The VIP Doubles Down (Wager of Hearts Book 3)

by Nancy Herkness

  “Sometimes you have to push the issue a little,” Miranda said, leaning her hip against the dressing table. “We don’t mean to pressure you, but we’ve been in your position, so we want to help.”

  “So you’re saying that I should tell Gavin that I’m, er, fond of him.”

  Miranda’s laugh pealed out like a tinkle of silver bells. “I might phrase it a little more strongly.”

  Chloe snorted. “What she’s saying is that you have to hit them over the head with the obvious.”

  Miranda sobered. “We just don’t want you to let his money or his career stop you from saying what’s in your heart.” She crossed her arms. “Gavin is one of Luke’s best friends, so I’d like to see him happy.”

  “And you think I could do that?” Allie was startled by the confidence these two women had in her.

  Chloe gave her a firm look. “The only people who can answer that question are you and Gavin.”

  “Here’s to the return of Julian!” Nathan held up his beer bottle.

  Luke tapped his against it, but Gavin turned and touched his bottle to the wooden paneling of Nathan’s man cave. “For God’s sake, don’t jinx me.”

  “You’re more superstitious than an NHL goalie,” Luke said. “And they’re really weird.”

  “What brought Julian back?” Nathan asked, settling back in a huge brown leather chair set beside a blazing fire.

  Gavin didn’t hesitate. “Allie.”

  Nathan’s eyebrows slanted upward in surprise. “Physical therapy breaks down writer’s block?”

  “She’s a woman of many talents, and one of them is being a muse.” Gavin sipped the beer.

  “Don’t muses wear floaty white dresses and dance around with harps?” Luke asked.

  “Those are Greek muses. Mine’s a West Virginian,” Gavin said. “She comes with a cat who vomits on car rides.”

  “You brought her cat?” Now Luke looked surprised.

  Gavin shrugged. “She wouldn’t leave New York without it. Without her. The cat’s a female.”

  Nathan and Luke looked at each other. Nathan cleared his throat. “I hear you’re not a fan of Allie’s dress for the ball tonight.”

  Gavin was beginning to see where the conversation was headed, so he gave Nathan a bland look. “Once she demonstrated that it wasn’t completely transparent, I had no problem with it. Would you want your date wearing slightly cloudy Saran wrap?”

  Luke coughed. “Do you remember calling me an idiot?”

  “Many times,” Gavin said, but he remembered exactly the occasion Luke was referring to. After Luke had thrown Miranda’s declaration of love back in her face, Gavin had told him what he thought of Luke’s intelligence . . . or lack of it. Gavin shoved up from the sofa where he’d sprawled. He was damned if he was going to let Luke give him advice about his personal life.

  “No,” Luke said. “You’ve called me an ass, a jerk, and a dumb jock, but you only called me an idiot once. I’m considering doing you the same favor.”

  “I believe I said you were not a dumb jock,” Gavin said, trying to derail the discussion before he had to be truly offensive. He leaned against the mantel and cast around for a topic that would deflect the persistent ex-quarterback’s attention from Allie. “By the way, I hired your friend Ron Escobar to do some investigating for me.” Too late he realized that he had opened himself up to more questions.

  “Investigating what?” Luke asked.

  “My mother’s whereabouts.” He tried to say it casually.

  The silence indicated that no one had taken it that way. Which was the disadvantage of having perceptive friends. Or any friends at all.

  “That’s quite a change of heart,” Nathan said.

  “I found some cards she sent me after she left, cards that my coldhearted rat bastard of a father withheld from me.” He held each man’s gaze with his own for a long moment. “And don’t mouth any platitudes about not speaking ill of the dead. My father made me believe that my mother had abandoned me without a backward glance.”

  “I’m not arguing with your evaluation,” Nathan said.

  Luke’s expression had gone grim, and he nodded his agreement. “How did you find them?”

  “My stepsister sent them to me. She was cleaning out my father’s old papers in the attic and unearthed them.” Gavin had no idea where Ruth had come across the cards, but it sounded plausible. No need to mention who had been with him when he opened the cards.

