by Lisa Childs
Had he wanted to keep seeing her?
No. He’d made it clear he’d only been auditioning with her so he could join the dating service.
Blair shrugged again. “Probably makes it easier to get to his games. I think he’s got one planned for tonight.”
“And he needs a helicopter to get there?” Miranda asked. Why was she wondering where he was going to be? Or what he was? She had more than enough on her plate without dealing with him anymore.
She should have been happy that he hadn’t tried to contact her since she’d tossed him out. But all she felt was that strange hollowness...
Blair chuckled. “No. But maybe he wants to make a splash.” Her lips pulled into a slight frown. “I hope he doesn’t crash that new bird into the sea.”
“So you know where the game is?”
“Yeah, that hotel on Ibiza. I have a feeling he might own the place.”
The way the staff had treated him suddenly made sense; they’d seemed to know him and kowtow to him. At the time Miranda had thought they’d just offered excellent service, like the condoms in the nightstand. Now she wondered...
Blair laughed again. “He probably won it in a poker game.”
Won it or conned it out of someone?
“Do you think he cheats?” Miranda asked.
Blair laughed again. “He doesn’t need to. He’s so damn good at bluffing.”
“So you mean he’s a good liar?” she challenged her.
“Ouch,” Blair remarked, her dark blue eyes twinkling with amusement. “You really don’t like him any more now than you used to.”
“Probably even less,” Miranda admitted.
“You’re really good at bluffing, too,” Blair said. “So does that make you a good liar?”
Amusement tugged at Miranda’s lips, making her smile.
“Finally,” Blair said. “You haven’t smiled since you walked up to the table.”
Probably not since it was nearly the same one she’d shared with Grant a week ago.
Blair reached across the table and patted Miranda’s hand. “I’m worried about you.”
Miranda forced a wider smile. “Why?”
“You’ve been so busy lately, I’ve hardly seen you,” Blair said. “I was hoping that was because the business is going well, that Teo’s interview helped bring in new members, but that must not be the case at all.”
Miranda swallowed down the stress she’d been struggling with over her business. She didn’t want to dim her friend’s happiness, but she didn’t want to outright lie to her, either. They were too close friends for that. So she admitted, “Some women were upset that they didn’t get dates with Teo, too.”
Blair smiled. “I don’t blame them.”
Neither did Miranda—if they’d really been interested in the man and not his bank account. An image flashed through her mind of Grant looking at her check register. After seeing her dismal balance, it was no wonder he hadn’t tried to contact her again.
“Is that why you’re not happy?” Blair asked. “Taking some abuse for not spreading Teo around to more members?”
“Mostly just from Tabitha,” Miranda answered honestly and smiled again. “It’s nothing I can’t handle, though.” And she would.
She’d told her sisters to stop complaining about what was done and focus on what they could do to bring in new clients. They needed a new marketing hook—one that focused on what she wanted the business to be now—a place for people to date safely and with excitement.
Her sisters’ only suggestion had been to let Grant Snyder join Liaisons. Sure, Grant covered the excitement part, but he wasn’t safe—for her or for any of her members.
* * *
Grant had lost another hand of the game he’d been playing with Miranda. With her thinking that he’d been snooping in her purse, he wasn’t sure he would ever be invited back to her table to play again.
So he’d found another game. Actually, he’d set up this one himself. It would be played by his rules—which usually meant there were no rules.
For once he’d limited the stakes, though. He’d lost too much lately to risk financial loss as well. He’d lost something he’d never even realized he’d wanted: Miranda’s trust.
Which was stupid, since he’d been lying to her from the minute he’d showed up in her office, pretending he actually wanted to join her dating service. But he hadn’t cared then that he might destroy her trust; he hadn’t wanted it.
He’d only wanted her to leave Teo and Blair alone in their new love. But for some reason, every time he got near her, he’d forgotten his mission. Because she was so damn beautiful and sexy and passionate.
Maybe instead of a poker game, he should have arranged a hookup. A lot of his old lovers had expressed interest in seeing him again—if only in the bedroom. But there was only one old lover he wanted to see again.
His imagination must have conjured her up, because when he looked away from his cards, he saw her standing in the doorway to the suite. Had she come here to see him?
This was the room in which they’d spent that first night together.
Maybe he should have booked a different one—because he kept seeing her everywhere he looked in it. Because she really couldn’t be here...
Especially dressed like that, like the good girl going bad in that musical she and his sister had watched over and over again in the basement family room. The black leather pants and vestlike shirt were something his imagination would have conjured up to reveal her every tantalizing curve while making her look badass sexy.
Then she did something even sexier—something that had him smothering a groan and shifting in his chair. She slid her hand into the front of the black vest, into the cleavage the tight leather top had helped create, and she pulled out a wad of bills.
Where the hell had the money come from? Definitely not her bank account...
What was she up to? Or was she even real?
