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That’s my cue. I stand.
“You going to find her?” I hear Bas over the thunder of her ovation.
“You’re fucking right I am.”
As the house lights come up, he slides his keys across the table with a smile. “Take these. I’ll catch an Uber home.”
I scoop them up, then hesitate. “Am I making a mistake?”
“How can you be? Whatever happens next is far better than you sitting at home, drowning in guilt over a woman who’s long gone. And I’ve never seen you want something as much as you seem to crave Nia right now.”
It’s ugly, but he’s right.
Fuck it. I’m about to make emotional decision number six. And I don’t care.
Jaw clenched, I slip through a door marked Employees Only and hang in the shadows, acting as if I belong. No one calls me out or questions why I’m here. The scene is crowded and chaotic. Dancers surround me, half-dressed in their costumes or emerging from little rooms on either side of the narrow hall in street clothes.
Beside me, the German barmaid looks surprisingly girl-next-door now that she’s in a pair of jeans and a pink T-shirt with a kitten ironed on the front.
I turn to her. “Where’s Nia?”
The blonde looks surprised that I know Precious Noire’s real name. And she probably sees my agitation. “Last door on the right.”
I don’t have the composure to speak words of thanks. Instead, I nod and charge down the hall toward what might be the stupidest mistake of my life.
I move through the sea of bodies, shrugging past the Latina dancer, a few of the French maids, then bump into my assistant’s handsy dance partner. I stare him down. He looks at me blankly. One thing I realize instantly? My gaydar is absolutely silent. He’s every bit as straight as I am.
As he hovers protectively around Nia’s dressing room, I snarl and shoulder my way past him.
He grabs my arm. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To see Nia. Let go.”
His eyes narrow. “Is she expecting you?”
No. In fact, I’m about to shock the hell out of her. I don’t know if I’ll be unwelcome, but I’m going to test Bas’s theory that she wants me. If he’s right…this could get messy really fast.
I shake him off, barrel inside the room, and shut the door. Behind me, I immediately hear the asshole jimmying the knob. I throw my weight against the portal to keep him out and lock it behind me.
Nia whirls to the sound of my intrusion, dressed in an inch of stage makeup, a silky white robe—and nothing else.
The moment she recognizes me, her mouth drops open. Shock spreads across her face. “E-Evan?”
“Nia.” I can’t find more words. I can’t do anything except stare and put one foot in front of the other. I certainly can’t defuse the anger and possessiveness I know I have no right to feel.
“What are you doing here?”
“That’s my question for you,” I growl. “Why the fuck are you taking your clothes off for strangers?”
She rears back and blinks at me. I don’t think she’s ever heard me curse. I keep the office professional, totally aboveboard. But I can’t manage decorum now when she’s breathing hard and her nipples are poking her thin robe.
She raises her chin and glares at me. Everything about her demeanor is like waving a red cape in front of a bull.
“It’s burlesque, not stripping,” she snaps. “I don’t do this for money. I do it because I enjoy dancing.”
“Yeah? You enjoy that asshole’s hands all over you, too?” Even though the logical side of my brain tells me I’m way out of line, I point at the door behind me and stalk closer to her. “You enjoy sex standing up with him?”
Her nostrils flare. Her mouth presses into a firm line. “Last time I checked, boss, I don’t have to justify my personal life to you.”
