by Moore, Jewel
The persons and events portrayed in this work of fiction are the creations of the author, and any resemblance to real persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher or author, except for brief quotes used in reviews.
Copyright © 2012 by Jewel Moore
All Rights Reserved.
ShadesOfGrey Publishing
Dance for the Billionaire
by
Jewel Moore
Worried that her brother would be lured into one of London’s notorious gangs, and for her sisters’ safety while she works evenings at a supermarket, Chantelle Payne takes a job as an exotic dancer at an exclusive men’s club until she completes her degree. Her only rule: no lap dances.
Billionaire property developer Dominic O’Brien, visiting the club to conclude a business deal, is captivated by Chantelle’s sexy dance moves. He offers an obscene amount of money for a private lap dance and the chance to get closer to the stunning young woman.
Chantelle notices the sexy tycoon while on stage and feels the sparks that fly between them. When he offers an amount large enough to take care of her financial problems and enable her to immediately quit the job, she breaks her rule.
Totally enflamed by the lap dance, Dominic offers a matching amount for Chantelle to sleep with him. Infuriated, she flees from him and the club. He pursues her but loses her in the ensuing car chase. Not one to give up easily, when he discovers that the club owner doesn’t know Chantelle’s real identity, he hires several of the country’s best private investigators to track her down. But she’s disappeared without a trace.
She haunts his days and nights for the next five months. And just when he’s given up hope of ever finding her, she walks unexpectedly back into his life.
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter One
Chantelle Payne adjusted her long woolen skirt and straightened the hem of her jumper before pressing the buzzer next to the heavy door painted an uncompromising black.
“Yes?” The door swung open without a sound and she was startled by the appearance of the man who looked as though he had to stoop to avoid hitting the tops of most doorways.
“I’m here to see Mr. Armstrong,” she explained, fighting the urge to run back to her car and speed away.
“For what purpose?” The man, obviously a bouncer, looked her slowly up and down and Chantelle cringed inside. She knew that she wasn’t dressed appropriately. She’d had to rush out of her last lecture and had risked getting a speeding ticket to get to the club on time.
“I have an audition.”
The man’s lips curved into a smirk. He dismissed her chances with the single word, “Sure.”
Instantly annoyed, Chantelle straightened her shoulders, glared up at him and said with all the hauteur she could muster. “I don’t have time to stand here all day!”
“Sorry,” he apologized, seeming to remember that it wasn’t his place to assess her suitability. “Please come inside. I’ll tell the boss you’re here.”
Chantelle stepped through the fire door into the lavishly furnished club. Never in a million years would she have imagined that she would be here today, but life had left her little choice.
“Are you Elle?” asked a cultured, well-modulated voice with an American twang from behind her.
Turning, Chantelle took in the man who was a blast from the past…well, her parents’ past, not her own. Wearing a psychedelic shirt and flared red trousers, Colin Armstrong looked as if he was playing the part of a pimp in a blaxploitation movie. He swirled a cane in his slim right hand and even from a few feet away, Chantelle noticed that it was professionally manicured.
“Yes,” she responded, willing herself not to laugh at his attire; she needed this job too desperately.
“I’m Colin.” He offered his hand and she shook it. “You’re a bit larger than I expected, but your face is gorgeous.”
Chantelle would have loved nothing better than to tell him to go jump into a lake, but she kept her features composed as he assessed her with unnerving thoroughness.
“If you can dance I would be willing to take you on, if you promise to start going to the gym regularly.”
“Do you mind if we start the audition, please?” Time was a precious commodity she had little of. The last thing she needed was to waste time making promises she would only have to keep if he offered her the job.
“By all means.” His lips pursed primly and Chantelle sensed that he didn’t like her taking control of the situation. She wouldn’t normally have done, but she had less than two hours to drive back to the university campus and eat her homemade sandwich before the start of her next lecture. He pointed towards a dark red door. “The changing rooms are through there. I take it you’ve brought an outfit to change into?”
“Yes, I have,” she told him and then hurried towards the indicated door.
Slipping off her outer garments, Chantelle rubbed her arms briskly as the chill air of the unheated dressing room caressed her body. Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the door and walked back into the club.
“Hot damn, girl, your body is fly!” Colin clearly watched far too many African-American movies. And they were obviously the much-older movies as his lingo indicated.
Chantelle smiled at his reaction—the eighteen-inch difference between her waist and hips was dramatic and at 5’10” she was tall for a woman. Her unusual measurements made it impossible to find properly fitting clothing. She tended to wear loose, flowing clothing which made her look larger than the size 12 on the labels of most of her clothing. Finding a pair of jeans was a nightmare—she inevitably had to end up taking them to her local tailor to have the waists adjusted.
“Why didn’t you tell me you had a body like this hidden under those ugly clothes?” he demanded.
