The VIP Doubles Down (Wager of Hearts Book 3)

by Nancy Herkness

  “No one actually lounges here,” Gavin said, walking through the trailer to another door. As he opened it, the wind walloped her in the face. The only thing between them and the white-capped waves of the Hudson River was a stretch of asphalt holding several helicopters, their rotors drooping slightly.

  A man walked up to Gavin, who handed over his car keys. “The bag’s in the trunk.”

  “Yes, sir,” the man said, taking off at a run.

  “Do you mean my bag?” Allie asked. “I could have carried it.”

  “Since the trailer didn’t impress you, I had to come up with another method,” Gavin said, taking her hand and leading her toward a sleek black copter with blood red stripes.

  She could barely hear the last of his words as the rotors on one of the other choppers began to rotate. The wind whipped her hair around her face like snakes while the noise rose to a deafening volume. When the rotors got up to speed, the aircraft lifted off as lightly as a dragonfly before turning to zoom out over the expanse of choppy water.

  “I can’t decide whether I’m excited or terrified,” she said as Gavin helped her through the side door of the aircraft. Six cushioned armchairs faced one another across a polished wooden table. The interior reminded her of the Bentley, all leather and fancy-grained wood paneling, although the color palette here was deep red and silver. The opulence of it left her speechless.

  Gavin climbed in after her, and the door was slammed shut. She heard the thud of latches closing and locking. “I assume you would prefer to face forward,” he said, waving to a chair.

  She nodded and sank into its pillowy embrace. “Can we talk while it’s flying?”

  He sat in the chair nearest her, stretching his legs out so his glossy loafers nearly touched her boots. “Of course.” He cocked his head. “This isn’t your average sightseeing chopper.”

  “No kidding.” A vibration ran through the aircraft, and the pilot’s voice sounded in the cabin.

  “Please fasten your seat belts. We’re ready to lift off.”

  Allie fumbled with the seat belt. It was configured just like an automobile’s, but nerves made her clumsy. Gavin reached over, took the metal buckle out of her hand, and neatly clipped it into the latch.

  She felt a slight sense of movement and peered out the window to discover that they were rising off the asphalt pad. Her fingers dug into the leather armrest as they climbed higher and executed the same maneuver the other chopper had, turning their nose to the river and skimming forward.

  Gavin’s hand closed over hers where she gripped the armrest, his fingers warm and strong. “Morley Safer claimed that helicopters induce a view of the world that only God and CEOs share on a regular basis.”

  “Which category do you put yourself in?” she asked.

  He laughed and gave her hand a playful squeeze. “In my fictional world, I play God.”

  “I figured CEO was too boring for you,” she said, tensing as the chopper dipped suddenly.

  “It’s just a touch of turbulence over the river. Think of the air as a road with a few potholes in it,” Gavin said.

  “Potholes, right. In New York, you can break an axle in one of those.”

  The laughter left Gavin’s face. “I would never put you in danger.”

  That reassured her more than his pothole analogy. She nodded.

  With that, Gavin switched into tour-guide mode, pointing out landmarks and tossing out intriguing facts or funny stories about them. “How do you know all this stuff?” Allie asked.

  “Research. No one understands how much of it goes into a work of fiction. They think I can make it all up because my characters aren’t real. But the settings are real, so the buildings and streets, the sounds and smells, even the quality of the light in any given season need to be accurate.” He tapped his temple. “Of course, the weird, useless factoids are what stick in my brain.”

  As they flew over Queens and Long Island, Allie began to understand Morley Safer’s quotation. They were close enough to see details, like the color of the cars in parking lots, but high enough to grasp the larger picture of the geography spread out around them like a relief map.

  As they flew farther east, the expanse of the Atlantic Ocean began to dominate the view. A few ships crawled over its corrugated gray surface, but mostly it was empty as it stretched to the horizon.

  “Make sure your seat belts are snug. It’s windy, so we might hit a few bumps on the way down,” the pilot’s voice said.

