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  The waiter nodded. “The best in Mexico.”

  “Okay,” Ramon said brusquely. “Bring that then. And bread. We need some fucking bread.”

  Nicolette reappeared with Andrea, a beautiful, sweet girl from Monterey. Andrea was flushed with excitement, and she gave Madison a wide-eyed smile that said, “Jackpot!”

  Ramon looked at the older man, who Madison guessed was The Colombian. He was still talking quietly on his cell phone. Nicolette sat down on the arm of the fat man’s chair with a phony smile. The man looked up at her, unsmiling, and said nothing. Ramon gestured for Andrea to sit down next to The Colombian. With an eager nod, she settled beside him. He turned to look at her, his face vacant. Then, as if someone had stripped off a blindfold, his expression changed, and he beamed at her. He muttered something into the phone and hung up.

  “What have we here?” he said flirtatiously, picking up Andrea’s hand.

  She giggled. “Andrea,” she said in a cute, little girl voice.

  The Colombian pressed her hand to his lips, and then held it in his lap. Madison could see in his eyes that he liked the girl’s guilelessness.

  “Beautiful,” he sighed with a smile. “But right now, we have business to discuss. No girls.”

  Madison was taken aback. But Nicolette stood up with a flirty wave and swished away. Andrea looked crestfallen. She and Madison followed Nicolette until they were out of earshot.

  “You said they wanted me,” Andrea snapped.

  Nicolette rolled her eyes and pulled a tube of lipstick from her purse. She picked up a butter knife from an empty table and used it for a mirror.

  “Relax,” she grumbled. “This is what they always do. They’ll call us back.” She traced the contours of her pouty, collagen-plumped lips. “Believe me, you don’t want to know what they’re talking about.”

  Madison shuddered. “You know, Nicolette,” she said, losing her nerve. “You can have Ramon. I think I’m going to work downstairs tonight.”

  Nicolette turned quickly. “Are you crazy? It doesn’t work like that.”

  Madison hesitated. “I’m just not sure…”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” she hissed, gazing into the blade of the knife, wiping a smear of lipstick from her teeth. “All you have to do is sit there. That’s all you have to do.”

  She was right, Madison thought. Be brave. Easy money. That was what she was there for. When the men finished talking, they were called back to the table. It was not a difficult night, but it was the longest of her life. The group closed out the place, until the only remaining lights were those illuminating the lounge. Cesar dozed in his booth, rousing only when the men shouted at him, demanding requests. The Colombian was very drunk, and cried when Cesar played a sentimental song about a man and his elderly father, and made him play it again and again. Madison perched dutifully, but exhausted, on the sofa beside Ramon, who mostly spoke with the other men about soccer and sports cars. Madison thought it would never end.

  Finally, the men stood to go, all of them weaving drunkenly. Madison’s legs had gone numb from sitting for so long. She turned to say goodnight to Ramon, but before she could speak, he’d pulled her close and kissed her on the lips, pushing his tongue into her mouth. He slipped a hand into the top of her dress and rolled her nipple between his fingers.

  Madison gasped. She glanced at the last remaining security guard, who watched them, stone-faced, and looked away. Ramon nudged his crotch hard against her with a little grunt, and then let her go. As if nothing had happened, he pulled an envelope from his pocket and shoved it into her hand.

  “Until next time, blondie,” he mumbled, slurring the words.

  Madison stood there stunned, still feeling the sting on her nipple. She felt dirty and disgusted, and very, very tired. She watched as the men lumbered through the dark, empty dining room and filed, one by one, out the back door. Nicolette and Andrea chatted giddily together, already thumbing through the bills they’d been given. But Madison just wanted to go home. There was only one house taxi left on the clock, and she grabbed it before the other two girls had finished changing.

