by Rachel Shane
She wanted to rip off his clothes right there but she left him with only a promise. Later.
Delilah steeled herself to rap her knuckles on Britta’s door. Britta was only an ex-girlfriend by way of magic, not by love, but she still felt like she was entering enemy territory.
The door swung open and a gorgeous blond poked her head out, her arms wrapped around her voluptuous chest. She wore the safest implants that ever existed…because they didn’t exist. It was all a glamour. Delilah used to be able to see right through it if she unfocused her vision as if she were trying to find a hidden image in a Magic Eye painting.
“I need your help.” The words felt weak coming from Delilah’s lips. She wasn’t a damsel in distress. She was practically a superhero. And here she was, one step below begging someone. If Britta refused, she’d resort to it.
“I know. Cole called me.” Britta crossed her arms. “I’m doing this for him. Not you.”
Delilah winced. “Noted.”
Britta glared at Delilah for another second before stepping aside to let her enter. “But I’m not powerful enough to do anything that could penetrate the wards at the Golden Leaf.”
Delilah grinned at the woman who’d altered her appearance for the last six months through the use of magic without breaking a nail. Usually glamours faded after a few months or made the user weak. But Britta had been performing other spells on the side. “I think you are.” She took a deep breath. “But you need all the energy you can get.”
Britta’s long flashes fluttered over her electric blue eyes. “I was afraid you’d say that.” She removed a ring with giant geode from her index finger and placed it on her coffee table. Her lips moved in a quiet spell until her blond hair and long legs flickered like a hologram before fading out completely. The facade left behind a short, heavy-set woman with soulful brown eyes, dark hair that crested her chin, and the same button nose from before. Delilah let out a breath. Britta may have felt beauty came only in the form of a traffic-stopping Supermodel, but to Delilah, Britta looked amazing like this. This was real beauty.
Britta tugged at her clothes, roving her arms over her chest and legs in an attempt to cover herself up the old fashioned way.
Delilah reached over and placed Britta’s hands at the sides, then smiled. “Own it. You look better now than before.”
“Wait, I almost forgot.” Britta uttered another spell and then suddenly squinted in the room. She fumbled into furniture until she pulled open a drawer and unearthed a pair of cat eye glasses. “I also performed my own version of Lasik.” Britta cracked her neck from side to side. “Wow, I feel much…lighter.”
“I hope that’s true,” Delilah said, grabbing a few supplies from Britta’s kitchen and dumping them into a tote. “Because we have to be as light an invisible as air.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
COLE
Of course the final table included victory rolls Naomi Barker, debonair sunglasses Eli Furst, and fucking Derek Hamel. Of course. There were a few other guys gracing the final table as well, but Cole didn’t hold any grudges against them. Yet.
On TV, poker tournaments seemed glamorous. Guys wearing their Sunday worst in the form of lucky t-shirts, sunglasses indoors, and caps slung low to hide their eyes, sat at a table, earning millions by staying silent except for a few calls and raises. It was the ultimate lazy man’s way to a million, which was the pot for tonight’s first place spot. But in reality, poker tournaments involved a lot of standing around and waiting.
Make-up artists flitted about the room, dabbing contestants with powder to prevent shiny faces on camera. Producers sidled up to each contestant, offering them a friendly reminder of all the things they were hoping to get out of each one. For Cole that meant playing up his rivalry with Derek, something the keen eye of the cameras had already picked up on and exploited, despite the fact that Derek and Cole hadn’t even been placed at the same table until now. Technicians set up lighting, Production Assistants looked like they were about to cry as they carted the thousandth coffee to the someone who demanded it.
The contestants were supposed to stay quiet, keep apart, but poker was all about bending the rules. And so Derek sidled up next to Cole, the wicked grin on his face announcing his douchiness before the words even left his mouth. “So. Final table. We meet again.”
