Page 45 of The Bad Girl

Chapter 17

Nadine

The day crawls on at a snail’s pace. Not even my doodles can take my mind from my troubles.

Last night, in an effort to take my mind from my potentially ailing parents, I agreed to let Stacey take me to a strip club.

Which was perhaps one of the worst mistakes of my life.

At the moment, everything seemed fun. I was having a good time, learning new dance moves, and genuinely enjoying myself. But for some reason, I took it a step further, well past anything safe and secure Nadine would do.

I decided to strip for a crowd. And, most notably, my boss.

In the moment, I told myself he was making eyes at me, looking at me with lust.

How could I be so stupid? He was obviously concerned by my out-of-character actions and merely looking out for me.

Stacey laughed it off, of course. To her, it was nothing. To me, it was everything.

Thank God that bawdy asshole snapped me out of it. Of course, it came with the expense of fear and epic humiliation, but at least I didn’t continue to strip staring directly at Maxwell. That would have been a disaster.

“I’m out!” Stacey says, grabbing her bag and heading for the elevator.

“Don’t you work until—”

“Save it!” She glares at me. “Later.”

My eyes return to my computer screen, where I have typed out an explanation of the events from last night in a letter to Maxwell. He’s been out all day, so I haven’t seen him, and I want to make sure he understands the situation how I want him to understand it, and not the way that it looked—like I was performing a striptease for him.

Holy fuck—what’t gotten into me?

I backspace the entire email, deciding that maybe it would be best if I simply never addressed the situation at all.

My phone vibrates, and I look down to see a text from my mom.

Mom:I can’t wait to see you.

I smile as tears fill my eyes. I hope to God there’s nothing wrong with my parents, but I can’t ignore how unusual this meeting is.

Pull yourself together, Nadine.

Three more hours. In three more hours, you’ll get to see her yourself, and she’ll tell you everything’s fine.

?

Nadine

Five o’clock finally comes, and I rush from the office to Stella’s, arriving exactly on time to meet my mother. After two crazy days, I need a full belly of pasta. It’s self-care.

The hostess guides me to my waiting mother, and as soon as she sees me, she rushes to embrace.

“My baby girl looks so good!” she enthuses. “My baby, a real businesswoman. It even looks like you have a new wardrobe!”

I smile, letting her cup my cheeks, pinch my arms and do what mothers do. She only lives an hour outside of the city, but with the way she reacts every time she sees me, it would be easy to assume she lived on the other side of the planet.

Almost immediately, however, I notice something’s different about her. There’s an edge to her I’m not used to seeing, which only spikes my anxiety.

My mother has never been one to carry her stress around. She, like myself, is a well-thought-out woman, but whereas I’m pretty anal about the details, she’s mastered the art of ‘don’t sweat the small stuff.’ It’s plain to see, though, that she’s sweatin’ something.