Strictly Business

Linda was busy making breakfast while the some of the other girls were crowded around the large kitchen island, some sitting on the bar stools and some perched on the counter tops. Scarlett leaned against the refrigerator door, listening to one of Tiffany's outrageous stories about a client as she sipped on her glass of orange juice until Linda snapped her fingers at her and motioned to her and then the full carton of eggs sitting on the counter. She handed her glass to Celeste and walked over to retrieve a bowl from the cupboard before she started cracking eggs into it and then beating them.

She didn't notice Angel come into the kitchen, looking all meek and skeptical but Tiffany gave her a gentle nudge with her foot and when she looked over, Tiffany nodded her head toward Angel in the doorway. "Um, Scarlett? Vince and Felix want to see you."

"About what?"

"I'm not sure," she said hesitantly. "But it seems pretty important."

Scarlett sighed and set down the whisk, motioning for Tiffany to take her place and then she wiped her hands on the yellow dish towel next to her before setting off down the hall toward the office. She could hear their muffled arguing on the other side of the heavy wooden door but it went dead silent when she softly knocked."Come in."

She pushed the door open slowly and stepped into the room, looking questioningly from Vincent to Felix. "Angel said you wanted to see me?"

"Have a seat," Vincent replied in a sharp, cutting tone. Scarlett shut the door behind her and walked over to the desk he was sitting behind and as soon as she took a seat in the chair across from him, she could tell that he was angry. His jaw was clenched, his brows were furrowed, and his lips were pressed together in a firm line. Felix stood behind him with his arms crossed over his chest, glowering at her and she wondered to herself what she could have possibly done to make them both so livid. Felix was hot tempered anyway, but Vincent was usually calm and level headed. "Do you know why you were called in here, Scarlett?"

She wracked her brain for anything she could have done, but nothing came to mind, so she shook her head. "No, sir, I don't."

"Fuckin' lying whore," Felix grumbled and Vincent only held his hand up to quiet his business partner, never taking his eyes off of her surprised face. The dark haired man rolled his eyes at being treated like a child and slid the computer on the desk around so that she could see. The screen was black with the exception of a white play button in the middle and Felix clicked it as she herself immediately appeared on the screen. She watched herself sitting on the edge of the bed next to Juice, his hand on her shoulder as they talked and then they both laughed before she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him in to kiss her.

Scarlett swallowed hard, her mouth going dry and the threat of tears stinging her blue eyes. Vincent kept his eyes on her but Felix watched the video as it played on and she wondered if he had watched the whole thing the night before. There were no words to describe how she was feeling but nauseous, dizzy, and panicked was a good place to start.

"Last week, Felix and I decided that it would be in our best interests and the best interests of our girls if we had a way to monitor client activity-- sort of a way to keep tabs on what's going on during work hours. So yesterday morning after you all went up to bed, we had cameras installed downstairs. Obviously we were very disappointed in what we found."

"Just what the fuck were you thinking?" Felix roared. "We brought you here because Trish assured us that you were the best in the business. That you knew what the hell you were doin' and that you were fuckin' obedient!"

"Felix," Vince interrupted quietly, but the warning in his tone was obvious and Felix huffed but didn't say another word as he turned to look out the window.

"I'm sorry," she said after a long moment of tense silence, her voice little more than a hoarse whisper. "It won't happen again."

"No, it won't," Vincent agreed. "Because this is your only warning. You've been doing this job for a long time, Scarlett, so I shouldn't have to remind you that your relationship with clients is to be strictly business. Are we clear?" She nodded her head and he let out a heavy sigh, leaning back in his chair. "Good. Now go."

Immediately, Scarlett was on her feet and walking back toward the door though her whole body felt numb and she didn't even realize she was out in the hallway until Felix slammed the door shut behind her. She leaned her back against the wall and took a few deep breaths to calm herself down before she made a beeline to the stairs, ignoring all the girls calling after her. After changing out of her pajamas and into a plain white tank and jean shorts, she pulled on a thin black cardigan, grabbed her keys and a pair of sunglasses and bolted out of the house before she could be questioned by the girls.

Driving through Sterling didn't take long and pretty soon she found herself coming up on the large wooden sign welcoming her to Charming. She wasn't sure what she was doing there; they weren't at a place where they talked about their personal problems but she felt sick to her stomach and outright violated at the fact that her bosses were apparently just sitting back in the office watching her during a time that she thought was completely private. She was in such a daze that she didn't realize she had even arrived at the garage until she drove past it. She cursed under her breath and whipped her car into the first parking spot she came to on the main street then just got out and walked through the gate.

