Page 39 of One Night Gamble
“I do,” Rio said. “But Casey told me it was none of my damned business.”
“Casey and I have an understanding. We’re keeping our personal and private lives separate,” she said.
“If only that was as easy to do as it is to agree to,” Darien said, walking back over to them. Obviously, he’d heard some of their conversation. “Listen, I have nothing against you. You are doing a great job here. But I can tell that you are distracting Casey and he needs to be focused if he’s going to win the world poker championship when he plays in two weeks.”
She didn’t know that Casey was playing. He’d told her he was a businessman now. Why hadn’t he mentioned the game?
“I’m not distracting him,” Talia said.
“You are and you don’t even know it. Or do you know it? Women like to play games,” Darien said.
“That’s enough, Dare,” Rio said. “She doesn’t deserve that. Take another walk and cool off.”
Darien looked like he was going to argue but Rio stepped in front of her. “You too?”
Rio didn’t say a word, just pointed toward the exit, and Darien turned on his heel and walked away.
“Sorry about that. My brother is dealing with some shit—stuff from the past. And he’s obviously not handling it as well as he should be.”
“That’s okay,” she said. But she didn’t want to come between Casey and his partners. And Darien had been right on the money when he said that people liked to play games. Everyone was taking a risk when they got involved. She’d never felt more vulnerable than she did at this moment. She’d thought that loving Casey would be enough.
Rio was talking to her about the bike and she knew she had to pay attention. This wasn’t something she could afford to make a mistake on. In the back of her mind was the whisper that she couldn’t make one with Casey, either.
She’d let her Gran get to know him, too, for her to start to care for Casey like Talia did. What if she’d made a huge mistake? Had she misjudged him?
“Are you ready to go?” Rio asked.
“No. I’m sorry, Rio, I wasn’t paying attention. Tell me again,” she said. “I know you are a good teacher, so I don’t want to mess anything up for you.”
“It’s okay,” Rio said, patiently explaining how to ride again.
Then he helped her on the bike. She sat there for a moment with the engine of the motocross bike vibrating under her body. She looked at the mogul course. She’d watched Rio run it earlier and saw the air he got. She had wanted to experience the thrill of feeling weightless and a little bit out of control.
But now she knew she didn’t need to ride a motocross bike to experience that. She only had to think of Casey and her time with him…which was beginning to look as tricky as the moguls in front of her.
She didn’t want to come between him and Dare, she knew that. But she also wasn’t sure she wanted to date a man who was still playing poker. She’d been fooling herself, pretending that Casey was just a CEO, and one of the co-owners of the Jokers Wild Casino. But she was only fooling herself.
…
Casey walked into the apartment that night and realized that Talia wasn’t there. After pretty much living together for the last few weeks, he was surprised to find the place empty. He called down to her assistant to see if she was still in her office. He had managed to get tickets to the opening of a new show on the outskirts of Vegas and thought it would be a nice night out for them.
“She went home at five, sir,” Talia’s assistant said. “Do you want to leave a message?”
“No,” he said. “Thank you.”
He hung up and texted Talia.
Casey: Hey. Where are you?
Talia: I decided to go back to Gran’s tonight. I haven’t been home in a while and she is hosting bridge.
Which made no sense, since Talia didn’t play bridge. He started to text her back but knew he needed to hear her voice to understand what was really going on here.
He dialed her number and she answered on the second ring.
“Hey,” she said. “I can’t really talk for long. I’m picking up snacks at the store and there is only one person ahead of me in line.”
“What’s going on? I thought you were going to be staying here tonight. I have tickets for an opening of the traveling Dali exhibit.” He’d gone out of his way to get the tickets because she’d mentioned that Dali’s The Persistence of Memory was a favorite of hers. Personally, he didn’t really get surrealism. Nicholas assured him that was because he was too much of a realist.