The hostess, to whom she’d handed the money, walked over to the table he’d set up in front of the windows. “Sir, Ms. Fox would like to join the game. Is that possible?”
“Hell, yes,” the player to his right answered before he could.
“Make sure she sits next to me,” another said.
“Fox is sure as hell the right name for her,” a third said with a low whistle of appreciation.
The hostess smiled and murmured, “That’s what I thought...”
He’d booked Alberta to host the game because she was good at handling unruly players and didn’t try flirting with any of them. But that was the first time he realized all the players were usually men...until now, until Miranda had showed up wanting to play.
Alberta was definitely flirting with her as she turned her smile toward the petite blonde. Alberta was tall with long, dark hair and a killer figure of her own, one showcased in the short skirt and low-cut top she wore.
Miranda must have taken the hostess’s smile as her acceptance into the game because she crossed the room to join them at the table.
“I didn’t say she could play,” he told Alberta.
“What?” Miranda asked. “Afraid I’m going to beat you again?”
The man who’d whistled once did so again. “Whoa, boy, she beat you, Snyder?” He dropped his cards onto the table. “I fold.”
Grant wanted to fold as well; hell, he wanted to throw everyone but her out of the suite so they could do what they’d done last time they’d been here together—screw each other senseless.
He must have not regained his senses yet, because he found himself pointing toward an empty chair at the table. “You can take a seat, Miranda,” he told her. “But you’re going to regret playing me...”
Her lips, which she’d painted a bright crimson, curved into that slight, sexy smile. “Oh, you’re not as good as you think you are, Snyder.”
&nbs
p; His pride took the hit directly, and he flinched...while everyone else chuckled with amusement. He would show her how damn good he was.
First at cards.
And then after everyone else had left them alone, he would show her just how good he was when he made her beg for sexual release...
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WHAT THE HELL had she let Teo and Blair talk her into doing?
Teo had crashed her dinner with Blair, and when Blair had shared that they’d been talking about Grant, he’d lamented about losing money to his lover’s brother. “Where is he playing?” he asked. “I should try to get my money back from him.”
“It’s a good thing you have more to lose if you’re going to have a rematch with Grant,” Blair had teased. “I don’t know anyone who’s ever been able to beat him.” Then she’d finally pulled her gaze from her Italian lover and focused on Miranda. “But maybe you...”
Panic had clenched Miranda’s heart. She did know about them!
“You’ve played him?” Teo had asked.
“No,” Blair had answered for her. “But she could. She’s good. Grant taught me, and I taught her.”
“So you should be able to beat him, too,” Teo had said.
Blair shook her head. “I can’t bluff like the two of them can. And that’s the only way to win if the cards aren’t going your way.”
The cards hadn’t been going Miranda’s way lately—at least when it came to business. She shook her head. “I haven’t played for a while...”
But for those sexual games with Grant.
“And I don’t have the time or the desire to throw my money away,” she added. All her desire was for Grant, and temptation tugged at her.
She wouldn’t mind seeing him again. If he showed her no interest, then he was only after money, and she should be relieved that she’d figured it out before she’d done something stupid...like let him join Liaisons.
She wasn’t about to fall for him—even if he wasn’t mercenary, though.
“Throw my money away,” Teo offered.
Miranda chuckled. “Why?”
“I owe you for setting me up with the love of my life,” Teo said. “And I owe Grant some payback for getting me drunk and robbing me blind.”
Blair laughed now. “That’s right. And also another good reason for Miranda to take him on. She can probably outdrink him, too.”
She’d held up her hands. “I’m sorry, guys. I really don’t have time for this—”
“You deserve a break,” Blair interjected. “You’ve been working so hard. And it took me forever to get a smile out of you tonight.”
“You think Grant is going to make me smile?” she asked.
“Taking his money will,” Blair pointed out.
And she wasn’t wrong. If that was all he was interested in, Miranda would love to take away his money. And his clothes...
And his will to do anything other than sexually please her...
Blair clapped her hands together and startled a gasp out of both Miranda and Teo. “And I have the perfect thing for you to wear.”
Miranda shook her head and reminded her long-time bestie, “You and I haven’t been able to borrow each other’s clothes since we were eight.” Blair had sprouted up and out way before she had.
In fact, Miranda was still waiting to sprout up.
“No, I had a friend of Teo’s design this outfit for you—”
“Tony said you designed it,” Teo interjected. “And that you’re brilliant and beautiful and that I’m one lucky son of a bitch.” He grinned as broadly as his lady love did over his compliment.
Miranda hadn’t had much of an example of real love, but she knew it when she saw it. And she was seeing it now. She grinned, too. “Man, when I’m right, I’m right...”
“Yes, you are,” Blair agreed. “I was going to save this present until your birthday. But you’ve done so much for us, you deserve it now.”
“And Grant deserves to get a little comeuppance,” Teo added as he pulled out his wallet.
