I poked my head out of the bathroom, putting on my earrings. “Hell, no, girl. You look sexy.”
I looked at myself again in the mirror. I actually felt kind of sexy, myself.
We were downstairs and in the casino by midnight. It had gotten busier in the relatively short time we were upstairs.
“This is when Vegas really gets started,” Krystal told me as we exited the elevator.
While she had insisted on paying for everything, I wouldn’t let her give me any gambling money. I appreciated her footing the bill for our stay but there was no way I was going to lose her money. I felt more comfortable losing my own.
Which is exactly what happened, and in short order. The roulette wheel had sucked me in and taken my conservative gambling budget for the night. After that, it was just drinks—three glasses of wine—and people watching, an endlessly fascinating form of entertainment in a place like Las Vegas.
The last person I expected to be watching was Max, but there he was, standing at the craps table. Looking stunning, of course. He had two-day stubble on his otherwise smooth face, and he wore black slacks, black blazer, and a blue shirt, no tie. He looked taller than I thought this time. Maybe it was just the contrast of his powerful frame next to a half dozen or so other men. And women. Who could miss those women? They were all blondes, and they were all hanging on him between rolls of the dice.
I thought back to Krystal’s earlier question about looking like a hooker and realized I had nothing to worry about. These women looked more the part. Maybe that’s what they were. My estimation of Max suddenly dropped a little.
I stood there for maybe five minutes, watching the spectacle, and then Krystal appeared beside me.
“Fucking blackjack. It’s rigged!”
Without taking my eyes off of Max, I said, “Lost big, huh?”
“Yup. I’m usually better at… what are you staring at?”
“Not what,” I said. “Who.”
“Okay. Who?” She turned to stand beside me and look where I was looking. “He’s hot.”
“Told you so. That’s Max Dalton.”
Krystal held the wineglass tipped at her mouth. “Oh, wow.”
“Yeah. Wow doesn’t quite cover it.”
“Look at those shameless bitches around him.”
By now, that’s pretty much all I was looking at. Some of them appeared to be one step away from dropping their dresses right there in the open casino and letting him have his way with them.
“Let’s go somewhere else,” I said.
Krystal started to say something about a game called Keno when I looked at Max one more time. I shouldn’t have. Then I wouldn’t have locked eyes with him, and he wouldn’t have been waving me over to where he was.
“Oh, no,” I said under my breath.
“It doesn’t have to be Keno. We could find a—”
“No,” I said. “He saw me.”
Krystal looked across the way to Max. “He’s calling you over there.”
I knew I should go. We had business to do with him and ignoring him wouldn’t exactly be a smart business decision. A lot was riding on his decision about whether to cast Jacqueline or not.
“Go!” Krystal gave me a nudge. “I want to see the looks on those chicks’ faces when you get there.”
I looked at her. “Thanks a lot.”
She smiled and said, “You can always count on me for support.”
As I started walking toward Max, it was like someone had turned down the volume on the entire casino. My eyes were fixed on him. It was my first experience with tunnel vision. I shouldered my way through the throng of women around him. They were reluctant to give me room until Max extended his hand and I reached up to take it.
“Hello, Olivia.”
“Mr. Max. I mean, hi, Max. Sorry. You told me not to call you Mr. Dalton, and I…” Jesus, how embarrassing. I was sounding so dumb, I didn’t even finish the sentence. I decided to just shut up.
“Actually, I kind of like Mr. Max.”
I appreciated his sense of humor. It put me at ease a little.
“What are you drinking?”
“Wine. Chardonnay.”
He flagged down a waitress and told her to bring another Chardonnay. “And another White Russian for me.”
The waitress said, “Yes, sir,” and when she walked away Max turned back to me.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Olivia, do you know anything about craps?”
I looked at the confusing table, then up at the dealer. I’d never played it and figured there was no way I would figure it out in the next two seconds, especially with the wine cruising through my bloodstream and the temperature rising from being in this situation.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Max said.
“You would be correct.”
“No problem.” He reached down to the table and picked up the dice. “You’re just here for luck, anyway.”
“I’m not sure I’m the type of luck you want.” I stopped just short of telling him I had blown my nightly gambling budget in under thirty minutes.
Max eyed me up and down, then up again. “I think you’re exactly what I want.”
My face flushed. I felt the heat start in my chest and rise up my neck. What I needed after hearing that was a cold glass of water. Not to drink; to throw in my face and wake me from this bizarre experience.
The waitress returned with our drinks. Max put a hundred dollar bill on her tray and thanked her. He handed me the glass of wine, raised his tumbler of White Russian and said, “To Vegas.” We clinked our glasses together, and as I sipped my wine I let my eyes roam the crowd around us. The women definitely were not liking what they were seeing. I imagined some of them had spent hours clinging to him like lint, and here I was, a girl who to them appeared to come out of nowhere, and now was the object of Max’s flirting. Intense flirting. Maybe more than that….
He brought his fist up between our faces and opened his fingers, revealing the dice. “Blow on these.”
My eyebrows shot up my forehead. It didn’t take a dirty mind to come up with all kinds of wicked interpretations of his words, but it wasn’t even so much what he said. It was how he said it. There was a commanding tone to the words, carried on the deep resonance of his intensely male voice.
“Go ahead,” he urged as I hesitated.
He held his hand up close to my face. I took in a sharp breath, then blew on the dice, and a split second later he launched them down the table. When they finally stopped, I saw that each had landed on two.