  Allie tightened her hold on the armrest again, but her nerves were only mildly frayed by the occasional jolting. Gavin’s fingers were wrapped around hers as though he would never let go. She gave him a grateful smile and found him watching her.

  “Mark flew combat choppers in the Middle East,” he said. “He could land this craft in a hurricane under missile fire without breaking a sweat.”

  “As long as you’re holding my hand, I’m fine.” She turned her hand under his so she could return his grasp.

  He looked startled, his gaze jerking down to their intertwined grip. He flexed his fingers as though he was testing the strength of their connection. “I’m not sure I’m worthy of such trust.”

  “Believe me, I trusted Ludmilla far more when I gave her Pie.”

  He sat back, his dark hair disheveled against the red leather of the seat. “Ruth would like you.”

  “Ruth?” Allie’s grip on his hand turned convulsive as the helicopter jinked sideways.

  “My oldest stepsister. She never lets me get away with anything, either.”

  Chapter 20

  The helipad was just an asphalt-paved rectangle that faced Shinnecock Bay. As Gavin helped her out, Allie felt the chill of the sea air cutting through her clothes. It smelled of brine and foam and deep, rolling waves.

  She started to look around, but her attention was drawn to the man beside her, his head thrown back as he faced into the wind, his black clothes plastered against his long, lean body, his hair combed away from his face by fingers of moving air, and his nostrils flaring as he inhaled. He looked as though he could wield the power of the elements with a gesture of his hand, and she remembered her impression of him as a dark wizard.

  He turned to meet her gaze, his eyes lightened to almost silver by some emotion she couldn’t name. “Thank you for coming here.”

  She surveyed the starkly beautiful salt marsh in front of them. “I’m glad I did.”

  Gavin steered her toward a chain-link fence that separated the landing pad from Meadow Lane, the two-lane road Gavin’s house was located on. Gavin had given her all the local names as they flew in, but he hadn’t shown her his house from the air.

  Across the road was another asphalt rectangle surrounded by dunes, the parking lot for cars meeting incoming passengers. A single car stood in it, the driver leaning against the front bumper.

  “You rich guys are really into reverse psychology,” Allie said, pulling her jacket closer around her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you said we were landing at the Southampton heliport, I expected something more than two patches of asphalt. Can’t one of you billionaires at least spring for a trailer here?”

  “We didn’t get to be billionaires by wasting money on a trailer when our drivers meet us right across the street.” He guided her over the roadway to the waiting Bentley. “You should see this parking lot in the summer. It’s wall-to-wall Bentleys, Maseratis, Ferraris, and Rolls-Royces.”

  “If you drive a Lexus, are you allowed to park here?”

  “Only in the very back of the lot,” Gavin said, before he nodded to his driver, who was holding the Bentley’s door open. “Afternoon, Linda.”

  Allie had been eyeing the car, trying to decide if it was an exact twin of the one Pie was riding out in. When she heard the female name, her gaze went to the chauffeur, an attractive young woman with her hair tucked up under her cap. Allie smiled at Linda as she slid into the back of the car and gave Gavin a gold star for his lack of sex
ism.

  As the car glided down Meadow Lane, Allie peered out the window, trying to catch glimpses of the beachfront mansions. Many were behind gates or dunes, but occasionally she got a sense of how large the houses were. “I guess you never pop over to the neighbors’ to borrow a cup of sugar.”

  “Sugar? No, but I might beg a fifth of bourbon on a dreary Sunday.”

  “Seriously, do you know any of your neighbors?”

  “Yes, but we all pay a great deal for privacy, so I wouldn’t drop in for a visit unannounced.”

  “That’s kind of sad. Anyone famous?”

  “If you’re looking for actors or singers, no. They gravitate toward East Hampton. Southampton is a staid crowd of financiers and businessmen.”

  “How’d you get in?” she teased.

  “Money. The Hamptons are very democratic that way.”

  The car eased off the road and drove through two cast-iron gates that swung open as they approached. The driveway was surrounded by high, tangled bushes, so she could see nothing of the house or grounds. “I feel like Julian Best entering the lair of his archenemy, Sturgis Wolfe.”

