‘Thanks, Willa. How’s that brother of yours? Is he still overseas?’ She hoped the change of topic wasn’t too noticeable.
‘Luke texted me today. He’s working on some big deal, but it looks like he might be coming home soon.’ Willa sighed. ‘We might be able to get the whole gang back together after all.’
The ‘whole gang’ was the tight-knit crew that had formed when they’d all worked together at the magical Weeping Reef resort in the Whitsundays. Had it really been eight years ago? She still remembered it as vividly as if it were yesterday. The ocean had been so blue it had seemed otherworldly, the sand had been almost pure white, and she’d loved every second of it… Right until she’d screwed it all up.
‘Maybe,’ Chantal said.
‘I think we might even be getting some of the group together tonight.’ There was a meaningful pause on the other end of the line. ‘If you’re free, we’d love to see you.’
‘Sorry, Willa, I’m actually working tonight.’
Chantal checked the road signs and took the on-ramp leading out of the city. Sydney sparkled in her rearview mirror as she sped away.
‘Oh? Anywhere close by?’
‘I’m afraid not. I’m off to Newcastle for this one.’
‘Oh, right. Any place I would know?’
‘Not likely, it’s called Nine East. It’s a small theatre—very intimate.’
She forced herself to sound excited when really she wanted to find a secluded island and hide until her dancing ability came back. God only knew why she’d given Willa the place’s name. She prayed her friend wouldn’t look it up online.
‘Look, Willa, I’ll have to cut you short. I’m on the road and I need my full concentration to deal with these crazy Sydney drivers.’
Willa chuckled. ‘I forget sometimes that you didn’t grow up in the city. Hopefully we’ll catch up soon?’
The hope in her voice caused a twinge of guilt in Chantal’s stomach. She didn’t want to see the group. Rather, she didn’t want them to see how her life was not what she’d made it out to be.
‘Yeah, hopefully.’
There was nothing like being surrounded by friends, with the sea air running over your skin and a cold drink in your hand. Add to that the city lights bouncing off the water’s surface and a view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge against an inky night and you had a damn near perfect evening.
Brodie Mitchell leant back against the railing of his yacht and surveyed the group in front of him. Champagne flowed, music wafted up into the air and the group was laughing and reminiscing animatedly about their time working at the Weeping Reef resort. A long time had passed, but it made Brodie smile to think the group was no less lively now than when they’d all been fresh-faced kids, drunk on the freedom and beauty of resort life.
‘Hey, man.’ Scott Knight dropped down beside him, beer in hand. ‘Aren’t you drinking tonight?’
‘I’m trying to be good for once.’ Brodie grinned and held up his bottle of water in salute. ‘I’m training for a half marathon.’
‘Really?’ Scott raised a brow.
Brodie shoved his friend and laughed. ‘Yes, really.’
As much as he wanted to be annoyed that his friends would assume him incapable of running a half marathon, he kind of saw their point. Running competitively required a certain kind of routine and dedication that wasn’t Brodie’s style. He was a laid-back kind of guy: he thrived on surf, sand, and girls in bikinis. Abstaining from alcohol and waking up at the crack of dawn for training… Not so much.
‘You have to admit it doesn’t seem to fit in with the yachting lifestyle.’ Scott gestured to the scenery around them.
The boat was a sight to behold—luxury in every sense of the word from its classy interior design to the quality craftsmanship out on the deck.
Growing up in a big family had meant the Mitchells’ weekly grocery shop had needed to stretch across many mouths, and schoolbooks had always been passed down the line. They hadn’t been poor, but he’d never been exposed to fineries such as yachts. Now he owned a yacht charter business and had several boats to his name.
‘I didn’t exactly come up with the idea myself,’ Brodie admitted, taking a swig of his water. ‘There’s a guy at the marina back home and he’s always on my back about taking up running. He bet me a hundred bucks I couldn’t train for a race.’
‘So you started with a half marathon?’ Scott shook his head, laughing. ‘Why not attempt a lazy ten k to begin with?’
