Bare Pleasures

“Alexander.”

“Madame M.” He felt a little foolish calling her that, but he’d never learned her real name. Not in the two years she had regularly dropped by the club to check on its progress.

A corner of her mouth curled up. “It’s good to see you.” She put down the glass of sparkling water she was drinking and reached out to him. Lex clasped her hands in his, a gentle version of a handshake.

“I wish I could say the same,” he said.

Her smile faded away. “I understand.” She released his hands and sat down. “Please, have a seat. Can I get you something to drink? My treat.” She waved the waitress over.

Lex reluctantly smiled. She treated him like the wannabe rent boy he had been ten years ago, offering to spend money on him like he didn’t have a perfectly functioning wallet of his own. But what the hell. When the waitress came, he ordered a Red Stripe.

“That’s all you want?” she asked.

“For now.” Lex thanked the waitress before she left to put in his order.

Then he settled back in his chair, ankles crossed, to wait for the reason Madame M had brought him here. The calm felt good, a direct contrast to the panic that had burned down his spine at the gallery. Back in Jamaica when they first met, he’d been a spoiled and ridiculous kid, high on his own self-importance and spoiling for a fight. He wasn’t that dumb kid anymore, but with Madame M in Miami and so close to his parents, who still didn’t know about the bad choices he’d made while in Jamaica, he felt antsy.

He drummed his fingers once across the table. “What can I do for you, Madame M?”

She leaned in with a warmish smile on her red lips. “For starters, please, call me Margot.”

Margot? The unexpected sweetness of her name almost made him smile. “Okay, Margot. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I wish this visit was purely for pleasure,” she said.

“I figured it wasn’t when you sent the Monopoly card.”

She had the grace to look a little embarrassed. “Sorry about that. Sometimes my sense of the dramatic gets the better of me.” Her red-tipped fingers curled around the glass of mineral water, but she didn’t drink. “By the way, your sister’s show was great. I picked up one of her pieces for my living room.”

The fact that she had a living room in Miami, or so he assumed, made Lex’s hand tingle for the feel of the bottle that hadn’t arrived yet. He didn’t necessarily want to drink it, but it would give him something to hold on to in his suddenly shifting world.

“I’ll let her know you enjoyed it,” he said.

Margot chuckled. “Will you really?”

Lex’s beer came and he took a long pull from the brown glass bottle. “So, do you plan on telling me anytime soon why you’re here?”

“It’s actually a little embarrassing—” Her eyebrow jerked up and her mouth quirked, self-deprecating in a way Lex had never seen before. “It’s about my sister. And...” She sighed, finally lifting her eyes to meet his. “Just hear me out before you flat out say no.”

“If that’s not an inviting buildup, I don’t know what is,” he said.

“I know, right? I think I used to be much better at this.”

“Okay.” Lex put his beer on the table. Maybe he wanted to be absolutely sober for this. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands in his lap. “I’m listening.”

“It’s my sister,” she said again. “She’s going through a rough time right now, and I want to help her.”

Lex nodded for her to continue, although she obviously didn’t need the prompt.

“Her fiancé left her at the altar a year ago.” Something moved across her face, an emotion—which was unusual in itself—that Lex couldn’t clearly interpret. “She hasn’t been the same since. Maybe not depressed, exactly, but close enough that it makes me worry.”

It sounded like something normal enough to Lex. If someone he trusted and loved enough to think of settling down with suddenly left him in the lurch with a lifetime of embarrassment and an outfit he couldn’t return, he’d hole up at home in his pajamas too.

“Since we were kids, I’ve been the one to take care of her. I want to take care of this for her too.” Her gaze on him sharpened and, if he had been ten years younger, Lex would have quickly excused himself and run like hell. But he sat and waited for what would come out of her mouth next. “This is where you come in,” she said.

Either he was getting braver in his older age or stupid. “I don’t see any room for myself in this equation,” he said carefully. “If you’re that worried, get her to see a shrink.”

“She’s already doing all that, but it’s not working. What I want you to do is distract her from her depression.”

Lex raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think it works like that.”

“It can,” Margot insisted with a certainty that would’ve been admirable if she wasn’t talking about manipulating her sister. “Noelle is depressed right now, not clinically but just having a moment in her life. A distraction like you will be good for her.”

Lex didn’t bother to ask what she meant by a distraction like you. “You think asking one of your ex-strippers to sleep with her will solve her problem?” He ignored the flash of anger in Margot’s eyes and pushed on. “I don’t mean to be the bearer of bad news, Margot, but this isn’t going to go the way you think.”

“No, no, no. You are not going to sleep with her.” Margot shook her head so hard that the ends of her hair slapped her mouth. “I never allowed that in the club and I’m certainly not going to ask you to do that now.”

“You want me to seduce her out of her depression but not have sex with her? Sounds like you want her to be pissed off and more depressed when this whole thing is over.” Just like he would be.

“Noelle has never been a sexual person—wow, I don’t even know why I’m telling you this—” Instead of covering her face as it looked like she was going to do, Margot primly clasped her hands on top of the table. “I don’t think you teasing without delivering will be a problem.”

Her justification for wanting to do this for her sister looked pretty thin. Lex understood about wanting to take care of the people you love, but this...this didn’t seem to be the way to go at all.

“Margot, don’t think I’m not grateful for what you did for me back in Jamaica, but even you have to see this is a little crazy. Making me into a neutered stud for your sister just because she has a little case of the blues doesn’t make sense here. I don’t think you’ll be doing her any favors. Let her find her own way out of this. I’m sure your sister is more capable than you’re giving her credit for.” Especially if she’s your sister, Lex silently added.

“I have to do this for her, Alexander. I have to.” The emotionless mask she always wore bent at the edges and he could see hints of her desperation, the love she had for her sister and the care she wanted to take of her. “You’re just what she needs right now. And I trust you to fulfill those needs without overstepping your boundaries.” She raised a meaningful eyebrow, reminding him again that he wasn’t allowed to go too far with her sister.

Since he wasn’t going to agree to any of her madness, it didn’t seem necessary to bring up his current celibacy.

“Margot, even though I hate to say no to you, I have to step back from this. What you’re planning doesn’t feel right, and it sure as hell doesn’t sound necessary.”

“Consider it a little longer, Alexander. I’m not asking you for a kidney here.”

“That would be easier,” he said.

Margot palmed her water again, looked at Lex as if she was seeing him for the first time and then glanced away to the pedestrian traffic parading past.

“You’ve changed,” she said.

“Of course. I’m sure you have too. After all, it’s been ten years.” He was twenty-eight now. She had to be at least forty.

Her eyes ran a slow course over him, from the top of his head, his hair cut close with tight waves, over his America Eagle jeans, to the simple leather sandals on his feet. “And it’s not just the clothes you wear. No latest-designer gear, no pierced nose.”

Lex grinned, a quick flash of teeth. “The piercings have moved to more inconspicuous locations.” Her eyebrow arched playfully at that. “But I like to think I’ve cultivated some more mature tastes in the last few years. For no other reason than to save money. Keeping up with the Kardashians is expensive.” He quirked the corner of his mouth.

“You’ve definitely changed. I didn’t exactly expect the same arrogant boy from the club, but...”

“But you did.”