Billionaire's Best Mistake: Love After I Do

Chapter Seven

Clarice

Today the club is really parked as compared to yesterday, which is quite surprising given it’s a Sunday and most of the people have work tomorrow.

It feels like there is something special happening here tonight when in all honesty, there is nothing. Sundays are normally the most boring days, and as usual low in business. Sundays are the days I would probably go home with little to no tips at all, and I just have to depend on the salary that I get.

The music is banging through the booming speakers and the dance floor is filled with bodies swaying to the beat of the music. It’s quite busy that I’m barely catching a break. The waiters and waitresses just keep asking for drinks and more drinks, and funny, today my bar area is also parked. I honestly feel like we are understaffed.

This place is not the kind that normally has every kind of person, It is a celebrity club, and the who and who are the ones who flood this place, so there has never been a single time when they just showed up in plenty.

I don’t even think most of them are celebrities, and I am really poor at knowing who the famous people are because I’m not the type that keeps tabs, but I sure as hell can tell some of the people here are just ordinary people.

Millie walks to where I am with a smile on her lips. She is in a red bandage dress and has on a blonde wig, and believe me, she looks very sexy in the dress, something I’m not sure I would say the same about myself. Sure we normally wear red on Sunday nights, but Millie always has a way of pulling off her outfits.

She is the reason I’m freezing in this sleeveless dress, because she insisted I needed to look sexy for once, one thing that I was so ready to strongly object to, but my sister was in full support of her, and now I’m just over here suffering in the cold, because, unlike them, I’m a bartender, and most of the night, I’m stuck behind this bar serving drinks. I don’t get to move around and shake off the cold as they do.

When it comes to dressing, I’m normally an exception, since I don’t move around a lot, and my job is not to attract the men, unless on special occasions, like when Jerry asked me to entertain the governor’s son last night. Normally I would just put on my pair of jeans and a sweater to keep warm, but today, I fell for Millie’s tricks.

“Hey, sexy.” She says and I cringe.

“Let’s not do that, okay?” I tell her and she chuckles.

“Why? You do look sexy in that dress.” She says with a smirk on her lips and I hate that she is having fun at the fact that I didn’t have much of a choice here.

“Yea, and cold too.”

“I’m sorry. It’s called freeze and shine.” She murmurs as she takes her tray of drinks and leaves.

From the smirk, on her lips, she is not sorry at all. I never wanted to shine.

My phone buzzes under the counter and I ignore it since I won’t be able to hear anything from the loud music. Just then a text follows and the moment I read the message, my heart freezes.

_We need to talk._

My heart starts racing because I know who it is. I thought I had gotten rid of them, but it seems like I didn’t.

I choose to ignore the text message. I can’t start worrying right now when I already have a lot on my plate.

We had an agreement with him; I don’t know why he is calling me. The agreement was I be the one to contact him, not the other way round. Besides, I have been faithful in keeping my end of the bargain, so I don’t understand why he would want us to talk.

I smile at the next customer as I serve them their drink.

I’m suddenly feeling cold, and sure I was already feeling cold, but this one is different, because I know these are shivers of fear.

My phone buzzes again and as much as I keep screaming to my mind to ignore it, I still reach for the phone. I take a step away from the counter and pick up the call.

“What do you want?” I ask as I press the phone on my ear to make sure I can hear him clearly without being distracted by the loud music.

“Did you get my message?” He asks and I roll my eyes.

“Yea.”

“And?”

“I’m kind of busy.” Couldn’t he have chosen a different time for this?

“It’s urgent.” Oh, come on.

“Can I call you once I’m off work?” There is no way we can talk right now when I’m this busy.

“It can’t wait.” He says and I roll my eyes again. Like come one, what does he expect me to do?

I can’t get off work now, and it’s obvious we can’t talk on the phone because of the loud music.

“I’m sorry but my hands are tied at the moment.”

“Well, I’m outside the club; you can come out for a couple of minutes.” I crease my brows when he says that. What does he mean he is outside the club?

How the hell did he even know where I work?

