Page 17 of Fourth Point Of Contact

“What?” I snapped.

He shrugged nonchalantly. “Nothing. I just didn’t know you used to moonlight as a stripper.”

My face burned as I realized how quickly he’d picked up on that when I had kept the secret hidden for so long. I should have kept my damn mouth shut.

“What’s your point?”

Chase burst out laughing, slapping his hand hard across my back. “Holy shit. A model and a stripper!”

“I am not a model!” Lock yelled.

“There is nothing wrong with stripping,” I argued. “Before I landed this job, I needed money.”

“Did you provide other services?” Chase asked curiously. “Or did you only take off your clothes?”

“I didn’t whore myself out,” I snapped.

Nick, still laughing, just couldn’t let it go. “Give us a show. Let’s see those moves.”

“There are no moves,” I argued, even though I had a hell of a lot of them.

“Does Fox know about this?” Lock asked.

“Why would he know? And why would it matter?”

“Well…” He looked around at the others. “It just seems like something that would be up his alley.” Then he frowned. “Or maybe not.Oklahomadoesn’t exactly have the kind of music you would need to…do your thing.”

It most definitely did not. In fact, there wasn’t a single musical I could think of where it would be appropriate to strip to. “Look, it’s in the past. I did it to get by. It’s not like I enjoyed it.”

“He’s right,” Lock argued, being a good boss. “Let’s drop this. It’s not important right now. We need to focus on work. This will be an easy extraction. We have everything we need to pull thisoff and get in and out as quickly as possible.” He frowned and turned to me. “You don’t happen to still have body oil, do you?”

I tossed my pen at him, narrowly missing his eyes. He ducked, laughing his ass off. “What? It could be very helpful!” he shouted as I stood and marched out of the room. He chased after me, though. “I’m just saying, sometimes you get in a situation that’s sticky! Oil might help things along!”

I flipped him off and kept walking, pretending I was pissed when I was really laughing inside. It was a known fact that everyone around here got in each other’s business, though they tried less and less to hide it over the years. I wouldn’t be surprised if Rae already had a file on me with pictures from my days at the strip club.

Heading home, I was barely through the door when I spotted someone in my kitchen. And not just anyone. Fucking Edu. I slammed the door shut just to let him know I was home, but he didn’t even break stride as he snatched a beer and walked over to my couch and plopped down.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I snagged the beer out of his hands and took a seat in my recliner, glaring at him.

“Taking a page out of your book and being single for the day.”

“That’s not how it works. Why the fuck are you here instead of at home with your wife and kid?”

He sighed, dropping his head back on the couch. “Because I’m a fucking coward.”

“I highly doubt that,” I muttered. “The only time I’ve ever known you to be a coward was when you found out Harper was pregnant and—” I was about to take a swig of my beer, but paused. “Holy shit. Is Harper pregnant again?”

“No, it’s nothing like that. And thanks for the vote of confidence,” he muttered.

“Sorry, but you don’t have the best track record.”

He nodded, his eyes focused on the TV that wasn’t even playing. Something was going on, but the question was, why was he here instead of with someone from his team?

“So, I guess we’re just gonna sit here until you tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“My old man isn’t dead.”

Since I didn’t know anything about his old man, I didn’t know what to think of that. “Okay.”

---