  The house was dark when she slipped through the door. There was a message from her mother’s friend, Lidia, on her cell phone, informing Madison that her mother was slowly coming around and asking for her daughter. She collapsed onto the bed and chewed her thumbnail, something she hadn’t done since high school. Her mother had been too medicated to remember Madison’s tearful goodbye at the hospital, or how she’d promised to make everything all right. She’d have to call Lidia in the morning and come up with some lie about where she was and what she was doing. The money had been good, but she was still far from her goal. Enzo had been right. There was a lot of loose cash floating around in Mexico. And somehow she had to get more of it.

  Finally, she opened the envelope and pulled out the money Ramon had given her. She tried not to think about how he’d helped himself to her body, as if he’d bought the rights to that as well. And she tried not to think about the fact that it was drug money. Blood money.

  Madison counted the bills, laying them in little stacks on the bed, her head throbbing, eyes burning with fatigue. To be certain, she counted it again and again. In a daze, she stared at piles of cash, trying to wrap her head around it. In the six hours she’d spent with Ramon, she’d made ten thousand dollars.

  Chapter 12

  It was one of Madison’s treasured days off, and she wanted to make the most of it. She slept with the pillow over her head until almost one o’clock in the afternoon, ignoring the incessant chime of the doorbell,which was always followed by voices and laughter downstairs. Enzo’s house never stopped jumping, even when she needed peace and quiet. But Daniel hadn’t come again, which was fine with her. Madison felt used and a little embarrassed about their encounter, but she didn’t have a lot of energy to wallow over it. After spending most of her waking life engaged in obligatory conversation and forcing on the charm, it was the silence and the solitude she craved the most.

  She spent the afternoon in El Péndulo, reading a book in the upstairs café. It was one of the mysterious gift books, an English translation of a French novel by a woman named Delphine de Vigan. All Madison wanted to do was lose herself in the novel and forget everything about her life. She wanted to forget all about the club; the unrelenting music, the dim light, the clients pulling out her chair and kissing her hands, the lustful eyes on her body, the hollow buzz of vodka in her brain. She wanted to forget about Arizona. All she wanted today was to be Madison. The old Madison. She even wore her glasses to the café, along with her faded jeans and her favorite tee shirt. It was the first time she’d been happy in weeks.

  Before leaving the house, she’d called her mom’s friend, Lidia, and made up a lie about Enzo getting her well-paid work playing the gringa in Mexican television commercials, and that she’d be home in another month or two. Lidia had sounded surprised, but assured Madison that she’d be looking in on her mother, and asked her to keep in touch. Madison was relieved to hear that her mom was responding well to the medication; it gave her the motivation she needed to push onward toward her goal.

  As Madison sipped coffee and read her book, she couldn’t stop thinking about her mother. It didn’t help that it was a novel about a woman struggling to come to terms with her own mother’s mental illness. She found it eerie, as if the gift giver had known her secret life story.

  After a while, her eyes hurt and she put the book down to give them a rest. She gasped. Standing at the top of the stairs, staring right at her, was Pierre himself.He was dressed in a dark gray suit, but the jacket was slung over his arm and the tie had been loosened. He looked shockingly tall amidst the shorter-statured men moving up and down the stairs around him.

  Suddenly she was embarrassed to be wearing her geeky old glasses. When he approached her table and asked if he could join her, Madison pulled them off. The world instantly blurred into movement and color.

  “Put them back on,” Pierre s
aid in a low voice. “Please.”

  With an embarrassed smile, Madison slid them back onto her face.Once again she could see Pierre’s steady blue eyes and handsome, sculpted face.

  “It’s my day off,” she muttered.

  She’d spent so much time fantasizing about meeting him again; but now that it was happening, she had no idea what to say.

  “I cannot tell you how much I adore you like this,” he said with a grin. “You look like a real girl. Beautiful, but real.”

  She nervously picked up her forgotten coffee cup and took a sip. It had gone stone cold. Pierre glanced at the book in her hands and his face lit up.

  “You’re reading de Vigan!”

