quirked a brow. ‘Who?’
‘Chantal.’
Hearing her name was enough to set Brodie’s blood pumping harder. Chantal Turner was the only girl ever to have held his attention for longer than five minutes. She’d been the life of the party during their time at the Whitsundays, and she’d had a magnetic force that had drawn people to her like flies to honey. And, boy, had he been sucked in! The only problem was, she’d been Scott’s girl back then. He’d gotten too close to her, played with fire, and earned a black eye for it. Worse still, he’d lost his friend for the better part of eight years over the incident.
Brodie’s eyes flicked to Scott, but there was no tension in his face. He was too busy perving on Kate to be worrying about what Willa said.
‘She’s got a show on tonight,’ Willa continued. ‘Just up the coast.’
Brodie swallowed. The last thing he needed was to see Chantal Turner dance. The way she moved was enough to bring grown men to their knees, and he had a particular weakness for girls who knew how to move.
‘We could head there—since we have the boat.’ Willa grinned and nudged him with her elbow.
‘How do you know where she’s performing?’ he asked, taking another swig of his water to alleviate the dryness in his mouth.
‘She told me.’
‘I don’t know if we should…’ Brodie forced a slow breath, trying to shut down images of his almost-kiss with Chantal.
It was the last time he’d seen her—though there had been a few nights when he’d been home alone and he’d looked her performances up online. He wasn’t sure what seeing her in person would do to his resolve to leave the past in the past.
The friend zone was something to be respected, and girls who landed themselves in that zone never came out. But with Chantal he seemed to lose control over his ability to think straight.
‘We should go,’ Scott said, patting Brodie on the shoulder as if to reassure him once again that there were no hard feelings about that night. ‘I’m sure she’d appreciate the crowd support.’
By this time Amy, Jessica, and Kate had wandered over for a refill. Scott, ever the gentleman, grabbed the bottle of vintage brut and topped everyone up.
‘We were just talking about taking a little trip up the coast,’ Scott said. ‘Chantal has a show on.’
‘Oh, we should definitely go!’ Amy said, and the other girls nodded their agreement.
All eyes lay expectantly on him. He could manage a simple reunion. Couldn’t he…?
‘Why the hell not?’ he said, pushing up from his chair.
When Chantal pulled into the car park of the location specified on her email confirmation her heart sank. The job had been booked last-minute—they’d contacted her, with praise for the performance snippets she had on her website and an offer of work for a few nights a week over the next month.
A cursory look at their website hadn’t given her much: it seemed they did a mix of dance and music, including an open mike night once per week. Not exactly ideal, but she was desperate. So she’d accepted the offer and put her focus back on her auditions, thinking nothing of it.
Except it didn’t look like the quietly elegant bar on their website. The sign was neon red, for starters, and there were several rough-looking men hanging out at the front, smoking. Chantal bit down on her lip. Everything in her gut told her to turn around and head home—but how could she do that when it was the only gig she’d been able to book in weeks? Make that months.
Sighing, she straightened her shoulders. Don’t be such a snob. You know the arts industry includes all types. They’re probably not criminals at all.
But the feeling of dismay grew stronger with each step she took towards the entrance. She hitched her bag higher on her shoulder and fought back the wave of negativity. She had to take this job. Her ex had finally sold the apartment—meaning she had to find a new place to live—and this job included on-site accommodation. It would leave her days free to pursue more auditions, and it was money that she desperately needed right now.
One of the men hanging out at the front of the bar leered at her as she hurried past, and Chantal wished she’d thrown on a pair of tracksuit pants over her dancing shorts. The sun was setting in the distance but the air was still heavy and warm. She ignored the wolf-whistling and continued on, head held high, into the bar.
The stench of cheap alcohol hit her first, forcing her stomach to dip and dive. A stage sat in the middle of a room and three men in all-black outfits fiddled with the sound equipment. Chantal looked around, surveying the sorry sight that was to be her home for the next month. The soles of her sneakers sucked with each step along the tattered, faded carpet—as if years of grime had left behind an adhesive layer. Though smoking had long been banned inside bars, a faint whiff of stale cigarette smoke still hung in the air. A small boot-sized hole had broken the plaster of one wall and a cracked light flickered overhead.
Delightful.
She approached the bar, mustering a smile as she tried to catch the attention of the older man drying wineglasses and hanging them in a rack above his head. ‘Excuse me, I’m here—’
‘Dancers go upstairs,’ he said, without even looking up from his work.
‘Thanks,’ she muttered, turning on her heel and making her way towards the stairs at the end of the bar.
Upstairs can’t possibly be any worse than downstairs. Perhaps the downstairs was for bands only? Maybe the dancers’ section would be a little more… hygienic?
Chantal trod up the last few steps, trying her utmost to be positive. But upstairs wasn’t any better.
‘Oh, crap.’
The stage in the middle of the room sported a large silver pole. The stage itself was round with seats encircling it; a faded red curtain hung at the back, parted only where the dancers would enter and exit from. It was a bloody strip club!
‘Chantal?’
A voice caught her attention. She contemplated lying for a second, but the recognition on the guy’s face told her he knew exactly who she was.
‘Hi.’
‘I’ve got your room key, but I don’t have time to show you where it is now.’ He looked her up and down, the heavy lines at the corners of his eyes crinkling slightly. ‘Just head out back and get ready with the other girls.’
‘Uh… I think there’s been some kind of mistake. I’m not a stripper.’
‘Sure you’re not, darlin’,’ he said with a raspy chuckle. ‘I get it—you’re an artist. Most of the girls say they’re paying their way through university, but whatever floats your boat.’
‘I’m serious. I don’t take my clothes off.’ She shook her head, fighting the rising pressure in her chest.
‘And we’re not technically a strip club. Think of it more
