I’m having a working lunch today here in LA at the Rainbow Bar and Grill and then I’m heading down to Vegas this afternoon. Coco has said she wants enough glitz for a four-page feature on casinos and rich gamblers. She also threatened that if I don’t deliver my copy by lunchtime tomorrow (and I’m still not sure if she meant my time or hers) I’m fired. Only she used the word ‘dismissed’.
The Dunes Hotel and Casino
Las Vegas. Nevada.
In Vegas, I’m staying in the heart of the Strip. I got here six hours ago, but I arrived so tired and hungover from my working lunch that I must have passed out in my room. Now that I’ve sobered up a little, I’m a bit worried that I might have blown it with Coco. I think I might have just ruined my life again when it was really starting to get interesting. I’m beginning to suspect I have a self-destruct button and wonder what it is that possesses me to press it?
Tonight is my last night in the US before I fly back to London tomorrow, so I’ll have to drag myself out of this big comfortable bed in this amazing suite and make a really big effort tonight.
Only my head hurts and I’m starving. I can’t remember the last time I ate something that was bigger than a canape or drank a glass of anything that wasn’t champagne.
I’m going to order a burger and fries from room service and then I’m going to take a shower and dress and go downstairs to chance my luck. Not that I actually know how to gamble, I’ll just have to gamble on there being someone down there willing to teach me.
To tempt fate, I’m going to wear my favourite black bell-bottom catsuit. I know it clings to me in all the right places and plunges a little at the front and a lot at the back. It’s a little decadent but I’m still young and I’m still pretty, admittedly in a Joni Mitchell kinda’ way.
Hey, it’s the 70’s. It’s okay to be a little risqué!
Isla was really enjoying reading Kate’s escapades despite feeling a little concerned over her threatened dismissal from her exciting job. Although, she knew that it was in Las Vegas that Kate had first met Ernest Rocha, and it was in 1975 that Kate and Ernest had arrived on Pearl Island. So perhaps the exciting job she was worried about on Kate’s behalf was already redundant?
It was just after midnight and the storm outside was still gathering pace, but rather than sleep, Isla knew she must read on and find out how Kate met Ernest. So she poured herself another glass of wine and picked up the next hotel headed notepaper that was clipped into the journal.
Centurion Tower, Caesar’s Palace Hotel,
Las Vegas Boulevard. Nevada.
Last night was the best and craziest night of my life (so far!) because this morning I’m waking up in a swimming pool sized waterbed in the honeymoon suite at Caesar’s Palace with a wedding ring on my finger and lying next to a man who looks exactly like Clark Gable.
I can hardly believe it but last night was SO magical that ALL my dreams came true.
Yesterday I was just Kate Jones and today I’m Kate Rocha, the wife of an American millionaire.
At least I think he might be a millionaire. He certainly behaves like one. There is still so much to find out about this darling man but of course we have plenty of time for all that – a lifetime in fact.
I just knew this trip was going to be special from the moment I left England. I had a feeling that life was going to be different and wonderful for me from the very moment the plane took off.
I’ve had so much fun over the past week or so, travelling from coast to coast and meeting the most amazing people who totally epitomise being rich and famous. It has all taught me a valuable lesson in life and, now that I am married to Ernest, instead of being dismissed from a job I no longer need - I’m resigning instead. Hurray!
I would never have imagined in my wildest dreams that as I stepped out of that elevator last night in my four-inch platform heels and straight into the Dunes Casino, that fate and karma were with me once again.
I’d headed straight over towards a raucous crowd standing around one of the roulette tables. They were all whooping and yelling and drinking and laughing. I wanted to do all of those things too. I saw that all the focus of attention was on a tall dark-haired man who had discarded his jacket, rolled up his shirts sleeves and loosened his tie. I watched him, fascinated, as he stacked a great pile of chips onto the table and then shook the dice in his hand.
