by Deanna Chase
“She’s the owner’s girlfriend?” I thought it a little odd that the owner’s girlfriend would be pushing drinks with the rest of us.
“No, she’s not his girlfriend. She just doesn’t seem to realize that, or doesn’t want to.”
“She’s pretty. She looks kind of like Lucy Liu.”
Lacey jumped in front of my path and held her hand up, eyes round as saucers. “Whatever you do, don’t say that to her. She’s already about to explode from the size of her ego.”
“Lacey!”
We both swung around to where a bear of a man was standing about ten feet to the side of us. His hair was crazy thick and bushy, even cropped as close to his head as it was. He wore a nice suit, but he looked like a thug. He was also a complete softy and my new boss.
“Hi, Arnold,” we greeted him together.
“You’re both late.”
“I’m sorry, Jo felt funny in her new uniform.”
I gasped in indignation at being thrown under the bus so blatantly, then followed up with an elbow to her ribs.
“Like it wasn’t true? You were being prudish.”
I didn’t say a word, not wanting to prolong the subject.
He just shook his head and sighed. “Show Jo around. And, Lacey, you have to start showing up on time.”
“I’m sorry, Arnold.” Lacey smiled her Monroe smile and the big bear looking thug visibly melted.
“Just try not to do it, again,” he said. Lacey was late every day of the week. I knew this because she told me in the locker room just thirty minutes ago. “I need someone to run Mr. Hawking up a bottle of the scotch he likes. We’re slow, so you can bring Jo with you while you show her the ropes.”
“Where’s Perry?”
“Lacey, can’t you just do something when I ask you?”
“But that’s not my job. Make Vicky do it, you know she’d be quite happy to.” Lacey put just enough extra inflection on the word happy to make it more than obvious what she was insinuating.
“If I send Vicky, she won’t come back tonight, and I can’t exactly call the boss and complain. I’m already down a girl.”
“Fine.” Lacey stalked off in a pout, and I had no choice but to follow her having no idea what else to do. I started to remember quickly why I had no friends. I hadn’t wanted any.
“What’s the big deal if we run an errand?” I asked her after we had gotten out of earshot of Arnold.
“Because Mr. Cormac Hawking is the owner, and he makes me nervous.”
She stepped up to the bar, made a face at Vicky, and introduced me to Jonny. He smiled flirtatiously, and I had the distinct impression that he would have made a move on me if Lacey hadn’t sent him off quickly to go fetch the scotch for Mr. Hawking.
“Is he sleazy or something?” I asked Lacey, still wondering how somebody made her unsettled. No one unsettled her.
“No, he’s actually really hot. He’s just… I don’t know how to explain it.” She hesitated and looked back at me. “It’s hard to put into words. If he’s up there when we bring this, you’ll see.”
Jonny plunked down a bottle of scotch on the bar and threw me another smile.
“Stop looking at her like that. It’s just creepy!” Lacey said as she grabbed the scotch in one hand and my arm in the other. “Don’t sleep with him. He gets around and from the tally I’ve got, has given at least four waitresses an STD,” she told me as we headed up to the private elevator that went to the private top floors. The door men that kept the general population of the casino out, held the doors for us.
We got out at the fiftieth floor. A large sumo wrestler look alike, with his sparring partner by his side, was standing in front of the elevator doors when they slide open. They nodded to us as we passed.
“This floor is Mr. Hawking’s only. If we were strangers, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum back there, would have ripped us to pieces. I’ve heard there are about fifty more of their type lurking around this floor.”
My heels sank into the thick cream carpet surrounded by tan walls. It was set up like a gallery, with paintings on either side, lighting above each piece of artwork.
“Is that a real Monet?” I asked, as I paused in front of oil painted water lilies. I was far from a connoisseur of art, but on my eleventh birthday, Rick, one of the foster kids who had been living at the same house I was, had given me a used book of Monet prints. I’d had to tape the binding back together last month, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out.
