The Billionaire From Las Vegas

by Cj Howard

  “Yes, sir,” the man said, nodding. He stepped back out of the room, and Benjamin prepared for the meeting ahead of him. He smiled slightly to himself. Shawn Stevenson had been more than ready to tell him how good his daughter was, how willing she would be to settle the matter between the two of them. He’d shown Benjamin a picture of his daughter, Claire, and the woman that Ben had seen, even in the fairly conservative dress she’d been wearing to celebrate her college graduation, was definitely promising—tall and slim, but with lush hips and strong thighs. Her deep tawny skin almost glowed, and her hair—down to her shoulders—had been in thick, intricate braids. One way or another, if she’s as interested as her Dad says in getting him off the hook, she can be of use, Benjamin thought. He checked the time—she had another fifteen minutes to arrive at his door, or he would send someone to escort her up.

  He’d put her in the least expensive top-tier room the casino boasted, the Prestige, out of a sense of businesslike courtesy and because he wanted her to be as amenable to a deal as possible. Shawn, of course, had less salubrious conditions; he was safe, but the room he was staying in until Claire corrected the situation was not nearly as nice, being the most basic accommodation. His room was also being guarded by some of Benjamin’s own people, to make sure the older man didn’t try something stupid like attempting an escape.

  Benjamin rose from his chair and got ready for Claire’s arrival, stepping across the office to the little bar and gathering up a few refreshments for her. He was, in spite of his nouveau-riche status, a man who believed in the old fashioned courtesies. He might have business-related troubles with Claire’s father, but he was, after all, civilized.

  He would put the woman up in a nice suite, he would offer her a drink when she arrived, and if things went well, he would even take her to dinner to confirm their agreement. Everything had been planned from the moment his people had heard Claire confirm that she would come to help her father out—all that remained was to wait and see how the woman herself responded, how she reacted to the situation. Shouldn’t be too hard to make a deal with her—you’re holding all the power cards.

  Just when he was about to call his guard into the room and have him send someone down for Claire, there was a knock at the door, and it opened just enough for the guard to peek his head into the office. “She’s here,” the man said.

  “Let her in,” Benjamin told him. He sat down at his desk and watched the door swing open, into the office. The woman who stepped through it was even more beautiful than the picture he’d seen. She was wearing sensible heels, which not only served to make her taller but also subtly emphasized the curves of her body, along with a simple A-line dress in an olive shade that made her tawny-brown skin almost glow.

  Her braids were neat, pulled back from her oval-shaped face to hang past her shoulders. She looked absolutely immaculate, and Benjamin was certain she’d used every second she’d had since she’d arrived at the hotel ensuring she didn’t show a single sign of her early-morning flight.

  His guard closed the door behind her, and Claire approached the desk, looking utterly confident. Benjamin had to admit that he was impressed. Not many women would show up for a meeting such as this looking like that—she might well have been there to make a deal with him on her own terms, instead of to salvage what she could of her father’s life, livelihood, and liberty.

  “Mr. Minken?” Claire raised an eyebrow as she stopped just short of the chair on the other side of his desk.

  “That is me, yes,” Benjamin confirmed. He rose to his feet and extended his hand to her. “And I assume you’re Claire Stevenson.”

  “I am,” Claire agreed.

  “Have a seat,” Ben suggested. “Would you like something to drink before we get started? I have some liquor, wine, water…” He gestured to the array he’d set up on his desk.

  “Water would be fine,” Claire said, and Benjamin extended the sealed bottle towards her.

  “We have a difficult situation to resolve between us, Claire,” Ben said, seating himself once more. “I suppose your father has given you some idea of it?”

  “Some idea, but I suspect he might have downplayed things,” Claire said. She broke the seal on the bottle with a decisive movement, twisting the cap, and Benjamin noticed that her hands were beautiful—nails trimmed and polished, just long enough to be fashionable but practical at once, the skin there in just as good shape as on her face.

