by Caro LaFever
His touch feathered through her awareness, as if he were still stroking her in his soft, subtle way.
He was trouble. Peter was right. “I know that.”
“Brilliant.” He strode to her side, his spiky gray hair and shaggy brows bristling. “Just remember that when the man approaches you once more.”
I’m here to win you.
Not get her father’s money. Or at least that was what he claimed. Though, why should she believe anything he claimed? She’d learned the hard way men would say anything to get her. Plus, the man was far too beautiful and far too confident. She had no interest in beautiful, and her own lack of confidence couldn’t handle a man like that. Even if he was intriguing. “He’s not going to approach me again.”
Peter snorted. “Sure. Keep telling yourself that. I saw the look in the bloke’s eyes when he stared at you.”
Startled, she glanced his way. “What do you mean?”
Her bodyguard’s sharp gaze met hers with a glare. “Like he wanted to grab you and take off.”
This time, it was her turn to snort. She’d learned the technique from this Englishman pacing beside her. A solid snort, she’d found, was as good at ending an argument as words. “Don’t be absurd.”
“I’m going to find out who he is,” he grumbled. “What did you say his first name was?”
“I didn’t.” She resumed walking, wanting to put distance between herself and the rejection she’d delivered. “It doesn’t matter. I told him I wasn’t interested.”
Nick Whoever had taken the dismissal with a grin and a twinkle in his eyes. But the grin had been tight and in the twinkle she’d seen a glitter of anger. She’d also detected a strand of ruthlessness in his expression that warned her.
The man wasn’t used to rejection.
A sly sort of satisfaction swept through her. It wasn’t the right thing to feel, she knew that. Yet, the feeling was there, nevertheless. She’d never had the opportunity to reject. Her father and his security effectively screened most men out of her life, and her two boyfriends hadn’t lasted long enough to irritate her into a dismissal.
Her father had handled them, too.
The thought of Clyde McDowell confronting and rejecting the man she’d left behind, sitting in the bookstore café like he hadn’t a care in the world, made her release the bubbling chuckle. It would be quite a show.
“What’s so funny?” Peter snarled.
“I’m imagining what Dad would say about that man.” Stopping, she waited for the light to turn green before proceeding. The crisp October wind whipped her favorite blue scarf around her, and she took a moment to relish the sparkle of the sun on golden leaves hanging on the trees.
“He’d say what I say. No good.”
Jess wasn’t sure. Dad liked cocky men. He said they reminded him of himself when he’d been young. And Nick Whoever was definitely cocky. Not exactly full of himself. More like, sure of himself.
He did remind her of her father.
It didn’t matter, though. She’d likely never see him again. Not after her blunt refusal to keep playing his games.
George, one of the Palace’s doormen since she’d been in her teens, beamed as she approached. “Lovely fall day.”
“Yes, it is.” She returned the smile before walking through the door he’d opened, into the hotel’s vast foyer. The room was shaped in a hexagon, the six walls rising up and up to end in an elaborate stained-glass window. Iron-laced balconies peered down into the room that hosted a sumptuous English tea every afternoon.
The catering director raced to her side, his brow furrowed as it often was. “We’ve got a problem in the kitchen.”
“Wasn’t that the same thing you said to me last night?” she teased.
The director didn’t have much of a sense of humor. His head cocked in puzzlement. “Yes.”
In a flash, she remembered another man, one who did have a sense of humor. Nick Whoever wasn’t her type of man, yet she had enjoyed his quick wit and the sly intelligence gleaming from those angelic eyes of his.
You’ll like it.
Jess shook her head at that confidence of his. The way he’d said those words with such surety.
“You have to help.” The director’s expression turned fatalistic at her apparent dismissal of his concerns. “Or there won’t be any tea.”
“There’ll be tea,” she soothed. “Don’t worry.”
Peter huffed behind her. He knew as well as she who’d run these hotels during the last few months. He also knew she’d received no credit for it. But her bodyguard knew his place, and hadn’t muttered a word to her father or her about the situation.
By the time she’d figured out the issue with the cucumber sandwiches, Jess wanted only the chance to go to her room and put her feet up. She suddenly realized she hadn’t purchased any new books, and the understanding of why, and who had run her off before she could do so, irritated her.
It was a very good thing she’d refused him.
“Ginger Snap.” Peter’s gruff voice echoed in the hallway behind the kitchen. The one that led to the balcony where she’d met the man who stopped her from buying her books.
“Yes?” Brushing one loose lock back into the bun, she inspected him. She could tell by the way he held himself, something else was wrong. “What now?”
“Your father wants to see you.”
Unlike what many people thought, she and her dad didn’t live in each other’s pockets. True, they traveled from hotel to hotel together, and true, they both were focused on the McDowell franchise. But she’d managed to carve out her own life within the confines of her dad’s overpowering will. She’d demanded her own suite when she’d returned from getting her MBA three years ago, instead of returning to sleeping in one of the bedrooms in her father’s. She’d taken the reins on many decisions, whether Clyde knew it or not. And she’d certainly proved herself with the staff as the one who had the answers.
