God bless martinis. “No, this is interesting. People don’t just give out money every day.” Or Rolexes. Not unless they were trying to buy something.
Affection? Attention?
It didn’t matter right now, because Ben had clearly pressed a button in her and she raised a finger to make a point.
“The gift was a nice gesture. Really. I’d been talking to him about all my plans for the future, and he told me to put some money toward them. That was a nice thing to do, right?”
Oh, she was good. “And what’re your plans, Liz?”
She perked up. “I’m going to own a restaurant someday—after I pay off some debts.” She hesitated, as if she didn’t want to reveal that much about herself. “Anyhow, how’s that for someone who used to eat brown rice and vegetables all the time? My place will be sexy and silky with the best steaks in town, an old-school joint the Rat Pack would’ve gone to back in the day. Vegas is missing all that now, you know? The leopard-print lounges with vintage Hollywood pictures and ferns, the elegant drinks . . .”
He recognized the same glint in her eyes that Kat had gotten when she’d told him she’d always wanted to hang out at Le Galion Bay. He’d given in to Kat’s whim, but he couldn’t find a similar sympathy for Liz Palazzo.
Jameson had given her a parting “gift.” Bullshit. And even if Ben loved the idea of bringing back some old-school to Vegas, he couldn’t afford to care for her so-called plans.
A gift. Yeah, good one.
She was laughing, obviously acknowledging again that she was being chatty. Maybe she was just one of those people who got attached to others right away, though. It’d explain how easily she’d hooked up with Jameson and gone to his rental property without getting to know him first.
“I have this philosophy,” she said. “Life is written in the stars. I met him because he was supposed to help me realize my dream.”
“So this man . . .” Ben said, steering the conversation once more. “He must’ve given you a big gift if it was meant to help you start up a restaurant. Those don’t come cheap.”
“Oh, he said it was only something to get me going. See, after he got wasted, he just dug in his pocket and, boom—there it was, a wad of rich man’s carry-around cash. He put it on the kitchen table, like he was serving it right up to me on a platter.” Another shrug, another sip of her martini. “Then he passed out, but I’m pretty sure it was his intention to kiss me off that way. When I tried to wake him up in the morning, he told me to get out, so I did.” She drew in a breath, straightened up in her chair. “Seriously—you don’t want to hear me crying into my drink. That’s not what Vegas is for!”
He didn’t answer, because what he was hearing about Jameson’s “gift” flew in the face of what his brother had told him. Who should he believe—his own flesh and blood or this barfly who was buying him drinks with Jameson’s money? Vegas was full of con people, and she might’ve been no exception. Hell, a lot of cons hung out at the R&T with him.
Maybe, with all the women he sweet-talked, he was even one of those himself.
“Anyway,” she said, “I’m totally saving that money.”
“For your dream?” And the debts she’d mentioned?
“You got it. But my girl over there”—she gestured toward the pool—“does deserve some birthday love, too. Still, after this, it’ll be buckle-down time with the finances.”
If he didn’t know any better, he might think Liz Palazzo was feeding him a tale about her monetary woes, priming him and shaking him down for free drinks or a night on the town, making him feel like a big man for helping a girl out. But he wasn’t dressed like someone who could throw bills around the Strip—not like Bennett Hughes would’ve been.
She wanted something else from him entirely . . .
Just as he almost started getting way too excited about that, five water-slicked women bounded over to them, their bikini tops on.
One with rosy-tan Latina skin and long dark hair that trailed in a wet, curly bundle over her shoulder dropped into the seat on the other side of Liz. “What’s cookin’, hot stuff?”
Liz gestured to Ben. “Anita, Ben. Ben, Anita.” She indicated the other females who clustered near Anita. “Darcie, Parisa, Mai, and Carolann.”
He recognized the girls who’d been in the pool when he’d walked in, and all of them had showgirl figures, tall, slim, and sculpted. However, none of them could compete with Liz Palazzo of the perfectly round, pink-tipped breasts.
“Hey, Ben,” they said together, then ordered cocktails from the bartender.
Ben’s dander rose at the thought that the drinks were on Jameson, but he smiled at Anita as she threw down a bright blue shot of something foo-foo and slung an arm over Liz’s shoulder.
“Not that we want to interrupt, but it was time to wet the whistles. I, myself, intend to take full advantage of being served instead of serving!”
Liz gestured to all of them. “Waitresses.”
As the other girls turned to chat with the bartender, Anita nodded. “Except for Liz, here. She was the last of us to retire from our main gigs because she was featured in her job, but she says she’s going to be slinging drinks in a lounge soon.”
A featured showgirl, huh? It meant that Liz had been paid more and was higher esteemed, although showgirls didn’t get paid all that much.
But it was time to play dumb. “You’re all too young to retire from whatever it is you were doing.”
Anita slid a glance to Liz, and if Ben knew anything about girl communication, she was asking a question.
How much did you tell him?
If only she knew how freely the information had flowed.
Liz took another drink, then said, “We were all showgirls once upon a time.”
Anita said, “We don’t tell every guy we meet. Some of them don’t know how to handle it. What a pain.”
