“I’m not convinced that’s all there is to it.”
“Do you think she needs cash?”
Dante considered that possibility. People rarely had enough money. “After her success yesterday, I’ve been thinking of offering an exclusive belly-dancing exhibition. We’ll invite our most lucrative customers, set it up on Level Four in the lounge, and stack the cards in Suri’s favor. She’ll be rolling in tips from the clients.”
“Nice. Now you’ve managed to spin it into an exclusive event you can charge them extra to see. That’s not manipulative at all.”
There was real censure in Jericho’s tone. Dante turned to stare. In truth, he hadn’t considered adding a cover charge. If he did, now that Jericho had given him the idea, the extra money would go to Suri as a bonus.
“I know seeing all the angles is your gift.” Jericho’s hazel eyes grew hard. “But I keep telling you that this isn’t business anymore.”
Far below their perch, someone was yelling. Distracted, Dante leaned over to get a better look. Jericho was already gone from his side, disappearing into a doorway that would let him take a shortcut to the scene.
He could see a man and a woman involved in some kind of scuffle. They didn’t look like staff, more like clientele. Dante straightened his jacket and walked toward the main staircase. Sometimes just making himself visible was enough to remind visitors of their manners.
Other customers were starting to gather for a better view. Dante wound his way down the wide stairs, gently nudging curious bystanders as he went. Before he was halfway down, he was able to hear the argument.
“Where is she?” the woman demanded. “You can’t hide her from me.”
She was dressed in a sheer chiffon button-down, designer jeans, and sneakers with glittery silver emblems on the sides. She didn’t look as if she was dressed to play with Asylum’s trendy crowd. She looked as if she’d managed to sneak in the back door.
When Dante was halfway down the last flight of stairs, he got a glimpse of the man involved in the scuffle. Jackson Wilhelm was playing with a pile of chips at one of the baccarat tables. A large knot twisted inside Dante’s stomach when he realized what all this must all be about.
“You can’t just ignore me, Jackson!” The woman grabbed his arm.
Wilhelm brushed her off. She was obviously the unfortunate girl he’d married the day Jericho and Dante had met Suri. “Selena, remove yourself or I’ll have you removed.”
Behind Selena, Jericho was already in place with a team of Asylum security. “If the two of you will come with me, we can address this situation in a less public fashion.”
The formality in Jericho’s words and tone was classic. There was nothing sexier than Jericho playing cool and aloof. But Selena was beyond decorum.
“Like hell I’m going to take this somewhere private. It’s too late for that. He tried to fuck the musician at our wedding reception. If that wasn’t public enough, I don’t know what is. The incident has already made it onto a reality clip show. At this point, I don’t even have any pride left to lose.” She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. It had come loose from the messy ponytail that hung halfway down her back.
Jericho lifted his gaze to Dante, one eyebrow arched in silent question. Dante nodded. Jericho had obviously made the correct assumption about Selena’s and Jackson’s connection to Suri and the bizarre string of coincidences that had led them to meet.
Jericho moved in closer behind her. He was using every ounce of his natural calm. Dante could feel it six feet away. “Who are you looking for? I can’t help you if you don’t help me understand.”
“I want to talk to the whore he met while he was here.” Her voice broke. “I just want to talk to her.”
Two women. Both wronged, wounded by a man who had used Asylum’s structure for his own selfishness. Dante was disgusted. By Wilhelm. By himself. This asshole had managed to wreak havoc in the lives of two women who deserved so much better.
“Come with me.” Jericho put his arm around Selena, tucking her snugly against his side. “I can find who you’re looking for. Then we can all talk and make this right.”
Her expression was suspicious, but she allowed Jericho to lead her from the baccarat table. Dante waited until they were several yards away before resolving the male portion of the equation.
Wilhelm seemed utterly oblivious to the situation he’d created with his callous treatment of his wife. His attention was focused hotly on the constant motion of the baccarat game as the dealer steadily continued the flow. If the tables kept moving, patrons stopped paying attention to drama that didn’t affect them. That was the cardinal rule of dealing at Asylum.