Just when I thought I could keep my distance from him and his group of friends, he knows where I work. That can’t be good at all, as a matter of fact, it is dangerous for both me and him.

“I’m really busy.”

“It won’t take long, I promise.” He says and I sigh giving up.

It seems like there is no way out of this.

“Fine, give me a minute,” I tell him and hang up the call. I serve another couple of orders as I wait for Millie to come back so that she can take over for a minute. I hate that I always have to do this to her, but it is quite urgent.

I’m glad when I see her walking to where I am.

“Are you okay girl?” She asks with a little concern, and I presume the look of worry on my face sold me out.

“Yea, can you help me here for a minute; I need to use the washroom,” I tell her and she nods as she comes to where I am. I grab my leather jacket and my phone and walk through the backdoor.

I can’t tell her where I am going, because just like other things that she doesn’t know about me, I prefer to keep this one to myself. Hell, even Ellis doesn’t know about this.

I walk past the back door and head for the club exit. I know there is no way he would be let in here, because this place, they don’t just late anyone in.

I pull on my jacket when I’m hit by the cold the moment I step outside.

Since Ellis and Millie decided I put on this short dress, without giving a thought to my well-being, I decided to pair it with a pair of black thigh-high boots, to protect me from the cold.

He is standing a distance away from the exit in a black leather jacket his hands pocketed in his pants and the moment he sees me he walks towards me and pulls me into a hug that I hesitate to hug back.

“You look beautiful.” He says looking at my dress.

“Thank you.”

“I missed you.” He says as he tried to kiss me but I pull back.

“David, no.”

“I’m sorry.”

We are no longer together, so he needs to keep a little bit of distance.

“How are you?” He asks rubbing his palms together nervously.

“I’m okay, are you?” I just want him to get on with saying what he wanted to tell me before Millie starts suspecting I’m not in the washrooms.

“We might have to change the terms of our agreement.” He says and I crease my brows.

“What is that supposed to mean?” He can’t do that, and he knows it.

“Management changed and the new guy, he isn’t being too kind to old debtors.”

Right.

That is bad news. I didn’t even know there was something like a change of management.

“What does he want?”

“You pay off all the money or he comes after your family.” He says and my heart beats. That isn’t part of the agreement. They can’t do that. I have been paying faithfully.

“David, you can’t do that,” I say trying to fight back the tears.

“My hands are tied.” He says and from the innocent tone, I can tell he can’t do anything to help me.

So, here is the story. My father, when he was in jail, he might have interacted with some bad guys and they helped him protect us, his family from being dragged down in the fraud cases that were surrounding us, with a promise that he would pay them back. Then he just had to die of a heart attack in prison, or at least that is what the postmortem said or what they told us and made us believe.

But the thing is, he made a deal with a gang, and making a deal with a gang is like making a deal with the devil. They will follow you even to the grave. And since I was his first child, the burden automatically landed on me.

I had to pay the money, or they would find someone else in my family to give the burden to. No one in my family would be capable of that. Mom was shaken by dad’s death and she has never been the same since.

I couldn’t just access my father’s money and pay them, because all his accounts were frozen, we had moved from riches to rags in a snap of a finger. Things changed so quickly for us, but the gang guys didn’t care to understand, because apart from helping my father with the fraud case, he was also into some shady business with them, and practically it means our family owed the gang a wholesome.

Now, we had lost everything, and I had just graduated from college when my dad died. I needed to get a fast job ad start paying the debts. So we had an agreement with them that I would be paying a certain amount monthly until I had cleared the debt, I couldn’t afford to pay them because I also have my student loan to pay for, a sister in college, and my mother who became useless the day my father died, and all has been going so well, now them changing the terms is not a good thing.

They just can’t do that, whether it is new management or not.

David just happens to be the son of one of the gang leaders, and when we met, we had some sort of instant attraction to each other, tried dating for a couple of months but when his family started suspecting we had to call it quits.

He was the one that would defend my case to them, but now that he says he can’t, I feel like my whole life is about to come to an end.

I hate that my dad had to do this to us. The resentment I have had for him is the same reason I never showed up for his funeral.

