by Donya Lynne
No way. I glance down at the five cards in front of me like they’re about to grow legs and walk off. Is he really that good?
“Go ahead,” he says, nodding toward the cards. “Look at them.”
One by one, I pick them up. The first is the queen of hearts. The second is the two of hearts. I reveal three more hearts, including the ace, then lift my gaze unbelievingly to his. “How did you do that?”
A sad grin curves his mouth, and he takes the cards from me and reinserts them into the deck. “I’m that good, Nash.” He says it like he knows I was just thinking whether or not he was. “I can do just about anything with a deck of cards. I can deal out any card you want with only three shuffles and a winning hand to anyone I deem fit to receive it.”
“So you do cheat.” Disappointment creates a heavy ache in my chest. I wanted to believe Max was turning to the good side. That he really is noble. Because if he can do it, it gives me hope I can, too. But if he’s simply going to go from one type of con to another, he hasn’t changed as much as he’s spent the last hour trying to convince me he has.
“I don’t cheat.”
His declaration hits me like one of those tiny rubber reflex hammers doctors use on your knees and elbows, making my whole body bob backward.
“But . . .” I don’t understand. He obviously has the talent to make any card he wants turn up during a deal. What was the point of that whole exercise if he was just going to turn around and tell me he doesn’t cheat?
“Poker is the one honest thing I’ve got in my life, Nash.”
“But the cards . . .” I gesture in front of me like the hand he dealt a moment ago is still there. “You knew what you dealt me.”
“That’s why I only play in tournaments.”
“I don’t understand.”
“In tournaments, there’s a dealer.” His gaze drills into mine. “Don’t you see? I never have to deal the cards in a tournament.”
It takes a few seconds for me to process what he’s saying, and then the light bulb goes on over my head. “Ooohh. So you’re never tempted to cheat.”
He rewards me with a warm smile. “Exactly. With a dealer, fate deals the cards, and I use my skill to win. I don’t want my victories to come with an asterisk beside my name. He won because he cheated.” As he says it, he bends his fingers and brushes them from left to right in front of him like he’s reading a headline. He drops his hand to his lap again. “I want to earn my way to the big tables, Nash. When I finally take my seat at the final table during the World Series of Poker, I want to know I earned my way there.”
“But isn’t poker all about luck?”
He shakes his head. “Luck only gets you so far. Luck can run out. Skill is what gets you back in the game when luck abandons you.” He lowers his gaze to his cards. “I don’t put a lot of stock in luck.” He offers me a self-confident sideways glance. “I’m good enough not to need it.”
The longer he talks, the more the shadows that haunted his face only five minutes ago retreat. Discussing poker seems to bring out a happier side of him.
“What made you start playing?” I ask.
A fond but slightly troubled grin curls his mouth. “Honestly, it was an escape.”
“How so?”
He shrugs. “When I first started pulling cons, it was easy, but after a while, the reality that I was committing a crime began to wear on me. I became increasingly nervous. With each new scam, I was sure my time was about to run out. That any day the feds would show up and arrest me.” He tilts his head deferentially. “For guys like Shaun, whose conscience isn’t as strong as mine, it’s easier to look the other way, but for me, it became a major source of tension. I was stressed all the time. I got these splinter headaches right between my eyes.”—he presses his thumb to the spot right above his nose—“at least once a week.
“Then I started playing poker, and all the tension began to fall away. Poker became my therapy. I couldn’t relax unless I was playing poker, not even after a night of ridiculously hardcore s—” His gaze shoots to mine as he snaps his mouth shut.
My back stiffens. Something about hearing him talk about sex with other women feels a little weird. And not in a good way.
It’s not that I expected him to be a virgin, but after sharing a bed with him, and knowing how I feel being around him, I’d like to think any sex he had before me was horrible by comparison.
“Sex,” I say, filling in the word for him. “It’s okay, Max. I know I’m not the first.” But I wouldn’t mind being his last. If only I could figure out how to do my job and get the guy.
“Yeah, well, you deserve better.”
“No, I don’t.” It might be the most honest thing I’ve said to him.
“Yes, you do.” He takes my hand. “That’s why I’m telling you all this. Because I don’t want to lie to you.” His hand tightens around mine as his eyebrows bunch with determination. “For the first time in my life, I don’t want to lie about who I am and what I’ve done.”
He’s a better person than I am, because all I’ve done since I met him is lie.
I glance down at our joined hands. His fingers are slender but strong, slightly wider at the knuckles. Not the kind of hands used to doing manual labor. Max is accustomed to the finer things. Things his previously criminal lifestyle funded.
My job would be easier if he were a horrible person. If he didn’t want to go legit, I wouldn’t think twice about using him to get what I needed to buy my freedom. Knowing he’s trying to go straight makes this so much harder.
“Back in Del Mar,” he says quietly, squeezing my hand, “about a month ago, I met a woman. She was classy, elegant, everything a proper woman should be.”
My jealousy is quelled only by the sadness I see in his eyes, along with a hint of regret.
“What happened?” I loosely wrap my fingers around his.
“I was paid to approach her. To make sure another man saw me.” He won’t meet my eyes.