  “I suspect so, too,” Benjamin said. He took a bottle of water for himself and sat back. “The fact of the matter is he’s deeply in debt. I suspect in greater debt than he led you to believe.”

  “What kind of debt are we talking about here?” Claire sipped her water and set the bottle down, settling into her seat.

  “In purely monetary terms, he owes the casino fifty thousand dollars,” Benjamin told her matter-of-factly.

  “How is that even possible?” Claire stared at him in shock, and Benjamin wondered just how much her father had downplayed the situation, making her think it wasn’t as bad as it was.

  “He was extended credit twice,” Benjamin said. “It’s a courtesy we provide to our regulars who are high rollers.” Shawn Stevenson had a tendency to win in streaks, and when the casino had offered him credit, he’d been on a hot tear—it had been a reasonable investment. “Not only that, but he damaged casino property in trying to find something to get himself off the hook for the money.” The briefest of cringes flashed across Claire’s face, and Benjamin felt a moment’s sympathy for the young woman. It was obviously not the first time that her father had humiliated her like that.

  “So he owes you fifty thousand dollars,” Claire said, and Benjamin could hear the effort she took to keep her voice level.

  “As well, he owes us personal services,” Benjamin told her. He could almost—almost—feel badly for the woman.

  “Personal services?” Claire looked skeptical at this. Benjamin shrugged.

  “When he was riding high he put several of them on his tab with us—and now that he’s in the red…”

  “What kind of personal services?” Claire scowled.

  “Massages, companionship—that sort of thing,” Benjamin replied. Claire closed her eyes for a moment.

  “So what, exactly, do you expect me to do?” She opened her eyes and met his gaze levelly. “There is no way that I can pay off fifty thousand dollars—not all at once. I don’t even know how I could repay ‘personal services’.”

  “Your father suggested that if you couldn’t come up with the money yourself, you might be willing to make an arrangement with the casino,” Benjamin explained. “You could work with me, for six months to a year, and pay everything off for him.” Claire stared at him for a moment, utterly silent.

  “How is it that you can’t just make him pay you back through labor?” She crossed her arms over her chest, and Benjamin felt a little heat course through his bloodstream. She was defiant, even when she was in a more or less helpless position. Can’t fault her for nerve, Benjamin thought.

  “He doesn’t have any relevant skills,” Benjamin replied. “He could work it off—but he would take too long working it off as a janitor or something like that, and, as I’m sure you understand, we can’t have him in any positions in the casino.”

  Claire pressed her lips together. “Yeah that would sort of defeat the purpose, in the long run,” she agreed grudgingly.

  “So your options as they stand right now are to pay us the fifty thousand and find a way to reimburse us for personal services or pledge yourself to work for me for at least six months in order to pay back what your father owes.”

  Claire nodded slowly. “And how long would I have to decide?”

  Benjamin shrugged. “Your father is being held here in the casino until we have some form of arrangement for his debt,” he told her. “You can take as long as you want—but the longer you take, the more interest accrues on his debt. It began from the time you were informed of his situation, and it compounds dai
ly until the first payment.” Claire cringed, and Benjamin knew the woman was well and truly trapped—and that she knew it. There was no way she would be able to come up with fifty grand; he’d figured out enough to know that if she had that kind of money, she would have just wired it, if she intended to help her father that way.

  “What exactly would I be doing to work it off?”

  Benjamin resisted the temptation to lick his lips. “You would work directly under me,” Benjamin said. “You would abide by the dress code I set you.”

  “I am already not liking the sound of this,” Claire told him wryly.

  “It’s nothing you’d be all that scandalized to wear to any other job,” Benjamin told her. He smiled slightly.

  “What kind of work would it be?”

  Benjamin sat back slightly in his chair. “You’d be a very involved personal assistant,” he told her. “You’d be at my side throughout any business dealings I have, including meals I have with associates.” Claire started to frown, but then the inscrutable, neutral mask came over her features again.