  Madison smiled. “I had a feeling it was you. The books are all wonderful.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”He gave her an impish look. “How do you like the novel?”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  She held his eyes, captivated by the sexy laugh lines. Her mind flashed back to the heat between them when she’d danced, and felt an irrepressible thrill.

  Pierre sighed and collapsed back into his chair. He rubbed his face as if he were exasperated or very tired. His hair was wind swept and a few rogue strands fell across his eyes. He looked at Madison in silence for a long moment.

  “You,” he mumbled at last. “I don’t know what to do about you.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

  He pressed his fingers against his lips and shook his head. Then he dropped his hands into his lap in a gesture of hopelessness.

  “I can’t get you out of my head,” he laughed.“What will become of me?”

  Madison couldn’t stop herself from smiling. “Because of the dance?”

  His eyelids fluttered at the mention of the dance.

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  She remembered how he’d tried and failed to stop himself from looking at her body, and the memory caused a flash of heat all through her.

  “You are?” she said with a smile, surprised at her own coyness.

  He blushed and looked down at his hands. “I don’t even know your name. Your real name.”

  “Madison.” She jokingly extended a greeting hand across the table.

  Pierre took it and pressed it gently against his lips. She felt the raspy beginning of whiskers.

  “Enchanté,” he said quietly.

  Madison relished the feel of his touch.

  “Pierre…?” She kept her voice low to keep others from hearing. “Why on earth would a guy like you be so enamored by a stripper?”

  He looked at her with genuine surprise. “First,” he said. “I don’t know what you mean by ‘a guy like me’. For all you know I spend all my time in those places.”

  “No,” she quipped. “You and I both know that you don’t.”

  He smiled. “Second, you are not a stripper.”

  She furrowed her brow. “You’ve seen me yourself, Pierre. You know what I do.”

  “Only you know why you are working at that place,” he said gently. “But it is certainly not who you are.”

  Without warning, Madison felt tears burning in her eyes. She shook her head. “No,” she breathed. “It’s not.”

  Pierre looked at her sadly, but without pity. “Come walk with me.”

  He stood up and held out his hand. Madison wiped at her eyes with a wan smile. Walking had always been her favorite way to spend time with someone. When she was still in high school, she and her mom would take long, leisurely walks through their neighborhood and along the bike path that paralleled the mountain range. She loved the idea of moving in unison, taking in the same sights, stopping to observe the same things. It was one of her favorite things to do.

  Madison took Pierre’s hand and stood up. A waiter came past and Pierre handed him a bill to pay for her coffee. They went downstairs together, and Madison realized that they were turning heads as they went. The handsome couple. Without a word, they drifted into the book section and began scanning the titles on display. It made Madison smile, this nerdy bookishness they shared. Being with him was easy. It felt to her as if they’d known each other forever.

  They walked through the Condesa, past restaurants and cafés, talking. It wasn’t like the conversations she’d had with men since starting college. The coy dance.The back and forth. Whoever gives up the most information loses. She hated those games. Instead, Pierre was honest, forthcoming, and amazingly humble.

  As they meandered the dusty walkways of the Parque Mexico, he told her about growing up in a poor neighborhood in Paris. He’d loved school, but the kids were so rough he spent more time fighting than studying. To help his family pay rent, he learned to fix bicycles for the neighbors, and later taught himself everything there was to know about motorcycles. He went from having a small shop in his garage where he fixed up motorcycles and sold them, to a multinational motorcycle empire.

  “Do you ride?” she asked, trying to picture Pierre dressed in leather and gunning down the highway on a motorcycle. She just couldn’t see it.

  “Not for ages,” he said. “When I was a kid I was reckless. Frankly, I am lucky to be here at all. But now…I don’t know. I guess I have lost my taste for it.”

  “You play it safe now?” Madison teased.

  Pierre stopped. They’d reached the sad little duck pond, which was surrounded with chicken wire. But the sun glinted on the water and the dusty leaves of the ficus trees reflected on its surface. For a moment it looked almost beautiful. He watched it, his eyes squinting against the light.