“Are you not concerned about your wife?” Dante kept his tone mild.
Wilhelm didn’t spare Dante a glance. “No.”
Dante motioned to Terrence and Felix. Without missing a beat, his bouncers plucked the much smaller man from his stool and carried him in the direction Jericho had gone. Dante gave the other gamblers a cool smile before scooping Wilhelm’s chips into his hand and following suit.
It might have seemed theatrical to drag a customer off the floor. Dante considered it the price of keeping his badass reputation alive and well. If people thought they could be picked up like ants and disposed of, they were less likely to cause a scene of their own.
At least Jackson Wilhelm is useful for something.
* * * *
Suri flopped onto the stool in front of her makeup station. It’d been a long night—a good night but a long one. Saturdays always were. It was after midnight, and she was ready to drop dead. She’d worked a double, only managing to catch a few hours’ sleep between shifts. Still, the money had been worthwhile. It would have been better if she didn’t need to get up and make it all the way to Brookline by nine in the morning to play a Sunday brunch for a group of aristocratic grannies.
“I gave that guy your card, just like you asked me to.” Lizzie perched on the edge of the counter. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”
A sour taste filled Suri’s mouth. It was just a business card. It wasn’t as if she’d walked up and solicited some stranger for sex. Flaherty’s bodyguard would give him the card, and someone would call her and set up a private dance. It was business. Except that business shouldn’t have made her feel like a sneaky liar. “I’m just trying to make enough money to get out of a tight spot.”
Lizzie was way too smart to fall for that tired line. “You know, when the girls go solo somewhere, they usually hire a guy to go with them. I’m sure Jericho would watch your back if you asked.”
I’d have to tell him first. And then he’d either stop me from going or be too mad to care. “I’ll be fine. I’ll meet him at some nice hotel with good security, or somewhere public.” Why did she feel like crying? As much as she might want the security that Jericho’s proximity provided, she had no right to ask for it when she was about to lie about what she was doing.
“At least ask Terrence to help you, please?” Lizzie grabbed her arm. “I don’t want to see you hurt.”
Suri began dismantling the stiff ponytail sprayed into a perfect pouf on top of her head. “I’m going to be fine. I swear.”
Zoey’s cherubic face peered around the corner of a clothes rack. “Hey, Suri? Terrence told me to tell you that the boss wants to see you in the reception room.”
Suri froze in the act of removing her hairpins. “Thanks, Zoey. I’ll go right up.”
“No prob.” The dancer bounced off. Her good mood probably meant her son’s parent-teacher conference had gone better than expected. Of course, she wasn’t the one who’d been summoned to the boss’s reception room.
The reception room was basically Dante’s waiting area. Dancers were generally called there if they’d gotten into trouble of some kind or they’d really screwed up and gotten fired. Clients would occasionally land there if they had a complaint or if they’d broken the rules. Asylum was probably the only club where staff and customers seeme
d to have the same set of consequences.
Suri thought of Flaherty. Had Dante and Jericho somehow figured out what she intended? Her palms grew clammy, and she felt light-headed. This was what she’d feared. The moment when she’d have to come clean. The moment she’d lose them both for good.
“Suri?”
“I’m sure it’s no big deal.” She began to strip down, wanting to go in her own clothes and not the angel costume she’d worn on stage. “There’s only one way to find out what they want. Right?”
Lizzie was biting the inside of her cheek. “So, are you and—those two—still seeing each other?”
It was on the tip of Suri’s tongue to give a sassy retort, like she was seeing every inch of them. But she didn’t want to be that way about it. If that was all there was to this relationship, she wouldn’t be worried about losing it. “Yes. We are.”
“You’ve seemed more relaxed. Happier. If that’s the reason why, I’m glad for you.” Lizzie wrapped her in a big hug.
