Passionate Protectors?

by Anne Mather

  ‘You amaze me,’ said Ash. ‘I’ll bear it in mind.’

  The beer was surprisingly good, and wonderfully cold, and he took several long deep swallows, turning his attention away from the flashing smiles of the hopeful girls and focussing instead on the piano player who was still doggedly persisting with a range of old standards in spite of the indifference of his audience.

  I hope the old witch at the door pays you well, brother, Ash told him silently as he stubbed out the cheroot. You deserve it.

  The pianist reached the end of his set and half-rose to acknowledge the non-existent applause. He seated himself again, and struck a chord loudly.

  The bead curtain shivered and admitted a girl.

  At her entrance a strange sound like a low growl went through the room. The predators scenting their prey, Ash thought with distaste, then paused, eyes narrowing as he saw her properly.

  She was blonde, and slightly less than medium height in spite of her high heels, her slim, taut body complemented by the fluid lines of the brief black dress she was wearing. The strapless bodice was cut straight across the swell of her high rounded breasts, making her skin glow like ivory. The silky fabric clung to her slender hips, ending just below mid-thigh, giving the troubling impression that beneath it she was naked.

  But she did not climb up on the stage and begin her routine. Instead, head slightly bent, looking at no one and ignoring the whistles and ribald shouts, she skirted the edge of the platform until she reached the piano. She leaned back against it, as if glad of its support, while the pianist played the introduction to ‘Killing Me Softly’.

  She had an incredible face, Ash thought frowningly, his attention completely caught. In contrast to the tumble of fair hair on her shoulders her brows and lashes were startlingly dark, fringing eyes as green and wary as a cat’s. She had exquisite cheekbones, and her mouth was painted a hot, sexy pink.

  And she was scared witless.

  He’d known it from the moment of her entrance. Even across the crowd of waiting men he’d felt the force of her fear like a cold hand laid on his shoulder. Now he noticed the small hands balled into fists among the folds of her skirt, the blank, tense smile on her lips.

  She was like a small animal, he thought, caught in the headlights of a car and powerless to move.

  But there was no problem with her voice when she began to sing. It was low-pitched, powerful and faintly husky. The kind of voice a man would want to hear moaning his name at the moment of climax, Ash thought, his mouth curving in self-contempt.

  Her audience was listening while she sang, but with a faint restiveness. However appealing her voice might be, it was the promise offered by the skimpy dress that mattered to them. They couldn’t believe it was just a song that was on offer. All the other girls took off their clothes, so why shouldn’t she?

  She moved effortlessly into the next song—‘Someone to Watch Over Me’. She was no longer staring at the floor. Her head was up, and she seemed to be looking far beyond the confines of the club with a wistfulness and undisguised yearning that matched the words of the song.

  And in that moment, as her voice trembled into silence, Ash’s gaze met hers over the heads of the crowd. Met—and held it for one endless, breathless moment.

  Now, he thought, I know why I came here tonight.

  The number over, she ducked her head swiftly and shyly in response to the sprinkling of applause, and went back the way she had come. Ash waited to see if she would glance back at him, but she did not, simply vanishing behind the curtain, followed by catcalls and shouts of disappointment.

  Ash drained his beer and got to his feet. Mama Rita looked up at his approach, her eyes sharp and shrewd.

  ‘You want something, querido?’

  ‘I want the songbird,’ Ash said levelly.

  She considered that. ‘To sit with you—have a few drinks—be nice?’

  ‘Nice, yes,’ Ash told her. ‘But in one of your private rooms, Mama. I want her to dance for me. Alone.’

  Her brows lifted and she began to laugh, the sequins shaking and flashing. ‘She’s my newest girl. She still learning, mi corazón. And maybe I’m saving her for a rich customer, anyway. You couldn’t afford her.’

  He said softly, ‘Try me.’

  ‘Crazy man,’ she said. ‘Why spend all your money? Choose another girl. One who dances good.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘The songbird. I’ll pay the price for her.’

  She looked him over. ‘You got that sort of money?’ There was frank disbelief in her voice.

