After the tiny hiccup on the first day, the rest of the week went smoothly. Key really settled into her role as hostess and caretaker of the patrons. She seemed to have an innate knack for finding the lost, the confused, and the timid and making them comfortable, helping them open up and really explore the adult playground I had built for them. She was also a wiz at livening up the bar on the slower weeknights, so even if I wasn’t making money on the private rooms, I was still raking in a small fortune in liquor sales. She had no trouble getting on the bar and doing a little shimmy and shake or even putting her old job skills to use and offering up a much tamer peep show to get the crowd going. She was a perfect fit for the club and the perfect business partner. After a few days of watching some of the shyer female patrons, she suggested we do a ladies-only night. It was brilliant and something I doubt would’ve ever occurred to me. And after the debacle with the married couple on opening night, she also suggested we do a couples-only night. I liked the way her mind worked. She saw past the dollar signs to the people attached to the money, and that’s what this place needed. That was something I could never do.

Along with all the good things that were happening, there were also some really annoying setbacks that seemed to keep popping up, which solidified the idea that someone was trying to mess with the club from the inside. It was also a major headache that I was spending most of my time trying to do damage control rather than persuading Key to give in to me, which is what I really wanted to be focused on. After she worked me over up in my office, she hadn’t put her hands on me again, mostly because she didn’t have an opportunity to do so. We were both working hard and I think she was a little gun-shy. We’d been sitting on a powder keg of repressed desire and untouched emotion for years. She lit the match and the fuse was burning. I think we both knew the explosion waiting for us when we ignited was going to be life-altering.

One of the annoyances that was taking up my time and making me ready to bang heads together was a missed liquor delivery that caused the bar to run dry one night and cost a fortune to rush-deliver over the weekend. Apparently someone had called in claiming to work for me and canceled the order right before it was supposed to be delivered. Someone went into the women’s restrooms and shoved cotton T-shirts in all of the toilets and then flushed them all, causing a flood of epic proportions and a plumbing bill that was outrageous. They did it on two floors of the building, shutting down operations for half a night until I could get it fixed. The biggest clusterfuck happened on a Friday night. It was a packed house, people were getting their weekend groove on, the bar was full, all the rooms upstairs were full of people doing their thing, and I was finally thinking I was going to catch a break when all hell broke loose on the monitors I was watching behind the desk.

I saw one of the bartenders scream and jump up on the bar. Soon the other two followed suit and everyone in the packed bar looked like they were losing their damn minds and jumping up on whatever piece of furniture they could find. Key was in the center of the chaos looking as confused as I felt. People started pouring out of all the private rooms in various stages of undress, all with the same panicked look on their faces. I was climbing to my feet to head down to the floor to see what the hell was going on when I saw Key scream as a gigantic black rat ran across her foot. She hopped to her other foot and shot a look up to the camera she knew was watching her.

“There’s hundreds of them!” I couldn’t hear her, but I could see what she was saying plain as day.

I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed Chuck. “Rats?”

“Son of a bitch! It’s like a goddamn plague in here!”

I swore and rushed to the elevator. “Start clearing everybody out.”

“Already on it. Key is moving everyone in the bar to the front doors. This isn’t good for business, boss.”

“No shit. How in the hell did someone get hundreds of rats past our security?” I hated when anyone messed with my money, but I hated when someone outsmarted me even more.

“Don’t know, but I’m not happy about it. I hate rats.”

“I hate losing money. We’re gonna be shut down for at least two days getting all those little creatures out of here.”

“If not longer. I’ll go pull up the video feed, but if it’s like the last two incidents, there won’t be anything.”

I swore again as the elevator deposited me in the back hallway. I moved toward the bar area, ushering people toward the exit as I did so. They all looked kind of frantic and disgruntled that all their fun had been ruined for the weekend. I didn’t apologize, but I did tell anyone that asked that they would of course be given a credit. It was a pain in the ass, and when a particularly fat and ugly rodent scurried across my foot, it was all I could do not to kick it into a wall. It was disgusting and had perfectly succeeded in shutting me down. Fury lashed hot and bright inside of me.

When I reached the bar I saw that Key had done a pretty good job of clearing out most of the patrons. The floor looked like it was alive as furry bodies climbed all over it and each other. I could see she was grossed out but keeping it together as she helped one of the bartenders off the bar and told them laughingly to take the rest of the night off. Our eyes met across the space and I motioned for her to go on and head outside as well. She nodded back and carefully picked her way across the vermin-covered floor. The noise of the rodents had my skin crawling as I went to follow her. The smell was enough to have me biting back bile, and the rage at all my hard work and careful planning being disrupted was enough to choke me.

I called Chuck and told him to make sure the building was clear of people and also to see if he could find a twenty-four-hour exterminator. He already had his guys doing a floor-by-floor sweep for any remaining clubgoers. He told me to take the night off and that we could tackle the mess and whoever was behind it in the morning.

I begrudgingly agreed and made my way over to where Keelyn was standing by her car.

“I need to burn everything I have on right now. You owe me a new pair of Jimmy Choos.” She stuck out her foot and scowled at the strappy, nude-colored high heel her foot was encased in.

“I’ll buy you whatever you want. Let’s get out of here. I’ll follow you up to the house.” I had been spending so much time at the club I hadn’t been to the mountain house in almost a full week. I was ready for a night in my own bed. Preferably with her under me . . . or over me . . . I wasn’t too picky.