Cole’s jaw clenched. He faced a choice. Retort or retreat. He’d been enjoying the silence, the chance to keep his composure steady, breathe in and out, and concentrate on only the next step in front of him: sitting down at the table. After that, it would be as simple as peering at his hole cards. Taking a chip off his pile and tossing it in the center. When he broke it up into bite-sized chunks, it seemed manageable. It seemed like thousands of lives weren’t riding on his every play.
Derek raised a brow, the corners of his lips quirking at Cole’s silence.
Cole sighed. He shouldn’t engage. But he couldn’t help himself. “You know what they say. History repeats.”
“Oh?” Derek waved over one of the make-up artists and closed his eyes, leaning forward so she could touch him up a little more. “If I recall,” Derek said, dragging out this burn, making Cole wait for it, as the artist touched up his foundation. “If history has any say, you’ll be losing. Seems to be your signature move.”
Cole’s hands curled into fists and he stalked away before Derek could call his bluff. Before his old friend managed to rattle him with a few choice words aimed directly into his gut.
He landed next to Naomi Barker and Eli Furst, who was practically gagging as Naomi let out a loud giggle that made her breasts wobble. She found every excuse to touch Eli, either by tapping him to tell him something not-so-interesting, or to swipe a speck of dust off his jacket, and once for no reason, she randomly ran a long red-lacquered nail down his pecs. Eli stood there, stiff and stoic, doing his best to ignore her. His eyes locked on the clock and his mouth moved in a whispered prayer to please fucking begin already. Cole joined in on that request.
Finally, the producers led the contestants to the table, cameras wheeling out of the way to capture every swing of the contestant’s hips. No doubt there were commentators sitting in a room, already analyzing their gaits for clues to psyche. Choosing a seat was the first step toward winning. Who you sat to the left of mattered because the person to your left almost always played a hand before you. The only exception was when it was your turn to lead. Usually Cole tried to place himself to the left of the most aggressive player, so he could decide whether to call or fold after they had placed their bet. Eli was aggressive, sure, but no one was more of a loose cannon than Derek. The reason Derek was so good was because he never played two games the same way. Sometimes he’d fold every hand and play very conservatively until he could take the entire pot in one single bet. Sometimes he played like a maniac, raising every single handle to force every other player to fold. Sometimes he played in between, switching it up nearly every hand. He was unpredictable. He was who Cole needed on his left.
The other players stood around, all eyeing each other, waiting for someone to make the first move. There were two guys Cole didn’t know much about aside for the nicknames he’d coined for them in his own mind: Mustache thanks to, well, the Salvador Dali replica marring his face, and Creature thanks to the guy’s wild hair and wild eyes. Mustache and Creature sat first, going down right next to each other, side by side. Derek followed suit, choosing to sit to Mustache’s left with a devious grin on his face as if he’d already won.
Cole jerked to attention and scrambled for the seat beside Derek, but Eli was closer. Faster. He slinked into the seat and winked at Cole.
Cole stifled his growl and headed for the seat beside Eli, deeming it second best. Second choice. But Naomi thwarted him this time, practically diving for the seat and re-adjusting her breasts onto the table after she was comfortably in place.
Fuck all of them. Cole slumped into his seat and glared at the lot of them. Naomi was the worst person to sit to the left of. S
he played with her heart—and her cards—on her sleeve. The game hadn’t even started yet and Cole felt like he was losing. Losing the game. Losing his cool. Every time he tried to stay calm, a thought popped in his mind like bubbles fizzing throughout his body: Delilah. What she was doing was risky. What he was doing was risky. As the dealer passed out two cards to every player, Cole clutched them in his fingertips, cringing to even look at them. There was too much riding on them.
Every player around him took the briefest peek at their cards, barely lifting them up a centimeter. Cole took note of their reactions. Debonair’s breath stilled, his old trick he loved to use to fool people into a later bluff. Cole looked past that and noticed his lip twitched. Ever so slightly. Almost imperceptibly. He’d bet Debonair had a good hand. Naomi sucked in a breath and grinned at the table. This was her move. She pretended to play like an amateur, a silly girl who squealed at every pair of twos, but it was all a ploy. The low cut shirts. The victory rolls and heavy cat eyeliner. It was all part of her act to get the other players to write her off as someone not worth paying attention to. But she always held herself a little too still, a little too stiff when she had a good hand, and right now she was loose and rigid, knocking into Eli with her shoulder and grinning wildly at him. Derek showed no reaction to his cards. He barely even glanced at them. He simply resumed glaring at Cole right after peering at them.