Suri pulled her sweater over her head and shoved her feet into her shoes. “Thank you, Lizzie. And I’m sure this isn’t a bad thing. So don’t worry yourself to death.”
“See you Monday night, girl.”
They exchanged an air kiss on the cheek. “You too.”
Putting on the confident act for Lizzie wasn’t hard. But it was a different story when Suri was traversing the well-trod path from the dressing room to Dante’s office. She’d made the decision to withhold the truth, to lie about her intentions. Eventually, she was going to have to pay the price.
The corridors inside Asylum had always fascinated her. The exterior walls of the old factory were brick—the reddish kind found all over Boston. They were always cool and slightly damp to the touch. The club was riddled with a network of these hallways tucked up against the brick walls. The opposite sides were bare framing, some of it quite old. Lights were dim overhead affairs, and the windows were all frosted over, so it wasn’t possible to see outside. She knew it was for privacy, but it made things like the view of the Neponset from Dante’s office all the more breathtaking.
She went up a set of worn iron stairs and through a door into the wider hallway that eventually ended in the reception room. Set against an exterior wall, it boasted three windows. It was sparsely furnished with only an L-shaped sectional and tables. With bare brick on two walls and tasteful art, the style was a mix of contemporary and comfortable urban chic. Until you looked at Dante’s door.
The double set of mahogany wood doors were inlaid with a carved relief depicting a desert oasis. The doors alone had probably cost more than her education at the Boston School for the Arts. The scene actually had bits of marble, mother-of-pearl, and lapis lazuli worked into the design.
Dante stood in front of the windows, looking outside. This late at night, the only view was of the yellow, orange, and purple city lights. The Neponset River was a dark stain snaking alongside the building. Suri didn’t figure he cared. It looked as though he had something weighing on his mind.
“Sorry it took me so long to get up here.” She approached slowly, wondering why he looked so tense and hating to ask. “I wanted to put on some regular clothes.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “You did make a very alluring angel, but I like you even better dressed as yourself.”
“Where’s Jericho?” When Dante turned around, she noticed his lips were thinned into a sharp line. Her gut told her that wasn’t good. Images of the scars covering Jericho’s chest and arms tore through Suri’s mind. “Has something happened to him?”
“No, nothing like that.” Dante seemed to realize he’d alarmed her. He reached out and drew her close. “He’s fine. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I just have to talk about something that isn’t going to be pleasant, and I don’t like to do that.”
Surely he wouldn’t be holding her like this if he’d found out about Flaherty’s party. Relief flooded her limbs. It felt so good to be in his arms. She could handle a nasty topic of conversation if it happened while she nestled in the security he always provided. “Hit me with it, then. But don’t be surprised if I just hide here against your chest until it all goes away.”
He laughed, the sound reverberating through his chest to her cheek. She wanted to stay there forever. How could everything seem so bearable just because she had someone to share it with?
“Selena Aasen came in tonight.”
Suri froze at the sound of that name. She’d expected a lot of things, but not that. What business could that spoiled brat have at Asylum?
“I suspect she chased her husband down and found him here.” Dante dropped a kiss on the top of Suri’s head. “She wants to talk to you.”
Suri had been joking, but hiding against Dante’s chest sounded like a pretty good option at this point. “What on earth could she possibly think I can tell her that she doesn’t already know?”
“No clue.”
“I can’t do this, Dante.”
His silence lasted long enough to make her fidget. “I’m not going to make you do anything. But I want you to think about her state of mind. She’s been hurt by him just like you have. I know she didn’t handle it well. By her own admission, that video has already made it onto satellite television. She’s been humiliated.”
“Shit. So have I. What if people recognized me?”
“I imagine they’ll focus on her throwing cake. Your conversation is at the very beginning and garbled.”
She pulled back to look up into his face. His dark eyes were twinkling with mirth. “You watched it, didn’t you? Ugh! That’s so embarrassing.”
“But it led you to us.”