  ‘You know that I have.’ Ash took a billfold from his back pocket, peeled off some notes, and tossed them on to the table in front of her. ‘And I know what I want.’

  She picked them up swiftly. ‘That for me,’ she said. ‘Commission. You pay her too. Whatever she worth. Whatever you get her to do. Should be easy,’ she added. ‘Beautiful man like you, querido.’ She chuckled again. ‘Teach her some lessons, Sí?’

  ‘Sí,’ Ash said softly. ‘The lessons of a lifetime.’ He paused. ‘Does she have a name?’

  She tucked the money he’d given her into her cleavage and surged to her feet. ‘She called Micaela.’ She leered triumphantly at him. ‘You have another beer—on the house. I go tell your songbird that she’s lucky girl.’

  I only hope, Ash said silently, watching Mama Rita’s departure, that she thinks so too.

  But that, he thought as he went back to his table, was in the lap of the gods—like so much else. And he ordered his beer and settled down to wait.

  Chellie sank on to the stool in front of the mirror, gripping the edge of the dressing table until the shaking stopped. It was nearly a month since she’d started singing in the club, and she ought to be used to it by now. But she wasn’t, and maybe she never would be.

  It was the men’s faces—the hot, hungry eyes devouring her—that she couldn’t handle, the things they called out to her that she was thankful she couldn’t understand properly.

  ‘How do you bear it?’ she’d asked Jacinta, one of the pole dancers and the only girl working at Mama Rita’s to be even marginally friendly.

  Jacinta had shrugged. ‘I don’t see,’ she’d replied brusquely. ‘I smile, but I don’t look at them. I look past—think my own thoughts. Is better that way.’

  It seemed wise advice, and Chellie had followed it. Until tonight, that was, when, totally against her will, she’d found herself being drawn almost inexorably to a man’s gaze. True, he’d been sitting by himself at one of the rear tables, in itself unusual, as most of the male clientele liked to bunch at the front, baying like wolves for every inch of exposed flesh. But that wasn’t the only thing that had seemed to set him apart.

  For one thing, he was clearly a European, and they didn’t get many at the club.

  For another, he was strikingly—almost dangerously attractive, his surface good looks masking a toughness as potent as a clenched fist.

  Even across the crowded club he’d made her aware of that.

  She thought in bewilderment, Somehow he made me look at him…

  So, what could have brought him to seek the tawdry erotic stimulus of a place like Mama Rita’s?

  Chellie’s experience of men was frankly limited, but instinct told her that this was the last man on earth who would need to buy his pleasures.

  Oh, God, she thought impatiently, things must be bad if you’re starting to fantasise about a customer.

  And things were indeed about as bad as they could get. Her life had become a nightmare without end, she realised as she peeled off the loathsome blonde wig, and ran her fingers thankfully through the short feathery spikes of raven hair that it concealed.

  Mama Rita had been adamant about that. Brunettes were no novelty in this part of the world. The men who came to her club wanted blondes, and pale-skinned blondes at that.

  It had seemed such a small concession at the time, and she’d been so desperate—so grateful for a place to stay and the chance to earn some money
—that she’d probably have agreed to anything. Especially as she was being given the chance to sing. She’d thought it was the end of the disasters that had befallen her. Instead, it had only been the beginning.

  She wouldn’t need to stay at the club long, she’d told herself with supreme confidence. She’d soon save enough for an air ticket out of here.

  Only it hadn’t worked out like that. The money she received had seemed reasonable when it was first offered, but once Mama Rita had exacted rent for that tiny cockroachridden room on the top floor of the club, money for the hire of the tacky dresses she insisted that Chellie wore, and payment for the services of Gomez the piano player—which she was convinced he never saw—Chellie barely had enough left to feed herself.

  And, worst of all, Mama Rita had taken her passport, which was about all she had left in the world, and locked it away in her desk, making her a virtual prisoner.

  The trap had opened and she’d walked straight into it, she realised bitterly.