  “I’m sorry, man.” Luke lifted his beer again, this time in a gesture of sympathy. “That’s a hell of a thing to discover so many years later. I hope Ron finds your mother.”

  “I like to think that even my father wouldn’t have been so cruel as not to tell me if she had died, but—” Gavin shrugged.

  “You’ll find her,” Nathan said. “You’ll make it right.”

  “How do you ever make it right?” Gavin didn’t know, but Allie would, and she had promised to come with him. The tension pounding at his temples eased.

  That was the effect just thinking of Allie had on him. She was like a healing balm on his old wounds.

  “Don’t let pride get in your way,” Nathan said, his voice filled with regret. “It’s the great destroyer.”

  “Or fear,” Luke said. “You think you want to avoid getting hurt, but that’s no way to live, man.”

  Gavin knew the two men spoke from their own hard-won experience, so he weighed their words instead of dismissing them with a sarcastic comment. Pride and fear were emotions he had become far too comfortable with. Yet when he was with Allie, they skittered away to cower in a far corner of his mind.

  He straightened in his chair and turned back to Luke.

  “You’re right,” Gavin said. “I’m an idiot.”

  Chapter 27

  “You know what I want to do right now?” Gavin asked, tugging on one of Allie’s carefully coiled ringlets in the dimly lit luxury of the Bentley’s backseat. “Tell Jaros to turn the car around and go home so I can wrinkle the hell out of that pretty dress while I make love to you.”

  Allie laughed, even as desire lapped at her. “All this work to look beautiful, and you just want to mess it up?”

  “The irony has always struck me.” He moved aside her hair and laid his lips against her neck, his touch radiating through her. “Women spend immense amounts of time dressing up for men, and men would rather they just took it all off.”

  “Ha! That’s where you’re wrong. We dress up for ourselves. If men like how we look, that’s because we are projecting self-confidence.”

  He took her earlobe between his teeth, letting her feel just the tiniest pressure before he let go. “So I’ve been flattering myself all these years that the fair sex is preening for me.”

  “Depends on what they’re wearing. Some clothes are meant for male appreciation.”

  A chuckle rumbled in his throat. “Like the dress you wore to meet me at the door of your apartment.”

  Allie tilted her head sideways so he could kiss behind her ear and send shivers down to swirl around her tightening nipples. “Those are made to tantalize.”

  “And to be removed as swiftly as possible.” He brushed his thumb against the bare skin of her cleavage.

  “Gavin, this dress is not that kind. It takes a lot of work to get it off and on.”

  “Then we won’t take it off,” he said, leaning down to work his hand under the long skirt and stroke up her bare thigh to her panties. He’d been touching her more than usual ever since they’d returned from Chloe and Nathan’s house, which made her wonder what he and his friends had talked about.

  “You’re taking advantage of the fact that you look gorgeous in a tuxedo,” Allie said, remembering the moment she walked down the stairs in her ball regalia to find Gavin standing in the entrance foyer in his tux. His hair had been tamed into smooth waves that flowed neatly back from his face. The brilliant white of the pleated shirt with a wink of diamond-and-onyx studs contrasted with the black of the supple,
perfectly tailored wool draped over the breadth of his shoulders. The tux jacket followed the nip of his waist and drew the eye to his long, elegant legs accented with the satin side stripe. When she reached his feet, she had burst out laughing. He was wearing well-weathered boat shoes. He had grinned and said, “Easy on, easy off.”

  Her mind was brought back to the present when he found the edge of the lace between her legs and slid his finger under it. “Men wear tuxedos purely for the effect they have on women,” he admitted.

  Allie’s already weakened willpower deserted her, and she opened her thighs for him, letting her head fall back as his fingertip glided downward. He dipped inside her to wet his skin, then massaged the most sensitive spot on her body until she moaned and arched against his hand. He thrust inside her with first one and then two fingers. Little nips at her neck sent spikes of sharpness down to where he worked her with his fingers and thumb, until she bowed up from the leather seat while her internal muscles clamped around him in a convulsion of exquisite release.