“Probably, he’s a huge art collector.”
When we reached the end of the hallway, we came to a massive, carved wood door. The grain swirled underneath a thick coat of clear lacquer that accentuated the warmth and highlighted the skill of the artisan who had made it. Lacey reached her hand up to press the doorbell to the right, and I saw a slight tremor as her fingers hovered over the button for a moment. She pressed it, and the doors swung open before her arm had dropped back to her side.
“You have his scotch?” A tall thin blond man asked.
“Duh.” She held up the bottle as if he needed visual proof. Just like the scotch, Lacey tended to be an acquired taste.
The man eyed Lacey, and then me, and stepped aside to let us in. “Put the scotch on the bar in the other room.”
The moment we walked in, I felt a tingle of electricity flow over my skin, and my hair stood on end. A prehistoric remnant, left over from thousands of years ago, issued a warning that my evolved brain could no longer decipher. Combined with my lack of direction, it was hard not to wonder if evolution hadn’t cut some corners along the way.
I looked over at Lacey, and when she met my gaze her eyes doubled in diameter with a blatant, I told you I didn’t want to come here. Now do you get it?
I simply nodded and gave a silent reply to her with my eyes that said let’s drop off the bottle and get the hell out of here.
The entire far wall of the foyer was glass, and it offered a spectacular view of the Vegas Strip. At night, like it was now, with the lights dimmed low, you could see the light going on for miles. I had a hard time breaking my gaze away from the stunning view.
I followed her into the next room that looked to be the living room. It had the same outer wall of windows, with a large screen TV that somehow floated in the center. A matching set of tan suede couches faced each other and a full-length bar made of black stone ran along the back wall. My eyes searched out the view again. All I could think of was how wonderful it must be to live high up here with the world at your feet.
The apartment was eerily quiet, and we instinctively honored the silence. Somehow afraid if we uttered a word, we would draw the attention of whatever was lying in wait, the eerie presence hovering nearby that we couldn’t quite define. Lacey was just about to place the bottle on the bar when we heard a rustling from the other room.
“Hello.”
The deep gravelly voice sent a shiver down my spine. I looked over at the doorway to see a pair of the palest blue eyes I’d ever encountered, set like aquamarines in a frame of dark black lashes. His dark tan skin, and black wavy hair framing them, just made them even more unusual. I knew instantly that this had to be Cormac Hawking. I would have known him even in a crowded room, surrounded by hundreds of others. Lacey wasn’t the type to avoid attractive men, and he was incredibly handsome in a deeply sexual way. He was nicely over six feet, with broad shoulders encased in a white tuxedo shirt that hung slightly open. But it was the power that seeped from him, not his size that made him alarming to even my senses, not that I’d ever show it, but I felt it in spades. It rolled off him in wave after wave until it practically smothered all my other senses. He was the kind of man who dominated a room without even trying. The primitive part of my brain was screaming for me to leave, but the female in me wanted to get closer, even as I knew that this man was dangerous.
I looked at Lacey to see if she was ready to make an exit, but at the current moment, she stood so still she would have made a deer in the headlights look
animated.
“We were just dropping off your scotch,” I stated, as Lacey remained where she was frozen.
“Thank you.” He looked sparingly at Lacey, but quickly dismissed her and returned his gaze to mine. “Would you mind?” He held out his hand that had a pair of cuff links resting on his palm. “It’s easier with two hands.”
“Sure.” He stood where he was, making me walk to him as he waited, and I think maybe assessing me. I took one link from his hand, trying to make as little contact with his skin as possible, afraid that somehow he’d discover my unease. One thing I’ve learned from a life of shuffling from place to place, never let them know you’re nervous. Then I blew it and dropped the second link on the carpet.
“Sorry,” I said, as I reached down and grabbed it.
“No problem,” he replied with a smile on his lips.
I felt like he was playing a game with me, but no one had bothered to fill me in on the rules.
“Your eyes are very unusual, such a vivid green.”
