He tapped his finger on his nose and pointed at her. “Bingo.”
“Really?”
“Pretty much. Cam did a check on him. He goes to church every Sunday. He volunteers at the local homeless shelter. And he has a prior for—get this—” Clay stopped to pause because it was funny as hell “—shoplifting.”
She rolled her eyes and laughed as she spread lotion on her legs, fabulously on display in sexy black shorts. “Are you kidding me?”
He held up his hands. “I kid you not. Cam just sent me the details. Happened when Tad was in college in Florida.”
“Let me guess. He was lifting an Almond Joy from the local supermarket?”
“Nope. It’s better than that. Brace yourself,” he said, leaning against the door as she looped the cord around the hairdryer. “The man stole a bottle of Bacardi from the liquor store.”
She burst out laughing. “Oh, that’s fabulous. He steals rum and then goes on to work for a liquor company. How did that get past HR at Farrell?”
“I’m going out on a limb here, but I’m guessing there are no background checks when your daddy works for the company.”
Laughter continued to ring through the hotel suite. But then, just as quickly as it had started, it stopped. Julia’s face turned serious as she reached for her watch, sliding it onto her wrist like an elastic bracelet. She’d always said she hated watches that fastened like belts, or required loops and clasps. Funny, how a person who didn’t mind being restrained in bed had such strong opinions on other kinds of restraints. “Wait,” she said. “Maybe I shouldn’t be laughing. Maybe he really is this good, upstanding guy now. Reformed and all. It’s possible, right?”
He nodded. “Of course. It’s entirely possible. Or it’s entirely possible that he’s the morals police because he has something to hide. Either way, I’ll talk to him on Monday. But I don’t think it’s a problem to sign the addendum anyway. It’s about future behavior. It’s not some retroactive clause, so they don’t have a say over your past connections with Charlie. It’s all about the future.”
“Let’s just hope those guys I thought were tailing me aren’t working for Charlie then. I don’t want to be suspected by association,” she said, as she grabbed a small tin of lip balm from her makeup case, then swiped some of it on her lips before dropping the tin into her back pocket of her linen shorts.
“They’re not following you. It’s just hotel security. Brent checked for me.”
“All right, are you ready to go play some poker? Because I’ve been jonesing to play with you all week,” she said, reaching for his shirt collar and tapping her fingers against it. “Let’s hit the tables and win some money.”
“Let’s go,” he said, gesturing to the door when his phone rang.
Unknown number.
He pumped a mental fist at Brent’s ability to go covert. Then, he did his best acting. Let his shoulders sag slightly. Turned his mouth into a hard, frustrated frown.
“Damn. It’s Gino. From Comedy Nation,” he said to Julia, then gestured to the phone. “I gotta take this.” He answered. “Clay Nichols here.”
Brent adopted his best ass**le TV executive voice. “Hey dickhead. We gotta talk about this piece-of-shit contract. I had my cat pee on it this weekend because that’s what it’s worth to me.”
Clay did everything to keep a straight face. “Hold on one second,” he said, then placed his hand over the phone. “Go downstairs and play a few hands, okay? This’ll take me fifteen minutes. Twenty, tops. But I need to get it ironed out. I promise I’ll be there soon.”
“Of course,” she said, planting a quick kiss on his cheek, then grabbing her clutch purse from the foyer table, and waving a sexy goodbye. “See you in twenty minutes.”
“Text me. Let me know where to find you,” he whispered.
She blew him a kiss and mouthed I will, and he followed her to the door, holding it open, and planting a quiet kiss on her lips. He waved goodbye as she walked down the hall and pressed the down button for the elevator.
Once the door shut, he returned to his brother. “Okay, where are you?”
“On the twentieth floor. Stairwell. I have the ring and the necklace.”
“Come up in two minutes. She’s getting in the elevator right now.”
Soon, his brother was in the room with him and Clay set his eyes on the ring he was going to put on Julia’s finger any minute. The damn thing near blinded him it was so bright.
Perfect. He slid it into his pocket, along with the necklace.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Saturday, 1:12 p.m., Las Vegas
She was feeling lucky today. But she wasn’t going to base her decision on which table to choose on something as capricious as that.
Luck was here one minute, gone the next. A snap of the fingers, a wink of the eye, and luck drained faster than an iPhone battery. She had more than luck on her side. She had smarts, freedom, and most of all confidence, and she planned to use that full suite of tools as she tackled the tables. Weaving her way through the rattling of the roulette balls and the rolling of the craps dice, she fixed her eyes on the pai gow table ahead, and beyond that on the $100 minimum land. She’d had a good summer at Speakeasy, and her checks had been cashing quite nicely from the Purple Snow Globe award and drink contract, so she could afford this little luxury—a Saturday afternoon round or two at the Allegro.
At the pai gow table, a tall and terribly blond man walked behind the players, moving closer than someone usually does, and Julia narrowed her eyes, as if she could read him from several feet away. Something about him felt oddly familiar, even though she couldn’t see his face. It was the shape of his shoulders, the straw shade of his hair. Some kind of gumshoe instinct flared deep in her, and she picked up her pace, walking fast across the carpet in her heels. He slipped past the gamblers, lifting his right arm a few inches then back down. She caught his profile, and instantly a name touched down on her tongue. She was very nearly sure who he was . . . but then he turned more, his large nose coming into view. As he moved, he reminded her of an eel slinking through the marshes unseen. No one noticed him, but when he turned away from the table, she zeroed in on his hand as he slid something into his pocket. She wouldn’t want to finger-point in a court of law, but as a betting woman, she was willing to lay many chips down on the chance that he’d just pocketed a few that weren’t his own.