The woman wins the hand, and I watch my hundred dollars slide away across the green table.
I’ve played a hand now—I can go. I should go. But I’ve caught the bug . . . and I want to win.
Reluctantly I slide another black hundred-dollar chip across the table. I’ve purchased more tokens than I can really afford. I watch the woman slide forward two rounds of orange plastic, which I’ve learned are called “pumpkins”—each represents one thousand dollars. My knees quiver at the thought of losing so much money. The man offers up a pumpkin and a barney, a purple token worth five hundred.
I look at my lonely black chip. As if possessed by someone else, my hand slides four more little black pieces across the table. Five hundred dollars, and I’ve already lost a hundred.
I blanch when I realize what I’ve done, but it’s too late. And even though the idea of losing that much money makes me feel sick, the risk is . . . exciting. Yes, exciting.
It washes over everything else that I feel, tinting those thoughts a vivid, rosy pink.
The dealer places a card faceup in front of me, then repeats the gesture for the man, the woman, and himself, though his card faces down. The circuit goes around once more.
When he gestures to me, I’m distracted, looking at my cards. Is that . . .
I don’t immediately understand when the dealer says the magical word. “Blackjack.”
I very nearly groan aloud, thinking that he must mean one of the other two. But wait . . . the woman has a four and a seven. The man has a jack and a queen . . . a great hand, but not an automatic blackjack.
Slowly I look down at my cards. Lying on the felt before me are the glossy faces of a jack and an ace. A jack is ten, and an ace can be an eleven or a one.
Holy shit. I’ve hit blackjack.
The dealer slides my five hundred in chips back to me, plus another five hundred. I’ve won four hundred dollars, on top of getting back the five hundred that I had bet to begin with. It’s not a large amount, not at all, but winning it feels absolutely glorious.
“Congratulations, sweetheart.” The health-club man grins at me salaciously. I smile back, too excited to care about his leer, and contemplate playing again, just once more.
And then, although I can’t explain why, my gaze is drawn up. Across the casino floor, up high, is an ornate balcony, almost like what I imagine you would see in an opera house. It offers an unfettered view of the entire casino floor.
Standing up there, his arms braced on the balcony, is Alex Fraser. He is watching me intently, and when my eyes connect with his I can feel my heart rate speed up to double time.
His shirt sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, his tie loosened. It’s like getting a look at the more casual side of him, the one who has let that controlling persona, the one with the answers, slip just a bit.
He nods at me solemnly, the whisper of a smile around his lips. Flustered, I look back the chips that I have clutched in my suddenly sweaty palms. Moments later my gaze is drawn back up. Alex winks at me, just the tiniest movement, before his face returns to normal, as if we just shared a joke that no one else can know.
“Do you know who that is?” I mumble this to the man who has leaned in closer than I’d like. I gesture with my head toward the balcony. I had hoped he would be subtle, but the man next to me turns and stares, unabashed.
I can feel myself blushing furiously.
The man beside me leans back in, far too close. I can smell scotch on his breath, as well as the stench of cigarette smoke and sweat.
“That’s Alex Fraser. Bloody Irishman. Owns the place.” My mouth falls open as the enormity of the statement hits me.
He owns the casino? Alex Fraser owns the whole entire casino?
The man chooses that moment to place his hand over my own. It’s clammy and tugs at my skin. I barely hide a shudder before pulling away.
“I can take care of you just as well as that fucker.” I am appalled at the man’s choice of language, and am reeling a bit at the knowledge that Alex owns the casino. No wonder he could afford to buy a seventy-year-old bottle of wine.
“I . . . I think I’m going to go freshen up.” I extract my hand from beneath the other man’s, and know that the first thing I’ll do in the ladies’ room is scour the flesh that he touched with soap and hot water. I gather my chips, the little stack a satisfying weight in my hand. As I step away from the table, I dare to take another look up at the balcony, to see if Alex is still there.
He’s there all right, and he is scowling at me. No, not scowling, glowering. After a shock runs through my body—what did I do?—I realize that he’s not glaring at me at all, but at the man whose sweat still stains my palm.
Surely . . . could he be . . . he’s not mad that the man touched me? I shake the thought out of my head.
I don’t really know Alex Fraser at all, nor does he know me. I still don’t know why he introduced himself to me in the casino bar, and I probably won’t ever know. But I do know that he can’t possibly care who touches me.
As I scurry across the casino floor to the door marked Ladies, I reflect that even if he did care, he really doesn’t have anything to worry about.
I haven’t been touched, not that in that way, for a very long time.
I think of the wink as I walk, and it hits me out of nowhere. He arranged for me to win. How dare he? He might have been thinking that he was doing me a favor, but he has just undermined my entire experience. I don’t feel as if I can cross this item off of my bucket list anymore—it wasn’t real.
I want to go up there and yell, which is strange, because I never yell. No, I swallow my feelings, bury them inside.
I look over my shoulder, one more glance at the balcony before I enter the ladies’ room. I wonder if I can signal somehow that I need to talk to him, convey to him that what he just did upset me. Not that he will care, but I feel driven to do so anyway.
Also, I want just one more look at the man, the beautiful creature who has perplexed me so.
I catch sight of the back of him, walking away from the balcony. I also see a wisp of golden hair, not so different in color from my own, vanishing from the balcony in front of him. Someone else was up in that balcony with him, someone whom I didn’t see. He has followed that person back inside.
He is gone, and I will never see him again.
***
Click here for more books by this author
Lauren Jameson is a writer, yoga newbie, knitting aficionado, and animal lover who lives in the shadows of the great Rocky Mountains of Alberta, Canada. She’s older than she looks—really—and younger than she feels—most of the time. She has published with Avon and Harlequin as Lauren Hawkeye and writes contemporary erotic romance for NAL. Visit her online at www.laurenjameson.com and www.laurenhawkeye.com.
Surrender to Temptation
Part I: Tempted to Submit
Part II: Tempted to Rebel
Part III: Tempted to Obey
Part IV: Tempted to Entice
Part V: Tempted to Reveal
Surrender to Temptation Part V: Tempted to Reveal Page 6
