Never Say Never, Part One (Second Chance Romance, Book 1) (8 page)

Chase’s gaze was payment enough for the dirty work, though she didn’t need
 
compensation from him. Emily had fallen too fast. She’d done exactly what she hadn’t wanted to.
 

She rotated on the pole, came full circle and glanced at Chase to check she still had his attention.
 

Isis was in front of him, top off, ass in his lap, grinding like there was no tomorrow. The brunette stripper with creamy tan skin wore a smirk to match the gaze she’d plastered on Emily.
 

Isis knew there was heat between Emily and Chase.
 

She wanted trouble.
 

She’d fucking get it.
 

Emily gripped the pole and rattled it slightly, palms growing hot. A blue flame of anger and heat developed in her mind; Isis bent in front of Chase and wiggled.
 

Chase’s expression was a picture of revulsion. He pushed his chair back and tried to get up, but Isis turned and forced him back down, straddling him in those pink teeny tiny shorts.
 

“Hey, bitch!” Emily screamed from the stage and the audience went still.
 

“Emily, no. Don’t do it.” Chase tried moving out of his chair again, but Isis wouldn’t let him. The slut shook her hair back and laughed, then grabbed him by the hair and forced him between her breasts.
 

“Get the fuck off him, you whore.” Emily kicked her stilettos off and charged down the stage. She jumped off and landed, then sprinted towards the grinding stripper.
 

“Go dance for Big Nick, Candy Lane.” Isis moved her hips in circles, desperately trying to arouse Chase, who’d managed to pull free of her massive jugs.
 

“What the hell is wrong with you,” he spat, smearing glitter off his nose.
 

“Ha.” That was all Emily said. She grabbed a fistful of Isis’ hair and lugged her off Chase’s lap.
 

“My extensions!” Isis fumbled at her hair and screamed blue murder. “My extensions, you crazy whore.”

The men in the club started chanting and cheering them on. “Stripper fight, stripper fight, stripper fight.”
 

Emily gripped Isis’ fake locks and leveraged until the stripper was on her feet. She wrenched the bitch’s face to her own and glared deep into those terror-filled orbs, “You touch him again and I’ll shave your head. Got it?”
 

“Emily!” The quilted door to the back room slammed open and the big boss marched out, cigar hanging from the end of his fingers. He wore aviator sunglasses indoors and a thick gold chain was nestled in a forest of chest hair.
 

“Are those leather pants?” Chase muttered it nearby.
 

Emily dropped Isis, who crumpled to the floor and let out a chain of fake sobs.
 

The big boss, Hilton, halted in front of her and the chanting settled down, drifting off on the smoke.
 

“Pack your shit and get out. You’re fired.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Leave me alone.” Emily stormed down the road and into the alley where she’d been hunted down the night before. “I don’t want to hear it.”

Chase stalked along beside her. “Are you out of your damn mind?”
 

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. But there’s been endless trouble since you forced yourself into my life.”
 

“What?!”
 

“You heard me.” Emily joined the flow of walkers along the main street, heading in the direction of the apartment. She was out of a job, she had no fucking prospects and no method of getting her kids back without money. They’d have to take her mother out of the old age home.
 

And it was his fault.
 

“You’ve been nothing but trouble since the minute you walked into The Tease, drunk because of some tragic break up or make up or whatever the fuck it is that’s going on in your life, that you refuse to talk about.”
 

“Hold on a minute,” Chase answered, raising his hand in objection.

But she wouldn’t be deterred from her diatribe. “Oh ho, Mr. Mystery man. You’re so desperate for attention or popularity that you’re relying on me for your emotional needs.”
 

“Excuse me,” he replied, tone dangerously quiet, “but I’m not the one who came looking for me at the hospital. I wouldn’t even have known you existed if you hadn’t turned up in your cute skirt with a Hallmark card.”
 

“I left. I said no to you. I didn’t want this complication in my life, but you came after me.” Emily should’ve known better than to trust him.
 

“I saved your ass from that fat gorilla and you’re taking issue here. You’d have been dead if it wasn’t for me.” He stopped and she turned to him.
 

“Ditto.”
 

They glared at each other, feet apart with pedestrians rushing between them. Nobody cared about the fighting couple in the morning traffic.
 

“Emily, this can’t be the end.”
 

“Then how come it is?”
 

“Wasn’t that a line from Friends?” Chase rearranged his dark wavy hair.
 

“Don’t call me again.” Emily turned and jogged off into the crowd, her bag jostling against her side and her heart sitting in the sole of her foot. It had sunk into non-existence. She’d been so stupid to allow herself to feel for Chase.
 

Emily let herself into the apartment twenty five minutes later and locked the door behind her. She couldn’t risk Chase barging in and stealing her heart back.
 

What now? What could she do? Where could she go?
 

This wasn’t how it was meant to be.
 

She dropped her bag on the unsteady table and hurried to the cookie jar on top of her grumbling fridge – it was almost out of coolant, she was sure, it was more like an incubator these days.
 

Emily took it down, unscrewed it and fished out handfuls of dollars, then dumped them on the countertop. She got her wallet out of her bag and brought out crinkled bills she’d scrunched into it before she’d left the club.
 

She sat down to count.
 

“$2000.”
 

