My Double Life: Wild and Wicked by Joanne Rock Page B

called even though we had both been busy with work. I planned to see him tonight.
    Finally. His most recent text had told me to bring my domino mask. But I had an even better surprise in store for him than that.
    “You look great,” Natalie observed. I was still wearing my sheer costume from the Dance of the Seven Veils, which we’d practiced tonight. “Do you have a minute for a Pomegranate Power-Up?” She pointed to the juice bar. “On the house.”
    I resisted the urge to glance at my watch. I didn’t have many close friends and my dance instructor ranked as one of the best. So I made time even though I knew Trey would be expecting me soon. He’d said he was “sending a car” for me.
    As if I was one of his star clients. Ha!
    “Sure.” I dropped my gym bag on the floor and had a seat on one of the polished red stools in front of the hammered steel bar. “Do you need help? It must be really tough getting around—”
    “I’m fine,” she assured me, setting the crutches against the bar. “Have a seat.”
    We exchanged a few words about her injury while Natalie fixed the vitamin-packed drinks. She sold teas and other health foods here, and there was a small gift shop across the foyer. I’d been so intimidated the first time I set foot in here. Hard to believe the dance studio was almost a second home to me now.
    “So, care to share what’s given you the new bounce in your step?” she asked as she passed my drink toward me in a martini glass, complete with a toothpick full of raspberries. “Everyone has commented on it. Half the girls believe it’s because you nailed the job for me at Backstage. But personally, I think it must be a man.”
    I knew I needed to keep a lid on my relationship with Trey. I mean, if he was going to keep it secret from my employer, then I shouldn’t be blabbing about it either. But I could tell Natalie a few things, right? The news was practically bursting out of me.
    Ever since I’d slept with Trey my life felt...fuller, better, happier. It was like a switch flipped inside me that night and I just didn’t feel the weight of my old insecurities any longer. Dancing at Backstage was part of it, too, but most of the change in me was because of Trey. I felt like I’d been living a fantasy ever since we met.
    “Maybe it’s a little of both,” I admitted, launching into an abbreviated tale of meeting Trey, deleting the part about him being a client and omitting his famous name. I called him “Tom” just because it got awkward telling a story about someone without using a name. And technically, he was Thomas the Third in his family. I hadn’t found out much about his two younger brothers, but I knew they lived up in Sonoma Valley and that one of them ran a thoroughbred farm.
    “Doesn’t it worry you that you met him at Backstage?” Natalie asked, coming around to my side of the bar and settling next to me on one of the stools. “Men can be really...weird about women in sexy professions. I mean, they love to head to the dance clubs, but how many of them will take an exotic dancer as a girlfriend?”
    “It’s not like I was stripping,” I was quick to point out. “You know Backstage isn’t that kind of place. Besides, Tom and I have agreed not to take this seriously.”
    “Right. Just be careful, okay?”
    Didn’t she see how happy I was? I felt compelled to elaborate.
    “Natalie, my whole life turned around after you made me go on stage for you.” Some hidden part of me had stepped into the spotlight and really liked it. “I’m seeing someone. I’m more confident. I’m stuttering less.” Sort of. Trey didn’t seem to notice my speech issues, which made me not notice them either. “I was even asked to take a face-to-face role with a new client at Sphere, so I’ll be coming out of the back offices for the first time to give a small part of a roundtable presentation.”
    I’d also emailed Trey a few investment ideas—no big trade secrets, just some general