^“She ran,” I tell Todd who nods as he pulls a yellow shirt on. The sight of Ellie watching me with such an expression of shock and disgust is not something I want to remember. I knew she wouldn’t take it well. I pick my phone up as it beeps.

“You gotta see this man,” I say and chuck my phone at Todd. He reads it and chucks it back.

“So, she wasn’t that disgusted,” he says with a low chuckle.

“I’m surprised,” I tell him, and he nods in a silent agreement. I don’t know how Kaiden managed to convince her to take the job, or how the hell he convinced her to come back here after she ran out. Kaiden has a way with women, we all do to a certain extent, but somehow, he can make women do whatever he wants.

“Have you told your aunt about Ellie and the baby?” Todd asks, and I shake my head thinking of my Aunt Mel and how I’ll have to tell her in person. It’s not something I’ll tell her over a phone call. She is the only blood family I have that stuck around from when I was a child. I know she wanted me to live with her, but she’s in a wheelchair and couldn’t adopt me when I was younger. My aunt needs a lot of help and has a live-in nurse who helps her. Mel had a serious car crash when she was twenty-four, and it messed her up. Not only did she lose both her legs, she had to have many operations to cope with the internal damage. I know she’s in a lot of pain still, and there is little else the doctors can do to help her. She is getting too old for any more operations, being that she’s now sixty-four. I’ve offered to move her into the house we have. The house is big enough, and my parents left it to me in their will when they died five years ago. It’s the only thing I ever got from them, but Mel said she wants her own space.

“No, I’m going to see her soon, and I might take Ellie, if she wants to come.” I add in the last part as an afterthought.

“I’m out for the day, got to go and babysit my sister’s kids,” Todd says. I feel bad for him at times because Todd has three sisters whom he looks after. One of them has two kids, and her husband walked out on her recently. She is struggling, so we take turns babysitting when she needs it, so Todd doesn’t get too stressed out.

“Need any help?” I ask him. I need some sleep, but it doesn’t matter.

“Nah, man, this is your night. You need to get some real sleep,” he tells me.

“You’re up, Todd,” Louie shouts from the stage. Louie is one of the more experienced back-up dancers and can easily do a few dances on his own. Louie does a lot of the private dances that we don’t do and more of the dances where he pulls women up onto the stage. I glance back at Todd, who’s dressed up like a firefighter and doing a dance that the girls all love.

“Good luck, man, there are a few hen do’s tonight,” I laugh, and he grimaces before stomping out of the room. Man, I love the hen do’s, the women always drink a lot and spend a lot, but Todd can’t stand them.

I walk out the side door and to the private bar we have backstage, and next door to the office we use.

I open a beer and sit down on one of the sofas as I look at my phone. I don’t even have Ellie’s number, something I need to sort out.

“Hey, Andre,” a female voice says behind me, snapping me out of my thoughts of Ellie. I groan mentally when I see the bubbly blonde walking over. Fucking hell, I thought Todd had talked to his sister about coming back here. Todd’s sister, Cleo, is a stunning woman, but I would never touch her. She must have snuck in because if Todd saw her in the tight, red dress she’s wearing and the matching, red heels, he would have lost it.

“Cleo, you should leave,” I say, and she ignores me as she sits right next to me. I’ll give her one thing, she is persistent. I don’t know how many fucking times I’ve told her I’m not interested. She keeps coming back.

“But, Andre, baby, we could have so much fun,” she says in a throaty voice as she runs her hand up my arm.

I clear my throat as I jump up off the sofa, my beer spilling over my hand.

“Fuck’s sake,” I say, and I hear a slight sniffling from Cleo. Fucking hell, I’ve made her cry.

“Cleo, you’re a pretty girl, and you need to find someone decent. That’s not me,” I tell her, standing awkwardly as she cries. What man has any fucking idea what to do with a crying woman?

“Am I not pretty enough for you?” she asks through her sniffles, and I can just about understand her words.

“You’re gorgeous, Cleo, but there is someone else in my life, and you’re my best friend’s little sister. Also, you are ten years younger than me,” I tell her. I’m thirty, and she is just twenty. There’s something not right about the fact I’ve seen her when she was a ten-year-old with a chocolate-covered face.

“But, there was always this thing between us,” she sobs out. Fucking hell, there was no ‘thing’ between us, but I want there to be. I want the ‘thing’ to be a whole lot of fucking distance between her and me.

“I have to get back to work,” I say, lying through my teeth and walking around the sofa.

“But, but,” she says trying to grab my arm as I walk past her, and I shake my head as I walk out. I really need to have a long, fucking conversation with Todd about his sister.

No woman is getting between me and my friends again.