Take It All Off

by Weston Parker

  His nostrils flared in surprise. “Is that your way of telling me to go fuck myself?”

  “If you want.” I shrugged, unable to stop a smile from breaking through. “As long as you leave me and all the other girls here out of your hormonal urges.”

  “Request noted,” Marco said, then motioned around the room with a swirl of the glass in his hand. “You don’t seem to enjoy your job very much. You certainly hold disdain for your customers.”

  “It’s my first night.” I let my gaze wander around the room, spotting several tables trying to get my attention. “I have to pay my rent in a few days, and despite what I might think about this place, they pay well.”

  “I see.” A contemplative gleam came into his eyes as he ran a finger along his jaw. “I would imagine you would get good tips as well.”

  Something in the way he was suddenly looking at me was different. There was a new edge to his tone, too, one that was familiar to me after just a couple of hours in this place. He thought I was hot, and that was why I got good tips.

  “I’m a lesbian,” I blurted out. Under any other circumstances and in any other place, I would have taken the compliment. I also might have flirted a little now that I knew he thought I was hot. Considering I thought the same about him, we might even have hooked up.

  But the circumstances were what they were, and the place was what it was. I couldn’t change that, but I desperately didn’t want him to come on to me.

  Talking to him was a tiny but bright spark in my hellish night. Elena was busy onstage, and I really needed to speak to someone who wasn’t trying to get into my pants. I needed to regain patience and fortify my sanity against the groping that was to come.

  Marco was providing a small safe harbor for me at the moment, and I wasn’t ready to leave the harbor for the shark-infested waters beyond yet.

  His head dipped to one side as he eyed me questioningly. “Okay? You didn’t need to tell me that. You’re a beautiful girl, which is why I think you will probably do well with tips. But I think you already knew both of those things.”

  “You think I know I’m beautiful?” I arched an eyebrow at him.

  He lifted one broad shoulder and took another sip of his drink before replying. “Yes, I do. You carry yourself with confidence and you speak with it, too.”

  “That’s an odd thing to say, but thank you, I guess?”

  “We’re in an odd situation, and you’re welcome.” He set the glass back on the counter. “It was merely an observation.”

  “Why are we in an odd situation? I mean, other than being somewhere neither of us really wants to be but both of us have to stay at.”

  “Well, that’s the big one. But I also wasn’t expecting to have a conversation with a waitress at a strip club and actually enjoy it.”

  “Good point. I wasn’t expecting to have a conversation with a patron of a strip club and actually enjoy it.” Sighing when I noticed a man at one of my tables glaring at me while waving both arms, I picked up my tray again. “Since I am a waitress at said strip club for now, though, I’d better go. Lord knows if I had a fraction of the cash flow of this place, I would have walked out the door right now.”

  “You know,” he reached into the inner pocket of his very expensive-looking, definitely tailored jacket and extracted a business card, “if you’re looking to use your brain and not your body to make money, call me on Monday. I could use someone like you. If your girlfriend wouldn’t mind, that is.”

  I took his card, smiling as I slid it into the side of my top. “I have no idea why you’d make an offer like that to a total stranger, but I’m taking you up on it.”

  “Good.” He returned my smile and gave me a slight nod before turning on his stool to face the bar instead of the club.

  I shot him one last glance as I walked away, but he was staring thoughtfully into space as if he was in his own office instead of at the club. I didn’t know him, but it looked like he had been honest about not really wanting to be here.

  Honesty was an important trait to me. It was also obvious that he was successful. People who weren’t couldn’t afford suits like his. And surprisingly, he had been nice to me.

  All things considered, I could do worse in a potential boss. I only had to hope that his offer had been real because if so, the business card currently digging into the side of my breast might just be my ticket out of here.

  Chapter 7

  Marco

  Early on Monday morning when I arrived at the office, it surprised me to see Addy already waiting for me. She sat in one of the chairs in my reception area, her back ramrod straight and staring directly ahead of her.

  With her ankles hooked together and her hands primly in her lap, she looked like an entirely different person from the spunky waitress I’d met on Friday night. She had pulled her blonde waves into a low ponytail at the nape of her neck, and her makeup was natural, but there was no mistaking it was her.

  Gone was the dramatic eye shadow and the black leather, but she was still beautiful. I would have been lying to say I hadn’t thought about her over the weekend. She was off limits to me, of course, but that didn’t mean I could shut off the fantasies that had started the second I laid eyes on her.

  They would fade eventually, though. I had been serious about being able to utilize someone like her in my company. Unrequited physical attraction wasn’t going to stand in the way of that.

  I had told her to call me on a whim. My gut had said that she would be a good fit for the company, even if I didn’t know in which capacity yet.

  There was something about her I liked, a pluckiness and earnestness I hadn’t come across in a while. She also hadn’t seemed dimwitted back at the club. In fact, there was a keen intelligence in her eyes I was curious about.

  “Addy,” I said as I stepped off the elevator. “What are you doing here?”