Brodie shrugged and grinned at his friend. ‘If I’m going to waste a perfectly good sleep-in, it might as well be for something big.’
‘Says the guy who once chose sleep over judging a bikini contest.’
‘And lived to regret it.’
Scott interlocked his fingers behind his head and leant back against the boat’s railings. ‘Those were the days.’
‘You look like you’re living the dream now.’ Brodie fought to keep a note of envy out of his voice.
A slow grin spread over Scott’s face as his fiancée, Kate, waved from the makeshift dance floor where she was shaking her hips with Willa, Amy, and Amy’s friend Jessica. The girls were laughing and dancing, champagne in hand. Just like old times.
‘I am.’ Scott nodded solemnly.
Just as Brodie was about to change the topic of conversation Willa broke away from the group and joined the boys. She dropped down next to Brodie and slung her arm around his shoulders, giving him a sisterly squeeze as she pushed her dark hair out of her face.
‘I’m so glad you’re back down in Sydney,’ Willa said.
‘And where’s your man tonight?’ Brodie asked.
‘Working.’ She pouted. ‘But he promised he’d be here next time. In fact I think he was a little pissed to miss out on the yacht experience.’
Brodie chuckled. ‘It’s an experience, indeed. My clients pay an arm and a leg to be sailed around in this boat, and she’s an absolute beauty. Worth every cent.’
The Princess 56 certainly fitted her name, and although she was the oldest of the yachts his company owned she’d aged as gracefully as a silver-screen starlet. He patted the railing affectionately.
‘Guess who I spoke to this afternoon,’ Willa said, cutting into his thoughts with a faux innocent smile.
Brodie quirked a brow. ‘Who?’
‘Chantal.’
Hearing her name was enough to set Brodie’s blood pumping harder. Chantal Turner was the only girl ever to have held his attention for longer than five minutes. She’d been the life of the party during their time at the Whitsundays, and she’d had a magnetic force that had drawn people to her like flies to honey. And, boy, had he been sucked in! The only problem was, she’d been Scott’s girl back then. He’d gotten too close to her, played with fire, and earned a black eye for it. Worse still, he’d lost his friend for the better part of eight years over the incident.
Brodie’s eyes flicked to Scott, but there was no tension in his face. He was too busy perving on Kate to be worrying about what Willa said.
‘She’s got a show on tonight,’ Willa continued. ‘Just up the coast.’
Brodie swallowed. The last thing he needed was to see Chantal Turner dance. The way she moved was enough to bring grown men to their knees, and he had a particular weakness for girls who knew how to move.
‘We could head there—since we have the boat.’ Willa grinned and nudged him with her elbow.
‘How do you know where she’s performing?’ he asked, taking another swig of his water to alleviate the dryness in his mouth.
‘She told me.’
‘I don’t know if we should…’ Brodie forced a slow breath, trying to shut down images of his almost-kiss with Chantal.
It was the last time he’d seen her—though there had been a few nights when he’d been home alone and he’d looked her performances up online. He wasn’t sure what seeing her in person would do to his resolve to leave the past in the past.
The friend zone was somethi
ng to be respected, and girls who landed themselves in that zone never came out. But with Chantal he seemed to lose control over his ability to think straight.
‘We should go,’ Scott said, patting Brodie on the shoulder as if to reassure him once again that there were no hard feelings about that night. ‘I’m sure she’d appreciate the crowd support.’
By this time Amy, Jessica, and Kate had wandered over for a refill. Scott, ever the gentleman, grabbed the bottle of vintage brut and topped everyone up.
‘We were just talking about taking a little trip up the coast,’ Scott said. ‘Chantal has a show on.’
‘Oh, we should definitely go!’ Amy said, and the other girls nodded their agreement.
All eyes lay expectantly on him. He could manage a simple reunion. Couldn’t he…?
‘Why the hell not?’ he said, pushing up from his chair.