  There was always the option of earning more, of course, as Mama Rita had made clear from the start. Chellie could be friendly, and sit with the customers, encourage them to buy bogus and very expensive champagne. But even if the thought of it hadn’t made her flesh crawl she’d been warned off by Jacinta.

  ‘You earn more—she takes more,’ the other girl had said with a shrug.

  ‘You sit with a customer one day; you take your clothes off next. Because you don’t get out of here unless Mama Rita says so. And she chooses when and where you go. And you ain’t served your time yet.’

  She’d paused, giving Chellie a level look. ‘There are worse places than this, believe it. And don’t try running away, because she always finds you, and then you will be sorrier than you ever dreamed.’

  I think I’ve already reached that point, Chellie thought bleakly. And who ever said blondes had more fun?

  She sighed, then got up and began to root along the dress rail in the corner. She performed two sets each evening and had to wear something different for every appearance, which presented its own problems. When she’d begun, she’d worn evening dresses, but these had gradually been taken away and replaced by the kind of revealing costumes the dancers and hostesses wore. Which severely restricted her choice.

  She bit her lip hard when she came to the latest addition, a micro-skirt in shiny black leather topped by a bodice that was simply a network of small black beads. She might as well wear nothing at all, but she supposed that was the point Mama Rita was making.

  But that’s never going to happen, she told herself with grim determination. I’m going to get away from here somehow, whatever the risk. And from now on I’m trusting no one. Especially men…

  Her whole body winced as she thought of Ramon. She tried very hard not to think of him, but that wasn’t always possible, although the physical memory of him was mercifully fading with every day that passed. She could barely recall what he looked like, or the sound of his voice. One day she might forget his touch, she thought with a shiver, or even the painful delusion that she’d been in love with him.

  In a way, she acknowledged, everything that had occurred between them seemed remote—as if it had happened to two other people in some separate lifetime.

  Only it hadn’t, of course. And that was why she found herself here, duped, robbed and dumped, in this appalling mess.

  It might be humiliating to retrace the steps that had brought her here, but it was also salutary.

  After all, she’d needed to escape from her life in England and the future that was being so inexorably planned for her. In spite of everything, she still believed that. It was just unfortunate that, through Ramon, all she’d done was jump out of the frying pan into a fire like the flames of hell.

  But somehow she was going to wrench her life back into her own control.

  I’ll survive, she told herself with renewed determination.

  As she hung the black dress back on the rail the flimsy curtain over the dressing room entrance was pushed aside and Lina, one of the lap dancers, came in.

  ‘Mama Rita wants to see you, girl, in her office—now.’

  Chellie’s brows snapped together. It was the first time she’d been summoned like this. Usually a girl was called up because of some misdemeanour, she thought, tensing in spite of herself. She’d seen several of the girls with scratched faces and bruised and bleeding mouths after an encounter with Mama Rita’s plump ring-laden hands.

  Aware that the dancers operated a grapevine second to none, she strove to keep her voice level. ‘Do you know why?’

  Lina’s eyes glinted with malice. ‘Maybe you’re going to start working for your living, honey, like the rest of us.’

  Chellie faced her, lifting her chin. ‘I do work—as a singer.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Lina’s tone was derisive. ‘Well, all that may be about to change. The word is that some guy wants to know you better.’

  Chellie felt the colour drain from her face. ‘No,’ she said hoarsely. ‘That’s not possible.’

  ‘Take it up with Mama Rita.’ Lina shrugged indifferently. ‘And don’t keep her waiting.’

  The office was one floor up, via a rickety iron staircase. Chellie approached it slowly, the beat of her heart like a trip-hammer. Surely—surely this couldn’t be happening, she thought. Surely Lina was just being malicious. Because Mama Rita had told her at the beginning that there were plenty of willing girls at the club, and that she would never be pressured into anything she did not want.

  And Chellie had believed that. In fact, she’d counted on it.

  There was a clatter of feet on the stairs and Manuel came into view.

  Chellie stepped back to allow him to pass, trying not to shrink too visibly. From the moment she’d started working at the club she’d found him a problem. If she hadn’t already been repelled by his coarse good looks, then his constant attempts to get her into corners and fondle her would have aroused her disgust.

