“He’s eventually supposed to take over as the CEO of my family’s business.” It was a close enough approximation of the truth.
“I’d think they’d rather have you do it.” He regarded her with open admiration. “You’re smart and obviously capable.”
“Thank you.” She was delighted to hear that he didn’t think all CEOs should be male. Maybe his attitudes weren’t quite as retro as she’d assumed. “It’s been discussed, but I don’t want to. I’m actually happier as the CFO. I like keeping track of the money.”
“Excuse me for saying so, but your brother doesn’t seem to want to do it, either.”
“I know it looks that way, but he’ll get over this. It was a bunch of things at once, and he doesn’t like to be railroaded.” She gazed at him. “Much like Cynthia.”
“And that’s why they’re not good for each other. Left to her own devices, Cynthia won’t leave Vegas. She’s bonded to the place. But I’m afraid they’ll whip each other into a frenzy of resentment and book a flight to New York so she can get a job on Broadway.”
“That wouldn’t be the end of the world, Luke.”
He just looked at her.
She didn’t need much imagination to read his mind. If Cynthia ended up on the other side of the country, in a big city where he had no “people” to keep an eye on her, he’d worry himself to death. He had to get over that kind of thinking, but he’d been in charge of the family for only a few months. He had a lot to learn.
In sympathy with his angst, Giselle tossed him a lifeline. “I might be more worried about her jetting off to New York if she hadn’t texted you a riddle. I doubt she’s going anywhere at the moment.”
He sighed. “Ah, yes. The riddle. I guess we might as well go find out if you solved it or not.”
“Might as well.” After they figured out which way the rooms were numbered, they turned to the right and started off down the hall. They didn’t speak, as if in silent agreement not to give themselves away as they approached the door.
Giselle didn’t know Cynthia at all, but she had a fair idea of what motivated her. She wanted to guide her own destiny instead of being controlled by the expectations of others. That was exactly what Bryce wanted, too.
Giselle hoped they both had the good sense not to text what room they were in and then proceed to get it on while they waited for Luke to solve the riddle. An embarrassing scene wasn’t going to help. Giselle knew that for sure, even though she didn’t know yet what would help, or whose side Bryce was on.
Giselle slowed down as they approached the room. Luke pointed to the security latch propping the door slightly ajar. If Cynthia and Bryce had rented the room, they’d deliberately left it open.
When Luke held up his hand like an infantry patrol leader signaling a halt, Giselle had the urge to giggle. She never giggled. She wasn’t the giggling type. But this was turning into a melodramatic cloak-and-dagger affair that she suddenly found hysterical.
She supposed all the drama was appropriate. They were in Vegas. In an arena somewhere below, knights jousted on horseback. Down the road at Treasure Island, two ships fired broadsides at each other, and across the street a gondola was gliding down a canal that looked astoundingly like one in Venice.
Luke put his ear to the crack in the door, and Giselle stood quietly listening. She heard nothing.
If her nose hadn’t recently been assaulted by all the human-induced fumes in the elevator, she might have been able to tell whether a Were was on the other side of the door. But between her nose overload and whatever glue was off-gassing from the new carpet, she was fairly useless for nose patrol.
Stepping back from the door, Luke let out a breath. “I don’t think we have to worry about being quiet. Nobody’s in there.”
“There’s one way to be sure.”
He glanced at her. “Maybe I should go in first, just in case.”
“Just in case what? That they’re lying there naked and asleep? Or worse yet, naked and quietly smiling at us?”
Luke’s expression became thunderous with disapproval. “I don’t care if they’re smiling, but they damned well better not be naked.”
“If Cynthia knew for certain that she’d get that reaction from you, she’d definitely be naked. You need to lighten up, Dalton.”
He rolled his eyes before stepping toward the door and knocking. “Cynthia? You in there?”
Silence.
“Okay, I’m going in.”
“I’ll cover you.”
He turned back to her with a grin.
“Just kidding.” She returned his smile. “I’ve always wanted to say that, but I’m not armed.”
“Didn’t think so.” Turning back to the door, he pushed it open, stepped inside, and was immediately soaked with water. “What the hell?”
Giselle clapped her hand over her mouth. It wouldn’t do to laugh, especially when that stunt had Bryce written all over it. She remembered the first time he’d seen it done in a movie when he was twelve.
He’d spent months perfecting the technique of balancing a bucket of water over a doorway, tying a string to the knob, and carefully exiting the room. The first person through the door would get doused. He’d quit doing it when their folks threatened to permanently ground him, but obviously he hadn’t forgotten how.
“Cynthia! That wasn’t funny!” Bellowing and dripping, Luke stomped the rest of the way into the room. “You’d better not be here, damn it!”
Stepping over the damp carpet, Giselle glanced down at the hotel ice bucket upended on the floor. She knew Cynthia and Bryce had left. She’d watched her brother create this booby trap countless times, and the last part involved closing the door very carefully.
“Good thing there are towels in this room. At least I can dry off. I suppose I should feel lucky it was only water. Could’ve been tomato juice or maple syrup.” He continued to rave on as he walked into the bathroom and flipped on the light.