I met his stare fully now. I didn’t like being toyed with, and some part of me knew he was playing my reactions like a fiddle.
“Thank you,” I replied, and continued to hold his gaze.
“Do they run in your family?”
I hesitated, which probably seemed weird to him, being such a straightforward question. “No,” I lied. Some kernel of preservation in my brain was screaming the less he knew the better. Another part of me, maybe the larger part, didn’t want to admit to not knowing my parents.
He lost his smile and looked at me intently, but not aggressively. He knew I was lying. By that simple answer, I had just somehow cemented my position on his radar. He knew something was off.
He lifted his hand slowly toward my face. This game I knew well, he was playing chicken, seeing if I’d stand my ground or pull back. I stood my ground and he ran his index finger along my cheekbone.
“Pretty.”
His smile was back. It was a smile of a man used to winning.
“Thank you,” I countered in the blasé tone of a woman used to being pursued. He was going to have to up his game if he was going to try to storm this castle. Men had chased me for months, let alone weeks, and had gotten nowhere.
The clanking sound of Lacey banging into a glass drew our notice and broke the tension.
“Sorry,” she muttered softly across the room, a few shards of glass lay at her feet.
He looked unfazed. “Leave it; I’ll have one of the maids get it.” He turned his attention back to me. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you, again.” He turned and left.
The minute he was gone, Lacey had her hand clamped around my wrist and tugged me out of there, as quickly as she could drag me.
Lacey came back to her normal self once the elevator doors slid shut, leaving the two of us alone, again. “Oh, my god!” she said. “He was so into you! I’ve never seen him act like that with anyone. He barely acknowledges Vicky and he’s slept with her!”
“It’s only because he’s never seen me before. Those kinds of men are always like that.” I hoped that was what it was, because I didn’t want his kind of attention. I was all about keeping my nose clean, getting into med school, and hopefully figuring out what the hell was wrong with me before NASA came and decided to find out for me. Getting derailed by some thirty something playboy, in his expensive penthouse, who wanted a little amusement wasn’t what I needed. I was well past the point in my life where I believed in happily ever after. My reality didn’t include castles and gallant knights, and I didn’t need them. I handled my own problems. Romance and men were a luxury I couldn’t afford, right now.
Chapter Three
“Hi, Jonny, I need a Bombay martini straight up with olives.”
“Hi, Darling, what are you doing here?” Jonny gave me the smile he used on the girls he was working for tips, or other more personal pursuits as Lacey had informed me. He did always seem to be preoccupied, that was for sure.
“Lacey asked me to cover. She had a date tonight.” I’d been there for only two weeks, and I’d already filled in for Lacey three times.
“How come you don’t?” he asked shifting into full gear.
“Jonny, I don’t have time to date. I told you that.”
“I could take you to that nice steak house that just opened up in the Bellagio.”
I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but it was hard not to laugh at his persistence. It was starting to become a routine with us. He asked. I declined. Rinse and repeat.
“Jonny, aren’t you getting tired of asking?”
“Tired of asking what?” Vicky laid her tray down on the bar as she came and stood next to me. “To go out with you, again? Don’t look at me all shocked. Everyone knows he’s been sniffing around you nonstop for weeks.”
“Why are you standing over here? Didn’t you see the boss come in?” Jonny struck back at her.
“Where?” Vicky, too interested in Cormac’s possible arrival, didn’t even blink an eye at the dig, but instead scanned the casino floor like a hawk trying to spot her prey. “Where? I don’t see him.”
“You need glasses. You’re as blind as a bat. He’s at table seven,” Jonny replied with barely concealed dislike.
I couldn’t help myself, and turned to look as well. I inwardly cringed when I realized he was sitting in my area, talking to the high roller who was betting fifty thousand a hand at black jack for the last hour. Knots instantly formed in my stomach and reached all the way up to my throat. I had seen him coming and going since the night in his penthouse but always at a distance. I’d caught him watching me a handful of times, but he’d never approached me.