The crowd were going wild. He was the most dangerously handsome man I’d ever seen in my entire life. He was movie star handsome. Drop-dead gorgeous. A Rhett Butler. A Clark Gable lookalike. His dark hair was groomed back from his tanned face. His eyes twinkled with mischief and fun. ‘I need lady luck on my side,’ he yelled out to the crowd.
I laughed. So many women there were fawning all over him and he was behaving as if he knew he could have taken his pleasure with any one of them in his penthouse suite. The husbands in the room all seemed to know this too and regarded him with envy for this was a man who looked like he lived at the top of the food chain.
‘Who is that?’ I asked a woman who was standing close by me and she replied in an amused and smoky voice. ‘That is Ernest Rocha. A man with all the good looks, the money and the charisma, to score at any table in this casino and in any bed in this hotel. I’d watch out. I think he has his eye on you, sweetheart.’
I watched Ernest in wide-eyed admiration as he continued to tease and rattle the dice, looking around for someone to be his lady luck. Then I suddenly realised he was actually looking at me.
‘Come over here, my angel, and be my good luck charm!’
I sauntered over to him and all the beautiful people parted to let me through.
Very soon I was standing at his side. He slung his free arm around my waist and drew me tightly against his hot body. I breathed in his sexy pheromones and lime cologne and I fell in love with him right there and then. As I blew on his dice, I looked up and gazed into his dark eyes through my Biba eyelashes, and I knew – I just knew – that this was the man I was going to marry.
Chapter Eighteen
Isla - Present day
Isla put the manuscript down on the bed and realised her heart was racing. Okay, that last part did read like a Jackie Collins novel, as Kate had obviously been a big fan, but as an account of how she had broken free of her depressing working-class roots, nabbed a glamorous career, and met and fallen instantly in love with Ernest Rocha – wow! It was fantastical but totally riveting.
Isla looked up at Kate’s portrait again and saw her grandmother in an entirely new light.
Then quickly picked up another page to read on.
The Dunes Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas. Nevada.
We moved from the roulette to the black jack table and Ernest ordered another bottle of champagne. He also ordered another stack of chips from the cashier station, and I stood and watched in awe as he won and lost and won again. The man played and gambled like he didn’t care about the money, only about the fun of tossing a dice or turning a card.
I didn’t understand the rules of the game at first, but I watched and learned. When he won, which he did on many occasions, he gave me some of his chips by inserting them into my cleavage.
I drank far too much champagne but it wasn’t the drink intoxicating me, it was Ernest. We laughed and played and won the sort of money that made my head spin. I lost track of time. I realised there is no way of knowing the time in a casino unless you are wearing a watch and I wasn’t.
‘What time is it?’ I asked him, thinking that it must surely be the early hours.
‘It’s time to play poker,’ Ernest answered smoothly.
At the poker table, my lack of a watch was soon resolved when Ernest won me one – a lady who’d run out of chips had thrown her Rolex onto the table in the mistaken belief that her full house was the winning hand. To her frustration, it was just after four am when he wrapped it around my wrist. I wasn’t tired. I was running on adrenalin.
Ernest ordered bourbon and we moved away from the main casino into the
big boys’ room. Ernest settled himself down at the poker table with two gentlemen who looked as serious as he did about their gambling. In the high limit rooms, instead of round chips they issued rectangular gold plaques, the lowest denomination being five thousand dollars.
I watched, mesmerised, as the men stared at each other menacingly and set the stakes breathtakingly high. I stood behind Ernest, smoking a cigarette. I’d never smoked before but everyone else was and it felt like a sophisticated thing to do. I practised blowing my smoke out in slow sexy puffs through my pouted Red Temptation lips as the men played and lost and then kept losing to Ernest.
By just after six am both the men sitting opposite Ernest had thrown their car keys onto the table.
Ernest had an enormous pile of gaming plaques stacked neatly to his side.
‘Hey, Kate…’ he called out to me.
I leaned in to him and he whispered in my ear, ‘You want the Lamborghini or the Ferrari?’