“Better not be hiding in the shower!” he called out. That was followed by the squeak of shower rings being pulled along the metal rod. Obviously he’d had to check.
Moving into the room, Giselle scanned it for any other booby traps. “Someone left an envelope on the bed.”
Luke came out of the bathroom, drying his wet hair with a towel. “Oh?” He draped the towel around his neck in a typical male gesture. “Maybe they left us a note.”
“Must be a really big note.”
His eyes widened as he spotted the large manila envelope lying precisely in the middle of the bed. “My name’s on it, and that’s her handwriting.” He finger-combed his wet hair. “After the bucket of water, I’m not sure whether to pick it up or not.”
“It looks harmless enough.” Giselle was dying of curiosity.
“It does. Oh, what the hell.” He grabbed the envelope, and when nothing happened, he blew out a breath. “Sometimes an envelope is just an envelope.” Prying open the flap, he pulled out a glossy studio shot of a little blond girl in a pink tutu. “Oh, shit.” There was a definite catch in his voice. “I should’ve guessed it would be something like this.”
“How old was she in that picture?”
“Three, maybe four.” He cleared his throat. “Her age is probably written on the back.” He flipped the picture over. Someone, probably his mother, had written Cynthia’s name in a flowing script and underneath had added her age, three and a half. Below that, in a much bolder hand, someone had scribbled, You’re all wet, Luke Dalton.
Giselle pressed her lips together to keep from smiling.
Apparently Luke could tell she thought it was funny. “Oh, yeah, that’s hysterical.”
Giselle met his gaze. “It’s clever, pointed, and harmless. And it communicates that she still wants to engage you in a discussion of sorts. If she was determined to defy you and risk causing a permanent rift, she could have
gone up to Reno and landed a job up there, or taken off for New York.”
“I guess.” He tucked the picture carefully back in the envelope as if to make sure he didn’t damage it. “I wonder if she swiped any more of these.”
“Where would she swipe them from?”
“The family photo gallery in the penthouse of the Silver Crescent. She has a key.”
“Your family moved to the Crescent?”
“Yep. My father, mother, and Cynthia all lived in the penthouse. They wanted me to live there, too, but a twenty-three-year-old usually doesn’t care to stay in a bedroom down the hall from his folks. We compromised, and I took an apartment one floor down. After Cynthia turned eighteen, she insisted on having the same arrangement I had.”
“Is the penthouse vacant now?”
“No, I live in it. My mom insisted that she wanted me to since she’s now in France. It’s a beautiful place, and it shouldn’t stand empty. Anyway, my father dedicated an entire room to professionally framed pictures of all of us at various ages.” He held up the envelope. “She would have had to cut the backing off to get this out. I hope she didn’t do that to the whole batch.”
“How many had to do with dance?”
“A lot. She took lessons until she left for college.”
Giselle wondered if he realized that this was more than a hobby for his sister. She’d been dancing since she was three, and now that her father wasn’t around to disapprove, she had only to get past her big brother to have the career she’d dreamed of her whole life.
“That’s going to bother me, wondering about those pictures.” He looked over at Giselle. “Would you mind if we went over to the penthouse to check?”
“Fine with me. Unless we get another riddle, we don’t know what to do next, anyway.”
“I know what to do next—eat. I’m starving. How about you?”
Now that he’d mentioned food, she realized she was hungry. “Sure, that sounds good.”
“Excellent. I’ll call Mr. Thatcher and have him bring us something from the main kitchen.” He pulled out his phone again.
“Who’s Mr. Thatcher?”
“Our very English butler. He’s been with the family for years. What would you like for dinner?”
“I’m not picky. Anything.”
“But you’re from ’Frisco. Lots of vegetarians up there. Are you a vegetarian?”
“No.”
“Vegan?”
“Nope. I’m a carnivore. I promise you.”
“You’re doing it again with the little smile. Did I say something funny?”
“Not everyone from San Francisco is a vegetarian, you know.”
“Guess not. You’re okay with steak, then?”
“Absolutely.”
“Do you like it rare, medium, or well?”
“Definitely rare.”
“Good. Me, too.” He placed his call to Mr. Thatcher and ordered two steak dinners with all the trimmings, a bottle of red wine, and two pieces of chocolate cake for dessert.
It was a meal fit for a Were, and Giselle could hardly wait. Plus she wanted to see how the Silver Crescent had changed since she was last there. She and her friends must have been guests right before the Crescent became involved in the Cartwright/Dalton legal battle.
“Okay.” He disconnected the call. “We’re out of here. Wait. Hold on a minute. Let me leave a tip for the maid.” He dug in his back pocket for his wallet.
“But the carpet will dry and the room was barely used at all.”
“Doesn’t matter. They count on these tips, and if this room is easy to clean, the next one might be a total disaster. It’s a tough job. They earn their money.”
“You’re right. They do.” She liked the fact that he thought about the maids and thanked them. She was starting to like too many things about Luke Dalton, and that wasn’t a good idea. No matter how much he appealed to her, he was still very much a human.
