A Gentleman's Affair

by Linn, A. J.

  As the driver pulls up to the site, I get out of the car and just stand there for a moment, taking in the tall building that I see before me. Pisa. Right here in front of me. It is really happening. It has happened. This is just too good not to share with someone. A father. A mother. A wife. A girlfriend, at the very least?

  But that said, I got here on my own. This is my baby. My vision come to fruition, and I will not let anything ruin my moment. Except for one thing…

  Danielle.

  What the fuck is she doing here? Why is she standing near MY hotel waving at me? I close my eyes hoping that she is a mirage…a bad dream. But when I open them, she is still there. This is not happening. Not today.

  So I tell the driver to wait and walk over to tell the cheating whore to stop stalking me.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, gritting my teeth.

  “I was already here with my girls, and I read in the paper that the building was up so I came to check it out,” she says with her lying whore mouth.

  “Leave, now. You are not now, nor will you ever be, welcome here. And while we are at it…The Underground, and all of La Fuga are off-limits as well.”

  “Jeez, Donovan. Why the hostility?”

  “Don’t fuck with me right now, Danielle. I will not let you ruin this for me. If I see you anywhere near anything that is remotely connected to me, I will have you arrested for trespassing. Got it? Now, go.” Veins bulging…nostrils flaring…probably some spit flying. Fuck, I hate this girl.

  “Fine, I’ll go. You don’t have to be such a dick about it.” She finally turns to leave.

  Thank fuck. Just seeing her face pisses me off.

  “I just wanted to congratulate you.”

  “Alright, thank you. Goodbye.” And good riddance, cheating whore. Oh shit. She stopped walking away. What now?

  “Donovan, will you ever forgive me?”

  “No. Please leave.”

  And the light bulb finally goes on, as she finally understands that I do not want her here, and she finally leaves.

  The day that I have been waiting for has now been tainted. What next? Ugh! I get back into the car, and the driver takes me to my hotel. Yet another reason to start drinking. Thank you, Danielle. Thank you.

  So with two days before the topping out party, and nothing but free time on my hands, I decide to grab a bite and do some gambling. I need to change things up. After last night, and the Danielle situation today, I have had about all a man can take.

  The casino is on the slow side right now, a lot of people taking a break for dinner, I imagine. I find a poker table with a pretty dealer and take a seat. In no time, a waitress comes by for drink orders and I order my usual, telling her to keep them coming, placing a fifty dollar bill on her tray for encouragement.

  Money talks, and I need alcohol.

  A few drinks, and quite a few hands in, I am already up 2,500 dollars. At least this is going my way. My poker face is working well for me tonight, and I plan on cleaning out the casino. Maybe not “cleaning out”, but I am good, so they will take a hit and probably “comp” my suite…

  On to the craps table, and that waitress is following me over with another drink. I like her. She takes care of me.

  “What’s your name?” I ask the eager waitress.

  “Destiny,” she smiles as she hands me my drink.

  “Well, Destiny, you are I are about to become partners. Whatever I win for the remainder of the evening, you will get half. Just take care of me.” I wink, tossing another fifty on the tray.

  “Yes sir!” she beams, her eyes all lit up and her smile huge. She did just watch me clean up at the poker table, so she knows that I could make her a small fortune tonight.

  “Next shooter,” the craps dealer calls out. I move my way up to the head of the table and set all of my chips down. The dealer acknowledges me with a nod, glances at my large stack of chips and hands me the dice.

  “All bets are closed,” the dealer calls out. I shake the dice up in my hand before tossing them onto the table, watching along with the crowd that has now gathered, as they tumble down the green felt.

  “Winner eleven,” the dealer shouts out. The players and onlookers cheer. And I have just doubled my money. I roll again.

  I win again. And again. And again. The crowd watches intently as the “high roller”, me, continues to place large bets and continues to win. Destiny has not only returned with another drink for me, she is now watching with dollar signs in her eyes.

