1

Cadence

Taylor Swift blasts out of my Bluetooth speaker.The opening beats of the song are a countdown and I do the strut with slower, smaller steps because I don’t have the room. Hair loose and wavy, perfect for flinging it around. Shoulders loose, eyes up. Confident. Sexy.

No smile, but I’ve got the look in my eyes.

I hit the mark at just the right beat and yank my robe open.

For just a flash—a good glimpse of the girls, still looking as good as ever. Then I clutch it closed and swing to the right—shimmy, hair toss.

Skip to the left, same shimmy, hair toss.

The other girls would pick the latest pop and R&B songs but I always used Annie Lennox as my constant because ripping your shirt open during “Little Bird” makes a statement.

I’m all about making a statement.

I blame the Demi Moore movie for my signature song. Striptease. The one from the 1990s, before JLo made the pole look easy.

It’s not.

Back to the middle—spin with my gaze fixed on a point so I won’t get dizzy. The robe flies open like the wings of a bird and I stretch it all out, unable to stop the smile. A timed shrug leaves the robe on the floor. I kick it to the side as I turn with my back to the mirror.

A hinge—my head at my knees as I bend forward, my ass bare except for the black thong. I drop into a deep squat, inner thighs protesting as I widen them, before smoothing my body onto the floor.

I really hope the floor is clean.

Legs crossed and flip onto my back. Hip thrust. My hands run over my breasts, down my stomach and I hook a thumb into the strap of my thong and push it down for a tease.

To tempt them.

And then I arch up like I’m in the midst of a toe-curling climax, hair flowing down my back, breasts thrust forward so all eyes will be on them.

The rest of the routine is for the pole. The Tate Continental, as luxurious as it may be, does not come equipped with poles for the guests to use.

I sit unmoving on the floor as the music flows around me, thinking about the last time I did that routine. I’d been twenty-four… eight years ago. It had been my retirement party from the Spider’s Den.

I’d made three hundred dollars on tips alone, and then I let two of my most loyal fans take me to the private room at the club. One bent me over the table and I climbed in the lap of the second and gave him the ride of his life.

I charged each of them five hundred dollars and they paid it willingly. One thousand dollars and we were in there for less than twenty minutes.

That’s when I knew I made the right decision to stop dancing.

The song ends, and another begins. I stay on the floor.

What would happen if I decide to say fuck it all and just go out dancing? Hit some club where no one knows me and I can move like I used to, before I was told to be sexy, sexier, the sexiest. Before I learned to tease and taunt and tempt, using my body for money.

I was the sexiest. I was the best at tempting. But now…

I climb to my feet and gaze critically at myself in the mirror, running my hand over my body. Breasts a little fuller with rosy nips, not too big, not too small. Hips a little rounder now, curving into a size-four waist. My stomach is still taut with the visible etchings of abdomen muscles.

My pussy is still bare.

I look good.

Not that anyone has seen me like this for a while. Malcolm was the last, my neighbour with benefits. My best friend—great sex, but we’ll only ever be friends, especially now that he’s fallen in love with his book club crush.

No sex with him anymore.

I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve danced in the last eight years.

It’s surprising how much I miss it.

The music is too loud for the hotel room but I doubt any of the staff will be sent to tell me to turn it down, since it was Novi who booked the room for me and Novi who signs their paychecks.

No sex with him anymore.

I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve danced in the last eight years.

It’s surprising how much I miss it.

The music is too loud for the hotel room but I doubt any of the staff will be sent to tell me to turn it down, since it was Novi who booked the room for me and Novi who signs their paychecks.

I’ve told him I can pay for my room but he insists. He knew that being downtown in meetings all day, I wouldn’t have time to head home to change before dinner, so he booked me a room at his hotel. Not one of the suites, but just a space to have a few moments by myself.

I get to my feet and pick up the robe before I dress, leaving the music loud to distract me from my thoughts.

I’ve come a long way since my days as a dancer.

Squaring my shoulders, I offer my reflection a tight smile. Time to go to work.

Not that it’s work with Novi. Novi Tate is one of the few men who treats me like a person rather than an object to be purchased or possessed. He also likes to focus on who I am now, rather than who I was and where I came from.