Chapter 5
“I’m grateful for the private elevator,” Giselle said as they rode up to the Silver Crescent’s penthouse. “And the wood paneling is gorgeous.”
“You can thank Harrison Cartwright. I don’t know if he had a private elevator when the building first went up, but he installed all new elevators throughout the building before he finally turned it over to my dad. If he went to that kind of expense, he must have thought he’d get to keep it, after all.”
“Are all the elevators this nice?”
“Not quite. This one has genuine hardwood. The others are laminate.”
“I know you don’t think much of Harrison Cartwright, but he had good taste.”
“Can’t argue with that. Wait’ll you see the view from the penthouse.” The thought came to Luke that he’d never brought a woman up here.
Well, that would be because he hadn’t become involved with anyone since his dad died. Duh. Too damned busy. But he certainly intended to bring women up here at some point in time, when his life settled down and his sister stopped giving him fits.
With his mother’s blessing, he’d renovated the master bedroom and bath so it no longer resembled his parents’ bedroom. He was happy with the way it looked, although he wouldn’t be showing it off to Giselle.
But how ironic that the first woman he invited here was one he had no intention of sleeping with. The only people who had seen the final result had been Cynthia and Owen. His sister had liked it okay but thought it needed more color. She’d compared the suite to a hospital room, which wasn’t the effect he was going for.
Then Owen had seen it the day he’d supervised an update of the penthouse security system. Owen, a guy of few words, had said it was “nice.” That didn’t tell Luke a damn thing. Owen wasn’t exactly Martha Stewart, but Luke would have liked a little more commentary.
When it came to color, he was no expert, so he’d stuck with white. Even that had been trickier than he’d thought. Who knew there were so many shades of it? But he’d found one he liked called “linen,” and then he’d matched everything to that.
The suite resembled his image of heaven, with the pillows and quilts reminding him of fluffy clouds. He’d found some pictures of Greek temples, also white, and put those on the walls, which were also white. It all blended in beautifully. But it might be too monochromatic. He just wasn’t sure.
They stepped off the elevator, and he used a card key to open the black enamel, silver-edged double doors into the foyer. Then he moved back and let Giselle go in ahead of him. He did like the way she moved.
He wondered if she’d taken dancing lessons as a kid and maybe dreamed of making it a career. That would explain her defense of Cynthia. Maybe he’d ask her sometime.
They walked through the elegant foyer with its chrome tables and quarter-moon mirrors on either side. Fresh flower arrangements provided by his staff perfumed the air.
He left the envelope containing Cynthia’s picture in the foyer. He’d deal with it later. Right now he was interested in Giselle’s reaction to the penthouse. This was his home now, and he realized that he wanted her to like it. Why he even cared about her opinion was a question for another time.
He’d kept the living room decorated exactly as it had been when his parents had lived there. Muted lighting revealed soft leather sectionals in butter yellow. Pillows in every color of the rainbow were scattered around. Maybe that’s what Cynthia had meant. He needed some of those little square pillows in his bedroom.
The open floor plan included a linen-draped dining table on the left side of the room. Not long ago he’d taken out the two leaves to create a cozier setup. He didn’t intend to hold the kind of large-scale dinner parties his parents had enjoyed.
The kitchen was through an arched opening to the right, and the bedrooms were also to the right down a long hallway. Most first-time visitors missed those details.
Usually they were captured by the floor-to-ceiling windows that provided an unobstructed view of the Strip. His father had said the panoramic vista was worth all the effort of winning that lawsuit. Luke didn’t agree, considering it had shortened his dad’s life, but the view was spectacular, especially now that the sun had set.
The windows lined the west and north walls. Unless he was there to deal with the shades, a maid came in and raised them on the west windows just before sunset, so that even as you walked into the room you could watch the sun go down. He and Giselle had missed that show, but it didn’t matter. Looking north was a nonstop extravaganza.
In the foreground jutted the skyscrapers of Manhattan, with the Statue of Liberty and the Coney Island Cyclone roller coaster looping through the buildings. Beyond that, the distinctive Eiffel Tower spire glittered against the night sky. Across the way, streams of water jetted upward from the dancing fountain fronting the Bellagio.
Giselle walked toward the window. “That’s quite a view, Dalton.”
He came up to stand beside her. “My father never got tired of looking at it. Here, let me take your coat.” He helped her out of it before removing his still slightly damp denim jacket. He laid them both over the back of the sectional.
“I’d forgotten how over-the-top Vegas is.”
“That’s what fantasy is all about—going over-the-top.” He studied her profile. She had a high forehead and an aristocratic nose, both of which made her look intelligent and a little snooty.
Her mouth, though, was extremely lush. He could imagine that mouth sucking on a chocolate-covered strawberry. He stared at the lights of the Strip and reminded himself to focus on the mission—getting Bryce Landry out of town and Cynthia straightened out.
“It’s mesmerizing, isn’t it?” Giselle said.
“It can be. My dad used to love standing here and reveling in the fact that Harrison Cartwright was now denied this view.”
“But Harrison built Illusions, which provides a mirror image from the north end of the Strip.”
Werewolf in Las Vegas Page 5