hadn’t gotten laid in a while. Undercover operations and women were difficult to manage at the same time, at least for him, so he tended not to mix the two. But he’d been on this job for less than three months. He wasn’t so sex-hungry that the first pretty woman could turn him into a horny kid. On this job in particular, he was surrounded by pretty women.
And Amanda was the prettiest of them all. The sexiest. The smartest. The most innocent. The one he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about in the past twenty-four hours.
The October night air held a chill that smelled faintly of the Dumpsters at the edge of the parking lot. He took the steps from the stoop to the pavement two at a time and was digging his keys from his pocket when headlights brightened the night. The finely tuned engine of a long white Mercedes broke the quiet as it glided to a stop a few feet in front of Rick.
A scrawny weasel of a guy jumped out of the front passenger seat and hurried around to open the rear door. Leaving his keys in his pocket, Rick watched as Rosey Hines slowly emerged from the car’s interior. Beyond the Mercedes—more of a necessity than a luxury, thanks to his bulk—Rosey didn’t flaunt his wealth. He wasn’t weighted down with gold, he didn’t dress flamboyantly and he wasn’t attended by a bunch of tough guys meant to intimidate. Rosey was intimidating enough by himself.
“Calloway,” he greeted with a nod.
“Mr. Hines.”
“How was business tonight?”
“Not bad.”
Rosey grinned. “It never is. I do have the best girls in town.”
Almost Heaven was one of the better clubs, Rick acknowledged. All the dancers were young, pretty and in shape. They didn’t need makeup to disguise needle marks or to hide the effects of too much booze; they didn’t look as if they lived on the fringes of respectable society. The clientele was better, too—businessmen, professionals. Few blue-collar types ever came through the door. With drinks starting at eighteen bucks and everything else going up from there, they couldn’t afford to.
“Is it Chad’s turn to lock up?” Rosey asked, and Rick nodded. According to Harry, Rosey knew his employees’ work hours better than they did, and he scheduled his visits to the club accordingly. He came only at closing time and only on nights when Chad was working late. That could be because Chad was Rosey’s cousin once removed, but Rick figured it was more likely because Chad was on Rosey’s payroll in more ways than one.
Behind Rick the door opened and soft soles slapped down the first few steps before stopping. Rosey’s gaze shifted past Rick and a smile crossed his face. “Amanda.”
Of course it was. Rick glanced over his shoulder just long enough to catch a glimpse of a T-shirt, snug jeans and sandals, then switched his gaze back to Rosey.
“Mr. Hines.” The footsteps resumed, then Amanda stopped again a few feet to Rick’s right.
“Aw, you don’t have to be formal around Calloway here,” Rosey said with a grin.
Amanda smiled, too. “Hey, Rosey. How’s your mother?”
“Enjoying her cruises way too much. She’s threatening to spend the rest of her life sailing.” Rosey tilted his head Rick’s way. “Calloway says the night wasn’t bad. Was it worth coming out or would you have preferred to stay home working on your bedroom?”
What the hell did Rosey know about Amanda’s bedroom? And for that matter, how the hell did she know anything about Rosey’s mother? He wasn’t the type to get too chummy with his employees—only those who had been with him a long time and were involved in his illegal enterprises. Did Amanda fall into that category, or was there something different between them? Either possibility was so repugnant that Rick had to stifle the impulse to step back and put distance between him and both Rosey and Amanda.
“—tips will pay for that pricey wallpaper I’ve been coveting,” she was saying when Rick tuned in. “Yeah, it was worth coming out. But it’s been a long night. I’ve got to get off my feet.”
“Me, too,” Rosey said, setting his girth in motion. “See you. You, too, Calloway.”
Rick stepped back to let him pass, followed by the weasel, as Amanda circled the rear of the car. After watching Rosey’s slow progress up the first couple steps, Rick headed in the opposite direction, catching up with her about the time she reached her car.
“You’re on a first-name basis with the boss?” he asked as she opened the rear door of her car and tossed her bag onto the seat.
Her glance didn’t quite reach his face. “I’ve known Rosey for years. He was the bouncer at the first club I ever worked at.”
“And twelve years later he owns five clubs.”
“He was always ambitious,” she replied with a shrug, making the glitter-and-paint Eiffel Tower on her shirt ripple.
“You’re ambitious, too,” he pointed out. “Going from Atlanta’s finest strip club to the staff of its most liberal college.”
“But because you’re not ambitious, that makes it a flaw of some sort in those of us who are?”
Rick rested one hand on the trunk of her car, leaning so his hip was against the rear panel. “What makes you think I’m not ambitious?”
Her whole manner became fluttery—her weight shifting from one foot to the other, her hand making a meaningless little gesture, her gaze sliding away from him, then skittering back again. “You have a college degree, yet you tend bar in a strip club.”
“Atlanta’s finest strip club,” he reminded her. “I said none of my college teachers looked like you. I didn’t say I stuck around long enough to graduate.”
Though he did. He’d started out in pre-law, like both of his grandfathers, his father, all of his uncles, one of his aunts and, after him, both of his younger brothers. But he’d known from the beginning that he was never going to be a lawyer. Half of the lawyers in the family had never practiced, Granddad Calloway had pointed out. They worked in the family business, protecting what generations before had built, adding on to their success. But they still had the degree. It was family tradition.
Rick hadn’t cared enough about tradition to spend the time and money earning a degree he would never use. Over Granddad’s protest, he had switched his major to criminal justice and he’d never regretted it.
“So did you graduate?” Amanda asked, toying with her keys.
No. A simple lie. He lied all the time on the job and was pretty damn good at it. He’d better be, since his life depended on it. But for reasons that wouldn’t bear close scrutiny, he didn’t want to lie at that moment. Instead he asked, “Does it make a difference? Does having a college degree make me smarter, better, more respectable? Does not having one mean I’m not respectable?”
Her gaze held steady for a moment, then the corners of her mouth tilted up. Before she could answer, though, his cell phone gave an annoying buzz. He fished it from his pocket, glanced at the screen, then flipped it open. “Hey, babe.”
“There’s my first clue that you’re not alone,” Julia said. “Are you still at the club?”
“I’m
