“Yeah.” She poked at the leftover pancakes with her fork.
Duke pushed his empty plate away then grabbed the fork from her hand, putting it down and pushing her plate away too. He turned so he was half-facing her.
“That’s a big problem?”
“Well, yeah.” Of course it was.
“There are other jobs, baby,” he said in a soft voice. “Was it worth risking your health?”
She rubbed at an imaginary spot on the table. “No.”
He reached out and grabbed her chin, tilting her face up. “No, it wasn’t. There are other jobs out there. I know it has to be frightening and your boss sounds like a jerk. Wouldn’t mind having a little chat with him.”
She shook her head. “Don’t. Please. He’s not worth it.”
He narrowed his gaze. “Needs to fucking learn not to touch what doesn’t fucking belong to him.”
He did, but she didn’t want Duke getting involved. “Please.”
“Fine, I’ll leave that for the moment. But, baby, you can’t risk your health like that again.”
“I panicked. I had to buy Greg out of his half of the house. I have a mortgage and bills and not much in savings, and it all got on top of me. I’ve never been fired in my life. I worked so hard and then it was just gone. I don’t want to lose my house. I need the stability, of knowing I have somewhere to go. . .” she trailed off, feeling like she was going way off track.
“You all right with working nights?” he asked abruptly.
She just stared at him, confused at the change of topic. “What?”
“Nights? Can you work them? Can you manage a booking system? Does fourteen-fifty an hour with benefits work okay for you? If you work out then we can review that in a month.”
“Wait. . .are you offering me a job?”
“Yep.”
“Out of pity?”
He raised both eyebrows. “You in a position to reject it?”
She went red, feeling ashamed.
“Hey, look at me.”
She raised her gaze up to his, feeling the sting of tears.
“Didn’t say that to upset you. I need someone working reception. My last girl only lasted two months before she ditched and we’ve been handling things ourselves since. It’s a pain in the fucking ass. But so is hiring someone who’s gonna fucking bail again. Am I offering you the job because I know you fucking need it? Yeah. But I’m also offering it because you don’t seem the type to run when the going gets rough. Guys who work for me, who come into the parlor, they aren’t bad people but they can be rough round the edges, what I’m not sure is if you can handle that.”
“I’ve worked primarily with men for the last two years. Believe me, none of them made concessions for the fact I’m a woman. I can handle working with guys. But you don’t know if I’ll be any good.”
He shrugged. “That’s why we’ll review in a month. So?”
It still felt like a pity hire, but he was right. She had little choice and if it didn’t work out then she’d at least have time to search for something else.
“All right, thanks.”
He nodded. “You might not want to thank me until you hear the rules.”
“Rules? What sorts of rules? Like client confidentiality?”
“Oh yeah, there’s that. But that wasn’t really what I was talking about. Ru