Dance for the Billionaire(6)

If Alvin Thomas wondered what his employer was doing at the elite strip club, he knew better than to ask. He quickly confirmed the instructions and hung up aware of the short time window.

***

“He agreed!” Tiffany burst into the tiny dressing room, grinning as if she’d won the lottery. She opened her hand and revealed several crumbled fifty pound notes, her grin widening until it almost split her face. “And my God! Look, he gave me all of these!”

“He’s insane!” Chantelle gasped. Her ridiculous demand of £50,000 had been a joke she’d expected him to laugh off. “Are you sure he’s right in the head?”

“He looks fine to me. Too bloody fine!” Tiffany closed her eyes and faked a moan of satisfaction. “Honey, if I was a dancer I would give him a lap dance for free!”

Chantelle laughed as the woman graphically demonstrated the kind of lap dance she wanted to give the man.

“You should be on stage, girlfriend! I’ll have to tell Colin that you’re wasting your talent.”

“Shit! I better get back before he comes looking for my ass!” The woman laughed and raced out of the room, stuffing the notes she had quickly and skillfully folded into a neat rectangle up under her large breasts, where Chantelle suspected it would stay hidden until the woman’s next break when she could discreetly slip it into her purse. Waitresses usually shared tips, but the sum the man had given Tiffany was more than her week’s wages.

As the door closed behind the woman, Chantelle’s legs gave way as reality stepped in. She felt blindly behind her for the chair she’d been sitting on and sat down again, heavily.

Mother of God! £50,000!

She had been tempted by the offer of £5,000. It would have meant giving both him and the shorter, older man at the table a lap dance. It would have also meant that she could have taken some time off in the weeks before and during her final exams, using the money instead of working.

But then she’d remember her body’s strange reaction to the younger man and changed her mind about getting that close to him.

She would be just fine, she decided, as long as she kept to the study timetable she’d devised.

Then Tiffany had returned and told her that the older man had left in a huff and Mr. Sinfully Handsome was asking Chantelle to name her price.

She had automatically quoted the sum she prayed she’d win each week when she played her single line of numbers on the National Lottery. Most players wanted to hit the jackpot; all she’d ever hoped for was enough to get her alcoholic mother back home to Jamaica in the care of her grandparents and have enough remaining to take care of living expenses for her and her three sibling until she graduated and found a job.

On her opening night, she had convinced Colin that she didn’t need to strip completely—that a miniscule bra and thong would be classier than being completely nude. He hadn’t been thrilled, saying that he wouldn’t have hired her if he’d known that she had a problem getting naked. She’d assured him that she would strip if she had to, but begged him to let her try it her way first. The men had, of course, loudly voiced their displeasure at the end of the song. But most had cheered enthusiastically when she’d given an encore performance. Pleased with the crowd’s response, Colin had paid her £500 net instead of gross, from that very first night.

Chantelle had used the unexpected extra money to buy her siblings some of the little luxuries they had been denied over the years without complaining. Grateful to finally own one, her brother had been willing to have an iPhone 3 or 4, but she’d insisted on buying him the latest version. He looked after his possessions and was likely to have it for quite some time.#p#分页标题#e#

Colin was a gem of a boss. He wasn’t married or in a relationship as far as she could tell. Some of the women hinted that he may be in the closet, but Chantelle wasn’t so sure. He treated his employees well—often giving advances to them when rent or a bill payment was due which they couldn’t meet.

Her fellow dancers hadn’t been as welcoming. One of the dancers had called Chantelle ‘a stuck-up cow’ for not wanting to give lap dances. Most of the others seemed to have the same impression, but they had thankfully not been quite so vocal about it. For them, as it was in her case, the job was a means to an end. They failed to understand why she wouldn’t use the chance to maximize her earnings.

What she couldn’t tell them was that she was serious about pursuing a career in the male-dominated world of architecture and didn’t want anything to jeopardize her plan now that she was so close. Heaven forbid, she shook a potential business colleague’s hand in greeting as she moved up the career ladder later in life and be recognized as the woman who had once danced on his lap!