Sasha stared up at Giovanni Ferraro for a long time. He was the most gorgeous, dangerous man she’d ever laid eyes on, and he scared her to death when she’d never been afraid of anything human. She came from the country—a very small town, mostly open country, in Wyoming. Men like Giovanni Ferraro didn’t exist there. She wasn’t a shy, retiring sort of girl. She’d hunted with her father and brother from the time she was about five, although she’d been taught to shoot even younger than that.
Her father believed in teaching his children how to handle and respect firearms. They shot ground squirrels that made holes for the cattle to step in and break legs. The squirrels also attracted snakes that injected venom in the cattle, sometimes killing them. She learned to hunt any predator that might kill and eat their cattle. She had done those things from a very early age.
She had been surrounded by men as she grew up. They were hardworking, good men, all of whom respected women—or at least seemed to. Men who assaulted women to play to cameras or played games for money, she just didn’t get. Giovanni certainly was terrifying in that he was very intimidating, and for the first time in her life she wondered what she’d gotten herself into.
“Do you have a change of clothes here?” Giovanni asked, his voice gentle.
She had almost forgotten her corset was ripped. Both hands flew up to cover her breasts. His jacket was huge on her and she had to hold the lapels closed with one hand. “Yes.” Thankfully she’d arrived in her jeans and T-shirt and changed there. She had done that since she’d gotten the job, still too uncomfortable to come to work in the uniform.
“Go change.” Again, his voice was very gentle, yet there was a soft note of command. “I’m waiting here for you, so don’t think about running off.”
Sasha nodded and hurried down the hall to the women’s employee restroom where she’d left her clothes. It was a relief to get out of his company. There were rumors about the Ferraros. She saw them come and go from her apartment over Masci’s deli. She loved her new home. She especially loved the location. On the ranch, she’d dreamt of living in the city, as teens often did, but she thought she’d never leave Wyoming. She had been certain she would marry a rancher and live close to her parents for the rest of her life.
“Are you all right?” Mary Braiton asked. She was another server and had hired on around the same time Sasha had. She was renewing her lipstick as Sasha hastily took off the torn corset and pulled on her T-shirt.
“Yes.” She wasn’t certain that was the truth. “What is wrong with these people?”
“I have no idea. They’re a different breed, that’s for sure. I totally envied you when Mr. West said you could work that VIP tier. All those hot millionaires sitting up there, just waiting to find a girl like me. All that money to be had. Maybe it would have been worth it to have John Darby and his crew take notice.”
“For money?” Sasha asked, looking at the other woman through the mirror as she tugged on jeans. “You think it would be worth being assaulted, having your breasts exposed to cameras and letting them touch you, for money?”
“Just think about how much you could have if you were his girlfriend, let alone his wife. And Giovanni Ferraro coming to your rescue? That’s the mother lode right there, Sasha. Sleep with him. Get pregnant. Do whatever you have to do to snag him. If you miss, you can always sell your story.”
Sasha slowly straightened. “For money?” She knew she sounded like a parrot, but she couldn’t stop.
“Of course, for money. Why else are you working here? Why do you think most of these women come here? They want a chance at the big payoff, one of the Ferraros noticing them. Don’t you get it, sweetie? Millionaires come here. Celebrities. This is like a huge lottery and you’re throwing your ticket in when you come here. It’s the best place for people like you and me to meet them. If having John Darby rip my top and feel me up in front of a camera gets me noticed, especially by Giovanni Ferraro or one of his brothers or cousins, believe me, I’d pay him to do it.”
Sasha tugged on her shoes. “If one of them asked you to dance, would you try to get him to touch you? Under your clothes?”
“Hell yes,” Mary said. “Honey, you’ve got to get in the game somehow.”
“So, giving him a blow job would be acceptable?”
“Anytime, anywhere,” Mary said. “That’s one step closer to the goal. You want the sex, and hopefully he’ll forget to use a condom, or you can at least pretend the condom broke.”
“That’s horrible, Mary.”
Mary shrugged. “It’s just as easy to fuck a millionaire as some poor guy, right?”
Sasha shook her head because she couldn’t think of anything to say. Maybe there was a reason Giovanni and his brothers played their stupid game. If they knew women came to the club to hunt them, they had every reason to feel jaded. Now, she was kind of embarrassed to join Giovanni. If women worked in the club in order to meet the Ferraros, he probably thought she’d gotten work there for the same reason.
Muttering curses, she stomped down the hall to the office where he waited. He was pacing, but stopped the moment she returned. Chin up, she handed him his jacket. His gaze had jumped immediately to her face when she entered the room. Focused. Intense. Who could look like that? She blushed. She detested blushing, but nothing controlled her color when she was embarrassed.
He slipped into his jacket and gestured toward the door. “Let’s go.”
Sasha stepped back and shook her head. “I’m good now. It just shook me up momentarily, but seriously, I’m all right. I’ll just head home and go to bed.”
There was a small silence. He didn’t move. He just stared at her. Why in the world had she said “go to bed”? Now she couldn’t get the picture of Giovanni naked in her bed out of her mind. Her color deepened. Worse, he looked like a predator about to leap on his prey and devour it—her. She was his prey. A little shiver crept down her spine.
“Sasha, you agreed to go out to eat with me. I’m hungry and want to talk to you about this incident. It was sexual assault. The kind that needs to be addressed. More, security should have come to my table the moment you were uncomfortable. The same with Aaron’s table. We need to have that discussion. I want you to feel safe in your work environment. We may as well do both at the same time.” Again, he gestured toward the door. “Let’s go.”
Had she agreed? She honestly didn’t know. In the restroom, she’d counted up her tips for the night and she’d made a small fortune. It was more than she’d ever considered she could make in a month, let alone in a single night. She needed the money desperately and hated that she did. She didn’t want to work there, surrounded by people she didn’t understand. Nor did she want anyone to think she was after the owners of the club. Still, she had no choice. That money was everything right now.
He’d also mentioned security coming to his table twice, as if he was angry that they hadn’t. Maybe she really did need to know more. If they tested their employees by acting a certain way to see if they did their jobs, she needed to know that to keep working there.