When Chantal pulled into the car park of the location specified on her email confirmation her heart sank. The job had been booked last-minute—they’d contacted her, with praise for the performance snippets she had on her website and an offer of work for a few nights a week over the next month.
A cursory look at their website hadn’t given her much: it seemed they did a mix of dance and music, including an open mike night once per week. Not exactly ideal, but she was desperate. So she’d accepted the offer and put her focus back on her auditions, thinking nothing of it.
Except it didn’t look like the quietly elegant bar on their website. The sign was neon red, for starters, and there were several rough-looking men hanging out at the front, smoking. Chantal bit down on her lip. Everything in her gut told her to turn around and head home—but how could she do that when it was the only gig she’d been able to book in weeks? Make that months.
Sighing, she straightened her shoulders. Don’t be such a snob. You know the arts industry includes all types. They’re probably not criminals at all.
But the feeling of dismay grew stronger with each step she took towards the entrance. She hitched her bag higher on her shoulder and fought back the wave of negativity. She had to take this job. Her ex had finally sold the apartment—meaning she had to find a new place to live—and this job included on-site accommodation. It would leave her days free to pursue more auditions, and it was money that she desperately needed right now.
One of the men hanging out at the front of the bar leered at her as she hurried past, and Chantal wished she’d thrown on a pair of tracksuit pants over her dancing shorts. The sun was setting in the distance but the air was still heavy and warm. She ignored the wolf-whistling and continued on, head held high, into the bar.
The stench of cheap alcohol hit her first, forcing her stomach to dip and dive. A stage sat in the middle of a room and three men in all-black outfits fiddled with the sound equipment. Chantal looked around, surveying the sorry sight that was to be her home for the next month. The soles of her sneakers sucked with each step along the tattered, faded carpet—as if years of grime had left behind an adhesive layer. Though smoking had long been banned inside bars, a faint whiff of stale cigarette smoke still hung in the air. A small boot-sized hole had broken the plaster of one wall and a cracked light flickered overhead.
Delightful.
She approached the bar, mustering a smile as she tried to catch the attention of the older man drying wineglasses and hanging them in a rack above his head. ‘Excuse me, I’m here—’
‘Dancers go upstairs,’ he said, without even looking up from his work.
‘Thanks,’ she muttered, turning on her heel and making her way towards the stairs at the end of the bar.
Upstairs can’t possibly be any worse than downstairs. Perhaps the downstairs was for bands only? Maybe the dancers’ section would be a little more… hygienic?
Chantal trod up the last few steps, trying her utmost to be positive. But upstairs wasn’t any better.
‘Oh, crap.’
The stage in the middle of the room sported a large silver pole. The stage itself was round with seats encircling it; a faded red curtain hung at the back, parted only where the dancers would enter and exit from. It was a bloody strip club!
‘Chantal?’
A voice caught her attention. She contemplated lying for a second, but the recognition on the guy’s face told her he knew exactly who she was.
‘Hi.’
‘I’ve got your room key, but I don’t have time to show you where it is now.’ He looked her up and down, the heavy lines at the corners of his eyes crinkling slightly. ‘Just head out back and get ready with the other girls.’
‘Uh… I think there’s been some kind of mistake. I’m not a stripper.’
‘Sure you’re not, darlin’,’ he said with a raspy chuckle. ‘I get it—you’re an artist. Most of the girls say they’re paying their way through university, but whatever floats your boat.’
‘I’m serious. I don’t take my clothes off.’ She shook her head, fighting the rising pressure in her chest.
‘And we’re not technically a strip club. Think of it more as… burlesque.’ He thrust the room key into her hand. ‘You’ll fit right in.’
Chantal bit down on her lip. Perhaps it wouldn’t be as bad as she thought.
But, no matter how hard she tried to convince herself, her gut pleaded with her to leave.
‘I really don’t think this is going to work,’ she said, holding the key out to him.
‘You really should have thought of that before sending back our contract with your signature on it.’ His eyes hardened, thin lips pressing into a harsh line. ‘But I can have our lawyer settle this, if you still think this isn’t going to work.’
