OGs: Deep Down (3 page)

Which, in truth, was all that mattered. Sam was all she’d wanted from the divorce.

The girl exhaled the breath she’d been holding. “Thank the Lord.” Yep. She could say that again. “What about child support?”

Kyra shook her head while her friend stifled a curse. “He won’t be paying any. That was his prerequisite for agreeing to give me sole custody.”

“Fucking scumbag.”

True, but she’d rather get zip from said scumbag and have him out of their lives than push for child support and have him issuing demands on their daughter because of it.

She tried taking a deep breath. She’d hoped that once the angst of losing Sam to Drake had disappeared, she would be able to breathe again, but it hadn’t totally worked. Mainly because stripped of all her savings and possessions, with her shoulder still injured and her career and reputation in the gutter, she wasn’t sure how she was going to provide for her daughter.

As a child who had made do with very little for the first decade of her life, she needed a big buffer around her, the kind only money gave, to feel secure.

“I told you,” Angie said. “We should have gone with plan A.”

Kyra waved at her. “Don’t be silly. What do we know about snuffing people? We would have needed a pro, and those don’t come cheap.”

“In this case it would have been cheaper,” Angie muttered. “Not to mention we would have done humankind a favor.”

On that one, Angie was most likely right.

Kyra leaned forward and softly thumped her forehead on the counter.

God, what a mess. She was dead broke and stuck in Alden. In Alden of all places.

She’d rather be in freaking Fallujah preaching gender equality than here.

She’d moved back to Alden because she’d had nowhere else to go and little money to get there. Still, she’d counted on having enough cash after the divorce to be able to repair the house she’d inherited from her foster mother and sell it for some profit. Now, though, not only didn’t she have enough money for repairs, but she could barely cover next week’s utilities bills.

It looked like she was going to be doing some extreme couponing the likes of which her late grandmother would have been proud.

As she banged her head on the counter, she heard Angie call out, “Hit us, hard. Emergency here.”

“Got you.” In a second the bartender was placing a shot glass and a plate with a huge piece of chocolate cake in front of her.

Both girls looked at the counter, stunned, then at the bartender, who, out of nowhere, had produced a can of whipped cream and was shaking it.

“What? You said it was an emergency, right? That’s how we handle those around here,” she stated, spraying an insane amount of whipped cream over the slice while with the other hand she poured a shot of bourbon in the glass without spilling a drop. “Death by Chocolate, a 1000-calorie-per-bite cake reserved purely for emergencies. I’m Red, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, Red. I’m Kyra; this is Angie.”

“Cracking your head won’t help. And I told you water wouldn’t cut it. This, on the other hand, will hit all the spots. Trust me, I’ve gone through three divorces. I know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Three divorces? Red didn’t look much older than thirty.

As if reading her mind, she added, “What can I say, I’m an optimist and I started young. By the time I’m fifty, Elizabeth Taylor won’t have nothing on me. Now pick your poison.”

Kyra eyed the glass warily. She wasn’t too fond of booze, so she chose the plate. “This is going to go straight to my ass.”

“Shut up. Your ass is phenomenal.”

She wasn’t so sure, but at the moment, with her life in shambles, a big butt was the least of her worries.

She was in a not so classy strip joint about to stuff her face with chocolate cake and whipped cream. Of possibly dubious origin. She was reaching new lows.

“You know what hurts the most?” Kyra began, her eyes never leaving the plate as she dug in to the cake. “How easily he gave up Sam in exchange for money. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m thrilled that I got sole custody, and I don’t regret for a single second all that has cost me. I would have given that and so much more, but I’m sad for the shitty father my daughter has.”

One shouldn’t be able to buy a parent off. Under no circumstances. And what did it say about her that she had to resort to such tactics? She didn’t want to think about it.

“What the fuck was I thinking marrying such an ass?”

She hadn’t been thinking, that was what. Drake had dazzled her. She’d been alone, hurting, and scared. Lost. And he’d been the father of her baby. It hadn’t seemed such a horrible idea at the time. Talk about a vision of the future, huh?

“Let it go. Just be glad it’s over,” Angie said, clasping Kyra’s hand. “When’s Sam coming back?”