I felt like I was in Disneyland for grown-ups.
After the next draw of cards, Ernest disclosed his royal flush: an ace, king, queen, jack and a ten. The Lamborghini loser stood up and slammed down his playing cards in frustration. Then, cursing, he stormed away. However, the Ferrari loser immediately demanded an ‘all or nothing’ – a one chance play off against Ernest – to try to win back all his losses.
Ernest sat back in his chair and lit a cigar as he took a measure of the man.
‘That depends on what you have to put on the table that matches my all against your nothing,’ he remarked.
‘I have an island in the Caribbean. I’ve never been there but it’s all mine. I can prove it. My papa left it to me when he died,’ Ferrari loser explained.
Ernest raised an eyebrow that signalled to the pit boss to alert the casino manager.
‘And where exactly is this island in the Caribbean Sea?’ Ernest asked him, his curiosity certainly piqued.
‘It’s called Pearl Island and it’s just off the Caymans,’ Ferrari loser explained further.
Then a map was brought into the negotiations and a bond was drawn up, signed and witnessed and placed onto the middle of the table alongside Ernest’s stack of gaming plaques.
Ernest, looking cool and calm, nodded to the dealer, who then unpacked a brand new deck of cards. The cards were cut and shuffled to the two men’s satisfaction and the game began. The atmosphere in the room was both smoky and tangible under the overhead lighting that spotlighted the green tablecloth and sent the dark shadows of remaining spectators up onto the walls.
I could hardly bear to watch. What if Ernest lost the lot?
I noted how the casino had discreetly increased security in case things turned heated.
At the gaming table, five cards each were dealt and duly studied by the two men.
From my position, standing behind Ernest, I could see his hand. He had two aces, a king, a three and a five. I watched as he slipped the three and the five out of his hand and had the dealer cut him two fresh cards. I felt myself flush with heat when I saw the two new cards. I looked up to see his opponent studying me with narrowed eyes and, in alarm, I knew he’d seen my reaction.
My heart began to pound in my chest. Had I just given Ernest away?
‘Well, what is it to be, my friend?’ Ernest demanded. ‘Are you calling or are you holding?’
‘Holding.’ The man turned over his cards and then sat back looking pleased with himself.
On the table were three queens and two kings. ‘I have a full house. What you got?’
When Ernest showed his hand, there was a roar from the small crowd. He had four aces and a king.
‘Four of a kind. I believe I’m the winner.’
Ernest stood up to offer his hand for a gentleman’s handshake and the man shook it but there were no more words spoken between them before the defeated man walked away.
On his way to the cashier’s station, Ernest pushed the Ferrari key into my décolleté and I wondered what I was supposed to do with a car when I had a flight to catch in just a few hours’ time? Perhaps I could have it sent over to London? If so, then where would I park it when a parking space in London would cost more than the rent on my tiny flat?
With all his cash winnings taken care of, Ernest came over and kissed me hard on the mouth.
‘You having fun?’ he asked me, with a winning glint in his eye.
‘The most I’ve ever had,’ I told him, quite honestly.
‘You wanna’ come and live with me on a tropical Caribbean island, honey?’
I laughed, not knowing if he was actually serious or not.
For a moment, my mind drifted back to a very dark day in my life, when feeling cold and miserable and very pregnant, I was standing in front of a poster in the travel agent’s window on the high street, looking at a tropical island escape and thinking what I’d give to be able to go there.
For a moment, I toyed with the fantasy of living in an island paradise.
‘I’d love to but I have to go back to London today.’ I told him.
‘What for? What do you do in London?’
‘I’m a writer.’
‘Oh, you mean like a journalist?’
I immediately detected a tone of disappointment and quickly deduced that a man like him wouldn’t have appreciated the company of a journalist. I guessed that if he knew I was one then his interest in me might wane and, for some reason, I wanted to maintain his interest a little longer.
‘Oh no, I’m working on a novel,’ I professed, lifting my chin and exhaling my smoke in what I thought was a sensual way.
