Page 6 of Wrecked By You
He slammed the lid on the laptop shut, and my heart plummeted to the floor.
“Are you in trouble with the police?”
I shook my head. “No, sir.”
That gaze landed on me again, vivid, forceful, rapacious. I squirmed under his attention. Seconds scraped by, each one feeling more like a minute. I kept quiet, too afraid that whatever I said would make matters worse. He hadn’t kicked me out yet. That had to count for something.
“You bring shit to my door, and you’ll wish you’d never been born.”
A dart of hope lit me up, and I squared my shoulders. “I wouldn’t. I—”
“You start tonight. Pay isn’t much, but the tips more than make up for that. We have some pretty generous clientele. I presume you want payment in cash?” He arched that same eyebrow once again.
“Please.”
He knew. He knew I was in trouble, yet he was willing to offer me a job. I hadn’t a clue why, but I wasn’t about to question his reasoning. I didn’t care for the whys of it, only that I could earn money and take care of Chloe. I teared up, blinking furiously before they fell. Intuition told me this man had no time for waterworks.
“Be here at eight. We open at ten. You’re late, you’re done.”
He unfolded himself from his chair, graceful as a dancer, dangerous like a predator. Wrenching the door open, he cocked his head.
“Out.”
I scrambled to my feet. “Thank you, Mr. Kingcaid. You won’t regret it. I promise.”
He grunted for the third time in our short meeting. As I skipped toward the exit, I could have sworn I heard him say, “I already do.”
The door almost hit me on the ass as I left the club and stepped into the blazing sunshine, the guy who’d just offered me a job not waiting until I was all the way through before slamming it behind me.
Jerk.
A jerk who’d just cut me a break for reasons known only to himself. He knew I wasn’t legit. He knew I had something to hide. And still he offered me a job.
Maybe my luck was finally turning.
Chapter3
Johannes
Where’s the bleach?
I peeredthrough the tiny pane of glass and watched my new bartender steer her jalopy onto the highway. Held together with rust and spit, it backfired as she pulled out of the parking lot sending a plume of black smoke into the air.
Jesus Christ.
Not only had I hired a woman who was clearly hiding something, but one whose transportation had little to no chance of ensuring she arrived for work on time. Better line up a few more interviews with the agency just in case and start working on a Plan B of cross-resourcing.
I made my way back to my office and opened my laptop, scanning her resume one more time.Scantdidn’t begin to cover it. Considering she’d admitted she hadn’t attended college, that gave her six years between finishing high school and now to build a work history. Yet apart from a stint at her father’s firm—which I didn’t buy for a second, given how she’d fidgeted as she made shit up on the fly—and a few odd bartending and waitressing jobs here and there, she’d hardly worked at all.
So whathadshe been doing with her time?
I couldn’t work out whether shewastrouble, or she wasintrouble. Either way, I didn’t need the headache or the hassle.
Which begged the question of what the hell I’d been thinking when I’d given her a job at my most prestigious club? The club I’d entered into theHottest Nightspots in LAcompetition, which ran once a year. To win that coveted top spot would propel not only Level Nine but all my clubs to a new level, one that paved the way for expansion.
Some might say I’d done a nice thing for a desperate woman. Those people didn’t know me. I’d given up being nice long ago. Almost becoming a statistic kind of stripped the nice right out of a person. Well, it had with me.
The real reason was far simpler. I’d needed a bartender. The agency sent me someone pretty and whom, as Margie had said, my customers would like—much as it irked me to admit it—and my choices were limited.