Pretend To Be Mine

by Suzie Nelson

  “I want to run a casino,” I suggested, without even hesitating for a moment.

  “Why a casino? That’s probably one of the most difficult things in the world to run profitably because the competition is so intense!” Vivienne replied, playing devil’s advocate.

  “I’ve often thought about it, Vivienne,” I replied, “Ever since I visited the Las Vegas Strip for the first time I’ve thought how cool it would be to own a casino.”

  “Very well then, a casino it will be and you will have 6 months to show me you can run it well enough to prove that you will be a worthy heir of the family fortune.”

  That was that; I became the controlling shareholder of the Golden Nugget casino and quickly discovered that this was a cutthroat business. The other shareholders were breathing down my neck and continuously tried to wrestle control of the casino away from me with offers to purchase my shares.

  “So what brings a French gentleman like you to the sinful shores of Las Vegas?” Jenny asked as the waiter served us our delicious quail in red wine sauce.

  “Just curiosity,” I lied and tasted a mouthful of the softly cooked meat. It tasted better than anything I’d ever had in Vegas and I made mental note to instruct the chef at the Golden Nugget to add this dish to our menu.

  “And how long exactly will your curiosity keep you here?” Jenny continued her gentle interrogation. I knew that she had a mind that could cut through bullshit like a hot knife through French butter so I thought carefully before answering.

  “As long as I find new things to keep me interested, ma chérie,” I said with a smile and she gave me one of those probing looks that could easily break through a man’s defenses if he wasn’t vigilant, but I was ready to take a chance.

  Time was of the essence I knew that I only had 6 months to prove to Vivienne that I was a worthy heir to the family fortune. I was already formulating a rough plan in my mind and was thinking it would be interesting to follow Jenny around as she scammed the other casinos on the Las Vegas Strip to learn as much as I could about the competition and their weaknesses. No-one in Vegas knew that I was the new controlling shareholder and manager of the Golden Nugget, as the other shareholders were miles away in their ivory towers and they didn’t mingle with the casino business on ground level, so I had the element of surprise in my favor.

  “Who was that large man standing at your Blackjack table when you sat down for the first time?” I asked. I decided to test Jenny and see how quickly she could come up with some kind of explanation for the Pit Boss who’d showed an interest in her gambling early on.

  “Oh, that was a Pit Boss,” she replied without blinking an eye or losing a single stroke of her smooth rhythm, “Guys like him just stand around to try and stop girls like me from mesmerizing the Blackjack dealer with my obvious charms.” She gave me her most innocent smile as she delivered her lines and I had to admit that she was good. Very good indeed.

  “I would really enjoy taking you out to some exciting casino tomorrow evening so we can enjoy some more of the pleasures of Vegas together,” I said without thinking about it any further.

  “You mean you want to watch me gamble and hopefully seduce me afterward?” Jenny said without blinking an eye.

  “Mon Dieu,” I replied, “you sure have a way with words, ma chérie,” I replied and gave her my most winning smile.

  “I try,” she said and smiled right back at me. “Tomorrow night it is then, but right now I want to get back to my hotel room and get some rest.”

  I paid the bill and left the waiter a handsome tip before getting us a taxi and dropping Jenny off in front of her hotel.

  “I will pick you up tomorrow evening at 7,” I said and kissed her good night on the back of her hand.

  “I wouldn’t miss it for all the French kisses in the world,” Jenny Blake replied and left me standing there, slightly perplexed and very, very horny.

  JENNY

  I just knew that something was up with Francois. And that ‘something’ was more than just his cock soldier standing at attention after I’d put my moves on him.

  I opened the door to my hotel room and went straight to the safe in the bedroom. I never trusted the hotel staff with my winnings and preferred to keep it overnight in the room safe until I could deposit it into an inconspicuous account the following morning. I guess being somewhat of a con-artist eventually had the effect of making you trust no-one except yourself.

  “Just what is it you’re hiding, Mr. French playboy?” I whispered to myself as I took off my clothes and turned on the shower.

  The water fell on my tired body like drops of Jupiter from the gods and I enjoyed the way it seemed to wash all of my troubles away as I stood there enjoying its wet warmth.

  My mother was very ill and it was only a question of time before she would have to go for an expensive operation to remove a growth from her brain. She’d been unable to get any medical cover, as no insurance company was willing to sign up a 62-year-old woman with a possibly malignant brain tumor. My mother’s operation was going to cost more than half a million dollars and I was still about $200,000 shy of putting together that total with my card counting efforts. If I didn’t get the money together soon, my failure would have the effect of sending my mother to her grave. I realized that this kind of pressure was a terrible sword of Damocles to have hanging over my head. As a gambler, I could not perform at my best when my mind was not free to play the cards as they were dealt, rather than trying to force the issue.

