by Meghan March
I shove my hair over my shoulder and try to affect the same disinterest that he radiates. “You think you deserve some kind of reward for figuring out that I need money? Sorry, I’m fresh out.”
“Your pussy coming on my face will be the best reward,” he replies, his nonchalant tone belying the erotic picture his words paint.
Now I can’t stop picturing myself riding that scruff around his mouth until my body ignites. Stop it, Indy. You need to focus on getting the hell out of here and never seeing this man again.
Dropping all attempts at pretense, I ask him a question point-blank. “If you’re not looking for a quick fuck, then tell me what you want from me so we can both get the hell out of here.”
The lazy grin that stretches over his face sends shivers rippling down my spine.
“Everything.”
Forge stares at me with those dark eyes, practically drowning me with his all-consuming attention. I’m trying to figure out exactly what he’s going to say next when the sound of someone knocking on the door has both of us turning our heads toward the noise.
Oh my God. Bastien. He’s coming to the rescue like he’s not a complete fucking asshole.
Forge rises from the chair and strides across the room to yank the door open, pissed that we’ve been interrupted.
I crane my neck, expecting to see Bastien’s golden hair, but it’s not. It’s a massive man with black dreads who looks like he stepped out of a movie where he played the part of the villain’s henchman.
He says something in a language I don’t understand, and Forge’s posture stiffens before he swings around to face me. Every trace of the emotions he’s shown since he entered this room is completely absent.
“Get out.” His expression is hard and blank. It’s like he’s been swapped for the evil-twin version of himself.
My mouth drops open. “What?”
“We’re done. I don’t have time for this. Get the fuck out.”
Done? The word echoes in my brain, and as soon as I process them, part of me wants to argue, but that’s the stupid part.
I bolt to my feet, reaching for my dress and my clutch. “But my stuff—”
Forge waves his arm at the open doorway as the giant steps inside.
“Go. Now.”
11
India
Walking down the hall in my bare feet, wearing only a hotel robe and my dress and clutch in my arms, is sobering.
This is how far I’ve fallen.
Curls of anger lick up from my belly with each step I take toward the elevator like a zombie.
He threw me out.
He really threw me out.
The man who stared at me like I was going to be his last meal on this planet threw me out of my own room like I was nothing.
What in the ever-loving fuck?
I should be skipping down the hall with joy because somehow, some way, I was spared from having to face final judgment from Jericho Forge, and now I can go back to figuring out how to raise the money to save my sister.
Then why am I so fucking pissed?
Because part of me wanted him just as much . . . and he made it clear exactly where my importance stands in the grand scheme of things.
Nowhere at all.
Sobering, indeed.
Which means I’ll be doing the barefoot walk of shame back to my flat, dodging the crowds, wearing a rumpled cocktail dress. Because there’s no way in hell I’m going to go ask Jean Phillippe for another room. He proved where his loyalty stood when he crumpled under pressure as soon as Forge appeared at the card room door like one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
Laughter comes from the elevator bank as I creep around the corner. Four people spill out from between the doors, and the two women in the lead pause when they see me, causing the third woman and a blond man to run into them. A man I recognize all too well. A man who is partially responsible for exactly what’s happening right now.
Fucking Bastien.
All I want to do is run and hide under a rock, but that’s not possible. I’m caught out in the open, and there’s nothing I can do to pretend otherwise.
Every trace of mirth disappears from his expression the second he sees me. He pushes past the women, scanning every inch of me. “What the fuck happened?”
“Don’t act like you actually give a fuck, Bastien.”
His features tighten, and I wonder if it’s some indication that Bastien actually does give a fuck. Either way, it doesn’t matter at the moment. Right now, I have to figure out what the hell I’m going to do to get $10 million in seven days.
“Did he hurt you?” A vein ticks in Bastien’s forehead that I’ve never seen before. Actually, in the decade that I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him look remotely this angry.
Doesn’t matter.
I sidestep him to try to reach the elevator doors, but Bastien reaches out and catches the sleeve of my robe.
“Indy. Stop.” He pushes the women away with his other hand. “Go wait by the room.”
The women, each wearing sky-high heels and a dress that barely covers their tits and ass, and neither at the same time, glare at me as they whine at him.
“But, Bastien—”
“Go,” he orders, and they scurry away.
I tug my sleeve from his grip and punch the elevator call button.
“If he fucking hurt you, I’m going to kill him.”
I’m surprised to hear what could pass for genuine concern in Bastien’s voice. But that doesn’t mean I’m about to share anything with him about what happened between Forge and me.
“None of your goddamned business.”
“Indy . . . I might be a fucking bastard, but at least I don’t hurt women. Unless they ask for it. What the hell happened?”
“Nothing. Nothing happened. Now I’m going home.”
His concerned tone disappears. “He got a look at you naked and tossed you out? You have a third nipple I don’t remember? I mean, I was drunk at the time.”
I whip around to face him, and as soon as I see Bastien’s face, I realize that’s exactly what he was trying to accomplish with his insulting words.
