What the Gambler Risks

by Kristina Knight

  “She’s always pretty upset.” Sabrina squeezed her eyes shut, realizing she’d spoken the words aloud. “Forget I said that. I didn’t mean it.” She did mean it, but he didn’t need to know that.

  “I know a pilot in Mexico. He’s got a private plane.”

  “A private plane sounds amazing,” Melinda said, her voice sounding stronger. Sabrina could practically hear Melinda’s patented purr starting deep in her throat. “Anything to get me out of Mexico.”

  “She doesn’t need a private plane. One more night in Mexico won’t kill her.” Sabrina spoke into the phone. “There’s nothing I can do until morning, Mother.”

  “It isn’t a big deal, and it sounds like she could use the good news.”

  Sabrina narrowed her eyes at Jase and, before her mother could latch on to him, muted her end of the conversation. “Thanks, but I’ve been through this before. She needs a glass of wine and a hotel room, and tomorrow morning she’ll catch a commercial flight back here.”

  “Sabrina, I want to come home,” Melinda wailed over the phone, her voice catching on the “home” part again. Sabrina’s heart twinged. She knew Melinda hadn’t really been in love with Lorenzo, but she also knew her mother wanted, desperately, to have someone love her. It was Sabrina’s own fault she had never gotten over the fact that her love wasn’t enough for Melinda.

  “It’s as simple as a phone call.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  Melinda sniffled over the phone again and whimpered, “Please, baby, I just want to be home.”

  She took the phone off speaker. “Hang on a second, Melinda,” she said and then muted the phone again. “Why?”

  Jase blinked. “Why what?”

  “Why offer a plane ride for a woman you don’t know to a woman you’ve just had a one-night stand with?”

  “I think you might want to reword that sentence,” he said. Sabrina narrowed her eyes. “Or not. The plane ride, the women I don’t know … Ah, chivalry?”

  “It’s dead.”

  “Sabrina?” Her mother’s voice rose an octave, sending a shiver up Sabrina’s spine.

  “Just a minute, Mom.”

  “She can’t hear you.”

  Sabrina shook her head, stabbed a finger at the screen to unmute the phone, repeated herself, and then muted the phone again. “What do you get out of this?”

  “The knowledge that a heartbroken woman doesn’t have to spend another night in a place where she can’t understand what anyone is saying to her?”

  “She’s a waitress in Las Vegas. She’ll get by.”

  “I haven’t fulfilled my quota of good deeds for the day?”

  “I don’t see fairy wings under that bomber jacket, and there definitely isn’t a halo over your head.”

  “Damsel in distress?”

  “You’re no knight in shining armor.”

  “Do you always make it this difficult for someone to help you out?”

  That caught Sabrina off guard, but she rallied. “Only when the someone offering help has another agenda.”

  “Who says I have an agenda?”

  “You do. You gambled with me to learn my last name, and you’ve asked for my number several times despite my telling you no. Now you’re offering to fly my mother home from Mexico—that’s a seven-hour, private flight that will cost thousands of dollars, and you expect me to believe you’re doing it out of the kindness of your heart?”

  “Yeah.” There was a thread of sincerity in his voice, and those green eyes were clear. Sabrina was good at reading people, and she didn’t read deception in his expression. Of course, she also hadn’t seen the misogyny in Sid the Jerk until she was on her second date with him, and after umpteen hands of poker with Jase she still wasn’t positive of his tell, so maybe she wasn’t such a great reader of people. He continued talking. “Do I want your number? Yes. Did I want to know your name? Of course. The fact is that my brothers and I know a lot of people. One of the people we know has a charter service out of Mexico; we invested in that charter service a few years ago. So you can leave her crying and alone”—he pointed to the phone and the sobs emanating from it—“in a foreign country where she doesn’t know the language, or I can call in a favor, and you get to play the hero in your mother’s breakup.”

  “Heroine.”

  “What?”