  I got out of the shower and fell onto my bed. I was satisfied with the day’s work but knew that I still had a lot to do if I was going to get enough money together for my mom’s operation, so I was planning on hitting another casino very hard the next day. But to excel again, I needed to rejuvenate my mental strengths and so I soon drifted off to sleep and slept like a baby.

  I woke up the next morning; feeling refreshed and I got out of bed to draw away the curtains and take in the sight of the city that never stops gambling. Las Vegas was not exactly the most beautiful place on earth but there was something very enchanting about the sight of 50 casinos on the Strip where your life could change in the flash of an eye. Unfortunately, the change that most often took place was that of a poor gambler who’d come looking for his fortune losing everything and ruining his life. I was not planning on being one of those poor sods, though.

  I put on one more of the revealing little numbers I’d brought with me. It was never too early in the day for a low-cut blouse, to paraphrase one of my dear dad’s favorite sayings; he actually believed that it was never too early in the day for a drink or a bet on the ponies.

  I wasn’t quite sure which casino I wanted to visit that morning and, for some reason, I felt like walking by the Golden Nugget while I was trying to make up my mind about my next move. They say a crook always returns to the scene of the crime and, whilst I didn’t consider myself to be a lawbreaker in any way by counting cards, I have to admit that it felt good to walk past the casino I’d ransacked with my card-playing skills the previous evening. There was something akin to celebration about the whole thing and I smiled as I thought how sweet it was to avenge my family’s misfortunes by making these unscrupulous gambling institutions pay for their misdeeds.

  I was just about to walk further down the Strip when I saw him. Francois. French playboy extraordinaire and sweet talker of note. He was walking straight into the doors of the Golden Nugget and the doorman tipped his hat as Francois walked past him. This was not exactly unusual behavior for a doorman, but I still thought there was something oddly familiar in the way that Francois entered the casino. Was he some kind of con-artist himself? I suddenly felt curiosity getting the better of me and, on the spur of the moment, I decided to follow him into the Golden Nugget.

  I kept a safe distance from my unsuspecting gorgeous prey and looked the other way when I thought he was going to look around at one point. I expected Francois to head for the bar and sit down next to so
me unsuspecting female victim, but he headed for the lifts and I followed suit. Just about 5 seconds after Francois’s elevator doors had closed I got into the elevator next to his and then realized that I had absolutely no idea which floor he would be heading for. I quickly got out at the first floor and went to a stand in front of the elevator doors on the side of Francois’s elevator to see where the light would stop. Number 17 lit up and stayed lit for about 30 seconds. Of course that did not mean, necessarily, that Francois had gotten out on the 17th floor; it could also have been someone else who’d stopped the elevator on that floor, but it was the only information I had so I got back into my lift and pressed 17 on the panel and waited as the elevator rose up to the 17th floor.

  When the doors opened it appeared to be a floor with expensive penthouse suites and this, once again, did not seem to be anything out of the ordinary for an obviously wealthy man like Francois who could afford to buy a strange woman a $3,000 bottle of French champagne.

  “You’re just a paranoid, overly-suspicious girl with a knot in her panties,” I smilingly whispered to myself.

  It appeared that Francois had simply headed for his hotel room and it made perfect sense that he’d been staying in the Golden Nugget; after all, that’s where I’d met him. I was just about to leave when I heard the most beautiful classical guitar music coming from one of the rooms. It couldn’t be Francois playing the guitar that well, could it? I knew it wasn’t music from the radio or some other recording, because the music stopped and started up again as the guitarist played various improvisations of the same tune. I was just about to go closer to try and sneak a peek through the keyhole to see who was playing the delightful guitar music when a cleaning lady came around the corner and I had to turn around and leave before I was discovered for the nosy parker I’d been.

  I made my way down to the ground floor after my brief soiree into the world of impromptu spying and briskly walked out the front door. I didn’t want to be spotted by someone who’d watched me win $44,000 the previous evening with the possibility of getting involved in some eyebrow-raising discussion with a curious tourist or something silly like that.

  “Pyramid of money, here I come,” I thought to myself as I made my way to the next place that was about to experience the wrath of Jenny Blake’s card counting prowess. I made my way to the Luxor casino, which was built in the shape of an Egyptian pyramid, and took a deep breath before entering its shiny front door.

  FRANCOIS

  Did I expect Jenny to have some kind of ability or skill that would be so valuable to me that it would help me convince Vivienne I was worthy of inheriting the family fortune? No. She was a great card counter but I wasn’t that enamored with Jenny’s gambling skills.

  Did I expect Jenny to be very different from the other women I’d met during my stay in Las Vegas? No. She was very sexy in the most voluptuously delicious way but I’d had equally hot women in my time.

  Was I especially horny for Jenny Blake after having dinner with her the previous evening? Yes, a thousand times yes.

  What exactly was it that intrigued me so much about her and made me wonder what it would be like to take her in my arms? It was the fact that she didn’t just accept the hand life had dealt her and she had a real fighting spirit inside her. I’d met many beautiful models and actresses who enjoyed living in the limelight, yet they would cry at the drop of a hat and had no depth of character.