“Why?” She frowned at her bodyguard, a sharp dart of worry shooting through her. “Is he sick?”
“No. Not if the bark in his voice says anything.” He shrugged before holding up his cell phone. “He just called a moment ago and issued his orders.”
The disgusted tone of his voice wasn’t unusual. Peter knew who funded his paycheck, but he also knew where his loyalty lay. With her. Which could be said about most of the staff in every one of the McDowell hotels.
She’d earned that. Plus so much more.
If only her father would listen.
“All right.” With a sigh, she put aside the desire to go take a bath and wash the last of Nick Whoever out of her mind and body. “He’s in his suite?”
“Of course.” Her bodyguard’s tone turned wry.
Ignoring his unspoken criticism of Clyde’s practice of holing up in his rooms and seldom coming out unless it was for a party, she paced toward the elevators. Her father was sick. He couldn’t help what he’d become.
“Jessica.” The crack of her name came as soon as she opened the suite’s door and walked into the small parlor her father used as his work area. The bark was standard issue for Clyde McDowell, and yet, there was more there than the usual rough-and-ragged tone.
There was irritation.
Decided irritation.
“Yes, Dad?” She eyed him.
He stood at the window, leaning on the sill, his posture stiff. Narrowed eyes glared at her, as if she’d done something wrong.
She rarely did anything wrong, anymore. She’d learned.
“We’re going to Las Vegas,” he announced. “Today.”
Chapter 4
It wasn’t often Nick lost anymore. He actually couldn’t remember the last time it had happened. Probably one of those endless poker games he’d played with his pa’s ranch hands.
Leaning on the marble railing of his penthouse suite, he inspected the Las Vegas skyline. The last of the sun’s rays lit the line of the Spring Mountains to the west. For a moment, he let himself think about ju
st getting on his bike and driving, leaving the city and his problems behind.
With a rough expletive, he slapped his hand down.
He hadn’t lost.
He didn’t have a problem.
Okay, Jessica McDowell was quite a bit more than he’d expected, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t deal with. Sí, she’d rejected his first move. So what? He had moves he’d bet she’d never even dreamed of.
He merely needed her here. Here in the city where he’d grown up and grown wise. Here, where his flagship casino stood, proclaiming what he’d become and the power he held. Here on his home turf. Where he could maneuver her and fool her and lie her into being his wife.
A sick brew of something he didn’t want to define slid into his gut.
Nick paced away from the open terrace and into his suite.
He couldn’t say this was home. He traveled too much to claim any particular place as that. But of all the suites in all his casinos strung across the world, this Las Vegas perch suited him more than the others.
The two floors covered the entire top of his casino building. The modern lines and stark colors allowed him to breathe. Low-slung couches alternated with deep leather armchairs. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out on the glittering lights of the city. The one bedroom in the penthouse held a king-sized bed centered in the middle of the room, with a huge en suite bathroom designed for his pleasure.
Only his pleasure.
He’d never brought a woman here. This was his place, his retreat. This was the top of his world, and he liked to think he could survey the landscape and see what he’d already conquered, and what he was about to. Sometimes, he imagined flying high into the sky, catching a wave of air into the heavens.
If his new plan worked, Jessica McDowell would be having dinner with him here tomorrow night.
After her swift and unexpected rejection in Denver two days ago, he’d flown back to Las Vegas in his personal plane. He’d also called in the cavalry.
“Get her to Las Vegas,” he’d growled at Clyde McDowell. “Now.”
“You struck out.” The old man’s voice was a mixture of glee and disappointment. “That surprises me.”
“I need her on my turf to be effective.” Nick had stifled his temper. “Get her here fast.”
He’d hung up before he blasted the man who’d given him a contract he couldn’t refuse, and a daughter who was more stubborn and baffling than he’d expected.
He’d had her.
He knew it.
When he’d looked into her blue-green-brown eyes and seen the fire of interest leap as he talked about being free, he’d known.
He had her.
But then she’d done an about-face, yanked back in her seat, and pinned him with a cynical gaze. The same one he’d probably thrown at a dozen women in his time. He was rich, too. He understood what it felt like to be valued for what you could provide, and not who you were. He’d been about to say something to soothe her again, something about how he didn’t need her money and didn’t care about her father…
She’d stood up, rejected him, flung her blue scarf around her neck, and stalked out of the café.
Just like that.
Without even a glance behind.
Frustration had rippled through him, as well as another unwanted emotion.
Lust.
Jessica McDowell had the longest legs he’d ever seen on a woman. When she’d been dressed in a silk dress, those legs of hers had been hidden. In tight jeans and clunky leather boots, however, a man couldn’t miss the sight. The realization had punched him so hard he’d hissed in a breath. Her bodyguard, who’d been passing the table, had flashed him a look that told him the man knew what he was thinking.
He wanted those legs around his waist. On his shoulders. Or wrapped around his own long legs.
“¿Qué demonios.” He grunted at himself in disgust.