That’s why the urge to dance was a surprise. It’s been years since I headlined at Spider’s Den Gentlemen’s Club and I’m no longer known as Kitty Cat or Black Widow or The Siren.

I’m Cadence Quiler, owner of Spider’s Den, and fourteen other clubs across Canada, ranging from gentlemen’s clubs, two sex clubs, and a handful of nightclubs where people go to dance and there’s no sex allowed on the premises.

I’m also the former owner of E, the infamous “dating” site for married men, and the current owner/operation of the Mature Adult Female website—or Moist and Frisky as some call it.

And as of three weeks ago, I’m a billionaire.

The music switches to Beyoncé, and I have another dance before I get dressed for dinner.

Maximilian

It sounds like there’s a party in the room above me.

I’m tempted to go check it out, but dealing with dear old Dad is the priority.

According to him, anyway.

“I don’t understand why you left the negotiations,” Dalton Stonee demands, his voice as cold as—you guessed it—Stone as he rages at me across the country, via my cell phone.

“I told you.” I keep a firm grasp on my patience because getting upset will only get me another lecture about my continual immaturity and what he considers insubordination, resulting in threats of kicking me out of the company and the possibility of disinheritance.

Both sound pretty damn good right now.

“I’m leaving for Turks and Caicos tomorrow for Marco’s wedding,” I explain to my father. “And Patel wasn’t able to accommodate my requests to finish this today because of family commitments.”

“We’re offering him a quarter of a billion dollars to accommodate your requests,” Dalton rages.

“He had a funeral,” I tell him, a hint of scorn edging my tone. “Celebrating the deceased trumps business for him. It’s not a bad thing.”

“Enough of your rudeness,” my father snaps.

That wasn’t rude. Rude would be to tell my father to take a running fucking leap off the shortest pier Aarush Patel owns on one of the islands he’s sitting on in Muskoka.

An island my father desperately wants to buy to redevelop into the latest Moon Resort.

It looks good on paper—five sweet little one-acre islands around a monster fifteen acres of God’s country in the middle of Lake Joseph. Dad wants to build the next Moon Resort on the big one and cottages on the little ones, so guests will have the private island experience.

People would pay a lot for that.

People pay a lot to stay at a Moon property.

And because Dad was needed in British Columbia to deal with a construction snafu in Kelowna, he sent me to the negotiation table with Patel.

I can tell he regretted it as soon as he sent the request to get there and get it done.

It’s not my fault Mr. Patel’s uncle died. Or that my best friend Marco Walker-White would pick this weekend to elope.

Technically, it’s not an elopement, since he invited his nearest and dearest, but Marco only gave us a week’s notice, so it feels like one.

“I’m due back there on Monday morning,” I report. “By mid-morning, it’ll all be finalized.”

“You’re guaranteeing this?”

“As much as I can guarantee anything. It looks all good.” I do my best to reassure my father, but I can never tell if he’s buying it. “I’m not concerned.”

“Maybe that’s the problem,” he says ominously. “You’re never concerned about the deal, or what happens it if it falls through.”

Because it’s not my company, and if you have your way, it never will be.

Because I can’t even sign my name to anything without checking with you first.

Because the world sees me as nothing but your errand boy.

But I wisely bite my tongue.

“Maximilian, I need this deal finished. We’ve spent too much time and energy wooing Patel, not to mention a lot of money. See that it’s done, or there will be some serious concerns about your future with this company.”

And with that threat, he hangs up.

Was that actually a threat? I’ll fire your ass if you don’t get it done. That’s a threat.

My having serious concerns about my future with the company is a fact, and not the way my father considers it.

I’ve been debating leaving for a while now, but haven’t made a move because of two things: one, I have no idea what else I can do that would keep me in the lifestyle I’ve been enjoying for all of my thirty-two years; and two, I have a really bad feeling that if I leave, I’ll do so after telling off Dad. And that will most likely result in me getting disinherited.

Note the part about the lifestyle I’ve been enjoying for all of my thirty-two years.

I work really hard as a member of the Moon team, but I like to play hard too.

And that gets expensive.

I glance around the room. Tate Continental is never a cheap place to stay, but it’s my first choice if there’s no Moon around. What can I say? I’m used to luxury. At least it’s only tonight, somewhere to crash before I fly out tomorrow afternoon.

On the company plane.

I’d miss that too.