  But the table is becoming fuzzy. I decide to take my chips and go before I make an expensive mistake. I tell Destiny to follow me to the Cash-Out window to collect her half. When all is said and done, she took away 8,000 dollars. Not bad for a night’s work I’d say.

  “Thank you, sir. This is the biggest tip I’ve ever gotten,” she says, grinning widely.

  “You’re very welcome,” I slur, feeling a little more than buzzed at this point.

  “Are you done for the night, sir?”

  “No but I think I will just stick to slots from here on out. Point me in the direction of the VIP room.” I search the room through squinty eyes.

  “Uh, sir, we are standing right in front of it.” She smiles out of politeness.

  “Yes. That’s the one.” I wink at her and make my way to the room.

  “Thanks again, sir,” she calls out before going off to share her good news with her co-workers.

  I enter the room and go straight to the bar. It is usually pretty quiet in here. There aren’t as many VIPs as there used to be. And they serve real drinks in here, not those small watered-down versions like you get on the floor. It just takes a lot more to get drunk out there. So before I go hit the slot machines, I hang out in here and drink.

  An older, very well-dressed gentleman sitting next to me at the bar strikes up a conversation. I am happy to have the company, actually. We talk about sports, gambling of course, women. He is an interesting guy, but I am starting to see two of him. Fuck it, I don’t care. I keep drinking.

  I look around the room, count approximately twenty-five (or fifty) people and inform the bartender that the next round is on me, tossing 300 dollars on the bar as I order a bottle of Cristal for me and my new friend.

  The bartender makes an announcement, and I am rewarded with a round of applause. People are nice here. I might stay forever. I do have my new friend after all. Fuck. I am drunk.

  After a couple of hours and never having made it to the slot machines, I sign a credit card slip for well over 3,000 dollars, and let me just say that it was worth every single cent.

  I say goodbye to my new friends and attempt to stand up and go to my suite, feeling the need to pass the fuck out. But my legs decide not to work, and I hit the floor. Maybe I passed out. I’m not really sure.

  When I come to, I see the face of an angel before me. Am I dead? No, it is Scarlett. Someone splash my face with cold water, I am seeing Scarletts.

  “Donovan, are you okay?”

  No, that is her. I recognize the voice.

  “Scarlett? What are you doing in Vegas?” I try to get up, but it is hard when you are this dizzy.

  “Let’s get you to your room, Donovan,” she laughs, followed with a disapproving shake of her head.

  She helps me to my feet and takes my arm to wrap around her shoulder as she places her arm securely around my waist in an attempt to hold me upright. I think I hear her thanking everyone for their help, but I can’t be sure.

  I’m not sure why she is here. I’m not sure of how she even found me.

  I’m not sure of anything at this point. Ugh, I need to lie down.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ~The Dilemma~

  The harsh morning sun awakens me from a deep, alcohol-induced sleep. This hotel is in desperate need of black-out curtains. Fuck. My head feels like it was hit with a baseball bat. What the hell did I do last night?

  It takes a few minutes to actually wake up, but when it dawns on me that I’m on vacation
, I roll over in order to avoid the sun, rather than actually get up. I just might sleep all day.

  My eyes widen when I see, lying next to me…Scarlett? She is sleeping peacefully…in MY bed? Here. At the Venetian. In Las Vegas. What the fuck? I need to back this train up. What is she doing here?

  So do I wake her up or allow her to sleep? Shit, did we have sex? I lift the covers to check…Hmm… I am fully dressed and so is she, actually.

  Yes, I looked.

  Now that we have that settled, and now that I am fully awake with no chance in hell of going back to sleep, I slip quietly out of bed and walk across the room towards the bathroom, in dire need of cold water. Splashed on my face. And…a lot of it.

  I close the bathroom door, standing motionless for a moment, trying to dissect the situation. Nothing. My mind is a blank, and my head is pounding.

  I splash my face a few times, and as I lean over the bathroom sink, I suddenly become extremely lightheaded. Fuck, I need to go back to bed. But I feel like I should just remain in here for the day.

