“He isn’t.”

“Maybe you don’t get to look at the books but when I say he pays me a whack, he pays me a whack.”

His gaze steady on me, he socked it to me.

“He doesn’t. I do. I cover your salary, Daisy, and I have for the last two months.”

“Say what?” I whispered.

“I pay your salary. Smithie couldn’t afford you.”

But I was stuck on the last two months.

The last two months.

The last two months where that time ago Smithie took away a whole set, one song off the other sets and ended my lap dances but increased my pay so much, my eyeballs burned when I got a good look at the first paycheck.

And…

Two months.

Before the rape.

Before anything.

“Say what?” I repeated, not on a whisper, on a breath.

“I didn’t want you on the stage for four sets with those sets being three songs, too long alone up there and exposed. And I definitely didn’t want you doing lap dances. So to cover the loss in tips that would be, we elevated your salary, and because Smithie couldn’t pay that and it wasn’t his decision, I covered it.”

“You didn’t know me.”

“No. But I knew I wanted to.”

I stared at him.

Then I started, “Why didn’t you—?”

I cut myself off because it felt all of a sudden like something was stuck in my throat and I thought it pertinent to focus on breathing.

“Daisy?”

Marcus looked concerned.

I put a hand flat on the table and pushed through the thing choking me.

“That was two months ago.”

“Darling—”

“Before he got to me.”

Marcus went still.

I pushed up on my hand, shoved back my seat, and took my feet.

“Why didn’t you come to me?” I screeched.

He was out of his seat, too, and approaching me.

“Daisy—”

I scuttled back and lifted up a hand but he didn’t stop moving so I didn’t either as I bit out, “Don’t come near me.”

“I had things happening,” he said quietly.

“You saw me. You knew you wanted to take your shot,” I hissed. It all was coming to me, pouring over me like boiling oil. “That day. That day you were there and you left without even looking at me. You were up in Smithie’s office with Smithie. The next day Smithie gave me my raise. You saw me. You knew then.”

He kept coming at me, stalking me around the table.

“When I made my approach, Daisy, I wanted it to have my full attention.”

“If I was Marcus Sloan’s moll, no one would even think of touching me.”

“I couldn’t have known you’d be raped, baby.”

I shook my head, still retreating while he advanced and he did it speaking.

“And you’re wrong. Men like that I don’t get so I don’t get how they can do the things they do, but if he had that monstrousness in his head, it’s doubtful anyone could have stopped him, even me.”

He was making sense and I didn’t need sense.

“I need to go,” I forced out.

“It’s not my fault.”

That made me stop dead. The words and the tortured way he said them.

When I stopped, he moved in. Hands cupping the sides of my head, he held it back and bent his face to mine.

“It’s not my fault, honey. It isn’t anyone’s fault. If I could have stopped it, I would. If I could make a miracle and go back in time to erase it, I would. But I can’t. And you could have been mine then, and unless I had reason to put a man on you, which I can’t say I would do, not in the beginning, it might alarm you and I would do nothing that might alarm you, he would have found his way to get to you.”

I shook my head in his hands then nodded it.

“You’re right.”

He stared into my eyes.

“I’m…I…I’m…”

“Just take a breath,” he urged.

I did that.

Then I said it.

“I’m sorry.” I shoved my head through his hands so I could plant my face in his chest and I grabbed onto his sweater at the sides of his waist. “God, I’m so sorry.”

He wrapped his arms around me, murmuring into the top of my hair, “It’s okay.”

I let his sweater go so I could wrap my arms around him too.

Marcus held me and I held him back.

Eventually, still in my hair, he said softly, “Thinking this is one of those moments you were talking about.”

“Yeah,” I muttered, embarrassed, so I shoved my face deeper into his chest. “God, I’m so, so sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.”

I tipped my head back. “That was…it was stupid. It wasn’t even logical.”

“You get a pass on being illogical. At least for another month or six or, seeing as you’re female, another seventy years.”

I narrowed my eyes at him.

He grinned down at me.

His grin faded, his look grew probing, and he whispered, “Good?”

I stopped giving him the stink eye and nodded. “Yeah, honey.”

“Go to Aspen with me.”

“And the hot guy takes advantage,” I muttered.

His grin came back. “I didn’t get where I am pissing away opportunities either, Daisy.”

I rolled my eyes.