“Why?”
He shrugs and glances away, out toward the brown, desert landscape. “I don’t know, but it’s bothered me ever since. I can’t stop thinking about it.” His eyes lose their focus as he gazes into the distance. “Why was I paid? What was the point? Did my actions get her hurt?” He finally refocuses and faces me, searching my eyes as if I can give him answers.
I don’t have any, so I simply stare back, waiting for him to say more.
“Then I met you last night.”
This turn in the conversation comes as a surprise. My heart skips a beat at the way his eyes take me in, dance over my face, and lower to our joined hands.
“You remind me of her,” he says.
“Do I look like her?”
“No. You don’t look like her at all. But you remind me of all the things I saw in her. Good, refined, deserving.”
Oh, how wrong he is. I turn away. It’s hard to hold someone’s gaze when they’re saying such nice things about you, especially when you know you’re not worthy of their praise.
“Max, you barely know me.”
“But I know people, Nash. I know character and body language and vocal inflections. It’s what I do. It’s what I’ve done all my life. I read people. I’m good at it. I can tell when someone’s good and when someone’s bad.” His fingers squeeze mine. “You’re one of the good ones. You’re the kind of woman who makes me want to be a better man.”
Tears well in my eyes. Not because I’m touched by his words. I mean, I am touched. But he’s honored me when I don’t deserve to be commended.
I feel so small. So insignificant. Like a complete fraud. Max doesn’t need a woman like me. He needs one who can be honest with him. One he doesn’t have to be suspicious of. One who doesn’t sneak around his room searching for a microchip containing information on some of the most powerful men in Washington while he’s in the shower.
For all I know, those politicians deserve to be on Max’s hit list. I don’t know who all of them are, but the more I l
earn about Max, the more I’m beginning to believe the congressmen and Washington insiders who want that chip destroyed are way worse than he is.
What does that say about me? In a way, I work for them. Not directly. I work for a liaison, but that liaison has the power to grant me my freedom or dole out more punishment. If I continue this job, I’m no better than the dirty politicians and lobbyists my liaison represents.
“Max, I—”
“Sshh.” Using his thumb, he wipes a tear off my cheek. “I don’t know what it is about you, Nash, but I feel like I know you.” He lets out an uncomfortable chuckle. “I know that sounds cliché and stupid, but it’s the truth. I feel like you and I are . . .” He sighs and looks skyward, a faraway glint sparkling in his eyes. “I don’t know . . . like we’re soulmates or something.”
“Kindred spirits,” I say as another tear drips to my cheek. I swipe it away with my fingertips.
He brings his eyes back to mine. “Yes. Kindred spirits.”
“Is that why you’re telling me all this? About your past, I mean.”
His expression grows tight as if he forgot the reason for pulling me aside in the first place. “Yes.” He lets go of my hand and looks out over the desert. “And now that I have, I understand completely if it’s too much for you and you would rather not take this”—he gestures between us—“any further.”
“Why would I do that?”
His mouth falls open. “Haven’t you heard anything I’ve said?”
“I’ve heard every word.”
“Then why aren’t you running away?”
I cross my arms. “Because I don’t want to.”
He looks at me like I’m insane. “I’ve stolen money from people, Nash. I’ve conned wealthy women out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.” He stares at me as if he expects that to convince me. When it doesn’t, he rakes his fingers through his hair out of frustration. “Nash, come on. I’ve taken millions from the stock market. I’ve made a living off other people’s money. Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Yes, but not enough to make me run.”
“Why not?”
“Because you said you don’t want to live that way, anymore. You said you’re done pulling cons. Were you lying?”
“No.”
“Then what’s the problem?” I sigh and drop my hands into my lap again.
“I’m a fake, Nash. An imposter.”
“Not when you’re playing poker.”
His lips part then snap shut. He seems truly stymied by my response.
With a sigh, I shift closer to him. “Max, you’re not a fake. A fake is someone pretending to be someone he’s not.”
“Haven’t you been listening? That’s exactly what I’ve done for more than half my life. Pretending.” He makes a noise of self-disgust and angles his body away from mine.
“You’re not pretending now.”
He scowls at me. “So? That doesn’t change who I am.”
“Yes, it does.”
“How do you figure?”
“Because if you were still a con man, you’d be lying to me about your past. Or you wouldn’t have brought it up at all.”
“I brought it up because I wanted to be honest with you. I wanted you to know who I am.”
“Who you were.”
He blinks. “What?”
“Who you were, Max. You were a con man. You’re not, anymore. Isn’t that what you just spent the last hour telling me?”
He eyes me suspiciously but still doesn’t look convinced.
“Like I said, I have heard every word you’ve said.” I take his hand. “Haven’t you?” I smooth my palm over the back of his fingers then close both my hands around his. “Max, you’re so determined to see yourself as some kind of monster that you can’t get out of your own way long enough to realize you’ve actually turned into a decent guy. The kind of guy who makes me want to be a better woman.”
As he searches my face in the echo of his own words being thrown back at him, warmth begins to soften his features. The warmth transitions into a glow, which gradually gives way to effervescence.
Then he closes the distance between us and claims my lips with his.