  As I stand with my hand wrapped around the doorknob, I hear a “cough” coming from the room. She is awake, so that tells me that it’s time to face the music. What happened last night? Well, it’s time to find out.

  I walk into the room, and I am relieved to be greeted by a smiling Scarlett and a “good morning”. Good sign?

  “Good morning,” I respond with a smile as I walk over to the bed and sit down next to Scarlett, who is now sitting up, yawning.

  “Did you sleep alright?”

  Did I sleep alright? How about, why are you in my bed? Answer that. “I did, thank you.” Passed out cold, actually.

  “So, I guess I should explain what I’m doing here,” she laughs.

  “I was just about to ask…”

  “Well, I went to see you yesterday morning, I wanted to explain about the “date”, and you obviously weren’t there, so Patrice told me that you came here on business and just happened to mention that you always stay here at the Venetian. So…here I am.” She lets out a breath then gives me a soft smile.

  “Explain what about the date?” I ask, that being the only word that I actually heard in all of that.

  “Donovan, there was no ‘date’, and please hear me out before you respond. Okay?”

  I nod. “I’m listening.”

  “This is hard to admit, you being my boss and all. But…” She buries her face in her hands for a moment, then takes a deep breath and continues, “I’m just going to say it. Donovan, when you asked me to dinner the other night, it hit me that you were asking me on a date. Not just ‘two friends hanging out’ this time. I felt it when you asked and well… I guess it scared me.”

  My mind is reeling, and my head is still pounding, but I promised not to interrupt, so… here I sit, nodding and listening intently, while my heart begins to beat out of my chest.

  “When I saw the way you reacted to me telling you that I had a date, it killed me. I don’t know why I even said it. It was my first reaction I guess. But I wanted you to know, first of all, how sorry I am that I said it. And second of all…” She takes in another deep breath. “If you still want to take me to dinner, that I would love to.” She exhales as if she just has just made the biggest confession of her life, and maybe she has.

  “Are you finished?” I reply, trying to hold a serious look on my face.

  “Yes, I am.” She smiles softly, searching my eyes for a clue as to what I might be thinking.

  And while she searches, I scoot up towards her on the bed, place my hand on the side of her cheek while looking deep into her beautiful brown eyes, and press my lips to hers, finally giving her the kiss that I have been longing to give her for the past week…or month. Since the day we met, actually.

  Without hesitation, she places her arms around my neck and returns the kiss with passion and an extremely sexy soft moan. Our tongues are now involved, and this kiss is becoming heated.

  I have to pull back, because this is not how I envisioned our first time together should be. And yes, I have definitely envisioned it…

  Old Donovan would throw her down on the bed and ravish away. New Donovan wants everything, and I do mean everything, to be different.

  So before things go any further and my cock gets any harder… I break the kiss, stroke her cheek with my thumb, look deeply into those eyes of hers, and say…“Breakfast?”

  She bursts into laughter and replies, “I could eat.”

  I love that this girl has an appetite and more importantly, a sense of humor.

  “Would you like to shower first?” I ask, noticing a pink suitcase near the bed that clearly is not mine.

  “Okay.” She hops off of the bed, disappearing in the bathroom, taking her suitcase with her.

  I walk over to rummage through my suitcase, hoping that I packed something for the headaches that I had anticipated…i.e.: hangovers, while I was here.

  Good. Found them. I pop the top off and cross the room to the small refrigerator that sits by the mini-bar. I take out a bottle of water and swallow four pills, hoping that they will do the trick.

  Scarlett comes out of the bathroom, in a tight, pale-yellow strapless dress. She is stunning in her dress that reminds me of butter. Yes butter, all creamy and smooth…alright, I’ll stop.

  “You look beautiful, Scarlett.” Fuck, it feels good to finally be able to say that out loud.

  “Why, thank you kind sir.” She winks. And it feels good to finally know that when she winks, she means it. I like today already. Hangover and all, it is a good day.

  “I’ll be quick. Don’t go anywhere.” I wink back, taking a change of clothes into the bathroom, more than ready to wash the smell of “drunken idiot” off.