It was enough to rent a cheap apartment for a month and some food, but she didn’t have job, and the old age home was a good portion of her profit a month.
 

She was screwed.

Emily racked her brains for a friend to call, anyone who could help her get a job, but there was no one.
 

Ring, ring, ring.

The triple tone for a call went off on her phone and she grappled it out of her handbag, ready to give Chase another piece of her mind. She’d told him not to call, but he couldn’t let it go.
 

Talk about obsessive.
 

But it wasn’t Chase.
 

Dickhead.

The title flashed on the screen and her neck muscles tightened. It was the word she’d used to save Big Nick’s number.

“What do you want?”
 

“That’s a nice way to say hello, baby girl.” Nick made his tone obsequious and she gagged a little.
 

“Get to the point, Nick. I’m not in the mood for this.”
 

“Yeah, that was an awesome show you put on in the club. Looks like you’re out of a job because of that faggot boyfriend of yours.”
 

She held the phone at arm’s length and revulsion spiraling within her.
 

“What the fuck do you want?” Emily shrieked it, then brought the cursed piece of technology back to her ear.
 

“I think you know what I want, girlie.”
 

“I don’t have the money, Nick. I’m sure you can understand, since I was fired not more than an hour ago. Have some compassion.”
 

“I’ll have compassion when you’re underneath me.” Big Nick was dead serious, she could tell from slurping of him chewing gum and popping a bubble into the receiver.
 

“I’m never going to sleep with you.”
 

“Honey, I think it’s funny you think you got a choice. I’ll be seeing you. Soon.”
 

Click.
 

The line was dead and so were Emily’s hopes and dreams.
 

Soon. He’d said soon. Did that mean he was on his way over? The clock on her phone read 11: 15 am. He was on duty until noon, she was sure of it, but what if the club had taken a hit because of her argument with Isis?
 

She should never have risen to the stripper’s tease, but she’d been so infatuated with the thought of Chase that she hadn’t seen straight.
 

What if Big Nick was on nearby? What if was coming to make good on the promises.
 

Flash. The image of Big Nick’s friend pumping his crotch. Flash. Nick pushing her up against the wall. Flash. Nick unbuttoning her pants and pulling them down.
 

Emily launched herself upwards and stuffed handfuls of cash into her jean pockets. She bolted into the bedroom and brought down a kit bag, and collected her worldly possessions.
 

Underwear, bras, shirts, two pairs of shoes, three dresses and a spare pair of jeans. She tossed the stilettos into the corner and forced her feet into trainers instead, then went to the kitchen and got out the steak knife.
 

She had to get out before he arrived. She had ten minutes at best, twenty if there was a traffic jam, but she’d never been lucky.
 

Emily surveyed the hallway through the peephole, then crashed outdoors and ran down the stairs and out the front of the building.
 

She had nowhere to go, but she couldn’t stay. If Big Nick caught her, it would be the end.

Emily joined the tide of human bodies pressing in every direction and let it carry her up the street.
 

She’d officially joined the countless homeless in New York.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Emily?”

It was as if she’d had a bucket of ice dumped down the back of her shirt. She was on the sidewalk, being shunted along by a tide of humans, past restaurants, retailers, small businesses and coffee shop.
 

“Emily, wait,” a man called out behind her.
 

It had to be Nick. He’d found her!
 

She swung her arms, trying to wade through human flesh like water. She had to get out of the crowd and disappear. He’d never let her go if he got those over-sized dustbin hands on her.
 

“Emily.” He was closer, she could almost feel his breath on her neck. She redoubled her efforts, trying to push people aside and using her kit bag as leverage.
 

“Hey, watch it lady.” A grumpy man with his hair slicked back in a ponytail elbowed her.
 

“Emily, stop.” Fingers dug into her shoulder and it was over. She was snared in Big Nick’s sexual trap. It was the touch of doom and she had to fight it, the alternative meant betraying who she was to the core.
 

“Let go of me!” She scratched him with her long nails and he let go.
 

“What the fuck? Emily, it’s me. It’s Chase.”
 

The beat of her heart, the surrounding pulse of the crowd, slowed. People carried on moving, but Emily was stuck to the spot, glued in place by a rush of relief and anxiety in equal measures.
 

Chase appeared in front of her, carrying a Starbucks cup with a plain navy tie hanging loose around his broad shoulders.

“What’s happened?” He pulled her aside, under the eaves of a Macy’s.
 

“What time is it?” She rooted her phone out of her tote and stared at the screen to avoid him. It was 3 in the afternoon. She’d been at it for almost four hours, walking as far as she could to get lost.
 

If she was lost, he couldn’t find her.
 

But Chase had.
 

“Emily,” he said softly, stroking her elbow with his thumb, “tell me what’s going on.”

“He called. He told me he was coming. I can’t stay there from now on, but I can’t afford to move out. It’s over, Chase. It’s over. I’m his now.”
 

“If you had the money you’d be able to move out.”

Emily shook her head vehemently. She was numb inside, but she wouldn’t accept handouts from him. It was against her grain. There had to be a way to stand up against Nick without resorting to that.
 

Maybe there wasn’t. Maybe she was a dirty coke whore without hope of a happy future. She’d never see her kids again, she’d lose Chase for good, and she’d be Nick’s bitch.