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Because Mr. Fox owns the company I’m shifting to, I didn’t have to put in my two weeks’ notice. Instead, he told the marketing team that he decided to reassign me to another project.

And that was that.

Now I’m a full-time employee at Coax sifting through membership applications and nondisclosure agreements signed by some of the top athletes and celebrities in the world.

It’s not quite marketing, but as I help the owners build new membership tiers, I find I’m using some of what I learned over at FDB.

I’ve been working at the club for almost a month when Troy asks me out of the blue one day, “Are you seeing anybody?”

I shake my head. “You?”

His eyes find mine, and they’re heated as he shakes his head, too. “I’m not looking, either.”

His words are laden with meaning.

He told me he wouldn’t mess with employees, but there’s something here between us. Either he needs to bend his rule or I need to quit, because I’m not sure how much longer I can go without touching him.

I take a nightly walk through each level so I can keep a pulse on what goes down here in the club, and I befriend the girls on the stage on the second floor along with several local celebrities who frequent the place.

Brandi encourages me to try my hand at the stage one night, and I seriously consider it…but I want to ask Troy’s permission before I do it.

Which is weird, right?

I shouldn’t have to ask, and yet I’m an employee here. I have a different role than the other women who frequent this club.

And even stranger is that I don’t want to ask for permission from James or Victor.

Amber and I meet for lunch a few times a week. She and Brandi are both regulars here at the club who also dance in shows on the Strip, but this is for fun while that’s for a paycheck. Raven and I text regularly, and Jazz and I have gotten close, too. We’re all here several nights each week, and it’s become sort of a close-knit little family for me.

Usually Troy walks the club with me, and at first I thought it was because he was making sure I felt comfortable here or maybe so we could discuss any trends we saw. But now I think it’s because it gives us a few extra minutes to spend some time together.

One night he gets caught up in conversation with someone in the lounge, and I head over to the bar for a drink. It’s while I’m standing there waiting for my order when a football player I recognize from the Vegas Aces approaches me.

“I’ve seen you around here a few times,” he says. “I’m Jaxon Bryant.”

“I know who you are,” I say. I extend my hand toward him, and I spot Troy walking angrily across the room.

“She’s an employee,” Troy says thickly to Jaxon, not bothering to hide his anger despite the fact that Jaxon is a guest who was just being friendly.

I offer a smile to Jaxon. “Lovely meeting you, but I guess I have to get back to work now.”

“See you around,” he says as the bartender hands me my drink and he orders next.

Troy leads me away from the bar with a hand on the small of my back.

“What was that?” I ask, turning toward him. “I’m not allowed to talk to guests now?”

“Not when they’re six-five and younger and faster than me,” he says, puffing his chest out a little.

I laugh even though I’m a little annoyed. “So you won’t make a move, but nobody else can, either?”

“I told you, I don’t mess around with employees.”

“Then I quit,” I say. We reach the stairwell to continue our walk, and he allows the door to click shut behind us, sealing us into quiet privacy for a beat.

“You can’t. We need you here.”

“So I’m just supposed to—”

He cuts me off with a glare. “You’re supposed to wait.”

“For what?” I demand, frustrated, but the door opens and another couple walks in, effectively ending our conversation.

We head upstairs to walk the third level, and over the last few weeks, I swear he’s reached for my hand a few times as we’ve walked, but he always pulls away at the last minute as he keeps things professional…except for the afternoons when the club is empty and we head up to the third floor for some private time on opposite sides of the glass.

It’s only happened a handful of times, but I crave more with him.

We never get to finish the conversation.

He’s even-tempered and kind so long as some other man isn’t introducing himself to me, and he’s hot as fuck. He’s smart and dedicated, and any time he showers me with even an ounce of attention, I live on it for days.

The lust that was between us that first day is always present, but as the days pass and we spend time together here at the club, something else is developing. Something like friendship as I find myself slowly falling in love with him.

“Do you have any kids?” he asks me one day after I’ve been working at Coax for nearly two months.

I shake my head. “You?”

He nods. “A daughter.”

“How old is she?”

“Nineteen,” he says, and I gasp a little. “She’s a student at UNLV.”

“You have a nineteen-year-old daughter? But you’re so young.”

He nods. “I just met her a year ago. Her mother lied to us both and she found me through a DNA test. I was twenty when she was conceived.”

“Whoa. That’s life-changing,” I murmur. I glance up at him, and he looks a little pained. “How did it go when you met her?”

He glances away from me. “It felt like a part of me that was always missing was finally where it was supposed to be.” His eyes lift back to mine. “Sort of like the day you walked in here, only in a totally different capacity.”

My hand moves to my chest. “Me?”

“It felt like fate, Sapphire. Like we were meant to cross paths.”

God, I want to kiss him.

“You’re a good friend and a great assistant,” he says, as if trying to amend his previous statement. But the words are out there. They’re floating between us, and his amendment doesn’t cheapen them. “Do you want kids?”

His quick flip of the subject tells me he’s not ready to get into the territory we were about to wade into.

I shrug. “I’m not getting any younger, but I think I’d enjoy being a mother someday down the line.”

“You’re very caring and nurturing. You’d be great at it.” I’m about to ask him if he wants to use one of the suites to practice when he stands abruptly. “Excuse me, I have a meeting with Victor.”

He’s running away because this conversation is getting deep, but a few weeks ago he told me I was supposed to wait.

Maybe he meant for him.

And so I do.

I realize I’ve left my old life behind as I dedicate all my time to Coax, and it’s because I finally found a place where I feel like I belong. I love working here even though it’s not marketing, but this place does its own marketing, really.

It’s all word of mouth. It’s not like we can advertise a secret club that’s meant for a specific clientele, so instead of really working on marketing, I’ve turned into a personal assistant for the owners, minus the silent partner who, to my knowledge, hasn’t been back to the club since the day he first brought me here.

Back at FDB, I was on a team but always felt like an outsider. Here, though, Troy makes me feel like a valuable part of things. So do Victor and James, but there’s a special bond I share with Troy that I don’t share with the other owners.

Like, for example, that whole pleasing myself as he pleases himself thing. I don’t do that with Victor or James. I wonder if Mr. Fox knows. I wonder if he ever imagined anything at all between Troy and I.

There’s definitely something brewing, though, and so I continue to wait.