“I didn’t realize we were expecting guests,” I say.
My mother looks at me with disdain. “I told you last week and again this morning.”
“I’ll run upstairs and change,” I offer.
“You look beautiful just the way you are.” Alex steps in and kisses me on the cheek. “And you’re ahead on the drinks,” he whispers.
“Yes, that’s right. You look beautiful,” Herbert says, staring at my tits.
Alex’s father has had multiple liaisons and makes the gossip columns regularly. Yuck!
We sit at the table, and Hazel pours me a glass of water. She must know I got the bottle of wine.
Alex sits next to me, and our parents sit next to each other across the table from us. “So, tell us, how did it go with Veronique today?” my mother prompts.
I nod. “I finalized the roses for my bouquet, and she did another round of measurements.”
My mother grins. “I told her you were on a diet so she should check.”
I feel my face heat.
“She’s perfect just the way she is.” Alex’s father gives me a lecherous grin as he stares at my tits again.
I don’t know what to say to that. I squirm in my seat.
Hazel reappears and sets down a pear and Gorgonzola salad with my favorite candied pecans. I’m starved.
“Is that on her diet?” my mother asks.
“Yes, ma’am. She’s fine.” Hazel winks at me, and I dig in.
Dinner is a parade of snarky comments, and Herbert continues to stare at my tits. I swear he even licks his lips while we go through their plans. My mother giggles like a schoolgirl with Alex’s dad, and I’m grossed out.
When dinner is over, Alex and I excuse ourselves to my room.
“I hope you wear a condom,” his father calls.
“Oh, she’s on birth control,” my mother assures him.
Alex turns a shade of green.
“We can run away,” I tell him as I flop down on my bed.
“If only it was that easy,” he says.
“Do you really want to go through with this?” I ask.
“It’s not like we have a choice.”
Chapter 9
Jonathan
After a busy couple of weeks, a high-stakes Texas Hold’em poker tournament is exactly what I need to distract me. It’s Saturday, and the players are scheduled to arrive today for the weekend. I’m most excited to hang out with Christopher again. Maybe I’ll find a way to bring up Maggie in conversation and get his take on her situation without tipping my hand.
I’m also just looking forward to watching them play. When money isn’t the object, winning comes from outthinking some of the most strategic minds of our time, and it’s inspiring. Plus, I figure they’ll be bragging about their investments, and I’ll be taking notes. Geniuses—all of them.
They should be here any time now, and we’ve got the poker room all set up. It’s private and easy for security to keep would-be onlookers out.
I spot Gillian getting everything organized. “Are we all set?”
“Yep. I have Frannie at table one and Laura at table two. The players can figure out who they want to sit with on their own. Donna is at the bar, and Michael and Wendy are here to make sure anything they need or want is within reach.”
“Perfect. Last time they did this, I watched a player take the majority share of an up-and-coming startup and end up making millions.”
Finn was thankfully only an investor and laughed it off when he lost.
“I remember,” Gillian says with a laugh. “Like Nate Lancaster needed any more money.”
A little while later, I begin greeting everyone as they arrive, and we all drink expensive Scotch and enjoy catching up. It’s easy to understand why they relish times like this to get together. This is a rare opportunity for them to catch up without the swarming chatter of fans surrounding them. Many have brought spouses or significant others, and a few already hang out together, like Christopher’s wife, Bella, and Nate’s wife, Cecelia. But others are more just ornaments—like Jackson’s girlfriend. She’s obviously spent a lot of time with a plastic surgeon. I’m not sure she can close her lips with all the collagen. And her tits are big and don’t point down.
I walk over to Bella and kiss her cheek. “So glad to have you back.”
“Where’s my love?” Cecelia teases.
“Right here.” I open my arms wide, and she walks in for a hug and a kiss on both cheeks.
“Someone’s trying to snake your wife out from under you,” Jackson Graham calls to Nate. Jackson has a progressive environmental startup that seems to be making money faster than they can print it, as my father would say.
Gillian helps everyone get settled and makes sure their needs are being met. These are her whales, and by the end of the tournament she’ll probably clear six figures in tips—which she’ll graciously share with her team.
As the players sit down, there’s an empty spot.
“Jonathan, we’re short a player until Landon arrives,” Walker Clifton says. “You can use his money. Care to join us?”
I laugh. “Are you sure? I don’t want to be responsible for bankrupting him.”
Walker slaps the seat next to him. “Park it here. Go ahead. Go all in on a shitty hand and he’ll learn not to take a business call. Or you could pony up yourself. I wouldn’t mind owning this beautiful resort.”
I laugh, but that will never happen. I’ve worked too hard to lose everything in a poker game. “You wouldn’t want the headache and lack of social life that comes with it,” I assure him.
The room erupts in laughter, and I allow myself to ease into the game. The flop saves me on the first hand, and I actually win.
“Looks like the house may be rigging it,” Mia Couture teases. She owns a lucrative data mining company that’s often on the wrong side of federal regulators. But I don’t think it’s her fault that people put everything on the internet.
