Page 8 of One Night Gamble
She leaned in closer, letting herself cling to his chest as they undulated to the music. She looked up at the sky, hoping this night would never end.
Chapter Three
His penthouse apartment occupied the entire top floor of the Jokers Wild Casino. The views were breathtaking. Well, she pretended it was the view she was appreciating, not the man standing next to her.
Casey.
Just a first name and nothing else. But she didn’t need anything more. Not tonight.
She’d been so buttoned-up, so focused on her goals since she’d turned nineteen and realized what a mess her father had left her. Now, seven years later—lucky 7, if Casey was to be believed—she was within reach of letting go of the past.
“Champagne?”
She glanced over at him. He’d lost his jacket somewhere between the private elevator and the living room. His collar was open, revealing a thick gold chain with some sort of charm on it, and his hair was mussed from having her hands in it as they’d danced.
He was charming, sexy, and he made her want to pretend, even if only for this one night, that she wasn’t Talia Spencer. She wanted to be the exotic sophisticated woman this room deserved. This man deserved.
She shook her head. She wasn’t that woman.
“Yes, please,” she said.
“So polite.”
“Manners don’t cost a thing,” she said, parroting words she’d heard from her grandmother while growing up. It was something she only did when she was nervous.
“No, they don’t,” he said.
She could tell she amused him, and maybe that would mean something tomorrow. But tonight, she simply saw a man who’d had too little amusement in his life. He was serious.
She walked to the windows while he moved to get her a drink. The entire living room area had two walls that were made of plate-glass. One afforded a view of the Vegas strip, looking down toward the Bellagio. The other faced the back of the casino, showcasing the meticulously landscaped gardens and pool area.
She really hoped she got the job working here. There was so much more to the Jokers Wild Casino than gambling. In her preliminary interview, she’d been told that they were also hiring an arts and antiquities expert to curate traveling exhibits. She wanted to be a part of this new Vegas, at least for a while. It felt like…like it was a place that was trying to pull itself away from its past. Just like she was. Reinventing itself.
The new Vegas, with shows and high-end restaurants, appealed to her. It was different in her dad’s time, when all there was for a man to do was gamble away his paychecks, hoping for a get-rich fix that could only be found in a winning poker hand.
She felt the brush of his breath against the back of her neck and then his lips against her nape. She turned and saw that up close, his blue eyes had tiny flecks of gray in them. He arched one eyebrow at her as she continued to study him and she noticed the tiny scar on the corner of his mouth.
He handed her a champagne glass and her hand shook as she reached for it. There was something about this man that made her feel alive. There was no reason to be nervous. But then again, she knew that this guy wasn’t her average man.
“To chance encounters,” he said.
She lifted her glass and clinked it against his, then took a sip. The champagne was delicious. Easily the best she’d ever tasted.
“Do you believe in chance?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t,” he said. “This city is all about it.”
Was it? Her experience said that Las Vegas was more about lost dreams. But she didn’t want to ruin tonight and end up back in her bedroom at Gran’s, alone in the same single bed she’d slept on since she was ten. Her mom had decided she couldn’t live with a gambler anymore, and had dropped her off at Gran’s house on her way out of town.
Talia turned back to the lights of the strip. In the distance, she could just make out the fountains in front of one of the hotels, and she thought about how the only times she’d come to this part of Vegas had been for work or to try to find her dad.
“What do you see when you look out there?” he asked.
“Bright lights and fantasy,” she admitted. She took another sip of her champagne, determined not to ruin this night for herself.
Her father had mentioned more than once that she could be a buzzkill. She preferred to think of herself as a realist, and maybe she would do well to remember that tonight. But she wanted…well to feel like she was twenty-six—young and free—not forty. She wanted one moment she could look back on when she was older and say she’d done something crazy. Something that wasn’t written in her bullet journal.
She wanted Casey.