“What do you want from me, Bastien?”
His gaze shutters. “What I’ve wanted for ten fucking years—another chance with you.”
“Never going to happen.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. From where I’m standing, you look like you’re running out of options. I know you need a fuck-ton of money, Indy.”
“What’s your point?”
He purses his lips, and I can see the gears turning in his head. Bastien’s always playing an angle, and I practically see him choosing it now.
“What if I could help you?”
“How?” I keep my response short because I’m not going to fall into his trap. Not again. This game was supposed to help me save Summer, and all it did was throw me to the shark named Jericho Forge.
“Tell me how much money you need and why.”
The men who have my sister expressly told me not to tell anyone what was going on. Not the police, Interpol, anyone. If I do . . .
My stomach twists at the memory of what they said they’d do to her.
“I can’t tell you.”
Bastien’s jaw tenses. “Then what if I knew there was another game you could sit, and this one you could win easily?”
The temptation is strong. Too strong to resist. Or maybe it’s my desperation pushing me. “Where?”
“Where do you think? Monte Carlo.”
Of course it would be Monaco. Bastien’s other favorite place to play with his family’s money.
But I just lost every cent I had. I could charge the flight, but I don’t have enough funds left to tap for a buy-in. I liquidated everything I had for tonight.
But if I could get the money . . .
Now I sound like a gambling addict, and I already know what happens when I go to the table desperate. I make stupid decisions that end up with me standing in a hallway of
a hotel wearing nothing but a robe.
“I can’t.”
Bastien’s gaze drops to my bare feet and drags up my body, like he’s inspecting the merchandise for sale. “I’ll front you the stake.”
Oh, wait, he does think I’m merchandise for sale.
“In exchange for what?”
“My family wants me to settle down. Start producing the next generation of de Veres to carry on the family name. My sister’s brats can’t inherit the title, and the earl doesn’t want to lose it to another branch of the family tree. Wouldn’t you like to be a countess someday, Indy? You already act like a queen. You’d fit the role perfectly. You fit me perfectly.”
I blink twice, trying to wrap my head around what he just said. “You want me to . . .”
“Marry me.”
My stomach flips.
“No way in hell,” I whisper.
Bastien’s expression doesn’t shift, even though I just threw his proposal back in his face. “You were willing to sell yourself to Forge. Why not me?”
“We both know you’re the one who fucked me at the table.”
“Not so well as I’d like to fuck you as my wife.” He moves closer and trails a finger down the lapel of the robe. “Do you have another plan? What about the luxury of time to come up with one?”
I take a step back, out of his reach. He knows damn well that I don’t have another plan, and I can’t let my sister be sold as a sex slave, no matter how badly she fucked up. I’m still mulling over my lack of options when Bastien’s expression loses its intensity and morphs back into the easygoing guy I recognize.
With a shrug, he backs away toward the end of the hallway where the women wait for him.
“I’m leaving the island Monday at five. My proposal stands. Think about it, Indy. At least I’m the devil you know.”
12
India
Climbing out of the back of a cab in my gold dress and the white spa flip-flops I traded the robe for at the gift shop feels worse than any walk of shame the partiers on this island will be doing in the morning. And to make it even worse, when I push open the door to my flat just before midnight, Alanna is sitting on my sofa with an espresso cup and saucer clutched in her petite hands. I told her to stay home tonight and I’d call her in the morning, but it doesn’t surprise me she didn’t listen.
“Did you win? Did you get the money?” she asks as she bolts up. The ceramic clatters as dark brown espresso spills over the sides of the mini cup.
I don’t know how much coffee she’s drank to stay awake this late, but from how her hands are shaking, I’m guessing she used every last Nespresso capsule I have in the flat.
The crushing defeat from earlier comes back with a vengeance now that I have to admit to my adoptive mother just how badly I’ve failed.
I give her a quick shake of my head, and her lily-white skin, the product of dedicated avoidance of the sun’s rays, turns ashen.
“What does that mean? You didn’t win all the money we need?”
I force the words I don’t want to speak from my throat. “I lost it all.”
“Oh, sweet Jesus.” Her knees give way and she drops onto the sofa just as quickly as she rose. “How? You . . . you’re—”
“Jericho Forge showed up. Bastien backed me into a bad bet, and Forge swooped in for the kill. I . . .” My words trail off because I don’t want to tell her the rest of it. I can’t bear to see the disappointment on her face.
I’ve come a long way from being the wary and rude sixteen-year-old that Alanna Clark plucked off the street after she caught me stealing her groceries. That was six months after our mom bailed on us in Ibiza after dragging our asses all over Europe while she stripped and used every spare dollar for booze and drugs.
Apparently, I wasn’t as stealthy as I’d thought, because Alanna had been watching us for weeks. She first spotted me on the street, using Summer as a distraction to hustle tourists with three-card monte. We made just enough to pay for a shithole room and a bathroom shared with junkies, but food was never a guarantee.