Miranda chuckled. “I’m not going to argue with that.” They had no idea how much he deserved to lose.
“Is the draw that funny?” Grant asked, drawing her back to the present where she sat at the table with him and the other players.
She glanced at her cards, relieved she’d actually been dealt some good ones this time. The other hands she’d had to bluff. And she remembered why she didn’t often play. She hated that there was no control over the draw. Whatever you were dealt, you were dealt...
Miranda didn’t like relying on luck and hated feeling out of control. And, with members leaving Liaisons International left and right, she’d already felt like too much was out of her control.
But finally, with the pile of chips growing in front of her, she was proving that there was more to life than luck. There was strategy, and it also helped that Grant seemed quite distracted...
His gaze kept going to her cleavage.
Was it the outfit? She’d laughed when she’d opened her early birthday present from Blair. They’d spent entirely too much of their adolescence watching Grease. And Miranda’s favorite part had been when Sandy had dressed up like the badass.
In this leather outfit, Miranda felt like a badass, too. And she wouldn’t have had the cleavage without the tight top.
She suspected, though, that it wasn’t just the outfit unsettling Grant. It was the way his friends, or whatever the other players were to him, reacted to her.
They flirted outrageously, even when she took their chips. The hostess kept flirting, too. If Grant was like most of the men Miranda knew, that was probably distracting him most...with fantasies of a threesome.
Every man’s not-so-secret, cliched fantasy.
She’d been invited to join couples, but she knew from her mother’s divorces—more so than her marriages—that inviting someone else into the bedroom rarely ended well.
Miranda, also, did not like to share. She’d had to do too much of that growing up with her younger sisters. She liked a man’s attention all to herself.
And she liked to focus only on him, like she was focused now on Grant. He was so damn good-looking. His short beard clung to his strong jaw. His golden hair was a little spiky and incredibly sexy...like the silk shirt he wore that molded to the sculpted muscles of his chest.
Heat rushed over her as she found herself getting distracted. And she couldn’t afford that now.
Not when Grant must have been dealt good cards, too. Because he kept raising the ante. Or maybe he was just that much better at bluffing than she was.
Either way, she didn’t want to lose.
But one of the other players called it...and when she and Grant turned over their cards, he had the better hand this time. Was he cheating?
Was that how he always got such a good deal from the deck?
How he won enough to buy hotels and helicopters?
“You wiped me out,” one of the older players commented. As tired as he looked, he might have been talking about more than his lost money. “Time for me to call it a night.”
Another player groaned. “Me, too.” He turned toward her. “Although I’ll stick around if you are...or I’ll leave if you’ll come back to my room with me.”
She laughed and disengaged the man’s hand from her knee. “No, thanks.”
“Leave,” Grant told the man, his voice gruff and his words clipped as if he’d ground them out through gritted teeth. A muscle twitched in his cheek.
He really didn’t like anyone else touching her.
What if she touched someone else.?
As if she’d read her mind, the hostess leaned over her shoulder and whispered, “You need to up your game if you want to beat Grant. Kiss me...”
So Miranda turned her head and did just that, brushing her lips across
the soft ones of the dark-haired hostess. The woman deepened the kiss, swiping her tongue across Miranda’s lower lip.
The only excitement Miranda felt was generated from knowing that Grant watched them, and—if she played her cards right—she might be doing more than kissing him soon.
Because she couldn’t deny that even though she didn’t trust him, she wanted him.
Badly.
* * *
He wanted her.
So damn badly.
Watching her kiss another woman probably should have excited him. It certainly excited the other men left in the suite as they whistled and cheered.
Grant didn’t feel like cheering. He felt like firing his best gaming hostess. But he didn’t blame her for this display. He blamed Miranda. He knew she was just trying to get to him. And she was damn well succeeding...
Just as she always had.
He clapped his hands together, and the two women stopped kissing and laughed at him. “I think it’s time for a break,” he announced.
“Do you need to go be alone for a while?” Leo Decker asked. “I know I do...” He pushed his chips toward the dealer and said, “Cash me out.”
Not that he had a whole hell of a lot left.
What Grant hadn’t taken from him, Miranda had. She was good. How the hell had he never known that she played?
And of course, like everything else she did, she played damn well.
But this was his game, and she was not going to win.
He was so confident that he decided to up the ante but just with her. While the other players cashed out during the break, she walked over to the bar in the corner of the suite. Alberta stood behind it, mixing drinks for the losers who were leaving. But she dropped those on the bar to turn to Miranda. “What would you like?” and she wiggled her eyebrows at the blonde.
A powerful emotion gripped Grant, making his stomach churn and his muscles tighten.
This must be jealousy...
He wasn’t sure if he’d ever felt it before, and he didn’t like the sickening surge of emotion churning inside him.
“She wants me,” he burst out, making everyone turn toward him.