  “Sometimes I get lazy and just look out my window when I need a description.”

  Suddenly the bushes fell away, and a winter-brown lawn spread out before them, leading up to a rambling mansion clad in gray shingles, the trim of its mullioned windows and graceful columns painted a crisp white. Allie loved the asymmetry of it, with oriel windows punctuating a gambrel roof here while a brick chimney poked up there. Somehow that made it seem less imposing and more inviting despite its massive size.

  Linda drew the car up under the front portico with a flourish, jumping out to swing open Allie’s door. The scent of the sea met her nostrils again, but the house sheltered them from the slam of the wind.

  Gavin put his arm around her shoulders. “Welcome to my humble abode.”

  Allie snorted. “It’s about as humble as you are, but I like it. It has charm.”

  “If I match it in humility, I hope I also match it in charm.”

  “That’s not the first word that comes to mind.”

  He dropped his arm to her waist and bent so he could murmur in her ear. “Let’s play word association. What adjective does come to mind first?”

  She debated between honesty and humor but went for the first. “Fascinating.” She could have added dark, sad, and enigmatic, but she didn’t want to get that complicated before she’d even gotten inside the house. Other words—words about her feelings toward him—she was trying to banish from her own mind.

  “I’ll take it.” His grip tightened. “Although I was hoping for sexy as hell.”

  “That’s three words, so it’s not acceptable.”

  He huffed out a laugh and started them up the brick steps to the wide planks of the front porch. He pulled open the bright red front door to usher her into a light-filled double-height entrance hall with a curving staircase climbing up on the left, and arched openings offering glimpses of elegant rooms on three sides.

  “You leave it unlocked?”

  “Linda opened it before she left. I didn’t think you’d let me get away with being greeted by the butler.”

  “The butler. You have a butler here.”

  “It takes a substantial staff to keep this place running, even when I’m not here. And I don’t really want to hire and fire them seasonally.” His tone was slightly irritated.

  “You’re right. I’m just not used to . . . this.” She waved her hand at the grand space around them.

  “It’s quite cozy when you get settled in.”

  Allie couldn’t stifle her laughter as she took in the patterned marble floor, the long second-floor gallery, and the oversize brass chandelier above her head. “For a writer, your word choice is pretty inaccurate.”

  He held out his hand. “Let me show you why I bought this house.”

  His green eyes glinted with pleased anticipation as he closed his fingers around her hand. He towed her through a large, sunny room filled with casual furniture upholstered in soft greens and blues with touches of bright peach. It was, in fact, close to cozy. The wall opposite them was made entirely of french doors opening onto a porch paved with irregular stones in more vivid hues of the room’s color scheme.

  Gavin flung open a door and pulled her outside.

  Before them was nothing but undulating sand dunes covered with waving sea grass and salt spray roses, bare except for their bulbous red hips. The dunes were bisected by a gray boardwalk that led straight to the wide, empty beach. The wind whipped sand up into a fine haze and tore foam off the tops of the breaking waves.

  “Some people put swimming pools between the house and the beach,” he said, raising his voice over the rush of wind and crash of surf, “but I didn’t want a puddle of tame blue water between me and the raw power of the ocean.”

  Allie surveyed the sky filled with fast-scudding clouds, the beach stretching out to either side of them, and the restless sea that drew the flat line of the horizon, and understood. “It makes you feel insignificant,” she said.

  “Gloriously insignificant,” Gavin said, his voice vibrating with something elemental. She glanced sideways to find him smiling with fierce excitement. She could imagine him at the helm of a pirate ship, dressed in black as he was now, shouting commands to the sailors climbing the rigging like monkeys as they bore down on their prey.

  “Do you sail in the winter?”

  He tore his gaze away from the view to look at her. “My boat goes to Florida at this time of year, I’m afraid. Would you like to fly down and take a cruise?”

  She laughed at the same time as a shiver ran through her. Gavin wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his hard, warm body.

  “Let’s go inside and I’ll warm you up,” he said.

