The Christmas Gamble

by Sienna Ciles

  I felt a sudden, icy rush of anxiety along with the simultaneous burn of jealousy. And then, when she brushed his hand flirtatiously with her fingertips, I just had to look away.

  However, when I looked up again, he had left her and was coming toward me. Our eyes met and again that wonderful thrill of attraction rushed through my body.

  We started chatting again, and once more we slipped effortlessly into an easy flow—but then, once more, there was an interruption.

  Jax's phone rang, and he took the call. As he did, I saw his face go pale. Something was definitely very wrong, and I felt my own heart beginning to race with anxiety.

  He explained that his best friend had just been in a car wreck, and that he was in the ER, and that he had to go right away—but he didn't want to leave without my number. That was good, because I didn't want him to leave without my number, either. I scribbled it onto a napkin and gave it to him and then watched as he ran out of the hall. I felt sad that we hadn't been able to talk, but I felt even worse about the fact that his friend had been in a car wreck. I hoped that he would be all right.

  “Champagne? Wine? Cognac? Sparkling water?” asked a voice behind me.

  I turned around and saw a waiter standing there with a platter of drinks. I was feeling the first hints of tipsiness coming on, but I figured that one more glass of champagne couldn't hurt. After all, I wasn't driving home. Bill had arranged a gorgeous vintage Rolls Royce with a chauffeur to ferry the two of us around this evening.

  “Sure, I'll have some champagne, thanks.”

  The waiter smiled and handed me a glass of champagne. I sipped on it and walked slowly around the perimeter of the hall, just making sure that everything was going smoothly. It was almost time for the speeches to begin, so I gently reminded the guests that they should start moving to their tables.

  A few minutes later almost everyone had gone to their tables, and Bill glanced across the room at me, checked his watch, and gave me an appreciative nod. Even though it wasn't exactly a major achievement or anything, a little shiver of pride rushed through me. I had organized most of this on my own, and it was all running so smoothly. I could see that Bill was proud of me too, and that made me feel even better.

  I went to my own table, but as I was about to sit down my phone buzzed in my bag. I took it out, and saw that it was a Quickchat from a user who wasn't in my friends list. There was still a little bit of chatting going on in the hall, and people hadn't fallen totally silent just yet, so I figured I could check it quickly without anyone noticing.

  I opened it, curious to see who this was.

  It was Jax. As soon as I saw his face, my heart started to beat faster.

  What was he going to say?

  CHAPTER 12

  Jax

  I didn't know what was going through my mind as I raced through the hall. Well, that wasn't quite accurate—I knew, but pinpointing any specific emotion was difficult, as it seemed that they were all bleeding into one another. There was fear, panic, anger, disbelief, anxiety, sadness—all rolled into one terrible mess.

  All that I could hope for now was that the injuries weren't too bad—and that Pete hadn't hurt anyone else but himself in this car accident. Damage to vehicles was one thing; we could easily afford to pay for whatever had been broken to be fixed, even with the expensive cars (and thus, the expensive parts and labor) we each drove.

  But human bodies were another thing. They weren't machines that could just be restored to good as new condition by a skilled mechanic. If he had done some serious damage to himself—or someone else—those would be consequences he would be dealing with for the rest of his life.

  As I raced out of the hall, I almost careened into someone familiar who was standing outside smoking a cigarette—my aunt's new business associate, Chad Burton.

  “Whoa, bro, where are you off to in such a hurry?” he said, his tone aggressive, almost snarling as he dodged me.

  “None of your business, Burton,” I snapped back at him. I was in no mood to deal with a fool like him right now.

  “Trying to get some HIIT training in this evening huh?” he called out mockingly after me. “It's a great way to get shredded, buddy! Keep it up! Run, Forrest, run!”

  Ugh, he really was obnoxious. If I hadn't been in such a hurry to get to Pete, I would have dealt with his condescending crap right away—but I didn't have the luxury of having time on my side at the moment.

  I raced out to the valet, who was just relaxing and browsing through his Facebook news feed on his phone.

