Luc glanced at him sharply. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

Harley frowned. “I wasn’t sure I should even tell you now.” He gestured around the club. “This isn’t your life anymore. It’s behind you, and that’s where it should stay. But I owe you, and I thought you’d want to know.”

Luc sat quietly for a moment, absently stroking one finger along the scar that ran down his right cheek. The name Jimmy Brent had raised some old demons he thought he’d overcome. But could you ever overcome something like that? And now his daughter had turned up, contacting old acquaintances of her father. What could she possibly want after all these years?

“Do you think she’s genuine? Just wants a job?” he asked

“Hell no,” Harley said. “I don’t know what she wants, but I doubt very much that it’s a job dancing. If she’s anything like her father, she won’t have an honest bone in her body. Jimmy Brent was the most treacherous crook in London. You know that better than anyone. And if she’s anything like her mother, she wouldn’t be seen dead in a place like this.” He waved a hand around the club. “The thing is, though, her mum used to call me up every couple of months to find out if I had any news of Jimmy, but for the last year or so nothing, not a whisper from her. Then out of the blue this Olivia phones and says she wants to move to the city and her mother suggested she look me up.” Harley grinned. “Like Penelope Brent was ever the sort to suggest her daughter takes up stripping.” He sat back in his chair and let the news sink in a minute. “So, how do you want to play this?”

Luc thought for a moment. “She says she needs a job?”

Harley nodded.

“How about you convince her that she really doesn’t want to work here.” Luc paused, glanced around the club, and grinned. “No disrespect, Harley, but it shouldn’t be too difficult. Then I’ll make her an offer she can’t refuse.”

“So we do the old good crook, bad crook routine?”

“Hmm, just be your charming self and she’ll be begging me to take her out of here in minutes. After that, it should be easy to find out what she knows.”

“What do we tell her about you?”

“Tell her I’m an old acquaintance of her father’s.” Luc smiled. “Tell her the truth. Tell her I owe her father. Big time.”

“You know, I can’t help feeling a little sorry for Olivia Brent.” Harley glanced toward the door. “And if I’m not mistaken, that must be her now.”

Luc followed his gaze and went instantly still. A young woman stood inside the doorway, staring at the dancer on the stage as if transfixed, something akin to surprised horror on her expressive features. She appeared dismayed and so out of place that Luc almost smiled. Then she turned toward them and he saw she had her father’s eyes—blue as a summer sky, seemingly guileless, and so clearly inherited from Jimmy Brent that a surge of hatred washed over him.

He forced himself to examine her objectively. Slightly over medium height, she had a slim, almost boyish figure and endlessly long legs. As he watched, she tugged self-consciously at the hem of the short, pink dress. Her blond hair hung straight to her shoulders, pushed back showing a classically beautiful face with high cheekbones and a wide mouth. She was nibbling on her lower lip, and her small pink tongue darted out. In a flash, the hatred was replaced with a stab of unexpected lust.

Relaxing in his chair, he savored the heat that coiled low in his belly. A woman hadn’t affected him this way in a long time, and he knew he would use it to discover what she was really after. He’d never had a problem getting any woman he wanted. Olivia Brent would be no different, and before long, she would be telling him anything he needed to know. He smiled to himself, and Harley laughed softly beside him.

“Would you like me to make a private lap dance part of the audition?” he asked.

“Piss off, Harley.”

“Sure?” Harley grinned. “Anyway, that’s definitely Jimmy’s girl and from the expression on her face, I don’t think it’s going to be difficult to persuade her that dancing isn’t the job for her.”

Chapter Two

Lia stumbled through the door into the murky nightclub, righted herself on her borrowed heels, and stood inside, blinking a little. For a moment, it was a relief to be in the cool darkness, then her eyes adjusted to the dim light.

“Holy crap.”

On the stage, right in front of her, an almost-naked blonde, with the most enormous breasts Lia had ever seen, was doing something obscene and definitely inadvisable with a stainless steel pole.

Her eyes widened, and she glanced away only to find her gaze dragged back. She’d spent all day with her best friend Kelly being transformed into Kelly’s idea of an exotic dancer. Now, staring at the woman on the stage, it was obvious Kelly had no more idea of what an exotic dancer looked like than she did.

Great job, Kelly.

Stiffening her back, she tried to remember Kelly’s instructions. Think bimbo, her friend had told her—nobody will expect you to have a brain. Unfortunately, if the woman on the stage was anything to go by, they were going to expect her to have breasts.

A truly horrible thought occurred to her. Would they want to see them? She went cold at the idea and sneaked another quick peek at the stage. They wouldn’t expect her to do anything like that, would they?

No freaking way.

Don’t think about it. Focus on the plan.

Trouble was, planning had never been one of her strong points. She was more of a “jump right in and worry about the consequences later” sort of person. But at least the plan was simple. All she had to do was meet Harley Watson, pretend she needed a job, and then casually slip in a question about her father’s whereabouts. After that, she could leave, and she need never come near the place again. So what if the club wasn’t quite what she expected? It wasn’t as though she actually wanted a job here.

Okay—step one: find Harley Watson. She peered around for someone to ask, finally spotting a waitress leaning on the bar. Lia moved over to her.

“Excuse me,” she said, tapping the waitress’s arm. “I have an appointment with Mr. Watson.”

“You do? With Harley?” the woman asked, giving Lia a far-from-flattering inspection. “He’s over there.” She nodded in the direction of a shadowed booth.

“Thank you.”

There were two men in the booth. One of them stood up and withdrew farther into the shadows as Lia approached. Lia tripped in the darkness, cursed, caught herself on the table, and found herself nose-to-nose with the biggest man she’d ever seen.




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