“But it’s embarrassing!” I said. “They’ll see me naked, all of those creepy guys—”
“But not naked naked,” Sophia said.
“Fine. Half-naked. It’s basically the same thing. And I’m not sure...” I realized that I had unconsciously raised my hands to hover in mid-air near my breasts, as if I were covering myself. I quickly curled them around my pint glass instead, and took another sip of my beer.
“You’re shy!” Sadie exclaimed, sounding delighted. “Haven’t you even let a man look at your tits?”
I hadn’t, but I didn’t want her to know that. “It’s different,” I said. “There are so many people, and the dancers, and I—they’ll all be looking at me. Whatever, stop laughing! Would you do it?”
“In a heartbeat,” Sadie said. “Are you kidding me? So what if you’re embarrassed? Do a few shots beforehand and you’ll quit caring. Regan. Babe. It’s five thousand dollars.”
And that was the bottom line, really. It was more money than I could justify walking away from. Everyone had a price, and I’d just learned mine.
I thought about it later that night, riding the subway home to Brooklyn: what, exactly, Mr. Sutton wanted from me, and how much he would be willing to pay to get it. Where would I draw the line? At what point would the money no longer be worth it to me?
I didn’t have an answer.
When I arrived at the club the next evening, Beth came over to me and said, “You’ve got a man looking for you.”
My heart leaped. “Do you know who?”
Beth shrugged. “Don’t know his name. He was here with Mr. Venkatesan the other evening—you remember. White guy, blue eyes. He said he wanted to talk to you.” She formed air quotes around the work “talk.”
God. It was definitely Mr. Sutton. “He’s still here?”
“Yeah. Room 4.” She gave me a narrow-eyed look. “You be careful. These rich men are trouble. Don’t let him push you into doing anything you don’t want to do.”
She walked off before I could respond. I took a deep breath and went to room 4, to see what Mr. Sutton wanted to say to me. Or do.
He was standing beside one of the sofas, reading something on his phone, but he looked up when I opened the door. I wondered if I would ever get used to him looking at me. Meeting his gaze felt like touching a live wire: devastating, electric. “Regan,” he said.
“Beth said you were looking for me,” I said. He looked incredible—he’d taken off his suit jacket, and his crisp white dress shirt was rolled up to his elbows, revealing his tanned forearms. With one layer stripped off, he looked more approachable, like someone I could actually talk to or get to know, instead of a mysterious business mogul.#p#分页标题#e#
“I was indeed,” he said. “You’ve considered my proposition?”
What a way to put it: proposition. It sounded oily. Like some sort of under-handed deal. “I thought about it, yeah.”
He raised his eyebrows. “And?”
“What is it that you want me to do?” I asked. “Walk around with my shirt off? There has to be something else.”
“I don’t get the impression that you would allow anything more,” he said. His mouth quirked in a way that was becoming familiar to me. He was amused, or—rueful? “I’ll try to explain. These are business gatherings, of a sort. Tedious. My companions are interested in things that don’t particularly interest me. So I’d like to have an aesthetically appealing distraction, to keep me somewhat entertained.”
“And that’s me,” I said. An aesthetic distraction. What kind of weird person had business meetings at a strip club? Was that something rich people did on a routine basis? Nothing about Carter Sutton made any sense to me. I could smell his cologne even from where I was standing, several feet away, and it made me feel light-headed. I hated that he had such an effect on me; it made me feel helpless, like I had no control over myself. Like I wouldn’t be able to tell him no.
“Yes,” he said. “My guests won’t touch you, or harass you in any way. You presence will be for my enjoyment alone.”
He was kidding himself if he thought those other dudes wouldn’t look at me at all, but I wasn’t about to say that to him. “You want to look at my breasts while I serve you drinks, and that’s it,” I said. I wanted to be absolutely sure that we were on the same page. No unexpected late-night gropings. Not that I would be opposed to it, necessarily. I just wanted to know that it was coming.