CHAPTER SIX
Jelly
Time went on, and I adjusted to my life working at Sugar and going to school.
Now everything was just part of my normal routine.
I’d put the night Nico and I had together in the back of my mind months ago, and I now had a good working relationship with him.
The only way he treated me differently is that he always requested me to be his hostess when he was at Sugar.
I pulled into the parking lot at Sugar one evening.
I’d been able to buy a little used Honda to get around so I didn’t have to ride my bike everywhere anymore.
I was going to need it. I’d just gotten a job as a receptionist at a surgeon’s office at West Bay University Hospital.
They hadn’t had any part-time nursing positions open, but I was so excited just to get my foot in the door.
I got out and hurried into the club. I knew I was running a bit late. As I walked through, still dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, I hoped I wouldn’t see Carmen. I saw my friends from Cinnamon House, Daisy and Nora, gave them a quick wave, and started to head for the back area to change clothes.
Glory, another of my roommates from Cinnamon House, called out to me before I could get back there. “Jelly! Wait.” She motioned me over to where she stood at the bar getting drinks ready to go out.
With a sigh, I hurried over. The doors hadn’t even officially opened yet, but there were already a few gentlemen claiming tables as some of the minor strippers took their places on the side stages.
These were women who danced two or three to a stage to low-key jazz as everyone was getting warmed up for the evening.
“What’s up?” I asked, walking with Glory, a gorgeous, curvy, Latina hostess. Even though I’d lived with her for a good while now, I still didn’t feel as if I knew her very well. It could be because neither of us were exactly the sharing type.
“Carmen came out a bit ago to say that Nico wants you at the premier table tonight. He’s going to have a friend with him who’s been out of town for a while, and he wants to introduce you.”
“Oh.” I wondered why he didn’t want Glory or Daisy. That was more their thing. I met her dark brown eyes. “Why aren’t you or Daisy doing it?”
She gave me a slight smile. “We have met the man. You haven’t. He grew up with Nico, Byron, Reynolds, all of them.” I knew Reynolds because he was in an auction relationship with my best friend, Nadine. Byron was his huge, sexy driver and bodyguard, and then, of course, Nico.
I nodded, but it still didn’t make much sense to me. I figured if it was some big wig, they’d want a more popular hostess.
“And girl, you have to know Nico likes you, right?” I gave her a look but didn’t answer her.
I hadn’t exactly shared that I’d given Nico a private try-out in one of the VIP rooms. I figured that might not be the best way to make friends when you’re just starting out somewhere. So, I’d kept it under wraps.
She picked up a heavy tray and started walking it to a table. It looked like she already had three. I needed to hurry up so she and Daisy wouldn’t get stuck with all of them.
“It’s true,” Daisy said in a sing-song voice behind me. “Nico always requests you. But just so you know, this guy is a big deal. He lives here. He just was away on some sort of doctors without borders thing or something like that.” She lowered her voice. “And he’s hot as hell, too.”
“Ah.” I tried to look interested, but I didn’t really care about whoever this man was. I mean, weren’t all the guys who came here considered bigwigs? They were all at least millionaires, and a lot of them were hot. I just wanted to get changed into my uniform. “Okay, I’ll be right out.”
I hurried to the back, where I pulled my long black hair up into a tight, high ponytail.
I put my makeup on just like Madeline showed me all those weeks ago now, and I put on the uniform that had made me feel a little on the slutty side when I had first started here.
I was used to it now, though. I pulled on the dark hose with shiny threads running all through them and finished it off with the heels that took me a couple of weeks to learn how to walk in when I first got here.
I stepped back and looked in the mirror.
“Looking good, bitch,” Madeline said with a half-smile, catching my eye in the mirror she’s seated at.
She’s working on getting ready for her stripper sets.
She’s a headliner, the most popular one, and has to do three sets each night.
Even though she lives in Cinnamon House, Carmen has also approved her to sometimes perform for guys in the VIP rooms, though, from what I can tell, she doesn’t offer any other services in those rooms.