  “My car keys!” I demanded as I skidded to a halt in front of them. “I need them now!”

  “I uh, just hold on a sec sir, I'll uh, retrieve your vehicle, and uh—”

  “Just give me the keys! There's no time, it's an emergency!”

  “I uh, umm, yeah, all right, all right,” he stammered, scrambling through the list to find my keys.

  “Come on, damn it, come on!” I urged.

  “Here, here you are, sir,” he stammered, having retrieved my keys.

  “Thanks, and sorry for the pressure I put you under!” I called out as I ran off to where the cars were parked.

  I jumped into my Maserati, fired up the motor and took off at speed, spinning the wheels and getting the rear of the car fishtailing with the abrupt, brutal surge of power.

  “You'd better be okay, Pete,” I muttered under my breath as I raced through the streets at breakneck speed. “You'd better be okay, man, you'd better be all right.”

  It took me around twenty minutes to get to the hospital, and I managed to find a parking spot easily enough, thankfully. I raced to the ER, where I asked the first nurse I saw about Pete.

  “He's this way,” said the nurse. “Come, follow me.”

  She led me briskly through the ER until we got to a bed at the very end. And there he was—lying in the bed, with tubes coming out of him. The whole left side of his face was badly swollen, and his left arm was flopping grotesquely at an unnatural angle. He seemed to be unconscious.

  “Oh, my God,” I murmured as shock hit me with the force of a tsunami. “Oh, my God, Pete, oh my God.”

  “I'll get the doctor who attended to him to come over and speak to you,” the nurse said. “Wait here please.”

  I nodded, feeling utterly numb and totally rocked with shock. I couldn't stop staring at him, and it was like it wasn't real, as if I were in some sort of dream, a dream that I couldn't wake up from.

  After a while—maybe a few seconds, maybe a few minutes, I don't know—a voice started to speak near me. I turned around and saw a young Asian doctor standing to my left.

  “Dr. Lee,” he said, extending a hand to me, which I shook.

  “Hi, Dr. Lee, I'm Ernest Cooper.”

  “Mr. Cooper,” he said, his voice stern and severe, “as you can see, your friend here is not in very good condition.”

  “What . . . what happened?” I managed to ask.

  “Drunk driving,” he said, shaking his head. “He hit a tree at very high speed. You'll have to speak to the officer who got to the scene first for more specific details, but it seems that he was speeding, and he simply lost control of the vehicle.”

  “And uh, there were no other parties involved in this accident?” I asked.

  The doctor shook his head. “No, thankfully it was only him who was injured.”

  That was a relief, a small consolation in this terrible situation. At least the legal situation would be simpler, and he wouldn't have to carry the burden of guilt that came with seriously injuring an innocent person.

  “Tell me, Dr. Lee, what's uh, what's the prognosis? How is he?”

  “It's not great,” he admitted, “but it's not as bad as it could have been either. As you can see, his left arm is broken, but it's a clean break, which won't be a problem to sort out. He's also cracked two ribs on his left side, and sprained his ankle. Again, these are painful injuries, but not life threatening. They'll take some time to heal, but there shouldn't be an
y complications with the healing process.”

  “What about his face though, his head? The fact that he's unconscious?”

  “That's what we're most worried about. He's broken his nose, his cheekbone and there's an orbital fracture, and two of his molars have been knocked out. He's unconscious, yes, in a mild coma. There is some swelling in the skull, and there has been a bad concussion. What effects this is going to have on the functioning of his brain, we can't quite say for now. It's always complicated with these head injuries.”

  “A coma . . .” I murmured.

  “It's quite bad,” said Dr. Lee, “but not as bad as it sounds. We expect that he'll come out of the coma in a day or two.”

  I nodded, still struggling to take in this harsh, shocking state of affairs.

  “And, uh, he can still walk, right?”

  Dr. Lee nodded. “Thankfully there are no spinal or neck injuries, apart from some whiplash, which is to be expected in an accident like this. But yes, he'll be able to walk and use his limbs just fine when he has recovered. It's the brain injury that is most worrying right now, and as I said, it’s very difficult to state at this stage just what the extent of that damage is going to be.”