  When she sank back down on the seat and opened her eyes, he slipped his fingers out of her and sucked them into his mouth, his eyes glittering in the semidarkness. “I could live on nothing but the taste of you,” he said before his gaze swept over her. “And the look of you after you come.”

  She followed his glance to see the front of her skirt rucked up to her waist, while her thighs were splayed open and her nude lace panties showed a damp spot. She tugged her skirt down. “I look like Cinderella in a porno flick.”

  Gavin threw back his head and gave a full-throated laugh. “If it were a porno flick, your two stepsisters would be in the car with us.”

  “Because for men, it’s all about quantity, not quality,” Allie said, smoothing the fabric over her knees.

  “Precisely. I want to make love to you at least a dozen times a day.” He put his arm around her and pulled her against him.

  She snuggled in with a happy purr. “You’d never get any writing done.”

  “I’ll prop my laptop on the curve of your deliciously round bottom and type while we rest between bouts.”

  “So I’ll be a sex toy and a desk.”

  “Do you have a problem with that?”

  Allie shook her head. Right now, her problems were glossed over by the rosy glow of the orgasm, as well as Chloe and Miranda’s conviction that she and Gavin could have a future together.

  She was nervous, but also exhilarated. Instead of waiting, and wondering what was going to happen in the relationship, she was taking matters into her own hands. She’d spent so many of the years with Troy putting her own needs second. But enough people saw something special between Gavin and her that she believed them. So tonight she was going to tell Gavin how she felt about him.

  It would take all her courage to open herself up, but she had discovered a deep well of compassion in Gavin. He knew what it was like to be rejected. Even if he didn’t feel the same way about her, she trusted him to be gentle.

  She tilted her head back and found him gazing down at her, his face shadowed and unreadable. She smiled, hoping he could see the love in her eyes.

  The moment was broken as the car glided to a stop in front of what looked like a large green-and-white-striped beach cabana. A tan young man dressed in a tight white T-shirt, white shorts, and sneakers leaped forward to open the Bentley’s door.

  “You can check your shoes in the cabana, Mr. Miller,” he said with a dazzling smile as Gavin helped her climb out of the car with her dress intact. Although two large heaters were aimed at the entrance, the sharp sea wind raised goose bumps on Allie’s arms.

  “That poor fellow must be freezing,” she murmured to Gavin as they passed into the entrance tent, which was toasty.

  “Why do you think he’s so quick to get the car doors open?” Gavin said. “Lean on me so you can take your shoes off.”

  Slipping out of her sparkly flip-flops didn’t require his assistance, but she put her hand on his forearm anyway, enjoying the feel of his muscle under the soft fabric. He toed off his boat shoes before bending to scoop up both pairs and hand them to the attendant.

  “Enjoy the party, Mr. Miller,” the chipper young woman said.

  Allie raised her eyebrows. “Does everyone know who you are?”

  “It’s good customer relations to know your donors, and I come every year, since I have a house out here.” He tucked her hand into his elbow before they stepped onto the carpeted boardwalk running up and over the dunes. Striped canvas formed a roof over their heads, but the sides were clear plastic, so she could see the wildly flickering torches planted in the sand along the way. It gave the walkway a primitive South Seas–island feeling.

  Several couples strolled along the walkway in front of them, with dresses and jewels glittering. The only discordant notes were the men’s naked feet under their elegant tuxes. She glanced downward to see her own bare toes with their pale pink polish flick out from under her floaty skirt as she walked, while Gavin’s strongly arched feet flexed as he strode along beside her.

  A laugh of pure delight burbled up from her throat.

  “What evoked that delicious sound?” Gavin asked.

  “Whoever thought of making everyone take off their shoes was a genius. It’s so whimsical and . . . and playful.”

  “Not adjectives I generally associate with charity galas.”

  “Exactly,” Allie said. “It makes it unique.”

  “I will pass your comments along to Elaine Vanderhoof, the moving force behind the ball. She will be pleased.”

  “Oh, gosh, I’m sure she doesn’t care about my opinion.”

  Gavin stopped and turned her toward him, his green eyes snapping with temper. “She cares about your opinion because I care about your opinion. And I care because you are a woman of extraordinary intelligence, strength, and character.”