“This Sunday. I didn’t want her around for this.” Kyra had sent her daughter to stay with friends for the week. It wasn’t as if Sam hadn’t already clued in to the kind of father she had, but still. She didn’t need a front-row seat to the bloodbath. Besides, Kyra had tried to shield her as much as possible, and she wasn’t about to stop now.

Angie assented. “What you need right now is cheering up. Tomorrow is Saturday. Let’s spend the whole day at the spa, pampering ourselves.”

“I can’t afford spa treatments.” Hell, she wasn’t even sure she could afford the piece of cake. “I’m dead broke.” Much to her dismay, her job as aqua-dance instructor in the town’s swimming pool wasn’t going to be enough now that she had to keep her daughter fed and in clothes and flip a house on an empty bank account. Pity she couldn’t go into the kitchen, mix some avocado, some coconut oil, and some almonds and come up with a kick-ass make-your-wrinkles-disappear cream she could start selling out of her garage before moving on to make a fortune on the Internet.

She had no marketable skills, except for dancing. And Alden wasn’t big on job opportunities for professional dancers.

“If you need money, I can—”

“No,” Kyra interrupted Angie. “Thanks, but no.” She was grateful for the offer, but she was used to managing on her own. “What I need is a regular income.” At least until she could get out of Dodge and continue with her life. “Is the lake resort hiring? Hey, I could take a crash course in Botox. Or walk the dogs.”

How hard could it be to walk Chihuahuas, right? Even with her bum shoulder she should be able to make it.

Angie harrumphed. “Sweetie, forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but you’re a professional dancer. A superb and a rather sought-after one at that. An amazing choreographer to boot. You’ve worked with famous people. I understand things got fucked and you needed a change of scenery, but Boston has a couple of great dance companies. I know you aren’t at your best, but surely you could—”

“Not ready for that yet.” She needed to lie low and lick her wounds. She’d been very happy with her last job, but Drake had ruined that for her, and she couldn’t go back. She could start auditioning, but her shoulder wasn’t totally healed. It wasn’t noticeable in everyday life, but professional dancing was a whole different game. Besides, she was so tired. Bone-deep tired. Not sure that had to do with her shoulder, though, because not even going for a choreographer’s position appealed to her. The dancing community was a small one, especially when one reached certain levels, and gossip got around. Getting arrested before a show, charged and thrown in jail, and having a team of lawyers bailing you out on a technicality was a hell of a résumé, never mind how many successful performances she’d pulled off before that.

“You’re a dancer? Oh my God!” Red squeaked, realization dawning on her. “I knew you looked familiar. I know you. You’re Kyra Brims from
Shake Your Booty
. I love that show. You were paired with that gorgeous-as-hell NFL player who had two left feet. You managed to drag him to the semifinals.”

Kyra smiled. “That’s me. Brian was a sweetie.”

“I was going to say you could give it a go here if you knew how to work a pole, but that would be like hiring frigging Picasso to paint the walls.”

“Thanks. Bum shoulder,” Kyra said.

“How did that happen? You weren’t in the last season.”

No, she’d been touring with Amantis until all hell broke loose.

“Catfight. Brian’s wife got jealous,” she joked, trying to relax her muscles. No way in hell was she talking about what had happened.

The silence was long. Kyra lowered her gaze, feeling two pairs of eyes trained at her.

Angie cleared her throat. “You know what you really need? You need to get some. You’re too tense.”

“Some what?” Kyra asked distractedly.

Angie rolled her eyes. “
Some
, Kyra,
some
. What are you supposed to do when you fall off the horse?”

“Sell the horse?”

Red let out a chuckle, and Angie waved at Kyra. “No, you silly. You’re supposed to get right back in the saddle.”

Ah, that kind of saddle. She’d fallen off that particular horse years ago. It had been kicking her in the face ever since.

Kyra’s snort came automatically. “Is that your professional opinion as a shrink, that I need to get laid?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, it is,” Angie answered.

“Is that what you tell all those trophy wives between liposuction and liposuction, for three hundred dollars an hour?”

“No need. Trophy wives know about the need to get laid, and they do. Often, at least at the lake resort, and believe me, not always by their husbands.”

“I’m not a shrink,” Red interrupted. “And I also think you need to get laid.”