  Here was a young woman who stood up for herself and struck back at the injustice she had to face as a young girl. Jenny Blake was beautiful and strong enough to rise above her troubles. She was also kind of cheeky in a way that I found refreshing; I didn’t like it when girls just fell down at my feet. I couldn’t predict exactly how things would play out between us, but I thought that getting to know Jenny better would be a riveting experience and she might just turn out to be a strong ally in my quest to prove myself in the gambling world.

  Having reconfirmed in my mind the true reason why I looked forward to going out with Jenny so much, I put down my guitar and got undressed and took a quick shower before dressing down in comfortable slacks and a t-shirt before opening my laptop to take a closer look at the financial figures of Golden Nugget’s last financial year. The true challenge of impressing Vivienne, I soon realized as I perused the figures, lay not in taking a struggling casino and making it profitable; but rather in taking an incredibly profitable casino and making it even more profitable. The Golden Nugget had shown a net profit, after taxes, of $126 million in the previous financial year and I realized that I was going to have my work cut out for me.

  I closed my laptop and lay down on the large king size bed for a while just to gather my thoughts. I was looking forward to the evening with Jenny and I knew that stressing about the whole challenge of proving myself in the casino business wouldn’t do a thing to help me. I always performed better when I wasn’t under any undue stress and I decided to let the whole 6 months period play itself out. I was ready and willing to take any opportunities that came my way but I also wanted to remember that I was in Vegas where good times were on offer 24/7 and I didn’t want to turn into one of those businessmen who never did anything but eat, sleep and drink business.

  My cell phone beeped twice and when I looked it was a message from Vivienne, my dear grandmother.

  “Time waits for no man, hope you are working hard,” it read and I found myself wondering, for the hundredth time, if Vivienne ever thought about anything other than money. She often sent me these kinds of messages and I’d long since given up trying to get her to stop. I must admit, there were times when I was tempted to turn my back on her and leave the way my father did; drift away from that ‘money and nothing else’ mindset, but she was my only relative and deep in my heart I knew she only meant well for me. And that was something my father could never understand.

  “The sleeping man gathers no top dollar,” I replied to Vivienne via text message. It meant absolutely nothing, but I’d discovered that the best way to reply to a message like the one I’d just received from her, was with a surreal message of my own.

  “Right on!” Vivienne texted back and I just had to smile. It was a bit of a nuisance, but I still preferred these text messages to having an hour long phone conversation with my grandmother, so I felt grateful that she’d texted and not phoned.

  ***

  There were still about two hours left before I had to pick Jenny up in front of her hotel and I set my alarm clock to wake me up in an hour. I drifted off to sleep relatively quickly and had the strangest dream. I was standing on a rooftop and Jenny was standing next to me. We were looking out over a large desert and I wondered what kind of building we could be standing on. I turned to look at Jenny and she had a strange expression on her face.

  “The sleeping man gathers no top dollar,” she said and I woke up in a cold sweat. I realized that I’d just dreamt about the stuff that was on my mind, as Jenny had simply repeated the words I’d texted to Vivienne earlier that day, but I still thought that the dream had an eerie sense of reality to it. I didn’t feel like having any more dreams like that and gave up on the idea of having an afternoon nap before meeting Jenny for a night out in the town.

  I got up and decided to get dressed. I put on a Fabiani shirt and black silk trousers and selected a particular dapper looking pair of real leather Texas boots to go with it. I thought the outfit was a welcome change to the very fancy kind of Armani suits I often wore and I felt ready for some real adventure.

  “Hold on, my sexy little card counter, here I come,” I muttered to myself and couldn’t help but put on a seductive smile as I took a final approving look at myself in the full-length mirror.

  JENNY

  I hit the Luxor casino around 4 pm and thought there would be enough time to play a couple of hands of Blackjack before I had to meet Francois in front of my hotel, but I got stuck at the bar.

  I’m not a big drinker, but for some reason, I just felt like having a glass
of wine before I started gambling; something I’d never really done before. It’s not that I felt nervous about playing Blackjack. God knows I’d been at the game long enough not to suffer from my nerves just because I was placing bets of thousands of dollars on the outcome of a stack of paper cards. I don’t think I was feeling any extra pressure from the fact that I still had about $200,000 to go before I would be able to pay for my mother’s operation. It was all just a little bit of excitement, I think, about the prospect of seeing Francois later that evening, although I would never admit this to a living soul.

  I sat there sipping my glass of wine and ignored all of the hungry stares I got from the lonely middle-aged guys at the bar and found myself thinking about my love life, or rather the absolute lack of it. I’d been so engrossed in getting my own back at the gambling institutions as revenge for the fact that my dad had been a gambling addict that I never really had time for a boyfriend over the last 5 years of my life.