“I never said I was going to fire you, OK? I just want to hear…” What do I want to hear? “All the right things,” I say with a heavy sigh.

He gives me a crooked smile. “You want me to lie and say I didn’t fuck them? That it’s their word against mine?”

“So you did sleep with them all?”

“Yeah,” he admits like this is a foregone conclusion. “So fucking what? You’re gonna come up here and lecture me on safe sex? I use condoms, as you well know.”

“Hey—”

“Hey, nothing. I was upfront with you and I was upfront with them too. It might be a douchebag move to fuck around like that, but it’s not illegal.”

“Can I come in?”

He squints at me. “Why?”

“Because,” I whisper, “I don’t want to have this conversation standing in a hallway.”

“Five minutes, you said. I’ve got you on the clock.” He opens the door and I step in.

His suite is nice. There’s a small foyer with a table and a door to a closet and a second bathroom. I’m familiar with the floor plan. “This is quite a perk we give you. Free room? It must be nice living in a luxury hotel.”

“It is. Get to the point.”

I walk towards the living area and take it all in. He’s got a laptop open on the coffee table and tons of papers scattered around. He pushes past me and starts gathering them up and then tucks them away in an end-table drawer like he can’t get rid of them fast enough.

“I have to admit, the story the girls tell is sad.”

“Yeah, well, that’s because they are sad people. They go to strip shows looking for a piece of ass and then act surprised when it’s just sex? Come on. They’re not pissed because I fucked them. They’re pissed because I only did it once.”

Chapter Twelve

 

“Yeah,” I say, about to get sarcastic. But I realize it’s true. He’s… hot. I mean, let’s face it. Fletcher Novak has a six-pack, thighs that make you moan just thinking about them gripping your hips, fingers and hands that know just where to touch you, and a cock the size of a cucumber. So instead of being sarcastic, I just sigh and say, “You’re probably right.”

“What?” he asks, thrown by my surrender. “You believe me?” He stares me in the eyes and I get a little lost in the blue.

“What’s not to believe? You’re… desirable,” I say, coming up with a better word than hot. “They got hurt. And I’m sure you were up front with them, since I got the Novak treatment this morning and you were perfectly clear with me. So yeah, I believe you. But that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook, Fletcher. I can’t win here. You’re gonna call a lawyer if I take action and they’re gonna… well, who the hell knows what they might do. Tell the media? Write a letter to my father? Try to sue us for letting you assault them?”

“I didn’t assault them, Tiffy. I slept with them. And it takes two to do that shit, right? So why is it always the man’s fault? Why do I have to pay for doing the same thing they did? Why am I the bad guy when they came on to me? Hell, I didn’t even have to go looking for them. They found me.”

And he’s right. Every bit of it is right. “It’s a double standard. I get it. But that’s not the point. The point is, you can’t do that shit and work for this company. My father would blow a blood vessel if he knew you were acting this way.”

“I’m a fucking male stripper. This is how I’m supposed to act.”

“Well, none of the other guys in the show have a pack of angry women slapping them in the face in the casino restaurant. That’s you. And I’m sorry, but I’m gonna have to—”

“I want to keep this job, Tiffy. I’m not kidding. I want to keep this job for a little bit longer and I won’t let you force me out without a fight.”

“What’s that mean?” Seriously, can he be any more cryptic?

He stares at me for a second, like he’s not sure what to say. But the indecision passes just as fast, and his answer pours out of his mouth like all the other lies. “I’m the one who decides to leave, Tiffy. And if I broke your rules, then you’d have cause to get rid of me. But I didn’t. We both know that. So I’m staying and that’s the end of it.”

I walk away. I have no good way out of this. I need to just be a professional and do the job I was hired to do.

“Hey,” he says roughly, coming up behind me. “I saw you today.”

“What?” I ask back, looking over my shoulder at him. “Saw what?”

“You at the table with Cole. He’s the guy, right? You like him, don’t you? You took notes this morning and then you used them on him at lunch. I saw the whole thing.”

“We’re not talking about me, Fletcher. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You fucked me this morning.”

Shit.

“You liked it. And”—he chuckles—“you understood that it was just fun, right?”

“So what?” Dammit. Now he’s gonna threaten me. He’s gonna say, Tiffy, I’ll tell your father what a disappointment you are. I’ll tell him you fucked a complete stranger on the roof of his hotel and you came three times.

Jesus Christ. Why the hell did I ever do that?

Fletcher Novak will use this against me for eternity. Why didn’t I think of all this before I let my vagina have a party with him?

“So let’s make a deal.”

“What deal?” I ask, spinning around. “I let you keep your job and you don’t tell on me? No. I’m not gonna play that game. I’d rather tell my father that I fucked up and get it out in the open.”

“Wait. What the hell are you talking about? You think I’m gonna tell your father?” He laughs.

“Aren’t you? Aren’t you gonna threaten to ruin my life if I don’t let you keep your job?”

He frowns and lets out a long breath of air. “You have a really low opinion of me, don’t you?”

I stop a sarcastic remark once again. Because he’s got a look on his face. A look that appears oddly similar to the same disappointment my father might have.

So I reconsider him.

He’s smart, I know that much based on the proposal this morning. And he’s got ambition. That’s for sure. He’s only worked here nine months and he’s a star. He has a Wikipedia entry, I remind myself. I don’t have that, and I’m the daughter of billionaire Randall Preston. And he’s honest. I have to admit that too. He hasn’t lied about anything. I mean, I don’t care for his brand of truth, like, at all. But he still gives it to me.

“I don’t, actually. I think there’s a lot more to you than just taking your clothes off.”

He smiles. It’s the same smile from this morning when we were up on the roof. His eyes light up a little and his grin gets wide. “Then let me help you.”

“Help me how? By not telling—”

“I’m not gonna tell a man I fucked his daughter, Tiffy. Just what the actual fuck?”

I stare at him. And blink a few times, trying to grasp what he’s saying. “Then what?”

“You want Cole, right?”

I just shrug. “I like him a little. I think we’d make a good couple.”

“Just admit it,” Fletcher says, bringing his hand up to my cheek and stroking it softly. My insides do a little flip as I recall all the ways he touched me this morning. “You think he’s hot. You were flirting with him using my trade secrets—”

“Trade secrets?” I laugh out loud. “What?”

“—and they were working. Probably be working right now if those psycho bitches hadn’t come up and ruined it.”

“Actually, Cole’s in San Francisco—”

“I was being figurative, Tiffy. My point is, you know they were good tips. Look, you got dressed up, took that business suit off and did all the things I told you to. I’m good at this. So look, I’ll patch things up with Lisa and the other girls, you agree that I should keep my job, and as a way to show my appreciation, I’ll help you reel Cole in. What do you say?”

I give him the stink eye, sure that I’m being set up. “What’s the catch?”

“What catch? I just told you. I keep working, I apologize for hurting those girls—even if it wasn’t my fault—and help you get the guy.”