  “I got tired of fast things. Everything fast. Fast bikes. Fast money. Fast women.” He turned to look at Madison with sigh. “When you live like that, you miss everything that matters.”

  He brushed a loose strand of hair from her face, his surprisingly calloused fingers grazing the soft skin of her cheek. Even as he felt familiar to her, he was utterly mysterious.And for the first time, she truly felt the years between them. Pierre had already experienced so much. He’d long ago burned through his reckless youth and come out the other side. Now he exuded elegance and restraint, and an intimidating worldliness. She hadn’t even finished her sophomore year in college. Before she could stop herself, she blurted it out.

  “Do you think I’m too young for you?”

  Pierre laughed, caught off guard. “I have not been so worried about your age. Why do you ask? How old are you?”

  She immediately regretted bringing it up. “I’m sorry,” she stammered. “Forget it. That was a stupid thing to say.”

  He shrugged his shoulders and looked back at the pond. “I must get back to work.”

  Madison’s heart sank. She’d gotten flustered and acted like a child, she thought. And now her dream man was getting away. But then Pierre looked at her again, his eyes shining.

  “Have dinner with me tonight, Madison.”

  The invitation was so unexpected, it took her breath away. She could only manage an eager nod. They were going to have a real date. But when Pierre offered to pick her up, she hesitated. She imagined him running into Enzo’s loud, bawdy friends who would make teasing catcalls and call out vulgar jokes if they suspected she was leaving on a date.

  “Can I meet you there?” she asked.

  She expected him to ask her why, and was frantically searching for a white lie to tell him. But he simply pulled a pen from his breast pocket and wrote the name and address of a Zona Rosa restaurant and his cell number directly onto the palm of her hand.

  “I do like you in those glasses,” he murmured, his eyes shining. “I like you very much.”

  Chapter 13

  Madison decided to put in her contact lenses even though Pierre liked her glasses. For all she knew, he was just being nice, and she wanted to look as good as possible. As she showered, she kept trying to imagine him as the crazy younger man he’d told her about. There was something incredibly sexy about a refined and educated man like Pierre having a rough, bad-b
oy past, riding motorcycles and getting in fights.

  She was standing at the mirror in her black silk bra and panties putting on her makeup, when she heard her bedroom door open. Assuming it was Enzo, she muttered, “Doesn’t anybody knock anymore?”

  “That might give you time to get dressed,” a deep voice said playfully.

  It was not Enzo. Madison spun and discovered Daniel leaning against the closed door, eyeing up every exposed inch of her body. He was dressed in a black tee shirt and jeans that fit him snugly in all the right places. His hair was a gorgeous mess, black tufts every which way in carefully constructed chaos. But this time Madison was immune to his beauty.

  He smiled impishly.

  “Get the hell out!” she yelled, grabbing a pillow from the bed to cover her half-naked body.

  “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” he offered smugly. “Or have you forgotten?”

  Madison’s cheeks flushed, remembering how she’d literally thrown herself at him. “That doesn’t give you the right to come barging in here!” she yelled. “Get out!”

  Daniel smiled and moved in closer.

  “You look amazing,” he said, backing her up against a wall, so that the only thing between their bodies was the pillow. Madison felt the cold plaster against her bare skin, and shivered. Then, catching her off guard, Daniel gave the pillow a sudden tug, yanking it from her hands. He tossed it on the bed and pressed against her with his body. She breathed in his cologne, which gave her an unwelcome wave of desire. He leaned in close, his warm breath on her neck.

  “Don’t,” Madison whispered.

  But Daniel ignored her. He pressed his lips against the tender skin beneath her hair. She stifled a sigh. His hands went to her breasts, rubbing and caressing, his fingers gently pinching her nipples through the silk. He was movie star-sexy, and it was hard not to go weak from his touch. But this time she forced her head to reign over her eager body, and she pushed him away.

  “Oh, come on!” he groaned in frustration. “Enough of the game already!”