Cole tried not to shudder under Derek’s patronizing gaze. Sucking in a breath, he peeked at his own cards. Jack of Spades. Four of Clubs. Meaningless now and the flop changed nothing with its Three of Spades, Three of Hearts, and Four of Spades. Two pair for everyone at the table. Hooray. The blinds started with Derek, and he immediately raised the pot. Eli called, as did Naomi. Cole folded. He had nothing and he was pretty sure Eli had something. Cole wasn’t willing to wait for the turn or the river on the first hand to try. Everyone else called and the turn came. Seven of Spades.
Derek raised again, more aggressively this time. Eli called. Naomi called, grinning at Eli as she did so like she wanted him to be impressed. But the guy next to Cole wasn’t as conservative, he gave everyone a sly grin and then threw all his chips into the center of the ring. “All in,” he said.
The crowd went wild. Even the producers sat up straighter. No one ever went all in on the first hand. It was idiocy. It was a power move.
The second guy next to Cole folded. Derek had a decision, call or fold. He pushed out his cheek with his tongue and threw in the towel, his jaw shifting in annoyance at losing so much so fast. Mustache raised a brow, waiting for the others to chicken out so he could take the entire pot. But Eli pushed all his chips in. “Call.” He stood from the table and paced behind his chair, interlocking his hands behind his head.
Naomi bit her lip, glancing at the chips on the table and back at her face down cards. With a reluctant sigh, she folded.
“Show your cards,” the dealer said. Mustache proudly flipped his over, revealing two more threes to make four of a kind. The crowd whooped and hollered.
Eli stopped pacing and knocked over his cards, keeping his face void of emotion even though he already knew the result. He’d won with a straight flush from the Three of Spades to Seven of Spades. Mustache’s entire face dropped. He was out. After only one hand.
The game continued on this way with Derek playing like a maniac, aggressively raising each and every hand and forcing the others to fold if they had nothing to go battle against him in a showdown with. Naomi played the fish, copying everything Eli did, whether it was raising or folding or calling. Each time she made the same move as him and grinned at him like she’d just done something great, he glared at her, becoming more and more agitated, shifting in his seat. Creature got eliminated next, flaming out not in an all-in battle but because he simply lost all his chips in slow bets without winning any hands.
“That was a shock,” Derek said as he threw down the blind for the next hand but didn’t stop glaring at Cole. “Not one but two people out before you.”
Cole hid his gritted teeth behind a grin. “Well, it wouldn’t be any fun if I played predictably, would it?”
“Ha!” Naomi let out a seal bark of a guffaw, grabbing onto Eli’s shoulder to steady herself, as if she might lose her balance from the sheer hilarity happening around her.
Eli shrugged her off and lifted up his new cards, his jaw clicking into place. No lip twitch, a bad hand.
Cole’s cards held an Ace of Hearts and a Jack of Clubs, but the flop contained three numbered cards of little consequence to him. He continued with his gritted smile, letting it hide his visceral reaction to the cards.
“And you two.” Derek turned to Naomi and Eli, shaking his head at them. “I’ve never seen such a will-they-won’t-they where everyone in the entire world hopes they don’t.”
“Including me,” Eli mumbled under his breath, his first words uttered in the entire competition. Eli threw down a bet.
Naomi scoffed and called Eli’s bet, earning another glare from him.
Cole called as well, planning to bluff his way through while the others were distracted. Delilah, he thought. He’d been trying not to think of her in this very moment but he needed something to distract him from the guy that was trying to jar everyone.
“That’s not what I heard.” Derek called as well. The crowd sucked in eager breaths and Cole saw several people moving closer to the edge of their seats. “I heard you act much different to her in the bedroom.”