There were only two or three bikes parked on the lot, which simultaneously relieved and worried her. She looked around at her surroundings as she approached the open bays of the garage and luckily there was no sign of the customer who had hurt her, but she also didn't see the person she came for. The Scottish one with the scars, Chibs as she'd been informed, was just inside the bay closest to the office and he came out to meet her with a smile on his face as he wiped his greasy hands on an old towel. "What can I do for ya, lass?"

"Is he here?"

He nodded, tossing the towel onto the hood of the car he'd been working on and he started walking across the lot to the clubhouse, motioning for her to follow once he realized that she wasn't walking behind him. He threw open the door and yelled "Juicey boy!" at the top of his lungs and only a few seconds later, the man in question emerged from behind the closed double doors to their left, looking surprised to see her. Chibs made his exit with a shit-eating grin on his face and Juice moved further into the room, closer to where Scarlett was standing, nervously twisting her key ring around her finger.

"Scarlett, what are you doing here?"

"Are you busy?"

"Not really," he shrugged. "Why, what's up?"

"We need to talk."

His brows furrowed as he watched her shift from one foot to the other and he pulled out one of the bar stools next to them, sliding onto it as he waited for her to do the same. She dropped her keys onto the bar and took the seat next to him but she stayed straight ahead while he angled his body toward her. He watched her carefully as she bit down on her lip and then his eyes shifted to her shaking hands where they had nervously began twisting her key ring again. "Hey," he muttered, gently squeezing her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

Scarlett sighed heavily and shook her head, letting her gaze fall to the dark counter top below her hands. "You can't come to the house anymore."

"What? Why not?" The pitch of his voice went up a few octaves as he tried to hold back the sudden feeling of panic building in the pit of his stomach.

"I broke the rules. I broke them and I knew it was wrong and that I shouldn't, but I did anyway. And I like it with you and I don't want to go back. But if I don't go back, I'll be in so much shit and I can't fuck that up because I have nowhere to go and I don't know how to do anything else. I can't-"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down," he interrupted softly, grabbing her hands in his and leaning in closer to her. "What are you talking about?"

Scarlett let out a heavy sigh and closed her eyes for a moment as she shook her head. "My bosses. They, uh....they put cameras in all the rooms yesterday. Everything that happened last night-- they watched it all."

His eyes widened in surprise and he squeezed her hand comfortingly. He wondered how much trouble she was in because of him. "Shit. I'm sorry, Scarlett."

"They filmed me. Us. They filmed us and then they watched it. I-I thought it was just us, that we were alone, but then-......If it were anybody else, it wouldn't matter so much because it's just a job, but with you....." Her eyes welled up with tears and she felt like she couldn't breathe as the surge of violation and panic hit her all over again.

"Hey, hey," Juice soothed, and he stood up from his seat to wrap his arms around her, one hand cradling her neck and the other rubbing comforting circles over her back. "It's okay."

She pulled back just enough to look up at him with a frown. "No, it's not. We're not on this level. I shouldn't be coming to you with my personal problems, I know, I just-"

He shut her up with a chaste kiss. "I already told you, you can talk to me. And there are ways around this whole cameras thing. So I can't come to you anymore. So what? You can make a house call, right?"

"I-I don't know. Vince might not go for that since-"

"So don't tell him. You work nights, which means you have days off. Come during the day. Bonus: you won't have to share your profits."

"How am I supposed to know when you want me if you can't come here?"

"I'll get you one of our prepaids. We can make this work."

She just blinked, somewhat surprised at his willingness to help. "You'd do that?"

"Of course," he chuckled. "I like being with you, Scarlett."

Scarlett couldn't help but smile. "I like being with you too."

-

None of the girls said anything when she got back to the house. She could tell they wanted to, with all the hovering and the questioning stares, but none of them were brave enough to ask her, especially when they'd seen how mad Felix had been when he came out of the office after she'd left the house. The whole time she was getting ready and even for the first half of the night at work, they were right there over her shoulder, just waiting for her to explain herself.

It got quiet around 3am so Scarlett settled herself into the chair behind the counter while the rest of the girls who weren't occupied with clients went to sit in the living room. Kimberly joined her so that she wasn't completely alone, but neither of them spoke, instead slouching down in their chairs to get more comfortable. She had almost dozed off when the opening door jarred her awake again.

The moment she saw him, Scarlett felt like she was going to be sick. She wanted to run the other way, duck down behind the counter to hide, be anywhere but where he was. He was already focused on her, a devious look in his ice blue eyes as he walked up to her and threw a roll of cash onto the counter with a smirk. The last thing she wanted to do was go downstairs with him and let him do the things he had done the last time but she knew she couldn't give him one of the others. She couldn't let him torture her girls like he had tortured her, so, with no other options, she slid the money off of the counter and handed it over to Kimberly, motioning for him to follow her with a fake smile plastered on her face.