We were living a good life, thinking we had it all, when we were living at the expense of the less fortunate. We became villains in society because of the choices he made.

“Can I talk to the new leader?” I ask him and he scratches his head nervously.

“I…I don’t know if it will be possible, but I will try to organize something, just make sure you show up.”

“Yea, I will thank you.”

He takes a step closer to me and I know I should take a step back, but I don’t.

“I wish we could get back together, I miss you.” He says and when he wraps his arm around my waist I let him. If I’m being honest, I do miss him too.

But getting involved with the son of a gang leader, well, that is just messed up.

He plants a soft kiss on my lips and I close my eyes, and he takes that as a cue and kisses me deeper, but there is just something different about the kiss this time. It’s just cold.

And instead of feeling anything, an emotion or arousal, I’m feeling the movement of his lips on mine, and it’s just a turnoff. I pull back and take a step back.

“I can’t.”

I know one thing for sure right now. There are no feelings in me for him. There might have been feelings in the past, but now, I don’t feel anything for him, and it is kind of weird because we never had a fallout.

“I have to go,” I say and take yet another step back.

“I’ll call you.” He says and I nod.

The moment I’m a distance away from him, I sigh and wipe the single tear that has fallen. The gang can’t be doing this. I have done everything I can do. At the very least everything that is legal and decent enough to make money. I don’t think I can stretch further than I already am.

If I don’t comply, they might come for my sister or worse, my mom, and I can’t let that happen.

The moment I walk back to the club I bump into Jerry and I internally cuss, he just caught me sneaking in.

“Where are you coming from?” He asks. I clear my throat as I quickly think of a lie

“I needed some air.” I can’t afford to lose this job, especially at such a time.

He gives me a suspicious look but doesn’t say anything else which surprises me a little. He has been the nicest of bosses this weekend and I’m just wondering what is going on with him.

“Can I just be honest?” He asks and I nod with a raised brow.

“Yea,” I say with a nod.

“You look really beautiful tonight.” My eyes widen in shock when he says that and I smile. I did not expect that.

“Well, thank you, Jerry.”

“Sure, just don’t take advantage of me being nice to you by leaving your station all the time.” He says and I know for sure he knows I didn’t just leave to get fresh air.

“Thank you.” He nods and walks past me.

Millie is serving so comfortably like she adores what she is doing, and for a moment there, I’m thinking this position suits her more than me. She always does it with such a passion, unlike me who is just here for the money.

I try to compose myself as much as I can. She is normally so keen and she might notice something is wrong with me.

“Hey, girl.”

“Well, that piss took a little too long.” She says and I chuckle nervously. I can’t tell her where I was.

“Anyway, I have a table that I want you to serve.” She says and I crease my brows.

She knows I don’t serve tables. I mean, I do occasionally, but I’m normally just at the bar area.

“Why won’t you do it?” I ask her and she smiles a devious smile.

“Well, for one, I have been serving the drinks for you here, second, you look too sexy to be hidden behind a counter, so go flaunt those hips for people to see, and third, this one is a special table, I’m sure you can pull off to get a good tip for us.” She says and as much as I would want to argue, I don’t.

“Fine,” I say as I grab the tray and her apron.

“Where is the table?”

“VIP, the far corner, there are three gentlemen.” She says and I nod as I head upstairs to the VIP to take their orders.

I spot the three gentlemen seated on the couch lost deep in a conversation, one of them has their back on me, but I can see the other two.

I sigh and smile. Jerry’s most common rule is to always serve our customers with a smile, and since I have just been from a little breakdown, the best I can do is force a smile.

“Good evening gentlemen, what can I get you?” I ask and just at that moment, the guy whose back was on me turns and when our eyes meet, I frown.

He’s got to be kidding me.

Like really? Couldn’t he have gone to any other club? He knows I work here.

And I don’t even have to think about this. Millie knew he was among the three gentlemen when she asked me to take the order.

“Tobias,” I say with a frown.

“Hi, Clarice.”

Can my night get any worse than it already is?

##########