  After breakfast, we, as in Scarlett and I, decide that we will be walking the strip and doing some shopping today. I thought that spending the day sleeping in a lounge chair by the hotel pool sounded good, but she assured me that I was wrong.

  So we leave the hotel, hand-in-hand by the way, and begin our foot-blistering walk down the strip.

  First stop, Caesar’s. Scarlett has never been here, so seeing the “live” statues for the first time has been something that she always wanted to do. I have seen it all a million times, but never with her, so I happily go along with whatever her heart desires.

  After stopping into a few of the shops, she realizes that Caesar’s is out of her price range for shopping, so we go back outside into the blistering heat and intensely packed sidewalks and walk to the next hotel. Which always looks so close, but in actuality is quite far, as we have all learned the hard way.

  We finally make our way to New York, New York, one of my personal favorites, due to food mostly. I always eat at Il Fornaio when I am here, and they have a great “Greenwich Village” style food court, which includes Sirrico’s Pizza, where you get a huge slice that rivals my mom’s homemade pizza. Now, there is an endorsement if I ever read one. And I don’t get paid to say so… Tell them that I sent you.

  It has been a few hours since we began our trek down the strip, and I have no problem convincing Scarlett to join me in a slice of pie. She grabs a table in the courtyard near Sirrico’s while I get us a couple of slices of pepperoni pizza and two beers. The hair of the dog… Vacation…still on vacation.

  I join her at the table, and her eyes widen as she sees the size of the slice. I half expect her to go into a “That’s huge, I can’t eat all of that” rant, but she is Scarlett. She just says, “Yum,” and digs right in.

  “Oh my god, you weren’t kidding,” she says, still chewing.

  “I told you,” I reply, still chewing. We both burst out into laughter. I like the fact that we aren’t afraid to be ourselves, talk with our mouths full of pizza, and laugh about it.

  “So should we do some gambling or go right to Excalibur after we eat?” I ask, mouth not full this time.

  “Oooh, lets gamble!” she replies, excitement all over her beautiful face.

  “Th
at sounds good to me.” I think about last night, suddenly reminded that I won a shit load of money…and…? “You haven’t talked too much about last night. To be honest the last thing that I remember was buying drinks for everyone in the VIP room then…waking up this morning.”

  “I’m not surprised,” she says, pausing to laugh. “Donovan, you were really messed up when I found you.” She shakes her head in disapproval, but adds a sweet smile.

  “Anything that I should know?” I ask, quirking my brow.

  “Not really.” She smiles as she searches her memory. “Oh. You were singing “Brown-Eyed Girl” pretty loudly on the elevator…when you made me dance with you.” She busts out in laughter.

  “No, I did not.” I furrow my brow. What a jackass I am.

  “Yes, you did.” She laughs more…and more.

  “Well, happy to entertain you, Scarlett.” I laugh right along with her and lean across the table for a kiss.

  Just as I open my eyes, there she is. Again. The cheating whore is standing in line at Sirrico’s. Fuck her and the plane she flew in on. If she comes over here, I will definitely lose my shit. Just the sight of her has ruined my appetite. And nothing ruins my appetite.

  “Are you finished?” I ask Scarlett, not letting on that Danielle is ten feet away, watching us.

  “Yep.” She drinks the last sip in her bottle and stands up with me, reaching for my hand. “So we get to gamble now?”

  “Yes, of course. But why don’t we go to Excalibur instead. It’s a bit crowded here all of the sudden.” Thankfully she doesn’t protest. So I take her hand, and we leave the courtyard, knowing full well that the cheating whore was staring us down until we were out of sight.

  We get to Excalibur and, for some reason, I feel that we are not far enough away from Danielle yet. I can and will handle her if need be, I just don’t want or need anything else to go wrong while I am here. Shaking it off. Back to Scarlett.

  She wants to play slots so we find two machines next to each other and, before she even realizes it, I have already loaded her machine with a hundred dollar bill.