Suri reconsidered. Awful as it had been, that incident had landed her in this strange triad relationship with two men she was beginning to suspect she’d fallen irrevocably in love with. What did Selena have?
“Fine. I’ll talk to her. But if she tries to attack me, I’m leaving.”
“Sounds reasonable.”
Suri frowned. “Where’s Jericho?”
“In my office with Selena. He was the one who coaxed her into leaving the floor without making a bigger scene.”
“I swear, the guy has Xanax in his pheromones or something.” Suri heaved a great big sigh before facing Dante’s office door.
“Are you going to go in or stare at my doors all night long?” Dante teased.
“You know, sometimes you aren’t a very charming prince.” She made a face at him before flinging them open.
Chapter Eighteen
Dante had never admired Suri more than he did at that moment. Asking her to allow an interrogation from a woman who’d humiliated her in public wasn’t just asking a lot. It was asking Suri to be a saint. Especially when they walked into his office to find Selena and Jericho on Dante’s leather love seat. Selena had nestled into Jericho’s lap and looked very cozy.
To Dante, Jericho was obviously in protective mode. He was simply trying to comfort a woman who had been emotionally battered. Unfortunately, Dante had no idea how Suri would view it.
She ground her teeth, her cheek muscles twitching as Dante watched her fight for control. He didn’t know if she was angry or hurt or both. But it was likely Jericho might need to do some damage control later on.
Then something absolutely amazing happened. Suri inhaled and exhaled in one long deliberate breath and put a determined expression on her face. “Dante said you wanted to talk to me, Selena. What is it you think I can help you with?”
Selena lifted her face from Jericho’s now-damp dress shirt. “Why did you come on to my husband?”
“I didn’t. I thought we already rehashed this at the reception.” Suri kept her voice carefully modulated lest she completely lose it. “He made a pass, which I deflected, because not only am I completely unattracted to him, it was in really poor taste. Then he tried to force himself on me. That was all there was to it. You managed to see us when I was fending him off.” Suri’s gaze was glued to the sight of Selena’s palm b
rushing idly over Jericho’s thigh.
Dante wondered if he should step in and say something. Why was Jericho allowing some other woman to paw at him like that? Didn’t he realize what it looked like?
“I just don’t understand.” Selena didn’t look convinced. “What do you have that I don’t?”
Suri clenched her fists at her side. “It’s nothing I have. You have to think about the man you chose to marry. It wouldn’t have mattered if it was me or someone else. In fact, it was someone else earlier that same day. You never would have been able to trust him. I think you know that. He’s an asshole. And he treats you like shit. You deserve better. You deserve a guy you can trust.”
Dante’s heart thumped erratically. Jericho’s steady hazel gaze was locked on Suri. The emotion sizzling in the air between the three of them was tangible. Dante began to relax. No society girl was going to push their princess off her throne.
“Trust? How can you buy that bullshit? Could you ever trust a man that much?” There was so much pain in Selena’s voice, too much for someone so young.
“I’m trusting one that much right now.” Suri’s steady voice finally got through to the grieving wife.
“What do you mean?”
“Jericho is mine.” She motioned to Dante. “And his.”
Selena stiffened against Jericho, pulling back to look up into his face. “Is that true?”
Jericho didn’t miss a beat. “They’re mine, and I’m theirs.”
A surge of feeling left Dante unable to draw breath. He moved closer to Suri and tugged her into his embrace. Her body meshed with his, every part fitting against him like second skin.
“And you trust him?” Selena scoffed. “Your man, my ass. I’m sitting in his lap. I could strip naked and fuck him a dozen different ways, and he wouldn’t tell me no.”
“You’re wrong.” There was no uncertainty in Suri’s tone. “You could strip naked, but he’d never fuck you.”
“She’s right,” Jericho told Selena gently. “An offer of comfort doesn’t guarantee attraction.”
Boston Avant-Garde 4: Encore Page 15