  “So how am I supposed to live for six months to a year while I pay this off for him?” Claire crossed her arms over her chest. “I can’t just leave my job—and my paycheck—to pay off his debt, with no income of my own. I don’t have that kind of savings.”

  “If you did, I’m sure you’d pay his debt off for him—or at least a substantial chunk of it—without even coming into town to discuss it,” Benjamin agreed. He looked at her for a long moment, thinking about how to handle the situation as delicately as possible. While prostitution was legal in Vegas, he was not about to turn this woman into a prostitute—even if the idea of having her at his disposal, for his own personal uses, was tempting.

  Images of Claire, dressed in the skimpiest of lingerie, seated in his office waiting for him, flitted through his mind. God, to have her like that… to have her right there constantly… He shook the idea out of his mind.

  “So how do you expect me to live while I’m paying his debt off?”

  Benjamin helped himself to a sip of water to cool himself down. Maybe he was wrong to approach Claire that way—after all, he had gone years without the distraction of a beautiful woman by his side at all times. He could just as easily put her in the accounting department, away from him.

  “You could live in the casino—that would cover most of your living expenses—with meals included,” he said. “I would sign off on that.”

  “You expect me to abandon my job, take one as a personal assistant to you… to be available at all hours… for a year?” Claire raised an eyebrow. “And in the meantime I’ll be racking up debt on my credit card for everything except housing and meals.”

  “It depends on how interested you are in taking care of his problem,” Benjamin said with a shrug. The idea he had would be better put to her over dinner—but he needed her in a position to agree to dinner first.

  “What happens if I don’t pay off his debt?”

  Benjamin could imagine that this wasn’t the first time Claire had had to grapple with her father’s problems: the kind of man who went fifty grand in debt over a weekend was the kind of man who had gone almost as badly in debt before, as well as one who’d probably done other humiliating things.

  “He’ll be guilty of fraud,” Benjamin said quietly. “His debt accrued only because he insisted on his ability to pay it off. He’ll be put in prison for at least five years and have a felony on his record—two, actually: fraud and grand larceny.” Benjamin knew that Claire had probably expected him to threaten bodily harm to her father, but he’d found that it was much easier to have the ear of the DA, as well as a few judges in the district, and have those who tried to screw over the casino dealt with through the mechanism of the law.

  “You’d take him to court over this?”

  Benjamin nodded. “You thought I’d say we were going to kneecap him or something?” He smiled at Claire knowingly.

  “Or something,” Claire said.

  Benjamin chuckled. “I’m not that kind of casino owner,” he said. “I am as legitimate as I can be, given the nature of things here.”

  “I see that,” Claire told him.

  “So your options are to pay off his debt with us or see your father imprisoned and permanently disenfranchised via felony convictions,” Benjamin summarized. “Of course, his debt would still remain—so whatever job he was able to get after that, he’d have his wages garnished until the fifty grand was paid off.”

  He paused. “Although—thinking about it—he wouldn’t be at fifty grand anymore at that point, since the interest would continue to accrue. Five years… interest accruing daily… ” He let out a low whistle. “Your father would be in a bad situation, in debt he could never pay off, not for the rest of his life, and then that would go onto his estate.” Benjamin shook his head sadly. “By comparison, all you’d have to do is agree to work for me for the next six months to a year.”

  “Has anyone told you that you’re kind of an asshole?” Claire’s voice was shockingly pleasant for the words she delivered, and Benjamin chuckled.

  “People have told me much worse things about myself than that, and not nearly as pleasantly,” Benjamin replied.

  “How long do I have before you decide to press charges?”

  Benjamin considered that. “You have a week,” he said. “A week during which the interest will continue to accrue daily. As soon as you decide to work for me, the first day you work on my clock will constitute the first payment, and the interest will stop accruing then. Seems only fair.” He smiled again.

