“Zane asked me to come find you; he wants to know if you managed to replace Maggie on Saturday night?”

I stop cleaning, throwing the rag under the bar and rest my elbows on it, looking down at Annie.

“You’ve lost me, sweetheart…who’s Maggie?” My face feels hot, and I bet if I were to turn around now, it would be Tweet’s stare causing the heat.

“Maggie…Mystic Maggie, you know,” she urges, rolling her eyes.

“Oh, the tarot reader for carnival night. Yeah, I’ve got a replacement coming. The lady at the agency said her name was Athena or Adelina…something like that. She’s supposed to be good, and that’s all that counts. You can tell Zane it’s all taken care of.”

“Will do,” she says, spinning on her heel and returning to the direction she came from.

I turn back toward the stage and Tweet is standing at the bar in front of me.

“Jesus!” I practically spit. “You crept up on me!” My heart’s hammering at an insane rate inside my chest from the shock of having her so close. I was expecting to turn and resume staring at her from a distance.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you…I…um, would you mind filling me up?”

“What?” I know she doesn’t mean it in the way I’m picturing mentally, but it’s taking all my energy to suppress the groan I have trapped in my throat. God, what I wouldn’t give to fill her right now.

“My water bottle.” she jangles the clear bottle in front of me. “Can you fill it, please?”

“Sure,” I tell her making absolutely no attempt to move and take it from her. I’m too busy looking at her eyes. They’re enormous, dark, almond-shaped orbs, cat-like. Sexy. They narrow, pushing me into action.

“You sure you only want water? I can grab you something else—soda, juice?”

“Water’s fine, thanks,” she lilts and pushes the bottle toward me. I take it to the fridge, filling it with a bottle of chilled San Pellegrino.

“Oh, I um…I don’t have my wallet with me. I meant just tap water,” she calls. Her words are rushed and panicked like it’s some massive problem that I’m serving her bottled water.

“No sweat, it’s on the house. I’m not about to charge you for water,” I tell her. She’s biting the corner of her lip, and she may as well have her hands down my pants, the effect would be the same. I physically have to shake my head to dislodge the thoughts.

I pass the water over and our fingers graze for the briefest of moments. She pulls back so suddenly that the water slushes out the top of her bottle. Am I having the same effect on her that she is on me? Or maybe I just intimidate her. I’m her boss and so far we’ve barely spoken, but every time we’re in the same room she catches me watching her. Okay, so intimidate might be the wrong word. Stalk would probably fit better. I’m pissed at myself for how eaten up this girl has me.

“Is that everything?” I ask. My voice has an air of impatience to it, and I almost want to wince at the iciness of my tone. I watch as she flinches.

“Yeah, thank you.”

She hurries back to the stage where a few of the girls have congregated and immediately I feel like a dick. I’m blowing hot and cold; I really need to get a grip and stop acting like a teenager with a crush. I’m her boss, and she’s an employee. It’s staying like that…period. I grab myself a bottle of beer and head on up to my apartment, putting some much-needed distance between us. What I genuinely need to do is distance myself from my own thoughts. I’m repeating the mantra: don’t get involved with the staff, over and over in my head as I climb the stairs. By the time I’m at the top I’m almost convinced that I won’t, until my hearing focuses in on the sound of her laughing with Rae, and I know I’ve screwed myself over this time.

There’s a soft knock on the door as I’m sitting on the sofa doing paperwork. Zane lets himself in, invited or not, so I know it’s not him. I flick the music down low and go to answer it. For one terrifying second before I open the door I imagine it’s Sam coming back to either a) kick my ass for the shitty way I treated her (and to be fair I’d deserve it); or b) attempt to reconcile and get something going between us again.

I’m seriously contemplating not answering, but I do anyway against my better judgment. Only it’s not Sam standing before me in the dimly lit hall. It’s Tweet.

“Hi, I’m sorry if I’m disturbing you, Mr. Speight—”

“Callum,” I correct.

“Pardon?”

“It’s Callum,” I repeat. “Mr. Speight’s my pop’s name.”

“Oh, right. Callum, I stayed late to go over the choreography for the carnival night, and I’ve kind of been locked in.”

There’s a hint of an embarrassed flush to her cheeks and she’s biting her lip again, bouncing on the balls of her feet. I check my watch and notice it’s 2:30 pm. I’ve been holed up in here for the last three and a half hours since bailing on the rehearsals this morning.

“I was going to leave, but I don’t know how to set the alarm codes, and Zane said he’d be back an hour ago, but isn’t.”

“No worries.” I smile. “I’ll follow you down and let you out.”

My eyes stay trained on her ass the whole way through the club and to the back exit, watching it sashay in an almost hypnotic rhythm.

“Here you go.” I pull the door open and rain is hammering down onto the pavement in a furious torrent. Her eyes widen, and I close the door before giving myself a chance to change my mind.

“You can’t go out there dressed in that.”

I motion to her yoga pants and flimsy pink shirt. “You’ll drown. How far away have you parked?”

She gives me a confused look. “I don’t have a car; I walk here.”

“Okay, well how about you come back inside, and I’ll call you a cab?”

“I don’t have the fare,” she says softly, and for some reason I don’t understand, I feel a pang of pity for her. The way her small confession falls from her lips, dejected and uncomfortable, makes me think it’s not that she doesn’t have any cash on her, it sounds like she doesn’t have any cash, period.

“In that case, why don’t you wait out the rain with me for a little while and I can either drive you home, or you can walk when it dries up?”

I watch as she weighs the pros and cons of my offer. She doesn’t seem happy with either option, but eventually I win and she walks back into the club with me.

“So, how’s your first three days been? Saturday will be your first night performing, right?”

I suck at small talk but to be fair, I’ve never really had to bother with it. I was with Lisa since high school. We grew up together and were friends first, so there was never any awkwardness between us. When we split earlier this year, I didn’t need to engage in small talk; hell, I didn’t really need to talk at all. The quieter and more brooding I was, the more the women liked it. It’s been a while since I’ve actually wanted to talk with a woman and not just screw her. Not that I haven’t pictured screwing Tweet seven different ways from Sunday, but she has a definite air of mystery around her, and when she’s not dancing she looks to be bearing the weight of the world on her shoulders. I want to know why, even though I have no business asking her.

“Yeah, carnival night will be my debut. I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve got the dance routines down now, and if the costumes are anything to go by, the night is going to be spectacular. I didn’t know you could get that many jewels on such small scraps of material.”

Her eyes light up when she talks about dance. I need to make a mental note to ask her more questions about it. I pull a chair out for her and she sits, dropping her bag underneath the table.

“I’m gonna have a beer. What can I get you to drink? And I don’t expect you to pay; it’s one of the perks of knowing the boss.” I grin and shoot her a wink. I’m trying to put her at ease and not make it sound like I know she can’t pay.