  I nodded and sighed. “All right Dr. Lee, thank you very much. Is there anything else I can do?”

  “Besides informing friends and family members, not really. You may want to contact the officers who were on the scene, and find out what's going to happen in terms of the law. They took a blood sample on the scene to determine just how much alcohol was in his system. I suppose the amount of legal trouble Peter is going to be in will depend on the results of that blood test.”

  “All right, thanks, Dr. Lee. Do you have the name of the officer involved?”

  “Sergeant James Newman,” he said. “Find him and speak to him.”

  “Thanks, Dr. Lee.”

  He nodded stiffly, and then hurried off, presumably to deal with other patients who needed his attention.

  I, meanwhile, just stood and stared at Pete for a while, shaking my head.

  “Pete,” I murmured, “what have you done to yourself buddy, what have you done?”

  I didn't know why, but at this moment I really, really needed to talk to Lanie. I took the napkin with her number on it out of my pocket and decided to send her a Quickchat. I positioned myself with Pete in the background, so that she could see the extent of his injuries, and hit record.

  “Hi, Lanie,” I said. “I'm just sending a Quickchat in case you're busy and can't answer the phone. Pete is, as you can see, in pretty bad shape. I just spoke to the doctor, though, and he says that Pete will eventually be okay. What they're most worried about at this stage is brain damage. He's in a coma and they don't know what the extent of the damage will be. Sorry, I hope this doesn't put a downer on your evening. I hope you enjoy the rest of the ball. Chat soon, okay? I have to go talk to the police now.”

  I sent the video and put my phone back into my pocket. I couldn't say for sure why I had had to tell her all of that, but she had been on my mind a lot, and I really wanted to let her know what was happening.

  She sent a reply, just a quick one to say how sorry she was to hear the news, and that she was thinking of me, and that if I needed anything to call her. I replied saying that I really appreciated that, and that I'd get hold of her later.

  Now for the next issue—dealing with the cops. I called the local station, and asked to speak to Sergeant James Newman.

  “This is Newman speaking,” said a gruff voice after my call was transferred to his office.

  “Hi, Sergeant Newman, this is Ernest Cooper,” I said. “I'm a close friend of Peter White's. He was involved in an auto accident earlier tonight.”

  “Oh yeah, the guy who wrapped his fancy sports car around a tree. Yeah, how's he doing?”

  “Not great, but they think he'll be all right. I'm at the hospital right now.”

  “All right, well I'm guessing they already told you that we took blood samples from your buddy at the scene of the accident?”

  “They did, yes.”

  “Well he was three drinks over the limit, which is enough for a major fine, but not enough for jail time.”

  I sighed, thankful for that. “That's good, that's good news,” I said.

  “Yeah. But we are gonna push to have his driver's license suspended for a minimum of six months.”

  “That's fair.”

  “You guys can be real thankful that nobody else was involved in this, and that we can't determine the exact speed he was traveling. You see, the speed he was going, combined with his alcohol level, it would have been enough to get him put behind bars—if another person were injured. But because he hit a tree, and thus didn't damage anybody's property, and there were no other people involved, we'd be hard-pressed to get him behind bars. So, despite his injuries, and the fact that his expensive car is totaled, he can count himself lucky . . . real lucky, you understand?”

  “I understand officer. Thank you.”

  “Please let us know when he wakes up. We'll be wanting to have a chat with him.”

  “I'll do that, officer.”

  “Well I've got other things to attend to tonight, Mr. Cooper, but thanks for calling. Please, get in touch with me when your friend is in a condition to speak to us. Have a good evening.”

  “Goodbye, Sergeant Newman. I'll get hold of you soon.”

  I cut the call off and put the phone down. This was really, really messed up. It was just, all around, a terrible situation. But the police officer had been right—he was lucky that he wasn't in a lot more trouble. If anyone else had been involved, or even just someone else's property, he could be looking at a prison sentence.

