanderthal and step aside so I can come in to get my phone.”
He made a growling sound and moved aside, and she stomped across the office toward the love seat. She wished she were wearing something more attractive than the loose T-shirt and cropped jeans. Not that she wanted to attract Matt at the moment—she wanted nothing to do with him—but looking nicer would give her an advantage, not providing him any reason to look down on her.
She had to lean over to push her hand into the crack of the cushions to search, which made her uncomfortably aware of her butt in the air. But there was nothing she could do about that. She felt something against her fingers and pulled it out, relieved that it was indeed her phone.
She checked it for messages, but there were just a couple of unimportant texts.
“If you have what you came for…” Matt said, rather icily.
She slipped the phone in her purse and whirled around to face him. “What the hell is your problem?”
“It should be perfectly clear that my problem is you eavesdropping on a private conversation.”
“I wasn’t eavesdropping, and it certainly wasn’t intentional! I accidentally overheard a few seconds of the call. I don’t give a crap about you or your mother or your stupid boundary issues or any other issues you might have. I just wanted my phone!”
“Well, you have it now, so you can leave.”
“I am leaving.”
Their voices were raised, and both of them were tense and trembling with anger and outrage.
Elizabeth couldn’t believe she’d fucked this man last night and had enjoyed it so much. She couldn’t believe she’d been thinking about him so much lately—looking forward to seeing him again.
She couldn’t believe she’d found him irresistible.
He was nothing but a selfish, heartless ass. Sure, he might be self-conscious about her overhearing something so private, but that wasn’t any excuse for acting this way.
“You don’t seem to be leaving very quickly,” he said acidly.
“Bastard,” she hissed, as she turned around to stomp out. “You might take some time to think about how a decent human being behaves, because it sure as hell isn’t like this.”
She was pleased with her final words, and she closed the door with a loud click as she left the office.
She hurried out of the club and then to her car, realizing the dark blue SUV must belong to Matt.
She never did see the woman who was cleaning.
She would have much rather seen the woman than Matt in this mood.
She’d been an idiot ever to have thought there was something worth knowing in him. He was just a jerk. She didn’t want to see him again. She didn’t want to talk to him again. She certainly didn’t want to fuck him again.
As she backed out of her parking place and drove across the lot to the road, she made up her mind.
She wasn’t going back to this club again—and Matt and his challenge to her two weeks ago could just go to hell.
Chapter 6
On Thursday afternoon Matt was in a very bad mood.
He’d been in a bad mood all week after his encounter with Elizabeth on Sunday morning, and the days hadn’t improved his state of mind. It would have been easier if he could have stayed angry with her—stewed over how she’d been the one who was wrong—but he’d pretty quickly realized that wasn’t true.
He’d been an ass toward her, and she’d had every right to resent his behavior. There was no way he could believe she’d intentionally eavesdropped, which meant she’d just walked in at the worst possible time.
And he’d reacted the way he’d done because…
Well, it was pretty obvious why he had. He didn’t want Elizabeth to know anything about the nastier sides of his life.
So on Thursday he was in a foul mood, snapping at the staff and being unreasonably demanding with the dancers on the new routine they were trying out for the first time that evening.
Elizabeth probably wouldn’t even show up.
If he’d known her last name, he’d have tried to contact her to apologize, but he had no idea who she was or how to reach her. If she didn’t come tonight, she’d be out of his life for good.
He tried to tell himself it would be a good thing, but his attempts weren’t successful.
When he laid into a young waiter who’d arrived six minutes late for his shift, Robbie told him flat out that he was going to quit if Matt didn’t leave the club for at least an hour.
“If you were smart, you’d call her up and fix whatever went wrong,” Robbie added when Matt just stared at him coldly.
Matt blinked. He hadn’t told anyone about the argument on Sunday morning, and Robbie certainly hadn’t been around that day.
Matt had never considered himself so obvious a person. He didn’t like the idea that he was that easy to read. But he wasn’t in the habit of lying or dissembling. “I can’t.”
“I don’t care how right you think you were,” Robbie said with a frown. “No argument is worth making yourself this miserable.”
“I’m not miserable. And I’m not trying to be right. I don’t have her phone number. I don’t know her last name. It’s not like we were dating.”
Robbie’s lips parted with something that looked like enlightenment. “If that’s all, then I can help you out.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know who she is.”
“How the hell do you know?”
“Because I’m a smart guy. A smarter guy than you’ll ever be.” Robbie leaned over to pull something out from under the bar.
A newspaper, Matt realized.
“Don’t tell me you still read paper newspapers,” Matt murmured, feeling a little better for no reason at all.
Robbie arched one eyebrow. “There’s a lot about me you don’t know.” He had the paper already folded to a story on the local politics page, and he laid it down on the bar and pointed to a picture above the fold. “Take a look.”
Matt leaned over slightly to study the photo. It appeared to be some sort of political rally, and in the foreground of the photo were a couple of bigwigs shaking hands. One of them was Preston Marks, former state attorney general and presumed gubernatorial candidate. There were some people in the background, though, and he immediately recognized Elizabeth. She looked lovely and sophisticated and infinitely sober as she chatted with an attractive older woman.
He looked down at the photo credits and discovered that she was Elizabeth Marks, daughter of the man who could possibly be the next governor of Massachusetts.
Elizabeth. Whom he’d fucked on the desk in his office on Saturday night and then treated like trash the next morning.
“Shit.” He exhaled.
“It’s like I said. You picked yourself a dangerous combination.”
“But you were just saying I should call her up and apologize.”
“You should, if it’s making you snap off everyone’s head. Pretty soon your whole staff will be quitting, and then where will you be? A girl like that isn’t going to get serious about a man without a job.”
“A girl like that is never going to get serious about a man with my job.”
“Probably true. But I’d rather you be stuck in a doomed relationship if it improves your mood in the meantime.”
Despite himself—his surprise and the drop in his gut whe
n he’d realized Elizabeth’s identity—Matt had to chuckle.
But then his laughter broke off as it suddenly hit home how utterly hopeless his interest in her was.
He’d have had little enough chance with her if she were just a rich girl from a nice family. He had absolutely no chance with her now.
He could just imagine the news stories while her father was on the campaign trail. CANDIDATE’S DAUGHTER DATING STRIPPER.
There was no way in hell it would ever happen.
Instead of the simmering bad mood he’d been dealing with all week, he suddenly felt a heavy weight of despair.
No sense in calling her. Even if she forgave him, he was just setting himself up to get dumped a little bit later—probably at the end of the month—when she’d won her challenge and got tired of playing around with a guy who owned a sleazy club.
“I’ll be back in an hour,” Matt said, suddenly needing to get away from this place and everyone who knew him here.
“You all right, man? I didn’t mean—”
“I’m fine. I’ll be back.” He went back to the office to grab his keys and then headed to his SUV.
He wasn’t even sure what he was going to do until he ended up at a grocery store.
He got a cart and started toward the produce, although for the hundredth time he wondered if he should even bother. When he thought of the amount of fruits and vegetables he’d bought for his mother and then two weeks later had thrown away, his head felt rather fuzzy. He filled up his cart as normal, though, with some generally healthy food that took little or no preparation, and then he got in line to check out.
He recognized the long blond hair of the woman in front of him before she turned around.
“Matt!” she said, her face breaking out in a bright smile. “It’s been ages!”
He smiled, not having much energy for a reunion but not willing to be rude to a girl he’d dated in high school. “Hey, Nicole. How are you?”
“I’m great. Got divorced last month, and I’m so glad to be free.” She eyed him from head to toe, and her gaze lingered on his left hand. “What about you?”
“Same as always.”