Another day another dollar. Literally, she thought, a sneer marring her beautiful face.

God, she hates the crumpled singles that kept her tied to that damn stage. Pigs, all of them. Regina wished she could just wave her hand and turn them in to swine. She smiled at the fantasy.

The men who came to watch her dance at Forbidden Fruit disgusted Regina, but she needed their money to combat the crippling amount of debt her thoughtless mother had left her. That woman had never thought about another human being in her life. Cora had always been too busy scheming about how to get ahead in life and in the pursuit of her own dreams she had destroyed her daughter's.

Regina had wanted to be a dancer. A real dancer. She had even studied ballet and modern dance before Cora had forced her to go after a marketing degree instead. Then Cora had died and now Regina was stuck trying to pay off a debt that wasn't even her own. She could barely keep up with the bills and afford her converted loft studio. Her studio was her sanctuary, and fortunately it was rent controlled. The space was large and airy with a bedroom sectioned off, and a tiny area that served as a kitchen and living room. But what she really loved was the bulk of space she had left empty, placing laminate wood flooring over the concrete to dance.

The one bright spot in her life was Henry. Regina also worked part time as a dance instructor at the local YMCA and he was one of the foster kids who always seemed to be floating around the place. Of course none of the staff there knew about her evening work at the club. Those gray haired old biddies would never let someone like her near children otherwise. And she couldn't have that.

Her life may suck, but Regina loved that kid. He was always so happy to see her, sneaking past the tough and distant exterior she showed most adults. Regina would adopt him if she could, but it was impossible.

Everything was gray.

Robin blinked awake in his sky rise penthouse, staring balefully out the wall of glass that took up one side of the room. The cold slate sky seemed to suck the beauty from the London skyline. The austere design of the décor did nothing to break the soulless feel of the pace.

Maybe I should get a plant, he murmured to himself. A bit of green might be nice.

He really should do something to the place. Nothing about the sleek modern space was welcoming to a child.

The only bright spot in the entire suite was little Roland's room, which was empty far too often. Hell, the child was the only bright spot in his life.

By necessity his boy was often left in the charge of his trusted secretary John. Robin had picked up the man on one of his business trips, Greenland this time, when he had put the bear of a man out of work. The giant was collateral damage in a hostile takeover, and John had no qualms about marching right up to Robin and scolding him like a child for over what closing the factory would do to the town's local economy.

Robin had respected the larger man's honesty and bravery, offering him a job on the spot. John accepted the offer on the condition that Robin would not leave the local people destitute and the pair had been together ever since.

Robin hated being separated from his son, but work called him away for international travel so frequently, it was simply better this way. He would take the child and John along when he could, but life crisscrossing the world was no way to build a home.

He rose to stretch knotted muscles, padding over to the window to look out on to the bustling city below. He loved his work, he adored his son. That was enough. It was.

Yet on morning like this one a doubt seemed to rise to just below the surface. Something was missing, and it would tease around the edges of his memory just out of reach. In these moments Robin would quickly bury the thought and turn his focus toward his work which consumed most of his time.

In the boardroom he was known as the Prince of Thieves due to his unusual business practices, but Robin wasn't fazed by the name. After the death of his wife due to a faulty medical component produced by a profitable but corrupt company he had purchased and failed to reform. He specialized in hostile takeovers of business that harmed the innocent or took advantage of people. There was no shortage of targets.

Losing Marion was the greatest mistake of his life and he had spent years trying to make up for that. Since the loss, Robin hasn't let anyone close. He didn't deserve it. Work and Roland. That was enough.

To do business with the worst of the worst sometimes you had to meet them where they lived. In this case a seedy strip club which seemed to be on the bad side of an already questionable place called New Jersey.

Robin glanced around the intimate venue, taking in the women currently gyrating on two metal poles in the section of stage that jutted in to the crowd, as another set wound themselves around two poles placed at opposite ends of the stage proper.

"Good, we're just in time for a very special performance," Tommy DeLuca told him. Tommy D, as he preferred to be called, was a waste of a man. Corpulent and self-serving, he seemed to have a perennial leer and damp palms, but Robin needed information only he could provide if he wanted intel on a Jersey based corporation he had his eye on.

Tommy D pulled Robin forward, grabbing the last two seats in front of the stage. "She goes by Titania. She's kind of the queen of the club," Tony D said.

Suddenly all the light in the club went out, and the raucous crowd settled in to silence. "You're going to like this one," the sweaty man said, nudging Robin in the side. Robin smoothed his well-tailored jacket, trying to shake off the other man's touch. He fought to control his features. It wouldn't do to show this idiot his disdain. Business sometime required an array of masks.

Suddenly the light came up, shades of red and purple revealing a woman. She was covered in a cloak of some kind, with the hood up.

The electronic beats of Dark Horse began and she started slinking toward the center of the stage. She turned to face away from the crowds hungry eyes, and then slipped back the hood to reveal raven hair. The slowly cloak dropped to reveal the smooth skin of her shoulders one at a time. He could see her body beginning to wind and she dropped the cloak completely.

The woman was clad in black leather. Not that there was much covered. Knee high stiletto boots revealed perfect thighs, and he could see a tiny pair of booty shorts and a racerback style top with two black straps crisscrossing the pearlescent skin of her torso back down to the shorts.