A lot of women do, though, both strippers and hostesses.
But, besides private non-lap dances, Carmen won’t let anyone living in Cinnamon House give any extras to the men in the exclusive, luxurious gentleman’s club that includes four separate clubs as one.
There’s Saffron, a health club and spa only open in the day; Sugar, a very high-end strip club where I work as a hostess; Cinnamon, a gentleman’s club where the men go to socialize and network.
It also doubles as an auction house once a month; and then there’s Cayenne, the sex club.
It’s the most notorious club in West Bay, and the waiting list to join is a mile long.
The Salazars don’t let any of us hostesses or strippers go to Cayenne.
Except for a couple of women who are, um, a little sketchy.
I put on the finishing touches of my outfit and smoothed raspberry colored lipstick over my plump lips. I surveyed myself critically before stepping towards the exit of the dressing room.
“Hold up,” Madeline called after me. “Did you switch back to the looser corset top?”
“How can you possible tell that?” I groused, stomping back in to put the other one on.
“Because your D cups look like C cups. In the tighter corset they look like double Ds. And believe me, you’re going to want all the advantages tonight with Paolo Lanetti coming back to town.”
I worked the zipper down on one top before shimmying into the tighter top. “Why is everyone so excited about this guy being here tonight?”
Madeline gave me a look. “Seriously? Why do women get excited about a particular guy at a gentleman’s club where all the men are good-looking and rich?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m guessing he’s extra handsome and extra rich, right?”
“Bingo,” she said with a grin. “And word is you’re waiting on him after they’re finished at Cayenne, so you need to look your best. He hardly ever comes to Sugar, but Nico said he’s coming tonight.”
“He should have one of the prettier girls like Glory or Daisy wait on him.”
“You’re a dumbass, Jelly. You’re every bit as pretty as either of them, if not more so. Now get out there and be… well, if not exactly nice, at least be as nice as you can be.”
I smirked at her. “I’ll do my best.”
“That doesn’t sound good enough,” she yelled after me.
I just kept walking, laughing at her trying to make me into something I’m not.
***
It was a good bit later, after I was sure Nico and his buddy had already been to Cayenne, that I was called to the premiere table.
“They’re here,” Glory said. “Go ahead and get glasses of whiskey to take over there. I know both of them are whiskey drinkers.”
“Who isn’t?” I stood and waited while Nora, the head bartender and one of our roommates at Cinnamon House, filled orders. I had a few tables in addition to the one Nico was at with his friend, and I needed to be ready to juggle my attention appropriately.
I turned, ready to head to Nico’s table, when I spotted him walking up with the new guy. Or at least the guy who was new to me even though the rest of West Bay seemed to know him.
I sucked in a breath involuntarily. “My God,” I whispered.
Glory grinned. “What’s that? I couldn’t quite hear you.”
I didn’t even try to hide my awe. “That man is… unreal.” He was, too.
He was tall, with broad shoulders and enough muscles to know he worked out but not so many he was bulky.
He had thick, dark hair that was styled into an effortlessly good-looking style.
But, while all of that was amazing enough, he also had smooth olive skin and light gray eyes.
Oh, and a jawline that could cut glass. He was, in a word, breathtaking.
“Wow, Jell. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you at a loss for words before,” Glory said, a big grin on her face.
I didn’t even get mad. I was too distracted by the beauty of this friend of Nico’s. “What did you say his name was?” I asked Daisy. I stood there and stared at him.
“Paolo Lanetti. He’s a doctor of some kind at the hospital. A big deal apparently. And he’s the son of Dominico Lanetti. He’s a businessman who controls the ports here in West Bay.
I frowned. “Why does that matter?”
“Because Paolo is his oldest son, and he still wants control over him. Or at least that’s the rumor. I don’t know for sure, of course. The Lanettis and the Salazars are friends and have been for a long time. I think it goes back to when Carlos Salazar was growing up in Spain.”