“Oh, I have it now,” Angie said. “In a month there’s the bachelors’ auction. We’ll raise funds and place a collective bid in your name. We may have to sell a couple of vital organs each for a shot at Max Bowen, but it should be worth it.”

For the first time this afternoon, Kyra broke into laughter. “Let’s try to keep our organs. We may need them.”

Max Bowen was gorgeous, no two ways about it, but he’d never done it for her. No one had done it for her except for… Well, yeah. No use dwelling.

“We’ll have to forget about Max, then. And Mike,” Angie added nonchalantly, as if she didn’t know what that name did to her and how Kyra was going to be paying attention to every single word. “Last year he raked in almost as much dough as the Bowens. Well, except for Cole. He totally refused to participate. Since coming back from the marines, he renovates a building for free every year. I think it’s to get out of the bachelor auction.”

She’d been away for a while, but she remembered the Bowens. Max, as charming and laid-back as always, was still a shameless flirt. James was now off the market, and by the looks of it Cole too.

“No bachelor auction,” Kyra stated. “There’s something very wrong about paying a guy for a date.”

“I’m with you there,” Red said. “You don’t need to pay a guy for a date. Any guy with half a working brain would give their left nut to go out with you.”

“Exactly. Just find yourself a hunky stud and ride it until you break it. Then move on.”

Kyra laughed at the image. Angie was insane, but maybe she had a point here.

She was twenty-eight, divorced, broke, and unemployed. Had been living like a nun for the last four years, even though she was often surrounded by drop-dead-gorgeous famous guys. Not all of them gay, mind you. The universe owed her some freaking rebound action, if for nothing else than as restitution for her shitty stars.

“Maybe you’re right. I may need a distraction. Some boy toy I can use on the rebound.” As a price for surviving the divorce. Hell, for surviving the whole marriage.

“That’s the spirit. There’s a certain tennis instructor at the lake resort who I’m sure wouldn’t object to being a boy toy. Tomorrow I’ll introduce you.”

She was going to tell her that tennis instructors were not her thing, especially if they were banging trophy wives, when the cheers of the girls stopped, and suddenly she felt the hair at the back of her neck stand.

Kyra stilled. Shit. Slowly, she turned to see Mike standing behind her in all his six-foot-four glory, his jaw locked, his piercing blue eyes ablaze and full of contempt.

Mr. Fucking Zen always had a smile for everyone. Not for Kyra.

Out of all the strip clubs, why, oh why had she ended up in the one he came to for entertainment?

She should have never moved back to Alden, not even on a temporary basis. Too bad she had been shit out of options.

He stared at her for what seemed like an eternity, and she felt her spine cracking. “Anything you want?” she countered, her tone snippy, her face catching on fire as soon as she realized what she said.

She should grow up. It’d been years, yet she didn’t know how to be around him without feeling defensive. And embarrassed and pissed and hurt. And small, so damn small.

He scanned her from head to toe and then back up, and shook his head. “No, nothing I want here.” Then he addressed Red. “Sinful in?”

Kyra’s chest clenched. The pain was so sudden and fierce and unexpected that she gasped.

“Yes. She’s back there. You can—”

“There you are, handsome. Waiting for me?”

At those words he shifted, and Kyra ducked to see a stunning blonde coming at him, her smile blinding.

“Hi, Sinful.” She couldn’t see, but she heard the smile in Mike’s voice. Nothing like the tone he used with Kyra.

The blonde looked toward the counter, at the half-eaten piece of cake, and smirked. “Emergency this early in the evening?”

Red nodded. “You betcha.”

Sinful chuckled, her locks softly swaying, her green eyes sparkling. God, she was a knockout. From the top of her platinum professionally styled hair to the tips of her cute, manicured bloodred toenails.

Kyra hated her on the spot with an intensity that staggered her.

“Follow me, handsome,” she said, glancing at Mike and crooking her finger. Long, sexy, deep-red nails. Perfect for marking Mike’s back the way he liked. “Let’s find some privacy and get down to business.”

Kyra felt like she had been dealt a blow. She gritted her teeth and fought not to lose her composure along with her breakfast.

Not even running into Mike with beautiful, quiet, homey Melanie, the model of an ideal wife Kyra had seen him with several times the first week after her arrival, had been that painful.