Page 20 of One Night Gamble
She closed the door behind her and he leaned back in his chair. This was harder than he’d thought it would be. His plan had been simple, and he knew it was con…but he’d always been good at running them. Until now. It was as if she was starting to mean more to him than the night they’d spent together.
…
Talia fell into a routine that kept her working long hours and should have provided the distraction she needed from being around Casey. And to be fair, it worked for the most part. She set up meetings with the directors of each line of business and she saw several places that would benefit from social media community building with easy-to-implement strategies. But she also had some harder-to-crack communities.
One was the high-stakes poker group. Most of the people in the community were like Yoshi. They preferred anonymity, and liked to be on their own. She got that. She knew the reputation of a lot of the “whales” who came to Vegas was predicated on being known only to those they wanted to know them—not the wider community. But she was tasked with making sure that the Jokers Wild Casino became the “it” destination in Vegas, and that meant promoting the high rollers who frequented the club.
Yoshi reminded her a lot of Casey, from the YouTube videos she’d watched of his playing days. Yoshi could be anywhere from twenty to fifty. He wore dark sunglasses and a baseball cap with the Mario Brothers character Yoshi on it, hence his nickname. He was quiet and never actually answered a question. Instead, he gave vague half statements that left her more perplexed about him.
When they got to the high-stakes area, Yoshi went ahead to talk to the host of the room and Casey turned to her.
“What do you think?”
She shrugged. “I doubt he’s going to let us use his name or image in social marketing.”
“I agree,” Casey said.
She tipped her head to the side. “Then what was the point of this?”
“Not all gamblers are bad people,” he said. “You have to work with a lot of them, so I wanted to show you—”
“Don’t. You can’t understand what I was talking about when I told you about my dad. Yoshi is nothing like him. He’s rolling in money that my dad never even dared dream about. He was gambling things like his car, my lunch money, and my grandmother’s home. I don’t really care how nice Yoshi is or how well-adjusted other gamblers are.” Then she realized how snippy she sounded. She turned to Casey. “Sorry. It was a nice gesture.”
“Why don’t you take off?” he said. “We can talk later in the week. I’ll get something on your calendar.”
She wanted to explain more fully, but knew she was stubbornly defensive when it came to gamblers. She’d spent her entire life with a charming rogue, cleaning up his messes until he’d cashed out and died. She bit her lower lip and reached over to touch Casey’s shoulder as he turned away.
He glanced back at her. For a second, she glimpsed some real emotion in his eyes, but it was complex and way too fleeting to be identified before he dropped his poker mask back into place.
“Yes?”
“I am sorry. I know that was over the top.”
“It’s okay. I underestimated how deeply your mistrust of gambling went,” he said.
She suspected he wouldn’t again. “Part of it is just gut instinct. But I will control it better.”
He took her elbow and an electric tingle went up her arm as he led her away from the entrance to an alcove that gave the illusion of privacy. But this was Las Vegas. She knew someone was always watching and security cameras were always recording.
“You are complicated, Talia. From the moment you bumped into me, your eyes sparkling and wearing that short skirt…I’ve been intrigued. A smarter man would avoid the risk of being around you, but I never could resist a challenge.”
A challenge.
What did that mean?
She was trying to do this job, get the last balloon payment on Gran’s house made, and then find a way to get the hell out of Nevada, but Casey had made her think…what? That she could trust a gambler. He was a rogue. A charming sexy-as-hell one, but still a rogue. He was always running a con because that was his nature and she was an idiot if she ever let herself forget it. If she ever let herself drown in those blue eyes of his that were as mercurial as the sea during a storm. He gave away nothing but she knew he was watching, observing, waiting to see her weakness and then use it to his advantage.
Hadn’t she learned that lesson a long time ago?
How many times was she going to allow herself to be played?
She pulled her arm back. She needed to get out. If she didn’t love her Gran so much, she would have left town a long time ago, taking off the same way her mom had. But Talia had never been one to turn her back on someone she loved.
“I am not something you should bet on,” she said.
She felt edgy, almost on the verge of losing it again. But she couldn’t. She needed this job.
“I bet on everything, sweetheart,” he said.
