A knock sounded on the door, and Ruby flinched. “It’s me,” Banshee called softly through the door. “I saw you bolt after Ant left. You okay?”
“Why are you here?” Ruby asked, not wanting to let Banshee see her that way.
“I heard from Bolt that Ant was coming in today to get his check-up for the FBI, and I worried that he might try to talk to you again,” Banshee explained.
“Yeah, well, I was the doctor giving Ant his check-up, so talking to me was a given. I just didn’t expect him to corner me about—well, you know.”
“Can you just open the door, Ruby?” Banshee asked. “People are starting to look at me, and I’m pretty sure that someone is going to call security.” Ruby wiped her cheeks quickly, stood, and opened the door just enough to let her friend in.
Banshee took one look at her face and swore. “Shit. He knows, doesn’t he?” Ruby’s throat closed, and she nodded.
“He knows,” Ruby whispered. “He didn’t come right out and accuse me of dancing at the club, not outright. But he knows. And he’s FBI and is going to be Bolt’s partner. If he starts talking?—”
Banshee grabbed her shoulders. “Hey, look at me. Dancing isn’t illegal. You shouldn’t be ashamed of having to do it to make some money. We’ve all done things that we didn’t want to do, but had to, in order to get through life.”
Ruby let out a broken laugh. “It sure feels illegal when your hospital board is full of moral crusaders and donors with wives who don’t want their doctors having skeletons in their closets.” Banshee didn’t argue, and Ruby was thankful for that. She didn’t have the energy to fight with her friend right now.
Ruby turned away, pacing the small room. “I lied to him again. I keep lying, and he just keeps watching me like he’s waiting for me to crack. Why can’t he just leave well enough alone?”
“Are you going to crack?” Banshee asked quietly.
Ruby stopped pacing; her voice came out raw. “I don’t know if I can keep holding it in. He’s relentless.” The tears came then, and she wanted to kick herself for being so vulnerable. She pressed a hand over her mouth as they fell, her shoulders shaking. “I did everything right,” she said through the tears. “I studied, and I worked hard. I earned my degree. I didn’t hurt anyone by dancing. I was just surviving.”
Banshee pulled her into a hug without hesitation. “You did what you had to do to put yourself through school. That’s admirable. If Ant can’t see that, then he’s not worth your trouble. And he’s an ass if he says that dancing is wrong. Hell, he works at that club too, right?” Banshee asked.
Ruby nodded, “He does, as a bouncer. He’s not accusing me of doing anything wrong, and he doesn’t look at me like I’m dirty,” Ruby whispered. “He looks at me like I’m a puzzle—one that he wants to solve, and that scares me even more.” Puzzles got solved, and Ruby worried that Ant would be able to put the pieces together and out her for dancing at a strip club.
The part she wasn’t willing to tell Banshee was that when Ant looked at her, she felt seen in a way she never had before—not as Ruby the doctor, and not as Scarlet the dancer. It was as if he saw both of them in her. Ant saw all of her, and that was the part that really scared her.
Banshee pulled back slightly. “You want Rebel to know?”
Ruby hesitated. Then nodded. “Yeah. Before this turns into something worse. If Ant has asked Bolt about me being a dancer, then Rebel is bound to find out. She should hear it from one of us.”
“And Valentine’s Day?” Banshee asked gently. “Will you still come into the clubhouse for the party?”
Ruby huffed out a shaky breath. “Ant asked me to be his date for Valentine's. Can you believe that? He accuses me of lying and then asks me out. What kind of guy does that?”
“Well, you are lying to him,” Banshee pointed out. “Are you going to go out with him?” Ruby stared at the wall, the question hanging heavy and unanswered between them. Banshee knew her inside and out, and she knew that there would be no lying to her Prez.
“I don’t think this is about a date,” she said finally. “I think he’s testing me. Pushing me to see how close he can get before I break and spill the truth.”
“And if he’s not testing you, what will you do?” Banshee asked. “Maybe he just wants to go out with you, Ruby. What if he just wants you?”
Ruby shook her head. “No one just wants me. Not the real me, anyway.”
Banshee squeezed her hand. “You’d be surprised.” Ruby looked down at her trembling fingers, at the thin scar on her wrist from a fall she’d taken years ago on stage—one she’d stitched herself in the dressing room and then danced through the pain.
Ant knew, and sooner or later, he was going to tell everyone down at the clubhouse. What would she do then? Ruby couldn’t let that happen because facing her friends as a stripper wasn’t going to happen.
Ruby straightened, wiping her eyes. “I won’t let him use my past against me.”
Banshee nodded. “Then we make sure he doesn’t get the chance.”
Ruby squared her shoulders, her doctor face sliding back into place like a mask she’d worn too long. She wasn’t sure how shewas going to convince Ant that she wasn’t a dancer down at the club he worked at, but she had to try. Letting him tell all of her friends about her dancing wasn’t going to happen—not if she could help it.
Ruby knew something was wrong the second she walked into Savage Hell and the music dipped—just a fraction too low. Not enough for anyone else to notice, but it was enough for her to notice.
Rebel was standing near the bar with her arms crossed over her chest and her jaw set. Banshee was beside her, whispering something in her ear. And Ant—Ant was leaning back against the pool table like he owned the place, watching them all.