  She looked up at me, then stood and smoothed out the deep purple dress she was wearing. It gave her eyes an almost violet glow, which unfortunately made her even more attractive. I shoved it down, though.

  “I know you said to call, but I thought it was better if I came here so we could talk in person,” she said without an ounce of hesitation. “If you don’t have time for me right away, I’ll wait until you do.”

  “No, that’s fine.” I liked that she was a go-getter. “Come into my office. We’ll talk. How did you find me and how did you get into the building?”

  “Your card had your full name and email address on it. There’s this really nifty little invention called the internet I fed your information into. It spat out quite a lot about you, Mr. Marco Ricci. Billionaire transport tycoon who has recently acquired one of the largest shipping lines out of China.”

  “I’m impressed.” I smiled as I swiped my card across the reader and waited for the light to flash green before stepping into my office. “What about the other question?”

  “Oh, I just told your security guys I was here for a job interview with you.”

  “You’re resourceful,” I said, pushing the door open and motioning for her to precede me. “I could definitely use that.”

  “So you’ve said.” Her voice was softer now, her eyes wide as she came to a stop just inside the door. She pivoted to face me fully, her brows climbing. “This is your office?”

  I frowned as I flicked my gaze across the space. “Yes, why?”

  “It’s bigger than my apartment.” She turned around again, then walked to the bank of windows that provided one of the best views of Florence. The building was a historic one and boasted high, vaulted ceilings, spacious offices, and, in some of them, original wooden flooring.

  The office I occupied was one of them, and I’d decorated it in dark tones to match. Besides my desk, there was a seating area and a conference table as well as a coffee station with a state-of-the-art machine sitting on it.

  I hadn’t really stopped to think about it for a long time, but it was a large space for one person. “I spend a lot of time her
e and I needed it to be big enough to cater to versatile needs. I can do some business behind a desk. Other times, it needs to be done around a table and sometimes in a more informal setting over a cup of coffee.”

  “Which one of those options does our meeting call for?”

  “It’s before seven on a Monday morning. We need coffee. Have a seat on the couch and I’ll make some.”

  “Thank you.” She moved over as directed and ran a hand across the brown leather surface of the seat after sitting down. “This is incredibly soft. Is it designer?”

  I nodded. “My interior decorator will know which one if you want me to find out for you.”

  She snorted. The sound was so soft that I barely heard it over the hum of the coffee machine doing its thing, but it was loud enough that I heard it.

  I turned to her. “Something funny?”

  “Yes.” The corners of her eyes crinkled on a sardonic smile. “The fact that you think I can afford an interior decorator or even one of the cushions of this couch. The tips I made on Friday weren’t that good.”

  “It must have been your objection to groping,” I said with a grin. “If it hadn’t been for that, I’m sure you’d have had enough money for at least the cushion.”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “If it means having to be groped, I’m okay without the cushion.”

  “I hear you.” A shudder ran down my spine as I imagined what she must have gone through. It wasn’t something I’d given much thought to before meeting her, but I’d had some time over the weekend. “I feel like I need to apologize on behalf of my gender.”

  “Don’t. There are plenty of women who act the same way. It’s not the gender’s fault. It’s just because they’re assholes.”

  “You’re refreshingly open and straightforward,” I said as I picked up our mugs and offered one to her. “Is it because you’re American?”

  She rolled those navy-blue eyes at me, but there was laughter in them when they met mine again. “Yes, it’s got to be that. On the other hand, it could just be my personality.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” I took a seat across from her, then almost instantly regretted it when I realized it meant facing her bare, toned legs for as long as this meeting lasted.

  Her dress came down almost to her knees, and she was sitting with her legs together, but there was still that enticing gap between the fabric and her skin. Knowing where that gap ended and how easy it would be to lift the material up to get there would be a problem if I kept letting myself think about it.

  Now who’s being an asshole? Grow the fuck up, idiot.

  “Speaking of what you had in mind,” she said. “What exactly do you think you could use me for around here? I appreciate that you’re giving me a chance, but it seems like a big risk for you to give out your card to random waitresses and tell them you have a job for them.”

  I felt my eyes grow wide in surprise, but then a chuckle ripped itself free from my chest. “I don’t give my card to random waitresses. Only to you, and the longer you’re here, the more I realized I was right to have done it.”

  “Why?”

  “Let’s just talk a little, shall we?” I sat back in my chair and blew steam across the surface of my mug. “To be honest, I don’t know in exactly what capacity I can hire you. I’ll need to know a little bit more about you to make that call. What skillset do you have?”

  “I can pick up most things pretty easily. It depends on what you need. I’m good at languages, math, admin…” She trailed off. “Lots of things really. What might you need?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I’m thinking in the direction of client relations. I think you’d be good at dealing with people. People who don’t grope you anyway. I need someone at my side who is a liaison of sorts.”

  “Liaison?” She frowned. “What for?”

