The answer made her pause. She’d met Marlene’s cousin a few times when he’d come by the club, and she’d seen Vivian chatting with him on a couple occasions. If Paul said he saw Vivian at his place of work, he was probably telling the truth.
Ellie pursed her lips together in thought, realizing this actually made a little sense. Vivian seeing someone could explain her earlier behavior. Distracted, flushed, secretive—all signs that perhaps there was a new man in her life. But if so, why wouldn’t she have told her?
“What did this guy look like?” she asked curiously.
Marlene let out another cloud of smoke before saying, “Tall, dark hair, oh, and Paul mentioned he looked younger than Viv.”
Ellie narrowed her eyes. Tall, dark-haired and young? The description was about as vague as you could get and yet… Maybe she was crazy, but she had the strangest suspicion Marlene’s cousin had seen Luke at that restaurant with Vivian.
She absently chewed the inside of her cheek and tried to erase the ridiculous idea forming in the back of her mind. Luke and Viv weren’t—no, of course not. The two were most definitely not involved. If they’d been out together, it was for an entirely different reason. Talking about her maybe? Or…
Had Vivian joined forces with Luke to run her out of town?
“That’s crazy,” Ellie mumbled under her breath.
“What was that?” Marlene asked as she flicked her cigarette butt out the window. She turned into the parking lot of the club and slid into one of the gravel-covered spots.
“Huh? Oh nothing,” Ellie replied, seeing the curious look on her friend’s face. “I just, uh, find it hard to believe that Vivian wouldn’t tell me she was dating someone.”
Marlene lowered her voice. “Maybe he’s married.” She gave a conspiratorial grin.
“Maybe.”
Ellie reached into the backseat for her garment bag and got out of the car, still distracted. She didn’t know if Vivian was with Luke earlier, or what they were doing if they had been together, but one thing was for sure, she would definitely find out.
***
Luke frowned to himself as he watched Ellie take her bows. The pathetic excuse for applause echoed through the club, mostly middle-aged men with leers on their faces who couldn’t care less about the performance they’d just viewed. As long as they glimpsed a few flashes of skin and some tits bouncing around, they were happy to spend their weekly paychecks on beers and the small cover charge to get in to see the show.
Ellie deserved better than this. She deserved an entire auditorium filled to the max while bouquets of roses were thrown at her feet. A few years back Luke had seen her dance in Swan Lake, when he was guarding a socialite who spent her evenings at lavish parties and tasteful ballets and operas. He remembered the applause was deafening that night, a far cry from what he’d just heard.
Fortunately the show was finally over. Seeing Ellie in that corset again only reminded him of what he needed to do tonight. He was taking her to dinner once she finished changing and after that he thought he’d bring her to the carnival he kept seeing signs for around town. Dinner and a fair—it sounded so damn innocent, didn’t it? Too bad it would be far from it.
Now that he’d had a few hours to think about it, he realized going along with Ellie’s ultimatum was the best course of action. No way would she really go to bed with him. She simply wasn’t that kind of girl. Now that he was thinking clearly, with his brain and not his cock, he was even more convinced that Ellie was yet again testing him. Trying to scare him. Well, he wasn’t about to be scared off. Tonight he planned on teasing her, pushing her and letting her know exactly who was in control.
“Did you enjoy the show?”
He glanced up as Vivian slid into the seat across from him. In an instant, the memory of Vivian and Josh returned to his head, bringing with it a rush of suspicion. He studied Vivian’s green eyes for a sign that she might’ve seen him driving past her house earlier, but he saw none. During his scrutiny, however, he couldn’t help but admire her appearance. She really was a beautiful woman, her minimal makeup and silky golden hair giving her a child-like aura while her intelligent eyes revealed a maturity that couldn’t be ignored.
He could understand why Josh would be attracted to her. If that were even true. At the moment Luke had no clue what Josh and Vivian had been doing together, though he certainly intended to find out.
“It was good,” he replied, pushing away his half-empty beer. “Will Ellie be coming out soon?”
“She should be. It’s a slow night, so I cancelled the second show, which means she’s probably scrubbing the makeup off. She hates that stuff.”