  “I’m a girl, I’d be playing the heroine.” And it would stop the sobbing and head off the potential guilt trip Melinda was probably readying in her mind. Of course, Sabrina couldn’t let Jase pay for the plane—she would have to come up with a way to pay him back. No, no, this was not happening. Melinda could wait until the morning flight.

  When he pulled his phone from his pocket, Sabrina put her hand on his arm. “I don’t need your help to deal with my mother. I’ve been doing it a long time. She’ll be fine. She’s always fine.” By next week she would be back in her cocktail outfit, serving drinks to the high rollers at Caesars or the MGM, and in another month or two she would have another big spender on her hook.

  Sabrina sighed. Another month or two after that, and Sabrina would be right back here, picking up the pieces.

  Melinda Smith was the perfect example of why Sabrina never let her emotions rule her life. She planned carefully, she considered every option, and she always made sure she was protected.

  But maybe, just this once, she could take the easier road. She was coming off a crazy two-week book tour, a casino visit, and one-night stand, and had two more weeks of book tour craziness to prep for. Getting Melinda on an immediate flight meant one less thing to distract her from those preparations.

  “I insist on paying you back.”

  “I’ll make the call.”

  “I’m still not having coffee or dinner with you.”

  “I still don’t know your number.”

  “Let’s keep it that way.” She nodded. “Call your friend. I’ll let my mother know someone is flying to her rescue.”

  Chapter Five

  Jase wasn’t sure what was worse: listening to his brothers argue about ad placements and column inches in the next issue of Vegas Nightly for Gage’s girlfriend’s new business or his inability to stop thinking about Sabrina Smith. His inability to stop repeating her name over and over in his mind, almost as often as he relived their night in Atlantic City together. He tapped his fingers against the smooth leather of the conference room chair. Out the window, he could see a few casino signs on Fremont, and if he craned his neck, he could see the video screen that covered the street below.

  He wondered if Sabrina was on that street but doubted it. Most locals avoided Fremont and the Strip unless they were entertaining out-of-town guests. Or they were addicted to gambling. Sabrina didn’t strike him as an addict, and she’d told him she was local.

  “What do you think?”

  The question snapped him back to reality and out of a little daydream that started with Sabrina naked in his office on the main floor of their building on Fremont Street.

  Damn it, since when was he sixteen again and unable to think with anything other than his dick?

  Gage, the youngest of the three brothers, watched him expectantly, arms folded over his chest. It was strange to see Gage in the office wearing jeans and boots rather than the suits he’d worn before he went into business—and fell in love—with their old neighbor, Callie Holliday. Usually Jase was the only one of them who took the term “casual Friday” seriously. He liked to apply that rule to every day of the week.

  “I think it’s Connor’s newspaper, and this argument is silly.”

  Both Connor—blond and blue-eyed like their mother—and Gage—with the dark hair and hazel eyes of their father—gaped at him.

  “What? I’m tired of the two of you fighting like little girls over ad space and gossip columns.” Jase folded his arms over his chest. “It’s bad enough I’ve had to deal with it through video chats over the past few months. I don’t want to revisit ancient history in person, too.”

&
nbsp; “Technically, since Connor naming me Bachelor of the Month—against my will—in the paper was barely six months ago, it isn’t ancient history,” Gage began.

  “Also, we’re grown men. We don’t argue like little girls. We discuss,” Connor said, straightening the lapels of his suit jacket.

  “Well, this ‘discussion’ is getting old already. Gage, you’ve been off Connor’s front page for months, but even if you hadn’t, he doesn’t owe you great ad placement for Holliday Spa’s grand opening next month.”

  Both of his brothers blinked. Looked at one another and then back at him. Gage crossed the room, touched Jase’s shoulder gently, and then said to Connor, “No, he’s really here. This isn’t some new video hologram that one of his game developers created.”