‘And I guess you can write that novel anywhere, can’t you?’ he replied.
‘But I have a deadline, darling,’ I told him. ‘And a meeting with my editor.’
He linked his arm in mine and gave me a mischievous look as we walked towards the elevators.
‘So, are you really planning to leave me with a Caribbean island and all this money when I have no one to share it with?’
I laughed. This was impossible. There was no way this man had no one to share his wealth or his bed. The story of my life, unfortunately.
‘Look, Ernest, this has been the best fun ever,’ I told him, ‘but I’m sure you must have a wife somewhere.’
He looked amused. ‘That situation is vacant. You want the job?’
I laughed. Really laughed. This was the craziest proposal ever. Not that I’d ever had a proposal of marriage before, of course.
He was still smiling. ‘I mean it. Let’s go and get married right now?’
‘But we hardly know each other…’ I protested weakly.
‘Then ask me anything. What do you want to know?’ he retorted.
‘Well, I’ve told you what I do. What do you do? I mean, when you’re not gambling.’
‘This is what I do. I’m a professional gambler.’
‘That is an actual job?’ I wondered aloud.
He laughed again. We went back to our respective suites to freshen up and then a short time later we arranged to meet up again in the lobby.
We went to breakfast first. We ate eggs Benedict with smoked salmon and we washed it down with Bloody Marys. Ernest assured me that the one sure way to avoid a hangover in Vegas was to avoid sobriety.
Then we went for a drive in the Lamborghini and ended up at a little white wedding chapel just off the Strip, where Ernest dropped down on one knee and begged me to marry him.
It was all so crazy and impetuous. How could I refuse? I mean, what did I have to lose?
An Elvis impersonator singing ‘I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You’ escorted me up the aisle to where Ernest was waiting for me with an enormous bouquet of red roses and a big soppy grin on his face. Our vows were a little suspect and even a little slurred, but Ernest produced a huge impromptu diamond ring and we followed Elvis’s lead.
The King was very entertaining and looked and sounded so very like him that it was uncanny.
‘Ernest, repeat after me,
’ Elvis commanded. ‘I promise you, Kate, that I will always love you tender and will never leave you at the heartbreak hotel. I will never have a suspicious mind and from this day forth I promise to be your hunka hunka burnin’ love.’
Ernest was laughing so hard and enjoying it all so much that he could hardly get his words out. When he did manage to get to the end he bucked his hips to the ‘hunka hunka burnin’ love’ part.
‘And, Kate, please repeat after me. I promise you, Ernest, that I will never treat you like a hound dog or step on your blue-suede shoes. I promise to love you tender and never return you to sender because you will always be my lovin’ teddy bear.’
After we’d both finished reciting our vows and said, ‘I do,’ we kissed each other long and hard and were pronounced man and wife.
We danced our way back down the aisle singing ‘Viva Las Vegas’.
Chapter Nineteen
Kate’s Journal – 1975
USA to The Caribbean
Ernest and I flew from Vegas to Houston Texas and then onto San Juan in Puerto Rico before heading off to the southern Caribbean islands off the coast of Venezuela, known as the ABC islands. Aruba’s Tropicana Casino Resort, where Ernest said Caribbean Stud Poker had been invented, and then onto Bonaire and then Curacao’s famous Casino Royale.
As a honeymoon couple, when Ernest isn’t gambling we are busy making love, and to say we are well-matched in the bedroom is an understatement.
Every morning I wake up thinking it’s all a dream – a beautiful decadent dream.
Yet every morning he’s there in the bed with me, looking dishevelled and undeniably gorgeous.
In the quiet moments of the morning, I like to watch him just before he wakes. When his dark eyelashes are fluttering on his perfectly sculptured cheek bones, his beautiful mouth is curved in a dreamy smile, when his lips are tempting me to kiss them. I lean in to breathe the warm manly scent rising from his body and I say to myself ‘this is my husband’.
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