“Pure luck,” I tell her.
We play two more hands, and I lose everything I’d won. Landon returns and seems content to watch me play, but I don’t want the stress of losing someone else’s money. I get up and show him to his chair.
“Thank you for sitting in for me,” he says. “I appreciate the help.”
I nod. “You’re even. I won once and lost the last two.”
He clasps his hands together and cracks his knuckles. “Ladies and gentlemen, I just agreed to the sale of my prize company, and I’m now six billion dollars richer. I’m in this game to win it.”
The room crackles with energy. Christopher grins at me and shakes his head. We both know that for several at the table, the game just got a heck of a lot more expensive. But a few million dollars isn’t much to these high rollers.
This is a different world than mine. Christopher is easily a billionaire, and while he inherited his starter money from his grandfather, he’s worked hard for what he has—which is a booming venture capital company—and he uses his fortune as he pleases for the most part. The rest of his family is fiercely protective of their wealth. They view money as something that brings a level of privilege and entry into the right circles, and there’s an unwritten rule that requires their money to move from generation to generation. They have no patience for people they see as “new money.” This is a huge part of Maggie’s disaster right now.
People like Nate Lancaster who’ve earned their fortune themselves and seem focused on giving much of it away are “new money,” as far as the Reinhardts are concerned, and not to be taken seriously. Nate and Cecelia have a foundation that gives money to schools all over the world to level the playing field in technology. His company also provides dynamic prostheses to landmine survivors, and they’re working in third world countries to eradicate polio. The Lancasters earned their wealth through calculated risks and view it as a gift that needs to be shared. Very different. Maggie’s right that she’s the only one who cares about keeping the Reinhardt Foundation in operation.<
br />
Over the next six hours, Nate loses his private plane and Landon Walsh loses a beautiful piece of property in Aspen. He inherited his billions and plays around with several companies in the tech field. They slowly whittle down to one table of six players, but they’re still going strong.
Christopher bowed out relatively early. He still lost five million dollars, but he assured me his most recent bonus was much larger than that. He said Bella wasn’t crazy about the spend, but she’d told him it was his money.
“Let’s go hang out,” he urges. Watching people—even these people—play poker is not that thrilling after a while.
I nod and lead him to the VIP lounge. There are some gaming tables there, and a few people play twenty-one at two hundred dollars a hand.
Christopher pulls me into a corner to catch up.
“We’re trying hard to have a baby,” he announces. “Don’t get me wrong, I love all the practice, but it’s becoming stressful.”
I crack a smile as I nod. “I don’t feel bad about the practice, but I am sorry it’s not happening as quickly as you’d like.”
“We may see a fertility specialist. We joke that if we were twenty and drug addicts, we’d have no problem getting pregnant.”
I shake my head. “Can you remember sex ed in high school? They made getting pregnant sound so easy.”
“It probably was in those days.” He snorts.
“I remember wearing two raincoats whenever I had sex. I wasn’t taking any chances.”
He laughs. “Remember when you didn’t realize you’d lost one of those raincoats and Tiffany found it later?”
The thought gives me a chill. “Oh, God. That was a mess. She was so stressed she’d end up pregnant, she started to plan our wedding.”
“That’s right! I forgot about the wedding. That thing was huge. Well, at least she made me best man.”
“You’d still be my best man,” I assure him.
There’s a lull in our conversation as I mentally sort through the crazy girls from high school, and Christopher probably does the same.
“So, tell me what’s going on,” he says after a few minutes.
“Not much, really. I’m just trying to take it one day at a time. The Shangri-la is doing fantastic, probably thanks to you. I couldn’t have planned a bigger public relations splash than to have half of Silicon Valley here—along with U2—for your corporate meeting before we were even officially open.”
“I seem to remember you recently said you created this place for a woman.”
I shrink back in my seat. I didn’t mean to let that out of the bag—particularly to him. No one else knows the truth behind the Shangri-la. On the other hand, the thought of Maggie trapped with Alex makes me nauseous. Nothing I say is working, but maybe together, Christopher and I could find a way to get her out of it.
“I did tell you that.” I take a deep breath. “I mean...you know...” He stares at me patiently, and I finally give in. “I’ve loved her from afar for a very long time. She didn’t know, apparently. I’m not the best communicator. But I made design decisions for this place based on what I thought she’d like.”
Christopher grins like a Cheshire cat. “I don’t think a woman has ever had so much power over you. Isn’t it awesome to be in love?”
A real sense of relief washes over me, because it’s taken me a long time to realize that is what I feel for Maggie. “I’ve known for a while she’s the one for me.”
“Great. How are you doing convincing her of that? Did you ever go see her?”
I look down. “No.”
Christopher sits up straight. “What? How is that even possible? You’ve got to be kidding. I know you, man. When you want something, you go after it. What’s holding you back?” He looks around the lounge. “I mean, show her this place. Shower her with flowers and fight for her. If you love this woman half as much as you say you do, don’t give up. Bella tried to run from me, and I fought for her.”