  “You think he’s been drinking?” Connor asked. He, too, crossed the room and poked at Jase’s arm. “He could have had heatstroke or something. Vegas temperatures aren’t that bad in late January, but he’s been slumming it in Atlantic City and a few European casinos for quite a while—it could have weakened his resistance.”

  “I haven’t been drinking, and I’m not in the middle of heatstroke.”

  Connor raised a hand, cutting him off. “You know, there’s that new mosquito-borne illness—”

  “I’ve heard that can have bad effects on the brainstem.”

  “And I’m not a pregnant woman.” Jase crossed to the window, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked out over the busy street below.

  “Then why are you on the topic of several months ago instead of the topic of the day?” Gage asked. “We weren’t talking about ad space or bachelor announcements. We were talking about hosting a poker tournament at the spa as part of the grand opening.”

  Jase opened his mouth and then closed it again. “You want to host a poker tournament?”

  “Big entry fees, partner play, catering to the big players … ”

  “Most of them will be booked. It’s short notice. And gamblers aren’t exactly the target market for a destination spa in the desert,” Jase pointed out. He returned to the sitting area. But the idea was a decent one. If enough big names showed for the tournament, Callie and Gage’s spa would get some national attention. Poker had become a decent-sized spectator sport in the last few years, especially Texas hold ’em.

  “The winner will get a big pot, naturally, but most of the proceeds will go to a local charity.” Gage paused. “And getting the big names here was where you came in. We were hoping you’d call in a few favors or at least be part of the game. You’ve won enough pots over the years that most of the big players are always eager to beat you at the table.”

  Jase wasn’t sure whether he should be annoyed that his brothers wanted to use him as bait for a poker tournament or pleased that he was the lead draw at a charitable event. Or, more than either of those options, frustrated that he’d been so tied up in that daydream about Sabrina that he’d missed the bulk of the conversation and then lashed out at his brothers about nothing.

  “Until March Madness hits, Vegas is in a bit of a slump. Fewer tourists, fewer celebs visiting. The paper could use something big to cover, like this tournament,” Connor added. “The grand opening is three weeks away; we could get some of the local casinos and dealers on board, especially with the charity angle.”

  Jase decided to go with the pleased option. “I could make a few calls,” he said.

  “Nice. That brings us to the next point of order.” Connor strode to his desk and marked something off the list on his desk. “Just where were you for the first half of this meeting?”

  “Nowhere,” Jase said, knowing his short answer would only encourage more questions that he didn’t want to answer. He knew it was childish, but he didn’t want his brothers to know about Sabrina, how hung up he was on the woman, and especially not that he barely knew her. Definitely not that. Jase didn’t get hung up on women, not ever.

  Neither had Gage or Connor, until this past year, when both of them had fallen head over heels for women Jase never would have pictured them with. To be honest, he’d never pictured any of them in long-term, romantic relationships, not after the upbringing they’d had. Their father had chased their addict mother all over the United States, and sometimes into Mexico or Canada, trying to bring her home. Every time, she would come back, but she never stayed long. A big poker game would come up somewhere, and she would be powerless to resist the draw.

  Their father’s devotion and their mother’s abandonment had left wounds on all three of them. Wounds that seemed to have scarred over for Gage and Connor since Callie and Miranda came to Las Vegas.

  He wasn’t either of his brothers, though, any more than he was his mother. Helena let cards control her. Jase used cards to get what he wanted. At first, it was a single pot to help Connor buy his rundown newspaper. Then a reason to stay out of Vegas because he’d blamed himself for his mother’s death. Now, cards were comfortable. They gave him something to do and kept a nice distance between him and his brothers. As much as he loved them, he didn’t want to hurt them the way he’d hurt their mother.

  Gage and Connor watched him closely.

  “It’s not heatstroke.” He reached for a plausible answer, any plausible answer. “It’s jet lag.”

  Gage arched one eyebrow in disbelief. “You were in Atlantic City, not Monaco. The time difference isn’t that bad.”

  “What’s her name?” Connor asked, sitting behind his oversized desk and putting his hands behind his head.