“Yeah,” Naomi said. “He’s actually willing to touch me there.” She traced her nail down Eli’s forearm. Cole blinked. She’d actually managed to seduce him? He acted as if he was repulsed by her. But maybe he just wanted to keep the competition from finding out they were together…lest they think they were working together.
The turn held another eight card, a pair on the table, ripe for the taking. Naomi grinned at Eli, clearly waiting for his play so she could call it. Eli raised his eyebrow slightly above his sunglasses in challenge. He raised by two thousand. The crowd gasped. Naomi raised by another two thousand.
Cole folded. Whatever game these two were playing, he wouldn’t get in the middle of it. Even Derek, who had raised on almost every bet, placed his cards face down on the table.
Eli had a choice. Call. Fold. Instead he raised yet again, this time to one hundred thousand.
Naomi pushed her chips in, plus another fifty thousand. She squinted at Eli’s pile and added a few more. “Raising another fifty six thousand.”
Eli hands clenched on the edge of the table and his breath stilled. The audience collectively gasped. Even Cole leaned closer. Eli only had fifty six thousand left in chips.
He had to go all in. There was no other choice. No other decision. If he folded now, he’d be out by too much. He’d have no way to come back.
Naomi leaned back in her seat and raised a challenging brow at Eli. Cringing, he pushed his chips in and flipped over his cards. A Two of diamonds and a Jack of hearts. That gave him a pair of eights with a Jack high.
Eli leaped from the chair and paced behind the table, hands interlocked behind his head. Naomi flipped over her cards. A pair of Aces.
Eli gaped. Naomi batted her eyelashes.
“But!” He gasped out. But he thought she was bluffing. Cole had thought so too by the way her mouth parted ever so slightly whenever she had a good hand. She’d turned over a number of cards that all proved the theory. But it had all been a long game. The same one Eli had played on Cole years ago.
Eli punched the wall on his way out of the arena.
“And then there were three,” Derek said. “Which is something I hear you’re familiar with Naomi?”
She grinned at him. “Damn straight. I’m an ace at cards and an ace off the table as well.” She pursed her lips. “Well, on it too.”
Cole played conservatively through the next few hands as Derek bet more aggressively, slowly piling almost all of Naomi’s chips onto his. Her fish strategy didn’t work on him because he continue
d to raise and raise until both Cole and Naomi were forced to fold. He had enough of an advantage that he could see every hand through. And he did. Until Naomi went out the same way Eli had: in a failed bluff.
Cole stared down his opponent. His enemy. He was down about three hundred thousand to Derek’s pot. The blinds were too high to continue the conservative play. Cole had to act and act soon. So he abandoned all his usual strategies. The only thing he could rely on now was luck. And maybe his wits. And possibly his hearing to suddenly fail because Derek kept lambasting him with threats.
Cole tried not to react when another good hand in a row landed in his lap. A Queen of Spades and a Seven of Hearts. And the turn revealed another Queen, another seven, but also a Jack. Two pair, right off the bat.
“Sorry about siccing Britta on you.” Derek wrinkled his nose before upping the chip ante. “Well, actually I’m not. I’m only sorry that she couldn’t help me.”
“No one can, it seems.” Cole glanced at the cards and at the chips in his hand. The blind made the hand even. If he pushed his chips in, Derek had no choice but to fold or go all in as well. One of them would win. One of them would walk away with nothing. He was about to do it when he chickened out. Instead he only raised by a measly five thousand. It was chump’s change at this point. It was a cop out.
“Oh, but someone can.” Derek tapped his cards. “Someone already did.” He pushed the rest of his chips into the center, stealing the crazy move Cole was just about to play. “You wanted to know where I was. Now you do.”
Cole’s spine stiffened. Derek had sought out Britta to find a magical way to give him an edge into this competition. She’d failed but maybe someone else hadn’t. That person had found a way to amp Derek’s luck by way of magic that went undetected in Kendrick’s sensors. Fuck. It all made sense. Why he was betting like a maniac: because he had nothing to lose, quite literally.
