Lake was practically salivating as she threw off her cover and stockings from the night before. How in the world has he been using my tiny, pathetic old bathroom?
Looking at the black tub, she believed that was where the saying ‘once you go black, you never go back’ had originated from. The poor child inside of her was already crying about how the clock would eventually strike midnight, and then the carriage would turn back into a pumpkin. Because as much as she felt at home there, ultimately it wasn’t her home, and she wasn’t planning on moving in with Vincent any time soon. It’s not like he would want me to, anyways.
Relaxing didn’t go as planned. So many thoughts swirled around in her mind about losing her virginity, Vincent, Adalyn, her mom, her dad, Dante—the list was ginormous. She quickly got dressed in the clothes she had worn to work the day before and even made something to eat in his glamorous kitchen.
Sitting there with nothing to do, she wondered where Vincent had gone to for so long. It made her feel like a puppy watching for its owner as she waited either for him to return or for it to be time for her to head down to work. It was about an hour and a half until she usually started for work, but she couldn’t sit there any longer, not wanting to feel desperate when he came back.
She grabbed her stuff and headed downstairs to the casino, even though she was sure Vincent was going to be really pissed about it.
Lake was setting her bag down on her dressing table when she noticed Kim coming up behind her from the reflection in the mirror.
Kim eyed Lake’s reflection, seeing her semi-damp hair and clothes from the previous night. “I see he finally took your fucking v-card. Maybe now that he’s fucked you out of his system, he’ll let me take another spin. ‘Cause, let’s be honest, Vincent is like every other man—they want a challenge every now and then, but in the end, they want someone with experience sucking their dick.” Her smile twisted up into a smirk. “I bet you didn’t even suck his dick, did you?”
She watched Kim snicker off, not needing to wait for Lake’s answer to know. Lake quickly turned away from her reflection, not wanting to look at herself, and started to feel sick. She knew she shouldn’t listen to one word that came out of Kim’s mouth, but something in her found that everything Kim had been saying was the harshest fucking truth.
“Honey, what are you doing here?” Sadie asked, coming up to her.
Lake tried her best to shake off what Kim had just said. “I decided to come in a little bit early to apologize. I’m so, so, so sorry about yest—”
Sadie held up her hand. “It’s okay. Fucking jeepers creepers deserved it, but you don’t work down here anymore. Didn’t playboy tell you already?”
“Tell me what?” Lake looked at her in confusion.
“Of course he didn’t. He made me promise not to tell you that last night was your last night working here. Your debt is paid, honey!”
Lake’s mouth fell open. “Huh? How?”
Sadie shrugged. “I don’t know. He didn’t tell me that part. You’re supposed to be happy, jump up and down, or scream. Some shit like that, anyway.”
Swinging around, she quickly grabbed her bag then headed for the door, her mind racing. She hit the elevator button for it to open.
Why didn’t he want me to know? Clearly, there was a reason he told Sadie to keep it a secret and why he hadn’t told her himself. Only one person was going to give her the truth, the whole truth.
Getting on the elevator, she hit the code to take her to the top. Lake was going to the top of the fucking mafia food chain. There was another surprise visit in store for Dante Caruso.
* * *
Vincent spent his day cleaning up his almost fuck-up from the previous night. In all honesty, no one liked that fucker David, not even Dante who was racking up a shit-ton of money off him. After he had sent David into practically a coma when he had a flight back home to Canada the next day, some of the girls he had paid to take back to his hotel room had finally spoken up about how he had been quite abusive and given them a huge sum to keep quiet about it.
Vincent’s day had been made. He had gotten to piss on David’s motherfucking grave. Not only that, but he finally had woken up beside Lake’s warm, naked body that morning, and his balls were a lesser shade of blue.
He jumped off the elevator, contemplating how to tell her she no longer worked downstairs. He had planned to tell her the night before, but the fight with David and sexual frustration between them had put that on a back burner. He had been saving it for the morning, but a phone call from Dante telling him to get the fuck in his office had kept him from sharing.