  “Pete,” I said gently to him, “I know the news about your dad's cancer is distressing, but . . . this isn't the way to deal with it, buddy.”

  Just then my phone started to ring. I got it out, thinking it might be Lanie. It wasn't, though—it was my aunt.

  “Aunt Cara, hi,” I said, “I'm sorry I didn't tell you why I had to leave the ball like that, but trust me, it was an emergency, it—”

  “I heard all about it,” she said, her tone cold. “And I'm not surprised at all. That young man is a fool, an idiot! Now look what he's done! When word about this gets out to the press, what do you think is going to happen to the public image of your company? What are people going to think, Ernest?! And if they think that this company is being run by an irresponsible drunkard, who on earth is going to want to invest in it?! You have two choices before you at this moment, my boy, two choices, and what you choose will determine whether your company succeeds or fails. You can keep that idiot in your company, and watch it sink like the Titanic, or you can throw him—that useless deadweight—overboard, and thrive! That is the choice you have to make, Ernest! And in my mind, there is only one option, get rid of him! Get rid of him this instant!”

  CHAPTER 13

  Lanie

  When I saw the Quickchat that Jax sent, with his friend Pete lying unconscious in the hospital bed behind him, I wanted to cry. He looked so sad, so distraught—and his friend looked so badly injured, too. It was a horrible thing to witness. I just wanted to hug him, to hold him tightly and tell him that everything was going to be all right.

  “You are looking so, so stunning,” a voice said from behind me, interrupting my thoughts.

  I turned around to see Chad Burton standing there, staring unashamedly at my body. I felt instantly uncomfortable. I remembered the apology he had made to me earlier, and thought about how his current behavior seemed to be nullifying the sincerity of it. Well, the seeming sincerity of it. Maybe he had just been putting on an act.

  “Um, thanks,” I replied, wondering if he would pick up on the discomfort clear in my voice. “You uh, you look nice yourself.”

  He did look very good, I couldn't deny that, but I was saying that more out of politeness than any genuine feeling that he was attractive. Indeed, his attitude made him repulsive to m
e. It didn't really matter how good he looked on the outside.

  “Well, I did just go to my favorite stylist this afternoon,” he said, trying to sound casual. “She does a lot of Hollywood A-listers, you know. She only takes on clients strictly by referral. I know some people who know some people, though, so I got in with her. What do you think of this suit? Tailor made for me by an up-and-coming designer in New York. I invested in his company, and I'm pretty sure those stocks are about to skyrocket.”

  As obnoxious as he was, I was kind of interested in what he was saying. “So, he's a specialist suit designer? Or does he branch out into other areas of fashion as well?”

  “Oh, he does it all—men's stuff only, though. He's given me advance previews of his spring collection, and man, he's gonna blow the competition right out of the water. I guarantee it, this guy is gonna be as big a name as Versace and Armani in a couple of years. And I'll be riding those profits all the way to the bank.”

  He smiled arrogantly and sipped on his glass of whiskey. “This is actually decent whiskey,” he remarked. “Obviously single malt, you can't expect people like us to drink blended. Ugh. So, what is this, eighteen-year-old? Older? Very smooth, just the right hint of a piquant, woody aftertaste . . .”

  I wondered if he was trying to impress me like this. It really wasn't working. I was happy to talk about business and investing, but if he thought that showing off about his taste in whiskey or clothes was going to charm me, he was way off the mark.

  “It's twenty-one-year-old whiskey, actually,” I said, hoping that he would pick up on the coldness in my voice and take the hint that I didn't really want to talk to him. “Single malt, yes. Now, if you'll excuse me—”

  “Hahaha,” he chuckled, “I should have known it was twenty-one and not eighteen. This whiskey is old enough to drink itself!”

  I chuckled politely, even though it was a lame joke. How was I going to get rid of this guy? He really didn't seem to be able to take a hint.

  “Hey, I saw you using Quickchat,” he remarked. “Cool app, huh? Who were you talking to?”