She was supposed to be self-sufficient. She was twenty-nine years old and borrowing money from her siblings to pay for her apartment. They didn’t know it, but she’d already turned in her car. The apartment was a deal breaker though. Moving wasn’t an option. The notion of downgrading had been met with the idea of moving her in with Lila. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her sister, but Lila had a boyfriend who creeped her out, a boyfriend who looked at her like he wouldn’t mind playing around on the side.

She’d mentioned it to her sister, who told her she was as paranoid as Bridget.

What the hell was she going to do?

You know there’s a job waiting two stops over just for you. You can take the train. There’s a nightly buffet so you don’t have to pay for dinner and you’ll get at least one meal every day you work. The solution is there. You’re too proud to take it.

You’re too ashamed to take it.

This was not where she thought she’d be after working her ass off to put herself through college. She was supposed to be the girl who picked herself up by her bootstraps, who got through everything with a smile on her face, who didn’t need any help.

She thought she’d be married by now, happy in her career, maybe a baby on the way. She was supposed to have found her dream Dom at Sanctum and settled into pure bliss.

Life hadn’t worked out the way she’d thought it would.

Sometimes she wondered if her mother had ever stood in this place and decided what the fuck. Life sucks. Let’s do some drugs.

Wondered? Hell, she knew that was what her mother had done. Her mother had made that choice on a daily basis.

Would she? Would she finally find that place where there was nowhere left to go?

Or she could stop feeling sorry for herself, tell the world to fuck off, and go take the job where she would make a bunch of cash.

It wasn’t like she would be stripping. She would simply be making drinks for men who were watching other women strip. That was all. Well, it would likely go hand in hand with fending the boss off on a nightly basis.

Jai, too cool to have a last name, had offered her the job two weeks ago. He lived in the building and they’d gotten to talking one day in the laundry room. Well, she’d been doing laundry. He’d been smoking outside.