Why a woman would want to adopt a sixteen-year-old and her eight-year-old sister, I didn’t understand. But she smothered us both with love and home cooking, and even though I watched for any indication she was waiting to take advantage, I never saw it. She was simply a good person wanting to help us.
The adoption was final just before I turned eighteen, and even now, I know there’s no other human on the planet I would have allowed to adopt me. Alanna is everything kind and sweet and wonderful in the world.
Which makes it even more devastating that I failed her.
“What, Indy? Tell me all of it. No secrets.” That’s her one rule. The rule that Summer broke when she lied to both of us about her fabulous new fashion marketing job that was letting her travel and make bank.
My sister didn’t have a damn fashion marketing job. She was playing underground poker, and not only did she lose, but she cheated and got caught. A $5 million pot. The men in charge of the underground games didn’t take kindly to her actions, and by didn’t take kindly, I mean they kept the money and threatened to kill her unless she paid them back double. When she told them she didn’t have the cash, they came to me with the ultimatum that’s now ruling my life—$10 million or my sister goes up for auction to sex slavers.
Given the situation we find ourselves in, it’s impossible that anything I tell Alanna will be more shocking.
“I ran out of money at the table. Forge pushed me to bet my room key . . .”
Alanna’s eyes widen. “Your room key? Jericho Forge? But—” She cuts off her question because she’s a smart woman. “Oh. Oh no. Did he— Are you—” She abandons the cup and saucer on the table and darts toward me, her gaze scanning from top to bottom for any sign of injury.
“I’m okay. I promise. He didn’t touch me.”
She reaches out and squeezes my hand. “I don’t understand. Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know. His business associate interrupted. I guess it was my lucky day.” The words sound hollow as they come out of my mouth, because there was nothing lucky about tonight.
With her fingers threaded through mine, Alanna presses her lips together. “What are we going to do now?”
I let my eyes close for a moment. “I don’t know.” I swallow, remembering Bastien’s proposal. It sits in my brain like a grenade with the pin slipping free.
I can’t marry him.
It’s not that I think marriage is sacred or anything, because I’ve never had any shining examples of it in my life. Alanna always talks about her beloved husband, Hal, and how they sailed around the world before breaking a mast near Ibiza, then decided to settle here permanently instead of going back to America. But Hal passed away five years before she found us, and Alanna never fully recovered from his loss.
Regardless, it’s not like I expected to have a relationship like Alanna and Hal’s. My experience with married men is mostly limited to the ones here on stag weekends where even the groom-to-be fucks every young, nubile girl in sight who will sit on his dick.
And then there’s the night Bastien and I met. Or more accurately, the morning ten years ago when I woke up in a hotel room to a woman screaming that I stole her fiancé. Little did I know he made me the pawn in an elaborate scheme to get his bride to call off the wedding, because his family wouldn’t let him back out.
Fuck you, Bastien. What makes you think I’d ever marry you?
Oh, wait, that’s right. The $10 million I need. Except he doesn’t have a clue how much I need or how quickly. I know his family has nearly more money than the queen of England, but that doesn’t mean he could get his hands on a sum that large.
Am I considering his offer? No. No, I am not. But Summer . . .
“You can get invited to another game, right? Or set one up, this time somewhere else? Farther from home, maybe?”
Alanna’s guarded optimism is enough to almost bring me to my knees. Her faded blue eyes plead
with me to come up with a solution, but I don’t have one.
“If I had anything left to buy in, maybe. But I don’t. I took everything I had to the table tonight.” It shames me to admit it, but she asked for the truth.
“I’ll sell my flat. We should be able to get at least a half million for it.”
My gaze cuts to her resolute expression. “Then where would you live? How would you support yourself?”
Alanna’s flat is in a beautiful beachside building, and has an efficiency unit attached to it that she rents out during the season to support herself for the entire year. It’s her only security—and the last place where she lived happily with Hal. I can’t let her sacrifice that.
“I’ll live on the street if that’s what it takes to get Summer back in one piece. I’ll sell every goddamned thing I own. We don’t have a choice, Indy.”
I swallow the lump in my throat and feel a million times worse than I did creeping out of the casino. Alanna and Summer were both counting on me, and I failed them.
Before I can flay myself with guilt, my cell phone buzzes in my clutch. Alanna stares at my hand as I pull it out. The screen reads Unknown Number.
We both go still. The men who have Summer called from an unknown number.
“Answer it! It could be them!”
I tap the screen twice, engaging the speaker so Alanna can listen. “Hello?”
“Ms. Baptiste, it’s very disappointing to hear that you are not bringing me my money tonight.” The voice, rough with an accent I haven’t yet been able to place, is the same one that told me what my sister did and her fate should I fail to pay.
“Excuse me?” I ask, hoping he’ll slip and tell me how he knows what the hell happened tonight. No one should know what happened . . . unless one of the players, Jean Phillippe, or Armand leaked the information.
A cold weight settles over my body, chilling me to the core. Who told?
“You lost the most important game of your life, Ms. Baptiste. Even more important than the poker tour final you lost. Does your sister not matter to you at all?”