  “Yes, very fair,” Claire said dryly.

  The silence spread out between them and for a few moments, Benjamin allowed it to, letting her think through the situation. She would—he was certain—realize how trapped she was. If she didn’t want her father to go to prison and owe money for the rest of his life, she would agree to the deal. It wasn’t, at the end of the day, the worst one she could come up against: there were many in Vegas who would give her much harsher terms.

  Benjamin thought of a few of his peers. At least half of them would pimp her out and make her work off his debt on her back. The other half would have already kneecapped her dad, or crushed his hand—something like that. And they’d still be after her, since he doesn’t have any assets to go after. He wondered if she knew how generous he was being.

  “I think we understand each other,” Benjamin said. “So I’ll let you go for now. But why don’t we meet for dinner? I have a fantastic chef working in the restaurant here and a private dining room for business purposes.”

  “You’re inviting me to dinner?”

  Benjamin grinned. “I figure after a few hours you’ll have figured out any questions you might have for me or any position you might be able to take—I fully expect you to negotiate with me on this.”

  “How am I supposed to negotiate with a threat like this over my head?”

  Benjamin shrugged. “I thought you were an immensely clever woman,” he said. “I would think you’ve negotiated under equally stressful—if different—circumstance before. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

  Claire’s lips pressed together, and it was difficult for Benjamin not to think of those lips—full, beautifully shaped—wrapped around his cock, eagerly sucking him. That is for later. Right now you’re just getting her here… you know you’re not interested in having a woman fuck you because she has to. But if he could get her to agree, of her own free will… Benjamin resisted the urge to lick his lips. There were plenty of things he could think of for them to do together, and having Claire constantly at his side would make it easy, indeed.

  Claire rose to her feet. “I think you’re right,” she said. “Please let me know where to meet you for dinner this evening.”

  “It’ll be at nine,” Benjamin told her. “I’ll have someone come to your room and escort you to the private dining room at eight forty-five, if that’s okay with you?”

  Claire nodded. “I’
ll be ready,” she said.

  Benjamin couldn’t resist another smile. She looked like an Amazon, ready to go into battle, and he knew she would have something interesting to say at their date that night. “I look forward to it,” he told her. “I’ll ask only that you don’t try and leave the city without telling me—at least until you have given me your answer. Your afternoon is free, of course. If you’d like to try your luck in the Casino, you’re welcome to.”

  Claire scowled at him. “I don’t gamble,” she said.

  “Probably for the best, given the circumstances,” Benjamin said. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  Claire nodded again and turned away from him, leaving Benjamin to watch the lovely curves of her body as she strode across the office, toward his door. He glanced at his computer monitor and had an idea. It wouldn’t take more than a few minutes to implement it, and he would be interested indeed to see how Claire reacted. She needs to see that I am not a monster, he thought. And truly—at least in Benjamin’s mind—he wasn’t.

  He was more than willing to be fair with her, but he had to maintain a reputation and a certain level of cred, or in this city, his empire might fall. Even with that need, however, he intended to enjoy himself as much as possible—and he thought that maybe he could get Claire to enjoy herself, too. It would be good to see her smile.

  Chapter2

  Claire tried not to fidget in the deep wine-red dress that hugged her curves as she followed her escort along a hallway. The dress had arrived about an hour and a half before, when she hadn’t quite decided one way or the other how she would handle herself in the proposed dinner with Benjamin. She had spent a few hours since leaving his office trying to wrap her mind around the situation and trying to figure out some way that she could decline his offer—more like a demand—to work for him, while still being able to pay off her father’s debt. It just didn’t seem possible.

  There had been a knock at her door, just as she was beginning to get ready for dinner, and the woman standing on the other side, holding the dress box from Barney’s, had looked sharp and professional. Her brown hair had been pulled back in a no-nonsense bun, and her skirt-suit, which was black with a cream-colored shell, was perfectly tailored to her slim body.