The kiss is filled with gratitude and something more. Vitality. And heat. Pure passion. It awakens my desire the same way it did last night. Full throttle. Like a high-performance engine, my libido accelerates from zero to sixty in three seconds flat.
He breaks the kiss but keeps his face close to mine, his palm warming my cheek, his gaze dancing wildly over my face. He looks like someone who just witnessed a miracle.
“Marry me.” The words rush from his mouth like a warm breeze, whispered in a way that makes me think he didn’t intend to say them out loud.
I blink. Surely, I didn’t hear him right. “What?”
His gaze meets mine, solid, assertive, and confident. “Marry me, Nash.”
I bob backward. “Marry you? We barely know each other.”
More importantly, he barely knows me. While he’s spent the last hour pouring out his heart and soul, granting me access to his past in a way I doubt he’s done for anyone else, I’ve remained mum on who I really am and what my true intentions are.
“I don’t care.” He takes my hand in both of his. “All I know is that I’m ready to start a new life, and I want you to be a part of it.”
“Max—”
“Be compulsive, Nash. Take a chance.” He laughs and glances in the direction of the Strip. “I’m moving here next week to be a professional poker player. You’ll be a showgirl.” His mouth curves into a lopsided smile. “I’ll play poker, you’ll dance, and we’ll have the perfect life.”
More like a perfect lie.
I sense an almost desperate urgency behind his words. As if he’s wanted a normal life for so long he’ll do anything to have it.
And don’t I know how that feels?
It’s a testament to this city and the reckless abandon it breeds that I want to blurt out, “Yes.” I can’t imagine entertaining Max’s proposal anywhere else at any other time. But here? In Vegas? Not only can I imagine it, but I want it for real.
It’s as if a supernatural bubble surrounds Vegas and alters people’s minds in a way that makes them more apt to thumb their noses at rationality. To give in to the temptation of easy money, fun in the sun, and shotgun weddings they can regret later, after they return to the real world. Or not. I’ve heard of some Vegas weddings lasting years or even a lifetime.
But this is why the motto here is What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
Indulgence comes in every shape and size here. People do stupid things. Careless things. Reckless things. Then they leave it all behind when they board a plane and return to their real lives. In a way, people come to Vegas to forget the shit that’s going on elsewhere. To toss their problems aside for a few days and be carefree.
From what Max has told me, he’s got a lot of forgetting he’d like to do.
Then again, so do I.
But I don’t have the luxury of leaping before I look. There are repercussions for my actions, and I have a job to do. If I don’t do it, I won’t have to return to the real world. The real world will come and find me.
I search Max’s expression, finding nothing but certainty. He doesn’t have to think about his decision. His mind is made up. From his perspective, asking me to marry him isn’t reckless or careless or hasty. It’s what he wants.
“Max . . .” I drop my gaze to our joined hands.
“Come on, Nash. Live a little. Live with me. Let’s do this. We’ve already proven we have great chemistry, and now you know the worst thing about me. What else is there?”
That’s the question, isn’t it? Because while I know the worst there is to know about him, my worst still remains locked away and hidden from view.
But he thinks I’m a saint. In this eyes, I’m an angel who can grant him a better life.
And that’s what his proposal is about, isn’t it? Living. As far as he�
�s concerned, he’s been dead for years. Proposing to me, even though it was a spontaneous act, is the most rebellious move he can make against his past. It’s a battle cry to the universe that he won’t conform to what anyone else wants anymore. That he’s charging into his future on his own terms, in his own way, and plans to stretch himself beyond the confines he’s allowed to restrain him for far too long.
Maybe you think Max is crazy to propose after knowing me less than a day, and that I’m just as crazy for entertaining the idea. But you’re not like us. You live in the safety of your Starbucks world, putting in your weekly hours at the day job, tucking your kids into the safety of their beds before watching the evening news and gasping at the atrocities going on in the world.
Max and I are the ones living in that world. The rules are different here. It’s not safe or comfortable or homogeneously Starbucks. It’s dangerous and downright scary.
I used to be like you. Safe. Naïve to what happens to “other people.” But that way of life ended two years ago, when I made a decision that changed everything. Now, I am the “other people.” So is Max. And in this world we’ve come to call home, you take what you can get, when you can get it.
Our filters are different than yours, because we’ve endured things you haven’t. We see things in extremes. Either you’re free or you’re imprisoned. You’re either good or bad. And if you’re bad, you live life full throttle, because that’s the only way to stay ahead of everyone else, especially the authorities. And while I haven’t been at this as long as Max, who has spent his whole adult life living on the edge, I’ve learned that your perspective changes when you know each day could be your last day of freedom.
That character trait isn’t going to disappear just because Max has decided to go legit. He’s still going to feel the need to go balls to the wall. Whether by playing poker, where each hand could bankrupt him as easily as it could double his bank account, or by asking a woman he’s known less than twenty-four hours to marry him.
The good news is, he no longer sees life as something to run from but as something to revel in. At least, that’s how it feels. It’s like he’s got a bucket list a mile long and refuses to take things slow, which would jeopardize his chances of getting through the whole list.
