His face took on a gray tinge. “Look who’s talking.”
“You’re right.” She abandoned her croissant and pushed away from the table. “But at least I admit it.”
“Where are you going?” he barked. “We aren’t finished here.”
“I need a walk. All of this denial is making me lose my appetite.”
Jared had been trying to avoid the truth the entire two hours he’d been up and Bailey had been in bed. Kissing her, touching her like that last night, had almost been an inevitability. He got that. Bailey’s being a virgin had not. How did anyone reach the age of twenty-nine and be a virgin? Honestly?
He watched her walk down the path toward the beach, back ramrod straight, her shoulders up around her ears.
For once I wasn’t holding back. For once I was doing what I wanted.
He scowled and tossed his napkin on the table. How was he supposed to interpret that? What was he supposed to do with that? He needed to stay away from Bailey. She was like a flashing neon danger sign for him. A weakness he couldn’t afford to indulge at a time when winning this deal was all that mattered. So why was he now striding down the path after her like a raging bull intent on having his way?
She looked warily at him as he fell into step beside her. “Go away, Jared.”
“When you said dancing destroyed your trust in men, what did you mean?”
She gave him a long look. “You wouldn’t ask that if you’d spent any amount of time in a strip club.”
He shrugged. “It’s not my thing.”
“I don’t imagine. Not when the women are beating down your door for a night with the lion.”
“Bailey…”
“Why are you asking this?”
“I want to know.”
She looked as though she was going to tell him to mind his own business. He wasn’t sure what was going on in those cool blue eyes. Embarrassment? The need to protect herself? But then she lifted her shoulders. “There are four types of men who come to a strip club. The jokers, the guys who come in with a bachelor party or to party with their friends, they drink too much, leave you nice tips and go on their way. Then there’s the regulars. Some of them become friends, they pay you to dance for them, sit with them, listen to the things their wives won’t because their marriage is so far gone, they don’t listen to them at all anymore.”
His mouth twisted. “You realize you’re proving my point.”
She ignored him. “Those are the good regulars. Who can become bad regulars if they fall for you. Then they decide you need to be rescued. That you shouldn’t be living this life and they want to marry you. If you’re unlucky, they become stalkers and then they’re a real problem.”
“Did that happen to you?”
“Once. The club saw him follow me to my car and called the police.”
He looked horrified. “And the final kind?”
“The men who want to degrade you. The ones who are unsuccessful in life, feel they aren’t appreciated enough at home—the ones who don’t feel manly enough. They come in to put themselves on a power trip. They’ll call you names, call you stupid, whatever makes them feel better about themselves by making you feel like you’re about an inch tall.”
“So how did you deal with that?” A wry smile curved his mouth. “I can’t imagine you took it well.”
“I didn’t. One night when a guy grabbed my butt, I slapped him across the face.” Her mouth pursed. “He hit me back, only, much harder.”
Jared’s heart lurched. “What happened after that?”
“The bouncers threw him out. He came back the next night.”
“They let him back in?”
“He was spending. That’s all they care about.”
“Did that happen often?”
“No. It was more verbal abuse. You got used to it, you developed a thick skin, but it still wears away at your self-confidence.”
She looked so vulnerable, so tiny beside him when some of those guys must have been twice her size, it made his skin burn just thinking about it.
“What were the rules on personal contact?”
Her gaze skipped away from his. “To make the really good money, you had to do private dances.”
“Lap dances?”
“Yes.”
He’d never had a lap dance. He’d watched his groom-to-be buddy have one and hadn’t felt any desire to do that with a stranger. Hadn’t seen the sexiness in it. His buddy had, though. He’d loved having the beautiful girl intimately plastered across his lap.
“Was this,” he asked Bailey, his voice a little on the rough side, “all done with or without clothes?”