“I would have done if you’d refused to let me audition for you.”
“You’re sassy. I think I’m going to like you.”
Chantelle wasn’t worried by his statement. She’d come by the club one evening and waited until one of his waitresses had come out on a smoke break to ask a few pertinent questions. The woman had said that he was a sweetheart and kept a strictly professional relationship with his employees.
But she needed this over and done with as soon as possible, so she prompted, “Do you mind if we start?”
“Sure. I want you to try a special song for me. Something about you reminds me of Grace Jones. If you can get the routine right, your act could become a club special.”
Chantelle’s hopes plummeted at his words. She’d expected him to let her choose her own song. She’d come prepared, but not for this.
“I had planned to dance to Rihanna’s Rude Boy,” she told him, desperately. She had learned the song by heart and perfected her routine. “I have it here on my brother’s iPod in case you don’t—”
“No, no! I want something a little classier for you.”
Chantelle folded her arms around her midriff and watched helplessly as he hurried across the room to the DJ booth. She didn’t know any Grace Jones songs. This wasn’t what she’d expected. Why was he insisting on her dancing to music of his choice when he usually let the dancers
choose their own? This wasn’t going to work out, she acknowledged with resignation, but it was probably for the best.
Pull Up To The Bumper started playing as Colin hurried back to her side and Chantelle almost laughed in relief. The Grace Jones’ hit had become popular again when Patra had released a cover version. A lifetime ago when her mother had been a happy-go-lucky young wife she used to put on music and dance along with her children to the Reggae and dancehall music she’d grown up with in Jamaica.
“I’ve put it on repeat. Get up on the stage and let me see you move,” Colin instructed once he was close enough to be heard over the music.
Dancing came naturally to Chantelle. Even as a child when she’d attended parties, grown-ups soon notice that she wasn’t simply mimicking the moves she had seen in music videos as most of the other children were going, but actually moving to the beat of songs and even making up her own little dance moves as she went along.
She paused when she got to the middle of the stage and took a deep breath. She was unaccountably nervous—there was so much riding on her getting this job. Closing her eyes, she raised her arms above her head and started to gyrate her waist and hips.
“Wow!” Colin said after a couple of minutes and she opened her eyes to find that he had moved closer to the front of the stage. He watched her for another minute or so and then enthused, “You can dance, girl!”
“Shall I stop, then?” she asked hopefully. There would be more traffic heading towards the city as she would be on her way back. It would take her twice as long, if she was lucky.
“Yes, get dressed again and we’ll go to my office to talk business,” Colin instructed, turning once again to walk towards the DJ booth.
Chantelle hurriedly slipped her clothes back on, almost as nervous about the request she needed to make as she had been about the audition.
Colin was waiting for her just outside the door.
“I’ve seen hundreds of women dance since I opened the club twelve years ago, but you’re something special.”
Please God! As Colin led the way to his office, Chantelle surreptitiously crossed her fingers behind her back.
“Sit down,” he invited, indicating a dark brown leather swivel chair in front of a solid desk of a slightly darker hue. The office was as immaculate as the man, but rather more conventional in styling. To Chantelle’s relief, he got straight down to business. “The pay is five hundred pounds a night, but you can make as much as five or six times that amount by giving private lap—”
“I’m not interested in giving lap dances,” Chantelle interrupted.
“Then I guess that I won’t have to tell you that sex with clients is strictly forbidden.”
“Mr. Armstrong, all I want to do is perform my routine and leave the club as soon as I’m done.”
“Are you sure that you want to work here?” He looked at her quizzically. “You’re a great mover, but you don’t seem the type.”
“I need the money,” she explained simply.
“I suspected as much.” He nodded his head as if she had confirmed his suspicion. “But I’m a little surprised that you won’t take lap dance requests and make more of it.”
“No thanks. And I would like to be paid cash in hand.”
“I run a legit business here, young lady.” Colin bristled as if she’d accused him of running a brothel. He lost all traces of the American accent as he continued, “Each employee has to pay tax and National Insurance.”
“I’m not saying that you shouldn’t deduct the appropriate amounts from my pay,” Chantelle explained hastily. “I just don’t want to appear on your books.”
Chantelle held her breath as she waited for him to make a decision. Finally he smiled and said, “Alright. You told me on the phone that you’re twenty-two. You look younger, but call me an old fool, I’ll take your word for it. I know what it’s like to have life kick you in the teeth, so I’m willing to give you a chance. I’ve been looking for a dancer to bring a little sophistication to the club. I think you could be that girl, but let me down, girl, and I’ll fire you on the spot!”
“I promise to do my best.” Chantelle crossed her fingers and breathed a sigh of relief. She was hired! All she needed to do now is find the courage to ask him for the biggest favor of all. But, that could wait until her first night on the job.
“Okay.” The man’s stern expression softened and he smiled.