Liz clinked glasses with Anita. “And some guys get way too into the whole showgirl mystique—”
“Because they want to screw a Vegas icon so bad they don’t know how to deal—” Anita said over Liz.
“And they ask these questions you wouldn’t believe. But we can trust Ben to be mature about it, Ani.”
“Excellent,” her friend said, hunkering down on the bar by crossing her arms and addressing Ben from around Liz. “So you’re not gonna ask dumb questions?”
“Like what?”
“Let’s see . . . ‘What’s it like to be naked in front of a crowd?’ ‘Do you put ice cubes on your nips before you go onstage, like they did in Showgirls?’ What they come up with is downright nervy.”
“So we get to know guys before we spill the truth.” Liz smiled, probably thinking about how much she’d already said to Ben.
It was interesting that she’d been way more forthcoming about her love life woes while holding back on her own identity. But maybe she was doing the same thing he was—keeping the most important part of herself back.
Don’t get too intrigued, he thought.
Anita braced a hand on Liz’s shoulder. “We’re the last of a dying breed, aren’t we, chica?”
Liz swirled the alcohol in her glass. “Yup. The big revues are being squeezed out by all the Cirque du Soleil this-or-that. You don’t see shows anymore with sixty showgirls in a cast. If you’re not a novelty act, then . . .”
Anita made a cutthroat motion and made a sound effect to go with it.
It was time for some buddying up. “I think I saw Jubilee!, Folies Bergere, and Blaze! more than a few times. It’s too bad about the closures.”
Anita jumped. “We were in Blaze! before the Oceana closed.”
Ah, the Oceana. He’d spent more than a few nights there. Talk about old-school. The hotel-casino had been run by a guy who was as mob as they came, and it’d held on for as long as it could before the corporations had fully taken over Vegas.
He looked down to feel Liz’s gaze on him, her smile lackadaisical, her finger circling the rim of her martini glass as if she
was picturing doing . . . things . . . to him. Dammit.
Then Anita clutched Liz’s shoulder, drawing her attention away from him. Dammit about that, too.
“I like this guy,” she said. As the bartender slid her another shot, she reached out and tossed back that one, too. She licked her lips and smiled. “He could be a friend.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Liz said, grinning.
Excitement pierced him, needles in his skin, and he wasn’t sure if it was because he was getting closer to sussing out the truth of Jameson’s “gift” to Liz Palazzo and then having her sign the nondisclosure agreement he had folded in his back pocket, or if it was because of the libidinous gleam in her eyes.
Anita peered at him, then at Liz, a secretive smile on her lips. Then she backed away from them. “We’re going to the rooms for some shut-eye and room service, Lizzie. Got to conserve energy for happy hour.”
She gave Ben a little wave, then turned to her friends, telling them to drink up.
Liz remained at the bar. Her martini glass was empty, but she shook her head at the bartender, refusing a refill.
“So, Ben,” she said. “What’re you doing after this?”
Her friends walked off with final smiles at him. It was as if he’d been welcomed into the club and Liz had been left to close the deal.
This was all too easy, even as “just Ben.”
“I didn’t have any big plans.”
“Wonerful.” She tripped over the word and put her fingers to her mouth, laughing. She tried again. “Wonderful.” She nodded. “The girls and I are going to Bordello early, way before it opens. You can rent it out for private parties.”
Jesus, was she telling him that she’d rented out the club herself? There was no way she had enough money . . . unless she’d snagged twenty-thousand dollars from more men than Jameson recently, or if she was working some of those old showgirl connections she no doubt had. To make matters stickier, the Hughes family had helped in developing Bordello, which was a part of a new chrome-and-glass complex down the Strip called Haven. It had three hotel-casinos, shopping venues, and over thirty restaurants and bars.
“I didn’t know that,” he said, trying to stay loose, not giving himself away.
“Well, if you’re up for it, we’ll have an upstairs table starting at four o’clock. I know—early for a party, but it’s happy hour, right? Just tell the hostess that you know Liz Palazzo.”
“Maybe I will.”
God. Just an upstairs VIP table at Bordello required connections and hefty tips, or a rental fee that could go upwards of a thousand dollars. Or you had to buy at least one five-hundred-dollar bottle of vodka to start out.
All in all, this was some birthday for Anita, and some “buckle down and save” for Ms. Palazzo, with her big hopes and dreams for an old-school dinner club. She had to have been feeding Ben a story for the last twenty minutes, gaining his sympathy so he’d buy drinks for the rest of the night for her. But how could she think he’d be able to afford it? Was she used to squeezing cash out of men, like some of the regulars at the R&T did with tourists during their backroom poker games?
His doubts about her pinged, but when she stood to her full height, flexing that amazing, creamy body, his mind went as blank as Jameson’s probably had.
And when she bent close to whisper to him, he turned to a pillar of seething desire.
“I’ll be watching for you,” she said, her breath tickling his ear.
He couldn’t tear his gaze away as the gold digger left, her hips swaying, catching the attention of every male in the vicinity as she went to her chaise and fetched her bag. She moved to the exit, winking at him on the way out before she donned a pair of sunglasses and disappeared.