"I'm capable of anything and everything. Make me your Aphrodite. Make me your one and only."

The woman turned to face them and her hands ghosted up her body as she twisted her hips, sinking to the floor. She put her hands on her knees as she crouched, quickly spreading her thighs apart then closed again, then rising to stick her ass out still bent over. The smack she gives it sends shivers down Robin's spine.

"But don't make me your enemy."

He would have sworn she looked right at him and winked before standing straight, slapping her hands on to her hipbones in a direct challenge. Robin shifted himself in his seat, never taking his eyes off her.

The dark haired woman strutted over to the pole, trailing her hand over the cold steel before gripping it tightly and taking a leisurely first swing around it, then moving to the pole at the very front of the stage.

She stopped, facing the crowd of men, lifting her hands overhead, grasping the pole again. Her breast heaved and rolled for a moment, then moving faster than a snake she spread her legs. Still bracing her hands above, the woman sank down in to a wide plié, and then turned her knees in, squeezing her thighs together as her head fell back against the cold metal.

Robin's mouth went dry.

She was toying with it. She was toying with them.

"So you want to play with magic? Boy you should know what you're falling for. Baby, do you dare to do this? I'm coming at you like a dark horse."

Suddenly she stood, turning to rhythmically undulate against the poll as if seducing a lover. The woman began twirling in earnest this time, gaining speed before lifting herself in to the air and striking a pose. She continued to defy gravity, contorting her body in air.

"It's in the palm of your hand now baby. It's a yes or a no. No maybe."

The woman began to circle back toward the ground, before gracefully dismounting. She lowered herself on the all fours, tossing her hair as she began to crawl, dropping her hips and pushing forward with each beat. Was she coming toward him? She was close enough to touch.

As if reading his mind she reached forward to tap his nose. His eyes went wide and she smiled.

The dark haired woman turns from facing him to stretches out her body before him, doing slow body rolls on the floor. A few deft movements later and she is holding court at the center of the stage once again.

"Once you're mine there's no going back."

Her strong legs power her effortlessly up the pole to what seems to a rather dangers height to Robin. The woman leans back, sustaining herself against gravity with only her thighs. Suddenly she spirals wilds toward the earth, descending in dizzying circles. The lights go black.

"Well what did you think?" Tommy D asks him, but Robin doesn't hear it. "Speechless, huh?" the pudgy man says, slapping Robin on the back. This seemed to break whatever spell was over him, and Robin managed a nod.

"It was something alright," he offered. "Now to business, if you don't mind."

Robin listened as Tommy D rattled off details pertinent to the prospective takeover, nodding ever so often to show he was still paying attention. Yet if he were to say his mind was completely on business, you could call him a liar. This simply would not do.

Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a flash of glossy black hair, and then it was gone out the door.

"Pardon me gentlemen," he said, excusing himself from the stoolie and his associate.

Tonight had been interesting, she thought, and Regina wasn't sure if that was a good thing.

She had spotted a man tonight and he has interested her. No one ever interested her. She could not wait to get home. Once Regina had locked eyes with that stranger it was as though he was the only one in the room. She had danced for him alone, and she hated it.

Regina took a deep breath and pushed open the exit door hoping to sneak out unseen.

Normally she left the club with an escort at the end of the night, but she didn't feel like waiting around for her usual bouncer to walk her to her car. Most idiots couldn't even recognize her when her face was scrubbed clean and her hair was thrown in to a ponytail. They came for the fantasy, not for her.

The cool night air felt good on her heated cheeks as she walked quickly through the parking lot. Abruptly Regina heard the crunch of gravel behind her.

Damn it. She knew she should have grabbed Tiny to escort her out.

"Look buddy, I don't know what you want. I don't do lap dances. I'm a pole dancer, not a stripper. There is a difference. She spun on her heel to face the person following her. It was Well Cut Suit. Regina fought the flutter in her belly as she looked him up and down. "And I don't do house calls either," she said flatly.

He put his hands up. "I'm interested in nothing of the sort," he said with a soft accent that made the words seem like a caress.

She looked at him in disdain. "I know guys like you. You always want something. You don't get a suit like that," she gestured with her hand, "by playing nice with others."

"I've offended you," Robin said, slightly ashamed of himself for following a woman he didn't know if to a parking lot. He wasn't all that sure of why he had done it. He just wasn't wanted her to leave.

He hesitated for a moment. "Can I buy you a drink?"

"I don't drink."

"Dinner then," he countered.

"If I say yes will you leave me alone?" she asked.

What am I doing, she thought. Well, I can always not show.

She was breaking all of her rules tonight. But something in his face told her she could trust him.

Well all the crazies you hear about 'seemed so nice,' she thought darkly.

She watched as he took out a business card and wrote an address on the back.

"Tomorrow. I'll send a car for you around 7:30," he said.

"No."

At his puzzled look, she elaborates.

"I may be bending a few rules here, but there is one I don't break. No one gets my address."

"Very well," he acquiesces with a slight bow of his head to her. "At least give me your name

then. I can't be properly stood up if I don't know whom I'm waiting for."

Regina looked thoughtful for a moment. "You can call me Tania."

"I hope you come, Tania."

"We'll see," she said.