“Thanks, Mr. Armstrong.” Jumping up, she offered her hand to her new employer. “I must hurry back.”
Rushing out of the building, Chantelle headed to her battered Ford Escort. All in all things had gone well. She had spent less time than she’d thought she would and might be able to quickly finish her cheese sandwich before her lecture started.
Gunning the engine, she quickly reversed out of the club’s parking space. She then slipped a pair of prescription glasses onto the bridge of her nose and glanced at her reflection in the rear view mirror. She smiled as she pulled off the wig and shook her shoulder-length Sisterlocks free. Now all she needed to do was find somewhere convenient to pull over and take off the fake number plates that were neatly covering hers.
Chapter Two
“Armstrong’s got the best bloody dancers in London. You’ll have a great time!”
Property developer Dominic O’Brien gritted his teeth and tried to follow Russell Clark’s inane conversation as they traveled through Shoreditch in the man’s Hummer limousine. He was beginning to understand why the Mafia reputedly eliminated unwanted competition and annoyances. Russell, a rival property developer but on a much smaller scale, had deliberately bought a building he knew Dominic wanted and now the obnoxious older man was trying to jerk him around because he had the upper hand. Dominic already owned nine of the ten adjoining properties on the block, but without Russell’s he couldn’t tear them all down and build the multi-million pound luxury homes he planned to. Russell had bought the property out of spite, at the last possible moment offering the owner ten thousand pounds above the price she had agreed with Dominic. Had the woman asked, Dominic would have raised his offer, but by the time he had gotten wind of the situation the sale had gone through. Russell had stubbornly held on to the property for the last three months.
When they had met earlier in the day the man had suggested Dominic join him on a visit to a strip club to see a magnificent black dancer. Dominic had immediately refused. He could pretty much get any woman he wanted—black, white or other—and if he wanted a woman to strip for him, he could afford to pay one to come to his home and do so privately. But then Russell had upped the ante by promising to give him a final decision on the property, if he came to the club.
“I’m not here to enjoy myself,” he reminded the man curtly. “We do this deal tonight or this is over.”
If at the end of the evening Russell didn’t accept his more than generous offer, he would sell the nine properties he owned at a minimum 50% profit as less than a week ago there had been an announcement of a major shopping centre to be built within a twenty-minute walk from the properties—close enough for convenience, but distant enough to not detract from the purely residential theme he planned to implement. His PA had already had taken calls from several other property developers interested in buying if he decided to sell. It would be a blow as he had a gut feeling the properties would more than quadruple their value within a year. But you win some, you lose some—he would use the money to invest in another up-an-coming part of the capital, if needs be.
This was Russell’s last chance before he cut his losses and moved on.
The members-only club was classier than Dominic had expected. A huge black bouncer shook Russell’s hand and patted him familiarly on the shoulder, before a smiling, scantily-dressed young woman ushered them to a table for two right in front of the stage, once she’d confirmed that they weren’t part of a larger party.
Dominic seated himself in one of the two comfortable leather seats and looked around the large, softly-lit interior. A w
oman, who looked to be in her mid thirties, performed on the stage, her daring routine twice making Dominic hold his breath, fearing that she would fall on her head and break her neck.
Thankfully, she finished her routine safely and another soon took her place. Dominic tried to look interested, but he was miles away, already thinking ahead to his next possible investment if this one fell through. Russell had so far not given any indication as to whether or not he’d decided to sell on their way to the club, so Dominic hoped for the best but was mentally prepared for the worst. Even if he had to resell the properties, he was looking at a potential profit in the region of two and a quarter million pounds.
He would sell them to any developer other than Russell, though.
“This is the woman I wanted you to see.” Russell’s eager voice penetrated Dominic’s thoughts. He blinked and focused on the woman on the stage.
His breath caught as he watched her start to move. She was magnificent. Short, straight hair framed her beautiful, oval face and large, dark eyes gazed coolly out at the crowd. Her smooth, dark skin glistened as she moved effortlessly in four-inch heels which added to her already taller-than-average height and made her long legs look endless.
All Dominic could think of was having those legs wrapped around his waist.
Unlike the other dancers, she didn’t jump up onto the pole, but occasionally used it as a prop. It somehow gave her act a sophistication he wouldn’t have expected in a strip club.
He had seen Grace Jones perform the song live during her Hurricane Tour 2009 at Paradiso, Amsterdam while he was there on business and had admired her incredible athleticism for a woman of sixty. Grace had engaged her fans, enticing them with her sexy moves; this dancer moved like the music originated from inside her body and yet she was coolly aloof, alluring and strangely innocent all at the same time.
It was the most erotic thing Dominic had ever seen in his life. He was certain that every man in the room was aroused to some degree. He was definitely sporting wood. He needed to get some action soon—with one thing or another, it was over a month since he’d last had any.