The thinly veiled threat made Chantal’s heartbeat kick up a notch. There was no way she could afford a lawyer if they decided to take her to court. How could she have made such a colossal mistake?
Her head pounded, signalling a migraine that would no doubt materialise at some point. What kind of club had a lawyer on call, anyway? The dangerous kind… the kind that has enough work for a lawyer.
‘Fine.’ She dropped her hand by her side and forced away the desire to slap the club owner across his smarmy, wrinkled face.
She was a big girl—she could handle this. Besides, she’d had her fair share of promo girl gigs whilst trying out for dance schools the first time. She’d strutted around in tiny shorts to sell energy drinks and race-car merchandise on more than one occasion. This wouldn’t be so different… would it?
Sighing, she made her way to the change room where the other dancers were getting ready. She still had that funny, niggling feeling that something wasn’t quite right… and it wasn’t just that she’d somehow landed herself in a strip club.
She concentrated for a moment, analysing the feeling. It had grown stronger since her audition—an incessant tugging of her senses that wouldn’t abate. She unpacked her make-up and plucked a face wipe from her bag. Smoothing the cloth over her face, she thought back to the director. He’d looked so familiar, and he hadn’t seemed to be able to look her in the eye.
A memory crashed into her with such force she stopped in her tracks, hand in midair. An old photo, taken a few years before she’d first started dating Derek—that was where she’d seen his face before. He was a friend of her ex-husband’s, and that couldn’t be a coincidence.
Rage surged through her. Her hands trembling, she sorted through her make-up for foundation. That smarmy, good-for-nothing ex-husband of hers had put her name forward for this skanky bar. He probably found the idea hilarious.
If I ever come across that spiteful SOB again I’m going to kill him!
An hour and a half later Chantal prepared to go on stage. She looked at herself in the mirror, hoping to hell that it was the fluorescent lighting which made her look white as a ghost and just as sickly. But the alarming contrast against her dark eye make-up and glossed lips would look great under the stage lighting. She’d seem alluring, mysterious.
Not that any of the patrons of such a b
ar would be interested in ‘mysterious’. No, she assumed it was a ‘more is more’ kind of place.
She sighed, smoothing her hair out of her face and adding a touch of hairspray to the front so it didn’t fall into her eyes. The other dancers seemed friendly, and there were actually two burlesque performers—though they didn’t look as if they danced on the mainstream circuit. When she’d asked if all the dancers stripped down she’d received a wink and an unexpected view of the older lady’s ‘pasties’.
Well, she wouldn’t be taking off her clothes—though her outfit wasn’t exactly covering much of her body anyway. She looked down at the top which wrapped around her bust and rib cage in thick black strips, and at the matching shorts that barely came down to her thighs. She might as well have been naked for how exposed she felt.
It wasn’t normal for her to be so filled with nerves before going onstage. But butterflies warmed her stomach and her every breath was more ragged than the last. She pressed her fingertips to her temples and shut her eyes, concentrating on relaxing her breathing. After a few attempts her heart rate slowed, and the air was coming more easily into her lungs.
Her act would be different—and she wouldn’t be dancing for the audience… she would be dancing for herself. Taking a deep breath, she hovered at the entrance to the stage, waiting for the dancer before her to finish.
It was now or never.
CHAPTER TWO
‘ARE YOU SURE we’re in the right place?’ Brodie looked around the run-down bar and shook his head. ‘She can’t be dancing here.’
‘I double-checked the address,’ Willa said, her dark brows pinched into a frown. ‘This is definitely it.’
‘Looks like there’s an upstairs section to this place.’ Kate pointed to a set of stairs on the other side of the room.
A single guy sat in the middle of the stage, playing old country-and-western hits, his voice not quite up to par. The bottom half of the bar was crowded and Brodie stayed close to the girls, given a few of the patrons were looking at them a little too closely for his liking. The group wove through the crowd until they reached the staircase at the back of the room, filing one by one up to the next level.
The Tycoon's Stowaway Page 2