  The first night in her cramped and musty room, some instinct had prompted her to wedge a chair under the handle of her door. And some time in the small hours she’d woken from an uneasy sleep to hear a stealthy noise outside, and the sound of the handle being tried in vain. She’d observed the same precaution ever since.

  There was no point in complaining to Mama Rita either, because the other girls reckoned Manuel was her nephew—some even said her son.

  Now, he favoured her with his usual leer. ‘Hola, honey girl.’

  ‘Good evening.’ Chellie kept her tone curt, and his unpleasant grin widened.

  ‘Oh, you’re so high—so proud, chica. Too good for poor Manuel. Maybe tomorrow you sing a different tune.’ He licked his lips. ‘And you’ll sing it for me.’

  She controlled her shiver of revulsion. ‘Don’t hold your breath.’

  The office door was open and Mama Rita was sitting at her desk, using her laptop. She greeted Chellie with a genial smile. ‘You were a big hit tonight, hija. One of the customers liked you so much he wants a private performance.’

  Chellie’s heart skipped a beat. ‘Any particular song?’ She sounded more cool than she felt.

  ‘You making a joke with me, querida?’ The geniality was suddenly in short supply. ‘He wants that you dance for him.’ The mountainous body mimed grotesquely what was required.

  Chellie shook her head. ‘I don’t dance,’ she said, her mouth suddenly dry. ‘I—I never have. I don’t know how…’

  ‘You have watched the others.’ Mama Rita shrugged. ‘And he don’t want some high-tone ballerina. You have a good body. Use it.’

  Yes, Chellie thought, but I’ve only watched the girls table dancing in the club itself. That has limits. The private room thing is totally different…

  She said desperately, ‘But you employ me as a singer. That was the deal. We have a contract…’

  Mama Rita laughed contemptuously. ‘Sí, but the terms just changed.’

  ‘Then you’re in breach, and that cancels any agreement be
tween us.’ Chellie kept her hands bunched in the folds of her skirt to conceal the fact that they were trembling. ‘So, if you’ll return my passport, I’ll leave at once,’ she added with attempted insouciance.

  ‘You think it that simple?’ The older woman shook her head almost sorrowfully. ‘You dream, hija.’

  ‘I fail to see what’s so complicated.’ Chellie lifted her chin. ‘Legally, you’ve broken the association between us. End of story.’

  ‘This my club. I make the law here.’ Mama Rita leaned forward, her eyes glittering like her sequins. ‘And you go nowhere. Because I keep your passport as security until you pay your debts here.’

  Chellie was suddenly very still. ‘But the rent—everything is paid in advance.’

  Mama Rita sighed gustily. ‘Not everything, chica. There is your medical bill.’

  ‘Medical bill?’ Chellie repeated in total bewilderment. ‘What are you talking about?’

  There was a tut of reproof. ‘You have a short memory. When you first come here I call a doctor to examine you. To check whether you sick with pneumonia.’

  Chellie recalled with an inward grimace a small fat man with watery, bloodshot eyes and unpleasantly moist hands, who’d breathed raw alcohol into her face as he bent unsteadily over her.

  She said, ‘I remember. What of it?’

  Mama Rita handed her a sheet of paper. ‘See—this is what you owe him.’

  Chellie took it numbly, her lips parting in shock as she read the total.

  She said hoarsely, ‘But he can’t ask this. He was only with me for about two minutes—he prescribed none of the stuff listed here—and he was drunk. You know that.’

  ‘I know that you were sick, girl, needing a doctor. And Pedro Alvarez is good man.’ She nodded, as if enjoying a private joke. ‘Plenty discreet. You may be glad of that one day.’

  She paused, studying Chellie with quiet satisfaction. ‘But you don’t leave owing all this money, chica. So, you have to earn to pay it. And this man who wants you has cash to spend. Good-looking hombre too.’ A laugh shook her, sending the rolls of fat wobbling. ‘Be nice—you could make all you need in one night.’