This was a business deal. Straight and simple. He married the spoiled daughter, played a game until the old man died, then used his wealth and army of lawyers to break the contract while keeping the hotels, and getting the ranch in his grasp. The requirement for a child wouldn’t hold water in court, he’d been told by his lead attorney. And he didn’t much care about staying or not staying married for five years, if he never had to deal with the wife to any great extent. He’d figured she’d serve as a deterrent to any other woman angling for a piece of his wealth.
At this point, though, he had to face the fact that he was interested.
Interested in her eyes.
Interested in the keen intelligence glowing in said eyes.
Interested in why she didn’t wear makeup and why she hid what she read and why she wanted to be free.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” he said to his granite-topped kitchen counters.
“Having a good day, I see.”
Nick swiveled to glare at his assistant, who he probably should have never given a key to. Who was the last person he wanted to see at this moment. Who really wasn’t his assistant at all.
Margaret Crawley was so much more.
She’d marched into his life fifteen years ago when he’d been thrown out of the Dynasty Casino in London. He’d been accused of cheating at poker. He hadn’t been cheating. He’d been using his brain and counting the cards. But the stuffy old farts who’d been losing money to him hand over fist hadn’t bothered to question him. They just wanted the young upstart American with his shaggy hair and borrowed suit coat gone.
Maggie had been working for the Dynasty for ten years. She’d quit that night on the spot. To work for him as his assistant. A nineteen-year-old kid who had nothing but a burning rage to succeed and a raging anger to prove himself.
She’d said she’d seen something in him. Something extraordinary.
For a kid with a chip on his shoulder bigger than a boulder and an attitude to match, it had been a revelation. Someone had believed in him enough to take a chance. Someone had seen good in him enough to back him up. Someone thought his father was wrong.
Nick knew that had been the turning point of his life.
And he had Maggie to thank for it. Along with a lot of other things.
The forty-five-year-old woman had taught him manners and polish. She’d resurrected the memory of his father’s frugality, and suggested the old man might be right. She’d cut his hair, managed his first casino, even helped him paint the walls of that old run-down hovel in Reno.
He’d lavished her with a salary close to his and the latent love he’d lost when he’d buried his mother.
Maggie was so much more.
“What are you upset about?” She pinned him with her usual penetrating look, and the thought flashed through him that the pin and the look reminded him of another determined female.
“Nothing,” he muttered, sticking his hands in his pockets.
“Bollocks.” Her crisp, English accent wrapped around the curse like a clean, white handkerchief.
He laughed.
“That’s better.” Hustling to the counter, she placed a pile of correspondence on the granite before sweeping her short gray hair back from her wrinkled face. “This is what’s come in while you were gone.”
“Not tonight.”
Her brows arched. “No?”
“No.” Pretending to be fine, he sauntered to the windows and looked at the glittering lights that were bringing Las Vegas to its usual nightly brilliance. “I’m tired.”
“I don’t believe I’ve heard those words come from your mouth.” She rustled behind him. “Ever.”
He shrugged. “First time for everything.”
A silence descended. One he’d come to label as an M silence. The one where she stared at him quietly until he broke and told her what was on his mind.
His shoulders twitched.
The silence continued.
“I made a deal,” he finally said. “When I was in Tasmania.”
“Did you?” The skid of one of his high-backed stools being pulled from unde
r the counter came from behind him. Maggie was settling in. Which meant she wouldn’t go until he spat out what was troubling him.
The deal and Clyde McDowell.
The ranch and his betraying pa.
Jessie.
He didn’t know why that name had slipped out. All his stupid imaginations about how that name fit her struck him as absurd now. That female was more of a Jessica by far than a Jessie. Jessie summoned up an image of a young, laughing girl. A girl who laced dandelions through her hair and giggled when a boy swung down from a tree. A girl who’d lie down with a man in a field of soft grass and gaze at the night stars.
“What was in Tasmania you wanted?”
His hands balled into fists in his pockets. “I thought it was a deal for a string of hotels.”
“Which doesn’t surprise me. It’s about time you spread your wings and took on more.”
Jerking around, he gaped at her. “What?”
“I was expecting something like this.” His assistant gave him a mild look of approval. “You need a new challenge.”
Maggie knew him well. And unlike the other women who’d passed through his life, Nick had never felt threatened by that reality. After the years they’d been together, he knew.
She would kill for him. As if he were her own.
Glancing back at the dark and glittering night, he frowned. “It didn’t go the way I expected it to.”
“Really?”
“The man I met with is named Clyde McDowell.”
“Oh, well.” She huffed. “If that was the man you were dealing with, I’m not surprised.”
“You know him?” He turned to stare at her once more.
“Yes. He and I had a run-in once, when I was younger than you are. In London.” The older woman pursed her lips in disapproval. “That man will do anything to win.”
A short bark of laughter erupted from him. “So will I.”
Maggie cocked her head. “But not in the same way.”
“No?” He swiveled back to glare at the skyline. “I wouldn’t be too sure.”
“So you went to Tasmania to meet with McDowell to make a deal to buy his hotels.”