“I’ll think about it.”
He slaps me on the back. “Good. But you’ve been thinking a while now. Might be good to move on to something else. Now, what do you want to do?”
I glance at my watch. “I think your loser college team is playing in the sportsbook.”
“My Tarheels are going to win it all again this year.”
Our conversation then switches to men’s college basketball, and I’m saved before I start babbling that it’s his sister I did all this for.
We walk over to the sportsbook and spend the evening enjoying some drinks and college ball. The Tarheels are slaughtering their opponent. I stop drinking as the second half starts and instead knock back a few waters. When the game ends, it’s after eleven, and I have a morning meeting for breakfast.
“I’m going to head up to my apartment,” I tell Christopher.
“Thanks, man. I’m done myself. Bella texted me she’s back at the room. I should go too.” He takes the last pull of his drink and stands to walk with me.
As we weave our way through the casino and lobby to his room and my apartment, I’m stopped twice by people who recognize me. In both cases, they’re drunk gamblers who want pictures with me. Christopher is a great sport and takes photos that aren’t too bad. But when a drunk woman asks me to sign her chest, I politely decline.
“I didn’t realize I knew a rock star,” Christopher teases.
I laugh. In a different crowd, I’d be invisible. It’s mostly just drunk people who get excited to see me. “I have an early meeting, and then we have a tee time at nine,” I tell him. “Lola must have figured you’d lose the first round, and we’d have a late night.”
“Oh man! That hurts. See if I bring her flowers again.” He chuckles. “She knows us too well.”
“We can meet down here about eight-thirty, and the second round of the tournament starts in the late afternoon. You going to watch how it all shakes out?”
“Ab-so-fucking-lutely,” he says. “I’m pulling for Viviana to take it all.”
I nod as I turn and I walk away. “Text me in the morning when you get going.”
“Sure. I think Bella wants some quality time with me by the pool sometime tomorrow. I can do that in the afternoon before the tournament.”
“She’s seen you naked, right?”
His eyebrow rises.
“Man, you don’t tan,” I explain. “You turn a nice lobster red.”
A grin bursts out, and he pushes my shoulder. “Get out of here. My wife in a bikini is a sight to behold—and you need to stay away. Fuck off.”
I flip him the bird. “See you tomorrow.”
I send Christopher off to his elevator and his wife and decide I should check in at the private poker room before heading to my apartment.
Gillian is there setting up for tomorrow with Vincent, the pit boss.
“How did it end up?” I ask.
“I think everyone is happy. No significantly bruised egos...yet,” she says.
“I’ve got to be honest, boss. These guys throw in some serious shit,” Vincent adds. “I left after the plane and Aspen property changed hands.”
“How bad did it get?” I ask. “I’m always worried they’ll throw in wives, girlfriends, or children. That would get my gaming license pulled if it were to get out.”
“There was talk about nights with women,” Gillian says, shaking her head.
My stomach turns.
“But a nasty look from Nate shut that down.”
“That’s good. That can’t be happening.”
“The bets are getting aggressive, though,” Vincent says. “I suspect we’ll see some pieces of companies exchange hands. A two-hundred-acre ranch in Montana was up for grabs tonight.”
I shake my head in disbelief. Too much money with too little consequence.
“They’re all trying to show who has the bigger dick,” Gillian snarks.
A whiteboard on the wall lists all the players and where they’re sitting money wise. Mia’s ended up after the last ha
nd—she’s at the top of the board and two pieces of property richer, plus the controlling share of a successful electronics company.
“Looks to me like tonight’s winner doesn’t have a dick,” I note.
“I watched her in the last hand. She had some decent cards, but I don’t think she had the best ones. She’s the biggest risk-taker of them all.” Gillian grins. “I aspire to be that woman.”
“Let’s see how it ends up tomorrow,” Vincent warns.
******
When I finally get to my apartment, it’s after midnight. In the quiet, I can hear Christopher’s advice echoing in my head. I need to make a move. No standing back. If I want Maggie in my life, I need to make that clear and fight for her. It’s late, but after I change into more comfortable clothes, I text her anyway.
Me: Hay.
Maggie: Isn’t hay for horses?
I grin. Not only is she up but she’s calling me on my typo. My cock twitches in my boxers. God, I wish she was here. I want to ask her so many questions.
But she’s not here, and based on recent experience, I need to ease into this and somehow gain her trust or she’ll shut down the conversation completely. Maybe instead of arguing, I’ll try to remind her of how I know she feels about me.
Me: I wish you were here.
Maggie: Me, too.
All these delicious thoughts run through my head. I’d love to see her bright blue eyes widen as I push into her.
Me: What are you wearing?
Maggie: Clothes.
I snort. She isn’t going to make this easy. But I’m going to convince her she belongs with me.
Me: You’re making this very hard, you know.
Maggie: We had fun when you were hard... ; ) And I am never easy.
There we go..
House of Cards (Tech Billionaires) Page 7