Ben turned to his drink, needing to put out this damned fire before he really ventured into the inferno tonight.
***
Fifteen minutes later, after yet another useless drink, Ben was still mired in lustful need, and he just couldn’t shake it.
He was used to getting what his id craved, so that’s why this hands-off situation was bothering him. But if he’d acted on his impulses as he always did, reaching over to Liz Palazzo’s smooth thigh, running his hand up until he reached her bikini bottoms, sliding his fingers into them to feel if her pussy was just as wet as his cock was hard, Jameson would kill him.
This was the woman who’d worked his brother over, and Ben had no reason to believe Liz Palazzo over his own sibling. To make things worse, giving in to these base urges would just validate what kind of screwup Ben was. Hell, nobody would ever be able to trust him with anything in the future, even a simple errand like taking care of a female who’d wronged a family member.
Ben did have something to prove to all of them. He could do this.
After giving the bartender a tip and paying his tab, he left the European pool area, going to the concrete beach to check in with Kat.
When he didn’t find her, he pulled out his cell, bringing up her number.
“Hello?”
“Done sunbathing, my beauty?” he asked.
She made a frustrated sound on the other end of the line, and he knew that couldn’t be good.
“I’m not at the hotel,” she said.
What? “Kat, don’t tell me you went back to the R&T.”
“I’m driving there now ’cause I got called by Dillinger,” she said, referring to one of her bartenders. “He got slammed by a convoy of tourists on their way to Vegas, doing the stop-at-a-ghost-town thing. They all seem to be history buffs and they’re taking up his time by asking a ton of questions about Rough and Tumble and . . . Never mind. No one else was available to take up the slack for him.”
“Hire more help.”
“No can do. I’m barely running the place on a shoestring budget.”
He almost told her that he’d be glad to give her some money, but she stopped him before he started.
“No,” she said. “We’ve been through this before.”
“And you’re too proud to accept help. But this isn’t charity.”
“Ben, every Jenkins before me pulled the saloon through good times and bad ones—and none of them ever went into debt to do it.”
Charity, a debt . . . Kat would never take money, no matter what she called it. She’d rather work herself to the bone than bend with the pressure.
“Catch a taxi back after you’ve done your PI work?” she asked, easing them out of a conflict.
Typical Kat. “No problem.”
“Great. So how is the dick work going?”
“The dick’s firmly in place.” For now. “I found out a few interesting details about our showgirl. She says Jameson gave her the money as a gift.”
“Of course she said that he . . . Wait. You got her to tell you that?”
Ben walked toward the hotel doors. “I’ve had women tell me a lot more within the space of a drink or two. She was in her cups, a little free-flowing with the speech.”
“I’d say. But it sounds like you’re taking a break from her right now.”
“I’m meeting her and her friends in a few at a happy hour.”
“Damn.” Kat laughed. “You are so good.”
He was trying his hardest to be.
She continued. “So you’re on track to take care of business?”
“Yup. If things keep going well.”
“And then you’ll nail her. I know you, Ben. She’s too pretty for you to resist.”
He stopped walking, pausing just outside the doors, holding one open for a few ladies coming outside to the pool. They smiled at him but he didn’t have the heart to smile back.
Even one of his good friends expected the worst of him.
“This woman burned my brother,” he said.
Kat paused, the air cutting into the line. Then she spoke. “I know. I was just . . .”
“Joking. Right.” Because that’s what he was—a joke to everyone. A playboy. A worth-nothing black sheep.
“I di
dn’t mean it that way.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
Another pause. “Hey, Ben?”
“What?”
Her tone softened. “You might be a scamp, but you’re the best of guys. You know that, don’t you?”
It was her way of apologizing, and he smiled, going through the hotel doors, the casino clatter welcoming him along with the perfumy coolness of the atmosphere.
“Don’t work too hard, Kat,” he said, signing off.
They hung up, and he headed for his bank of room elevators. Soon, after he’d unlocked his door and had all the privacy he needed in his standard room with its king-sized, duvet-covered bed and the neutral-colored furnishings, he dialed up Jameson.
“Ben?” his brother answered, his eagerness canceling out his usual cool.
“I’ve got some questions, Jameson.”
“Why? Did you find her?”
Ben could almost picture his brother behind a massive Venezuelan teak desk in the Hughes Corporation’s main high-rise on Broadway. Even after a red-eye flight, he’d be ready to soldier on as a captain of industry.
“We met, all right,” Ben said. “You know the drill—bar, cocktails, loose tongue . . . Long story short, she told me the money was a gift.”
“She . . .” Jameson was probably taking a seat now. “She said what?”
“You heard me. Evidently, she filled your ears with tales of how much she wants to open a restaurant here in Vegas, and it seems you became her first investor, champ. And, according to the gospel of Liz Palazzo, you basically kicked her out of the condo the morning she left.”
“That’s a crock of shit.” Jameson’s voice sawed through the phone. “That bitch took flight with the money while I was still asleep. I’d emptied my pockets, as everyone does every night before going to bed, and she got her paws on the cash and made away with it.”
“She said you were drinking when you gifted her. You think there’s any room for error in your story?”
Down and Dirty Page 4
