Page 28 of Wrecked By You

It wasn’t true. I cared. I’d had a taste of working in a top-class place and the benefits—namely, the tips—that came with employment. I didn’t want to go back to waiting tables in some fleapit diner and picking up an extra dollar here and there. Landing the job at Level Nine had been the first stroke of luck I’d had in forever. Right now, my fate was in the hands of a man who, I felt it safe to say, put his own interests first. Always.

Johannes took a seat at the table. “Do you really think I’d fire you?”

“That’s what you came here to do, wasn’t it?”

Exhaustion also made me brave, it seemed. Or stupid. Johannes’s reaction would decide which one was accurate.

His lips lifted. Couldn’t exactly call it a smile, but they moved in that direction.

“I admit, I wasn’t happy when I arrived at the club at one o’clock this morning to find that you hadn’t shown up for work.”

One o’clock? Oh, so he hadn’t been there for most of last night.

“I was in San Francisco dealing with some urgent business.”

Ah. My question must have shown on my face. I kept quiet, waiting for him to continue.

“And I also admit that firing you was a distinct possibility if I’d discovered you didn’t have a good reason for calling off work.”

I opened my mouth, then shut it when his hand came up.

“But now I know you had a good reason.”

He moved his chair back and crossed one long leg over the other. The movement drew my eye for a second. There was something alluring about an elegant man, and Johannes had elegance in spades. His height helped, as did his physique and the air of mystique he carried off so well.

“Have you called a doctor?”

His blunt, unexpected question dragged me from my musings. I bit my lip, considering the best way to phrase my answer. In the end, I kept it short.

“No.”

“Why not?’

My eyebrows flew up my head. Okay, there was blunt, and then there was downright none-of-your-fucking-business.

“Excuse me?”

“Your daughter is clearly sick. A medical professional should see her.”

The temperature of my blood shot up several degrees, mainly because he was right, and I knew he was right, and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it.

“For your information, we don’t all have wads of cash idly lying around. Doctors cost money. Money I don’t have.”

I thought my curt response would have forced him into retreat. Instead, he doubled down.

“Can’t her father pay?”

My back stiffened, and about a dozen alarms went off in my head. He was getting too personal, too close. Goddammit. I shouldn’t have let him in the house. Now he knew far more about me than I was comfortable sharing. He knew I was dirt-poor. He knew I had a precious daughter. And if I didn’t get him out of here right now, he’d prod and poke until he’d compelled me to tell him the precise reason her father couldn’t pay her medical bills.

I might not have seen any drug dealing at Level Nine, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t going on. Clubs were meccas for pushers and drug users alike, and for all I knew, Johannes might have links to Mateo, however tenuous, in a six-degrees-of-separation kind of way. He had to go.

Now.

I set my coffee cup on the table and rose to my feet.

“My personal life is not up for discussion. I appreciate your understanding and for keeping my job open until Chloe is feeling better, but I would like you to leave.”

He stared at me, his jaw locked up tight. But he didn’t move.