Page 12 of Conning the Billionaire
The guy leaned his elbows on the table and looked intently at her. “Were?”
She hadn’t meant to say that, but it was time to start the sob story anyway. “My dad died a few years ago.”
His expression shifted. “Your father is dead?”
“Yeah, and both of them are gone.”
The man sighed heavily. “My God. I’m so sorry.”
Kylie sighed, and real facts about her life popped out. “My dad died when I was twelve, and then my mom was gone when I was sixteen.”
In the warm light from the dark wood on the floor and booth around them, the man’s silvery eyes acquired flecks of gold as they drooped with pity. “He’s been gone for a while, then. And your mother, too. I’m so sorry.”
She flicked her fingers in the air. “It was a long time ago. I’m fine. Totally fine.”
“Are you?” he asked.
This was supposed to be a manipulative sob story, not psychoanalysis. Besides, she needed to get the guy talking about himself. “Yeah, sure. I’m tough. And it was a long time ago. But what about you? Tell me all about yourself.” She leaned her chin on her hands with her elbows on the table and looked adoringly at him like an orphan with daddy issues.
Because she was playing a part.
Just a part.
Because this was a con.
The man paused, waiting for her to continue.
Dammit, how had she not even gotten this guy’s name yet? He’d totally distracted her and had her flapping her gums about herself instead of eliciting information about him that she could either admire or use to create a false connection between them. “I don’t want to talk about it. So, what do you do?”
“I’m in business,” the man said, which Kylie damn well knew could mean flipping anything.
“That’s so interesting. What kind of business?” she asked.
He shrugged with a chuckle. “Manufacturing, mostly for export. And what do you do for a living, Delilah?”
“I’m a blackjack dealer over at the Ocean Resort.”
He tilted his head and looked at her a little from the side. “Funny, you don’t look old enough to be a dealer. I thought you had to be twenty-one,” the guy mused, and he trained his sparkling eyes on her like he was watching her for a reaction.
Kylie shrugged. “I’m twenty-seven. My mom was strict about sunscreen.”
All of that was a lie.
“You must have some interesting stories to tell about Atlantic City.”
“Oh, well, sure, but everybody who works here does. They’re all the same stories: celebrities behaving badly, high roller whales gambling obscene amounts of money, and bad decisions that regular people make because they’ve lost too much to the house.”
A slight frown creased the space between his eyebrows. “That sounds rough.”
She sighed because those cases were the worst. “The engineering graduate student who knows it’s statistically unlikely to lose ten times in a row at roulette if you bet on red, so he keeps doubling his bet until he’s a hundred large in the hole. The math or physics majors who put together a ‘blackjack team’ because they think you can still count cards in AC and don’t realize that dealers start a new shoe of cards way before the played ones become statistically relevant. It’s sad. You can’t beat the house here. All I see is people losing their money, but they have a good time while doing it. I guess that’s why they keep coming back. That, and an irrational hope that they’ll ‘win it back.’ All the dealers know it’s hopeless. But I’m not particularly interesting. You must have some fascinating stories about your manufacturing business.”
“Nothing to speak of. You have a soft heart.”
Oh, come on, man. “I’ve always been curious about business. What did you say the name of your company was again?”
The guy looked up. “Ah, here’s the waiter. What did you want to order?”
Kylie didn’t need to look at the menu for more than one second. “I’ll have the Mom’s Lasagna, side order of rapini, please.”