From what I had noticed, other than Lacey and I, most of the women here flocked to him. The very danger that made me steer clear of him, seemed to have the opposite effect, and pulled them in like magnets.
“Can I take your table? I’ll give you table three. The guy’s been giving me a ten every round. Please!”
She whined for a moment while I hesitated, not wanting anyone to know that I was actually relieved to relinquish the table. “Okay, but you owe me.” She was gone before I’d finished speaking.
“Now, back to dinner.”
“Jonny, you’re a nice guy, but I’m not interested. Doesn’t matter who you are or how great you are, I don’t date.” I added the last part to try to smooth his ego. Truth was, I couldn’t date. Even if I had the time and wanted to date him, which I didn’t, I’d never be able to explain the weird things that happened around me. Sometimes I got tired of being alone, but that didn’t change anything. I had tried dating before. Sooner or later it would get serious, and they would want to stay the night. I knew from my childhood, I couldn’t risk having anyone around when I slept. That’s when it got the strangest, but I couldn’t think about that right now.
As I got back to checking on my section, I tried to keep my distance from table seven as much as I could. That was hard since that table sat in the middle of my area. Luckily, Vicky offered a distraction and draped herself over Cormac like a cheap suit anytime I was near. I had the distinct feeling it was because he kept watching my movements, and I wasn’t the only one who had noticed. After about an hour, I started to get a little high-strung about being under constant surveillance. But, just when I’d about had it with being visually stalked, he was gone.
I was grateful; I wanted to keep this job. I’d finally been able to watch a couple of movies and have some downtime. I’d been sleeping more and even baked cookies with Mrs. Harvey. I felt like a human being again.
By time the night was done, my feet ached and I couldn’t wait to get my shoes off. I hated heels and couldn’t wait to get my sneakers on. Tomorrow morning, I would go for a run, another thing I had time for lately. I hadn’t put on weight. I was curvy but thin. Running was simply my release from the world.
When I looked up at the bar, I saw Cormac Hawking had reappeared and was now sitting at the far end with the high roller. They looked li
ke they were having a disagreement of sorts, and they didn’t even notice me. I let out a sigh of relief that I was done for the night, and could go hide in obscurity.
“Hey, Jonny, this should be all of it,” I said, as I handed him the change from the last round and a pile of singles he was going to change in for larger bills. I’d done amazingly well tonight. I’d made almost enough for half a month’s rent.
When the high roller that Mr. Hawking had been sitting with approached me, I pretended to be preoccupied. The guy had been hitting on everything with legs, and I didn’t feel like being the next.
“All done?” he asked
He definitely wasn’t the type to take a subtle hint. I turned to see him.
“Yes,” I said in a slightly clipped voice and went back to what I was doing. That was my second level rejection. In my experience, that only had a fifty percent success rate, so I wasn’t surprised when he continued.
“Can I buy you a drink?”
“I don’t drink.” I did, but it was none of his business. He wasn’t a bad looking guy, a few inches taller than my five feet four inches and solid looking with longish light brown hair. He clearly had money as well, the way he was betting, but even if I could date, and I wasn’t a freak, something about him reminded me of nails on a chalkboard.
“How ’bout a coffee?”
Ugh, the guy just wouldn’t take the hint, or maybe you could call it a sledgehammer in this case. “I’m not interested.” I could smell alcohol and a recent smoke on his breath as he moved in closer.
“I don’t think you know who I am. You’d be lucky to date me.”
“Right now, I’d feel lucky if you would back off, because you smell like a burned out brewery.” I took a deep breath, knowing I was about to really step over the line with a customer, but the guy was starting to really piss me off. I looked up wondering where the hell Jonny had gone. I wanted to get my tips so I could get out of there, and he was nowhere to be found.
The guy reached out and grabbed my upper arm in a tight, but not painful, grip. He pulled me closer and leaned in my face, “You better ask around and learn your place quick.”