  “To talk to my clients. I think you could help me the most by just talking. I like the way you are, and I think you will be an asset to the team. People aren’t always comfortable with me, and they often don’t trust what I’m saying. They think I’ll say anything to get what I want and they’re not always wrong.”

  “If I work for you, wouldn’t they think the same about me?”

  “Maybe, but I think you would call me out if I needed it, and I also think people will pick up on that quite fast. You’re approachable, direct, and you don’t take any shit. That’s an attitude that’s hard to hide. Clients will learn that about you and that’s why I think they will grow to trust you.”

  “You know all that about me from less than an hour of conversation in total?” She didn’t look like she believed me at all.

  I’d gotten that reaction a lot. “I’m good at reading people and situations. It’s served me well in the past. Just like the clients will learn to trust you, I’ve learned to trust my gut.”

  “And that’s what your gut is saying about me?”

  I nodded. “The bigger the company gets, the more I’ve felt like there’s a gap between what I say and what people hear. It’s like I embody the company sometimes, like people don’t quite see me as human. They speak to me or hear about me and think corporation. I don’t like it, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “Why don’t you like it?”

  “I’m not a corporation,” I said simply. “I just started one. This isn’t my version of a ‘nobody cries for the King’ speech, by the way. I don’t need tears or sympathy. What I need is to fill that gap so we can stop wasting time on unnecessary distrust and feelings of intimation.”

  “You want me to speak human for you?” There was a tone of understanding in her voice, which I hadn’t expected.

  It was difficult for me to explain what it was I thought she could do for me. I’d figured once she started, she’d get it almost immediately. But it sounded like she already had.

  “Exactly. I’ll get you some files ready on what the logistics would be this week and we can discuss it on Friday?”

  “I can start today,” she said, leaning forward just slightly.

  I pressed my lips together and glanced down at my watch. “Unfortunately, it’s going to take me some time to get the information together. I want to find client files and examples that will make it clear why I need you and what you can do. I just don’t have time to do that today.”

  I didn’t really have time to do it all week, but I’d have to make time. We had several contracts to negotiate in the pipeline, and if Gianluca and I continued to hulk smash our way through them, we were sure to lose some of them.

  Addy chewed on her lower lip before glancing around the office. “I can help you look for them today if you’d like?”

  “It’s more complicated than that. I’m going to have to think of situations where I’ve felt that gap the most palpably, which you obviously can’t help with. I’m also going to have to put briefs together for you, to give a picture of each situation.”

  “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do today?” She twisted her fingers together in her lap, and her brow furrowed. “I could even get you coffee or whatever.”

  “Why do you want to start today so badly? This job is yours. It’s not going anywhere.”

  “Yeah, but my apartment might be.” She fidgeted some more, then let out a deep sigh. “I still don’t have enough money to pay my rent if I want to eat for the rest of the month. I hate to sound so desperate, but is there any way I can start today?”

  “How much is your rent?” I asked.

  She pulled her head back, her eyes filling with suspicion. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me.” I extended my leg and leaned back a little in the chair so I’d be able to get my wallet out of my pocket. “How much do you need?”

  “Three hundred, but I’m not taking charity. I don’t mind doing any work you might have lying around. I could even do some filing for you.”

  “I have a whole room full of assistants who keep our filing up to date.” I took a wad of cash out of the sleeve in my wallet. “It’
s not charity. It’s an advance. I’ll get the information ready for you tomorrow.”

  “Why are you doing this?” She eyed the cash but didn’t touch it.

  I got up and walked around the coffee table to her on the couch, then placed the money in her palm before going back to my seat. “You’re going to be an investment for me, Addy. I know you’re not going to run away with the money.”

  “Thank you,” she said softly, her fingers finally closing around it. “I’ll wait to hear from you then, I guess.”

  “You won’t have to wait long,” I promised. I had a feeling she was going to get anxious if she didn’t hear from me soon.

  I didn’t want that for her. I had a feeling she was going to be a lot of help to me. If nothing else, she was going to be a breath of fresh fucking air in this office. There were way too many uptight, harried, wound-up businessmen and women around here.

  We needed someone fresh and different. Addy definitely fit that bill.

  Chapter 8

  Addy

  I left Marco’s office with a spring in my step after giving him my contact information. It was finally starting to feel like things were going my way.

  For years, I had been struggling to make ends meet and keep my head above water. With a job at a company like his, I had a shot at changing that.

  Not to mention the eye candy I would have all day. In the soft light of morning, Marco was even more attractive than I’d thought. Or maybe I’d just tried to downplay his good looks since Friday.

  Those milk-chocolate eyes were most definitely flecked with gold and amber. His frame was much larger standing up than I’d realized when he had been sitting on that stool at the club. He had to be a few inches over six feet without an ounce of fat on him.

  The dove gray suit he had worn today fit like they had made it for him. Now that I knew who he was, it made a hell of a lot of sense. Ricci Logistics was massive.