But evidently Cleo was so beautiful that her new bosses had juiced the process. The Donkey Club, as the fucking joint was called, must have realized that she was a honeypot and had pasted her face on the ad, her eyes half-lidded, smoldering, while holding a finger up to her lips in a dirty shhh!
Holy fucking shit. Judging from the open mouths of other dudes looking at the ad it was fucking working, there’d be some very interested new patrons gracing the Donkey with their presence very soon. And it was bound to be bad. After all, any joint called the Donkey was going to be bottom of the barrel, seedy and unsanitary.
So I’d whipped out my cell and called off my client dinner, instead directing the driver to go straight to Cleo’s workplace. It was only eight, so the club obviously wasn’t packed, but I managed to slip in unnoticed, just another guy in a suit.
It was dark and disgusting. Sawdust rose in gusts off the floor and the space was a far cry from the velvet rope treatment of premiere gentlemen’s clubs. Instead, the counters were sticky, dudes in cowboy hats chewed on straw as they watched girls gyrate, and there was a live horse in the back that night for whatever reason.
But I saw what I’d come to see. There was my little redhead, shimmying on stage, her assets luscious and bouncy. Mr. Happy rose to attention at that one glimpse, watching raptly as she swung and shook, her pale creamy flesh almost incandescent in the low lights, a spattering of freckles barely visible just above her bosom. I watched, entranced, my heart in my throat. Cleo looked delicious, ripe and juicy, and I could barely breathe, I wanted to jerk her off that stage and smother her with kisses.
But another dude beat me to it. Some old farmer went up there waving dollar bills, and Cleo bent over, presumably to let him stuff the bills into her g-string. But instead, the dude whisked her off her feet, so that she came to rest in his lap, bouncing and laughing.
I couldn’t hear what she said but the old farmer slobbered over her shoulders and breasts, and Cleo threw her head back in mock ecstasy, reveling in the attention, loving the gentle tugs and nips. She managed to score even more money, the guy literally getting out his wallet and giving her all of its contents.
I stood, my back stiff, and began to make my way out of the club. As a businessman, I knew my logic was flawed. Cleo was a professional actress in many ways, she smiled and blew kisses to make money. But my heart was thundering, feeling betrayed and lost, torn apart by her shocking departure. I wanted my little girl to be mine only, and it killed me that she was giving it away to other men, selling herself, baring it all for others to see.
Shaking my head resolutely, I got back into the car.
“Home,” I barked. I would forget the brat no matter what it took.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Cleo
Four years later …
I miss my stepdad. I think about my old life sometimes, and it makes me sad. It’s like when you’re all grown up, and you realize that your childhood is gone now, the sweetness, the purity, the innocence. Okay maybe I’d had none of those things, but definitely the two weeks I’d had with Drake had been amazing. Not just the sex, but his reassuring presence in me, surrounding me all the time.
Because things have really changed. I’m a working girl now, on stage every night, serving customers right and left. I don’t know how I got here exactly.
When I first came to New York, Lorena helped me find a really nice apartment.
“Don’t worry, Daddy’s going to pay for it,” she reassured me. We’d signed a lease for five thousand a month. But after two months in the rental, Lorena canceled my lease and put me into a shared apartment with five other dancers. It was awful — some of the girls were crackheads, smoking whenever they were off duty, stoned and dazed all the time. Not to mention that the place was a fucking sty, cockroaches and mice scrabbling at night.
But Lorena was adamant.
“You can’t live off Daddy’s money forever,” she admonished. “You’re eighteen now and Drake won’t support you forever. The rent here’s only $900, you can afford it by working hard at the Donkey Club.”
And it was true. I made about $500 a night dancing, all cash, so covering my rent wasn’t an issue. It was more the knowledge that Drake didn’t care anymore. I felt like a ghost now. He never called, he never visited, was too busy with his new girl … and the baby on the way. I was bitter, and the tang in my mouth sour and hurtful. It was so painful to think that our connection was completely forgotten, that I was a piece of trash, used and discarded already. The agony made me throw myself into work, trying to forget.