  Her heart danced in her chest, her love for this man playing the melody. She should tell him now, while he believed she was something special. She’d formulated a little speech as she dressed for the ball, but she hadn’t expected to use it so soon. Taking hold of his lapels, she looked up into his frowning face. “Gavin, I—”

  “Excuse . . . Why, Gavin, how nice to see you!” An older couple, she tall and thin, he short and rotund, stopped with obvious pleasure.

  “Peggy, Ernest. Hope you’re well.” Gavin leaned in to receive a genuine kiss on the cheek before he shook the gentleman’s hand.

  He introduced Allie, and the four of them proceeded along the boardwalk together, the older couple asking Allie about her job and her home state, which they loved visiting. As they came to the end of the boardwalk, the couple saw someone else they knew and veered away.

  “Brace yourself,” Gavin said. “Despite the heaters, the sand can be chilly.”

  They stepped forward together onto the footprint-rumpled white sand. It was cool but soft under the soles of Allie’s feet, and she curled her toes into it. She noticed that Gavin, too, settled his feet with a sensual burrowing.

  “It’s so decadent to walk barefoot on the beach in the middle of winter,” she said before she lifted her gaze and gasped.

  The huge white tent curved above round tables that appeared to have trees made of sculpted driftwood growing out of their centers. The branches were hung with a myriad of gilded seashells and glass lanterns holding votive candles. More lanterns stood around the tree trunks on the sea green tablecloths, which were also strewn with golden glitter.

  “It’s so beautiful!” Allie breathed.

  “Much better than last year, when someone decided to put giant silver clamshells spitting out pearls on the tables,” Gavin said. “And I surmised that the shredded silver streamers dripping from the tent roof were meant to be seaweed.”

  “Stop,” Allie said, chuckling. “I’ll bet it was gorgeous, too.”

  “Gavin, darling.” A willowy woman with wings of silver in her dark hair gave Gavin an air-kiss. She turned to Allie with her hand extended. “I�
�m Elaine Vanderhoof. So nice to meet a friend of Gavin’s.”

  “Allie Nichols.” Allie was surprised by the warmth and firmness of Elaine’s grasp. “I love the decorations.”

  “The very talented decorating committee handles all that.”

  “Allie feels your idea of making the ball barefoot was pure genius,” Gavin said, sliding Allie a sly glance. “Whimsical and playful, I believe she said. And unique.”

  Allie levered her elbow sharply into Gavin’s rib cage while she smiled serenely at Elaine. When he let out a muffled grunt, her smile widened into a grin.

  To her surprise, Elaine grimaced with a comic look. “Every year I wage that battle all over again. The ladies like to have an excuse to buy shoes, and the gentlemen are just stodgy. So I need all the ammunition I can get.”

  Allie wiggled her toes. “Keep up the fight! It’s worth it.”

  “Now that I have the endorsement of Gavin Miller’s date to throw behind my position, I’ll be fine. We are all so grateful for his support.”

  Gavin lifted his hand, palm outward. “You promised, Elaine.”

  The other woman sighed. “All right, no expressions of gratitude.” She gave a little wave, and a waiter appeared, bearing a tray with filled champagne flutes. She took one and raised it. “However, I can drink a silent toast to your generosity.”

  Allie took a glass and tapped it against Elaine’s while Gavin glowered, but with a twitch at the corner of his lips. “I fail to see how that is not an expression of gratitude,” he said.

  Elaine gave an elegant shrug. “It did not contain the words thank or you.”

  Allie clinked with Elaine again as they exchanged a victory glance.

  “I see I shall have to separate you two.” Gavin put his arm around Allie’s waist, seized a glass of champagne, and steered her away from Elaine.

  Allie waved as Gavin swept them in the direction of an adjoining tent, where a multipiece orchestra played dance music. “We’re going to dance so no one else can bother us.” He threw back his champagne in one gulp before plunking both of their glasses on an empty table as they passed into the dance tent. Pulling her into his arms, he said, “I think they’re playing our song.”