Page 17 of Waste of Worth

Dino’s guilt climbed higher—he didn’t believe Karen had done anything wrong, or had anything to be ashamed of, but he was clearly making her feel that way.

Clearing his throat and glancing away, Dino dared to ask, “You seemed very … well-versed on the stage.”

“Is that your way of asking me if I strip often?”

“No, that’s—”

“I went to art school for photography and dance. I could only make a career out of one of them after I broke my knee climbing the side of a bridge to get a shot of a river. But even that’s crapping out considering I am one of hundreds of photographers in this goddamn city that’s struggling to make ends meet.”

Well, then …

“Okay,” Dino said, giving Karen his attention again.

She cocked a brow at him. “Okay? Does that mean you’re going to move so I can go out and finish what I was doing?”

“No.”

“No?”

Dino shook his head. “Nope.”

No way in hell.

“YOU need a job, I’ll get you a job.”

Those words were haunting Dino. If only because he’d done exactly what he said for Karen, and got her set up in his restaurant working as a server. But because he couldn’t just leave it at that, and had checked up on her several times over the period of a couple of weeks, he’d quickly learned he was undervaluing her ability and what she was capable of. The woman had a knack for numbers and schedules, something that particular restaurant had trouble with since opening.

It seemed like they were always short on staff because of scheduling issues, and the books were a mess because like most of his businesses that were able to hide funds, Dino shoved dirty money into the records to hide it from the government. But he didn’t want the bookkeeper to know he was doing it, and so, expected them to show where it was coming from without showing where it was actually coming from.

Now, at a month and a half after she walked into his strip club, the woman was scheduling his employees, working the books like a pro, and seemed quite happy doing it.

Dino shouldn’t know how well she was doing at all, never mind that she was happy about it, but he did.

He made at least two trips a week to a restaurant he had previously despised visiting just to see Karen. She never asked him why he showed up at random times with a coffee in hand for her, simply took it with a smile and continued working on whatever task she had for the day.

Today was no exception.

Dino pretended to flip through a recent order of supplies while Karen typed away on the laptop, muttering under her breath every so often about extra cash and where it came from.

He hid his smirk by looking down.

She had to know—like his previous bookkeeper—that he was pillowing funds into the business. She had to realize she was, essentially, cooking his books to make it all look on the up and up.

Karen never said a thing.

“So …”

Dino glanced up at Karen’s random statement. She was staring right at him, those soul-deep brown eyes of hers lighting up with curiosity. Her pretty features distracted him for a moment, keeping him from responding as he took in full lips and flushed cream skin. It never failed to amaze him how she always looked as though the whole world—everything surrounding her—interested her with all its details, even the mundane things.

It shocked him that she seemed interested in him at all.

She was friendly like that, where he simply … well, wasn’t.

“Yes?” Dino asked.

“When are you going to gain the courage to speak up?”

Dino shifted a bit in the chair, confused. “I beg your pardon?”