The Rake (Boston Belles #4) by L.J. Shen

Devon: why not?

Belle: well, let’s see …

Belle: BECAUSE IT’S CRAZY?

Devon: not half as crazy as getting pregnant by a faceless stranger, and yet people do that all the time. Evolution, darling. At the end of the day, we’re nothing but glorified monkeys trying to ensure our footprint in this world is not forgotten.

Belle: did you just call me a monkey? Strong romance game, Whitehall.

He didn’t reply. Maybe Devon wasn’t so old as much as I felt so young in comparison to him.

Belle: one more question.

Devon: yes?

Belle: what’s your favorite animal?

I thought he would for sure say a dolphin or a lion. Something corny and predictable.

Devon: pink handfish.

Oh, awesome. More weird shit.

Belle: why?

Devon: they look like drunk football hooligans trying to pick a fight at a bar. And their hands are eerie. Their flaws demand compassion.

Belle: you’re weird.

Devon: true, but you are interested, darling.





The next day, I stopped at Walgreens on my way to work and got an ovulation kit and chewable prenatal vitamins. Passing by a billboard sign of myself naked, I popped four into my mouth and read the instructions on the kit. I pushed the door open to the back office of Madame Mayhem.

Madame Mayhem was a stone’s throw from Chinatown Gate in downtown Boston. It was tucked between two brownstones, a travel agency, and a produce shop. The price was dirt cheap when I bought it with two other partners and turned it from a failing restaurant into a trendy bar. Two years ago, the guy who owned the launderette next to us went bankrupt, and I convinced him to sell us the lot at a reduced rate. I’d run back and forth to city hall, trying to get approval to knock down the dividing walls between the two properties. By the end of the process, the new and improved Madame Mayhem had been invented—big, bold, and risqué.

Just like me.

Now, I was the proud owner of one of the most infamous establishments in the city. The place wasn’t just a trendy nightclub with an obscenely expensive cocktail menu, but also offered burlesque shows, complete with 50’s-style recreations of New Orleans entertainment, women and men in fine lingerie, as well as an amateur night every Thursday, in which exhibitionists in the making had a chance to flaunt their goods.

On paper, I made a great profit. But since I’d bought out the other two partners, and refurbished the place completely, my personal income was modest. Not too bad, but bad enough that having a baby would put a serious dent in my savings.

Still, I was a hard worker, undeterred by hiccups. I worked in the back office during the day and helped my bartenders by night.

“Belly-Belle,” Ross greeted me as soon as I slipped into my gray shoebox of an office. He slid a coffee cup along my desk and took a seat on the edge of it. My best friend from school had grown up to be my chief bartender and staff manager at Madame Mayhem. He also grew up to be a total hottie. “Boston is not used to seeing you with clothes on. How are you feeling?”

“High on life and low on cash. What’s shaking?” I took a sip of my coffee, my purse still slung on my forearm. I needed to pee on one of the ovulation sticks before I got to work.

Ross hitched a shoulder up. “Just wanted to make sure you were okay after last week’s shit show.”

“There was a shit show last week?” I was kind of busy drinking my own body weight and trying to forget about the news Doctor Bjorn gave me, so my memory was blurry.

“Frank,” he clarified.

“Who the hell is Frank?” I blinked.

Ross gave me a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding me glare.

“Riiiight, that bag of bullshit.” Frank was a former bartender. Last week, I’d caught him sexually harassing one of the burlesque girls in the backroom. I fired him on the spot. Frank had agreed to walk away, but not before giving me a piece of his own mind about what a train wreck of a drunk bitch I was. Luckily for me, I was always ready for a fight, especially with a man. So when he screamed at me, I screamed louder. And when he tried to throw a lamp at me … well, I threw a chair at him, then deducted the cost to replace the broken chair from his last paycheck.

“There you go, you oxygen-wasting piece of crap. Now make sure you skip town, because this town sure is going to skip you after I fill in all my club-owner friends about what you did!”

I didn’t stop there. I also sent his employee picture to local newspapers and told them what he did.

Too harsh? Too bad. Next time, he shouldn’t get handsy with the staff.

“It’s all forgotten now.” I waved my hand in the air dismissively. I didn’t have time to talk about Frank. I needed to check and see if my eggs were doing their goddamn job.

“We’ll need to fill his spot.” Ross was still perched on my desk. I resumed my stride toward the bathroom.

“Yeah, well, just make sure they’re fully vetted.”

I got into the bathroom, crouched down, and peed on the ovulation stick. Rather than put it aside and wait for the results like an actual adult, I glowered at the stick, praying to see two strong pink lines rather than one dull one.

When two lines indeed appeared on the stick, I snapped a picture of it with my phone and sent it to Devon with the caption: it’s a go.

I went outside, sat at my desk, and tried concentrating on the Excel sheets in front of me. My eyes kept darting sideways, to my phone, waiting for Devon to reply. When he didn’t send anything back for an entire hour, I flipped the phone over so the screen wasn’t visible.