  “You think it’s a girl?” Gage asked incredulously.

  “It’s the only explanation. He’s been mooning out the window most of the morning, and he obviously doesn’t want to talk about whatever—or whoever—is on his mind.”

  “It does make sense. Women are the worst.”

  “Would the two of you shut up already?” Jase shook his head. “Women aren’t the worst, and I’m allowed to be distracted during my first extended trip to Vegas in more than five years. I have groceries to buy and linens to clean and now a poker tournament to throw with a little less than a month to do the planning.”

  “Callie bought groceries for you yesterday, and since you don’t cook, those basics should last your entire stay.”

  “She didn’t have to do that.” And now he felt guilty on top of the stupid he’d been feeling for the past few minutes. Callie was a sweetheart, but he didn’t need her acting like his housekeeper while he was in town. He hadn’t given a second thought to the fresh milk or bread in his fridge that morning. He’d become so used to being waited on that it seemed natural to have food in his fridge, despite not having been to a grocery store in more than a year.

  “She likes doing things like that. Thinks of it as normal life or something.” Gage shrugged. “Doesn’t make sense to me, either.”

  “It’s a nesting thing,” Connor added. “Miranda’s been on a decorating kick lately. Every weekend since Christmas we’ve spent at one home store or another.”

  “Your girlfriends’ nesting tendencies are your problem,” Jase said. “I don’t have a woman problem.” He might have a slight obsession problem, but that was an entirely different thing. He wanted to sleep with Sabrina again, and this time he would be the one to walk out. Then they’d be even, and he would be able to get back to his ordered, ordinary life. A life that wasn’t taken up with daydreams about a pretty blonde with emerald eyes whose voice sent a shiver up his spine.

  He wasn’t falling for her the way his brothers had fallen for Callie and Miranda. He liked both of the women, but his life wasn’t like his brothers’. He lived out of a suitcase, and he didn’t have roots because when people truly counted on him, he let them down. He couldn’t have saved his father from the cancer, but if he’d just gone after his mother, maybe things would have been different. Maybe she really had been ready to come home, to be a real mother. They would never know because he’d forced himself to shut her out in a way Caleb never had.

  None of this distraction was about
his mother or his brothers. This was just about the way Sabrina had walked out in the middle of the night, and the way she continued to push him away.

  So, he would find her, and he would change her mind, and he would be the one leaving her wanting for more.

  And he didn’t care how assholeish that was.

  Jase walked out of Connor’s office, ignoring the raised eyebrows of his brothers. He bypassed the elevator and instead took the stairs to the first floor. Briefly, he considered checking in at his office, but no one expected him until tomorrow. Actually, there was one thing he could take care of. Turning on his heel, he made his way to the Reeves Gaming office.

  He’d never bothered to create a reception area. Unlike Connor’s publishing company or Gage’s land development office, Reeves Gaming didn’t bring in many walk-in clients. His employees designed casino and online games, and few of them worked normal business hours.

  The gray-carpeted area was quiet this morning; lights only shone at a couple of desks. Jase made his way through the massive cubicle area. The floors had been marble once, like the rest of the building, but he’d learned quickly that the clack of hard-soled shoes on marble was distracting to most developers.

  In his private office, Jase booted up his computer and opened the last project he’d been working on before leaving Las Vegas the year before. It was a search engine that used social media and blogs to answer queries. He’d considered making it public, but with so many search engine options, it didn’t make sense. Instead, it was his private engine, and he used it to find gaming pirates.

  He typed in Sabrina’s name and Las Vegas. Along with social media profiles—some with phone numbers attached; did people not understand the words “privacy breach”?—a few news reports about a local writer popped up. Some kind of self-help guru. Jase ignored those options, picturing a middle-aged woman in horn-rimmed glasses advising women on how to dress or clean a house. He scrolled through a few more, and then a headline caught his attention.

  The Vegas Virgin Lands Six-Figure Book Deal.