  “With some hot chocolate?”

  “As long as you’re willing to drink it in bed.”

  “So you brought me out into the freezing cold as a ploy to get me under the covers with you.” But she was flattered and a little turned on by his unabashed desire for her.

  “And I thought I was being so subtle.”

  They went back through the french door and took a different path through the big living room, ending up in a huge kitchen with restaurant-grade appliances. A brown-haired woman in a white chef’s jacket, jeans, and clogs sat at a butcher-block table, scrolling through screens on a laptop. She rose as they walked in.

  “Germaine, meet Allie Nichols. She has a yen for some hot chocolate.”

  Allie nodded hello, and Germaine smiled. “And for you, Gavin?”

  “The same. We’ll be in the office. Working.” Gavin cast a sardonic glance at Allie as they exited through a different doorway.

  “That was very master-of-all-you-survey,” Allie said. “I’m surprised you didn’t have her deliver the hot chocolate to your bedroom.”

  “If I thought you’d allow it, I would have.” He headed for the curving staircase and made a wry face. “Today I walk up the stairs without assistance.”

  She heard a note of self-disgust in his voice. “You had good reason to be upset.”

  “That’s no excuse for indulging in a drinking binge. The last time I did that, I made some bad decisions.”

  “The bet?”

  He stopped midstaircase and directed a piercing look at her. “How do you know about that?”

  “I don’t. Frankie referred to it.” She kept walking. “But I’m curious. What did you bet on?”

  He remained where he was, his head tilted back to watch her. “Love.”

  Allie made a face at him. “If you don’t want to tell me the truth, just say so.”

  “Do you think I’m so blackhearted that I wouldn’t hope for true love?”

  She stood at the top of the stairs, looking down into his face with its sharp angles framed by wind-tousled hair. He looked . . . vulnerable, as though he’d dropped the facade of wicked cynic for a moment. She found these glimpses
of the sensitive man behind the pain dangerously compelling. “I think your heart is well defended, which is a natural reaction to being hurt by those who should care about you.”

  His expression shifted to self-mockery as he finished ascending. “Moats and battlements with archers on the ramparts. Or perhaps Julian with his sniper rifle.”

  “So you bet with Frankie?” Allie couldn’t picture the self-contained club owner doing something that fanciful.

  “Frankie doesn’t believe in true love. I bet with Trainor and Archer, who were also drunk. No, maybe Archer wasn’t at that point. The evening is somewhat blurred in my memory.” He gestured toward a door. “The office.”

  But Allie stopped on the gallery, stunned. “Wait, how long ago did you make the bet?”

  “Last fall. We gave ourselves one year. The clock is ticking.” He made a pendulum motion with his hand.

  “So Nathan hadn’t met Chloe, and Luke hadn’t met Miranda? Those two couples seem so . . . so . . .”

  “In love?” Gavin’s voice sliced like a knife.

  “Even more than in love. So . . . bonded.” Allie didn’t know how to explain it. Chloe and Miranda were quite comfortable with their powerful partners. She didn’t think she could feel that level of ease as quickly.

  Then she remembered what Frankie had said about the bet: that by letting Allie into the club, she was trying to help Gavin win it. That meant the worldly, sophisticated Frankie thought Allie might be Gavin’s true love.

  She reached blindly for the gallery railing, clinging to it, as the world seemed to tilt off its axis. She’d considered him out of reach, their relationship something that would come and go swiftly like the flare of a match. But maybe . . .

  Then the truth hit her. Gavin would have kept the bet a secret if he had the slightest thought that she might be the woman who would win it for him. Instead, he’d revealed its details without any hesitation.

  “Allie? Are you all right?” Gavin put his finger under her chin to angle her face upward. “You’ve gone pale. Let’s get you to a couch so you can lie down.”

  He took her elbow and hustled her into the office before she could protest. Just the feel of his fingers supporting her arm took on a new resonance. She couldn’t dismiss it as simply sexual. Now that she had stopped denying there was more, her heart cartwheeled with joy before it sagged with despair.