Hard as You Can by Laura Kaye

her biggest problem. God, how naïve she’d been. About the world. About her father. About everything.
    “I hadn’t decided,” she lied. But she just couldn’t sully her dreams of becoming a clothing designer by giving voice to them in this place, especially given how she’d bastardized those dreams by occasionally making costumes for the dancers. Now it just sounded stupid. Childish. Impossible.
    Brandy stroked more blush on Crystal’s cheeks. “Well, I’m sure it was going to be something great.” She grabbed a tube from her bag. “Let’s do this, too,” she said, rubbing some red lipstick on a sterile applicator.
    Crystal turned back to the mirror and smoothed the bold color onto her lips.
    “It’s way more than you usually wear, but you can totally pull it off, and it hides the mark,” Brandy said, echoing Crystal’s own thoughts. The rouge and lip color made the rest of her skin paler by comparison, but Brandy was right. The color on her face now looked intentional, hiding the redness by highlighting it.
    “That is better. Thanks,” she said, glancing at her cell phone. Break time was over. “I guess I better get back out there before someone comes looking for me.”
    “Hang tough, hon,” Brandy said, giving her hand a squeeze. “You have more of your father’s strength in you than you know.”
    Crystal nodded and bolted for the door, suddenly feeling as if the walls were closing in on her. People around here didn’t often talk about her father. His arrest, conviction, and death provided an unwelcome reminder of where this life could take them if they weren’t careful. For her, his arrest and later death had been just the beginning of everything she’d lost, including her ability to trust. Because if you couldn’t count on your own father to tell the truth and protect you, who could you count on? She’d had no idea what he’d been into until his arrest.
    Back on the floor, Crystal switched off with Amber to cover the section in the back corner of the club. Monday nights were always on the quiet side, and for that she was grateful. She moved between the tables, taking orders, delivering drinks, and offering flirtatious conversation. Just another role to play. But as this one earned her money, she always gave it her all.
    “Welcome to Confessions. What can I get for you this evening?” she said to the man sitting by himself in the next-to-last booth.
    He lifted his gaze to her. And all the air sucked out of the room.
    Steel gray eyes.
    Pretty Boy.
    She gasped and took an unthinking step backward. Oh, God. What is he doing here? Crystal forced herself to ease her posture. If she called any attention to herself right now, things could get bad. For both of them.
    “I’ll have a beer, please. Whatever’s on tap. And Crystal?”
    She almost asked how he knew her name, but then she remembered telling him when they’d spoken last night, when she thought she was helping someone who belonged here.
    “Just breathe.”
    She turned away, her brain sorting through a variety of choices. Tell. Run. Avoid. All of which were fraught with potentially negative consequences for her. If she told them she recognized this man from last night, it would reveal that she hadn’t told them everything she’d seen. Namely, the man’s face.
    The man’s exquisitely handsome face. Chiseled jaw. Playful, full lips.
    God, what was wrong with her? If he didn’t get his sexy ass out of here, they were going to be in deep shit.
    Walker filled her order, chitchatting with her the whole time. His chatter helped calm her nerves. Just be cool. Nobody knows anything. Nobody sees anything. Just act natural. As her panic receded, anger rushed in. She’d helped him. She’d risked herself. Enough was enough. He had no freaking right to put her in any more danger than she was already in. She scrawled a note on a napkin and returned to the man’s booth with his beer.
    “Here you go, sir.” She placed the napkin down first,