Wild Dirty Secret(2)

“Oh.” Dawn paused, seeming to mull it over. Then she brightened. “So you can provide references, right?”

My heart sank. I hadn’t wanted to ask Allie for help with this. If she knew I was looking at a minimum-wage job, she would know I was running low on money. She’d worry what I’d do when I ran out. Well, I was worried too.

“Absolutely.” My voice was faint. “References.”

She chatted to me about schedules. Schedules, as if I’d already gotten the job. I could walk out of here a legally employed woman. How mundane. How terrifying. I smiled at all the right places, cued more by her tone than an understanding of the inner workings of retail. I had always considered myself world-wise, world-weary, but it amazed me all the things I did not know. Things like clocking in instead of meeting for cocktails in the hotel bar, like getting a smoke break instead of a warm washcloth between clients.

A salesclerk at a bookstore. My girlfriend works at a bookstore, he could say. It was unremarkable. Respectable. As long as I didn’t fuck it up.

The thud of steps down the stairs alerted me to an arrival. I turned. My first impression was of a middle-aged guy looking trim in a polo and slacks. Too prissy for Dawn, I thought with some disappointment, and then he looked up.

I froze as my heart skipped a beat, then two. I couldn’t place him, exactly, but it was definitely a hotel room somewhere. Maybe a year ago. He was coming closer and—Fuck. Fuck.

A client. I’d had this nightmare, but it had always been me behind some counter and him a customer. Our encounter would be short and awkward, and with any luck, he wouldn’t look close enough to recognize me. But this was an interview. He would see me—he would know.

“Yo, boss. This is Shelly.”

My gut tightened. Dawn was practically breathless at the sight of him.

“She’s cool, and you should hire her. Trust me on this.”

“Shelly.” He looked at me, smiling, his warm brown eyes not registering a thing. “Two minutes, and you’ve already earned an endorsement.”

My heart threatened to beat through my chest. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

He laughed. “The last time someone called me sir, it was a cop half my age, and he was writing me a speeding ticket. Call me Jason.”

“Right. Jason.” Nervously, I licked my lips.

His gaze lowered to my mouth; his brow furrowed.

Distantly I heard Dawn make another pitch for me, a complaint about the guys working here being lazy bums and how she really needed another girl to commiserate with. I wanted to say something, to put a stop to the train that was about to crash into me, but the air was too thin—I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe.

Frowning slightly, he took the application and scanned it. I saw when he passed the work history section; his gaze skittered back up. His mouth opened, snapped shut. If he had already suspected, he’d definitely figured it out now. My stomach hollowed out.

He stared at the paper, clearly unseeing—frozen like me. The last time I had seen him, he’d been lounging naked on white sheets, his skin flushed and sweat-dampened as he’d handed me a nice tip from his wallet. Now both of us were trapped in this moment by our sins and by Dawn’s hopeful expression.

“Um, boss?” she said. “Remember you were just saying how much we needed someone.”

She laughed, but we must have been giving it away, because the sound was thin.

“I figure she’s gotta be better than Damion. He wiped his nose on the books.”

Jason remained silent—damnably so. Yes, the quiet said. She’s worse than you know, worse than the guy who put snot on books. His lips worked, closing around empty air. The silence stretched, bottomed out. And then I started to pity him.

He had dipped his toe into the dark pool of Chicago’s underworld. Paid-for sex with a pretty girl and a strap-on was par for the course in my world, but he’d probably sweated the morality—and possibly the cost—for a long time after. I was the one out of my element. I was the one who didn’t belong here.

It was time to leave.

“I probably should mention that I have a busy schedule,” I said.

“What?” He blinked at me with those puppy-dog brown eyes, the pleading look that once had words attached to them: “Please, spank my ass. Harder, harder.”

I sighed. “I have a life, you know. So I don’t want to work weekends, and I need to be out of here by five on the weekdays.”

Understanding lit his eyes—and gratitude. “I’m afraid weekends are required for this position. Lots of them.”

I snorted. “Good luck if you expect me to show up.”