Page 4 of Conning the Billionaire
Kylie batted her eyelashes and touched her sternum when her low-cut dress showed off her cleavage. “I’ve only been with Teresa. I think I like men, but I don’t really know.”
The guy puffed up. “You’re twenty-one, and you’ve never slept with a man?”
Kylie did her best impression of a fawn lost in the woods. “No. I met Teresa when I was eighteen.”
“Well, you probably never met the right man before. It’s a pleasure to meet you, little lady. I’m Butch Crawford.”
Kylie extended her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Crawford. I’m Gloria Vanderbilt.”
His eyebrows reached toward his receding hairline. “Vanderbilt? You’re one of those Vanderbilts?”
Kylie nodded innocently as she shook his clammy hand. “I was named after my great-grandmother. Perhaps you’ve heard of her?”
“The name rings a bell.” He flipped her hand over and kissed her knuckles. “It would be my pleasure to spend the evening with you and show you around Atlantic City tonight. Maybe I’ll even teach you to play blackjack.”
“But I can’t play blackjack,” Kylie said with a little gasp. “I don’t have any money with me. Teresa had the money.”
Butch Crawford patted Kylie’s hand. “Don’t you worry about a thing, little lady. I’ll take care of everything.”
“I’ll pay you back just as soon as I get home to New York City,” she assured him.
Butch Crawford beamed at her. “I’m sure you’re good for it.”
* * *
Four hours later, Kylie hurried down the boardwalk, the autumn night air chilling her shoulders as she trotted. Her stiletto-heeled sandals made hollow tonk-tonk sounds on the wooden boards under her feet, and the wind whooshed through the long marsh grasses underneath. Somewhere out in the dark, the Atlantic Ocean thundered on the beach.
The Hard Rock casino’s flashing lights drowned out the stars in the midnight sky.
Shadows huddled in the darkened doorways of shops closed for the night.
Kylie didn’t walk faster. Instead, she kept an eye out, finding the familiar shapes of some of the shadows she knew.
Blind Jake huddled in the door of a tourist tee shirt shop. She gave him twenty dollars. His old bulldog needed canned food because he had no teeth left.
Jane and her teenage daughter Melody were heaped with blankets in the doorway of the closed take-out restaurant that sold Coney Island-style hot dogs. Kylie gave them forty because she hadn’t been able to find them last week and had been worried about them.
She made four other stops along the Atlantic City Boardwalk before she turned off onto a side street and knocked on a car window.
The window rolled down.
Rita was driving. “You’re late.”
Kylie laughed. “It took a while to dodge the guy and get an Uber down to the boardwalk.”
The doors thunked as they unlocked.
Kylie climbed in the passenger seat and hauled the heavy door of the old car shut. She cranked herself around to look in the backseat. “How’d you guys make out after your C-note spending allowance?”
Alma Gutierrez and Priyanka Mehtani were sitting in the backseat, sharing a can of soda. The dim yellow light from the streetlamp beyond the car’s hood crested over the two beautiful women and glittered on their sequined dresses and fake jewelry.
Alma shrugged and passed the can back to Priyanka. “I went for the ‘Oh no, my boyfriend stood me up’ routine.”
Rita had also turned around, bracing herself with the steering wheel. “Always a solid choice.”
Alma pulled a hunk of bills out of her purse. “Eight hundred bucks.”
“Nice,” Kylie told her.
