Hooked #3 (The Hooked Romance Series - Book 3) (6 page)

But Drew sat down and began filling a plate with the
food. I sat on the other side of the table, my mimosa in hand. “What did you
do?”

“Oh, you know.
Just a bit of
running.
A bit of swimming.
I can’t go a day without
exercise, especially when I eat like this.” He winked at me, taking a large bite
of pastry.

I had thought he was gone; I had thought he had
disappeared. But here he was before me, eating heartily, gazing at me like a
friend would. Like a friend should. I shivered, feeling the unfortunate
understanding that this man before me was very nearly perfect.

I shook it off.
“So.
What
are we doing tonight?”

“Now.
Didn’t I tell you that
was
going to be a surprise? Why
don’t you eat up? You ordered enough food to feed eight people.” He handed me
the pastry I had nearly grabbed in the moments when he was walking through the
door. “Come on. Eat up.”

And I did.

That evening I draped the red dress over my body and
prepared my hair and make-up. I watched as, on the other side of the room, Drew
rustled himself into his tuxedo and his bow tie. He combed at his hair,
creating that subtle side-part of the previous week. Something inside me stirred;
I wanted him so badly. But I couldn’t allow it to happen; I shouldn’t.
 

I turned toward him, allowing my breasts to bounce
in the dress. I could play with him, couldn’t I?
Even if I
didn’t allow anything to happen?
“You look handsome,” I murmured.

“And you look beautiful.” He walked toward me,
bringing his arm out to me. “Shall I escort you to the Porsche?”

“Why, darling.
I’d love to go,” I whispered, laughing at the sudden false sophistication. He
had a humor about him—something I loved in anyone. If he couldn’t laugh about
this grandeur, about his high style of living, then I didn’t want anything to
do with him. Perhaps this was part of the reason I was here.

We walked into the elevator. I gazed at the
remarkable hotel beneath us as we rushed to the ground floor. Leon, the valet,
had brought the car out front for us and stood, dangling the keys for Drew,
until we brushed past, excitement brimming in our bones. I hadn’t a clue where
we were going, and Drew seemed so adamant on a surprise.

We hopped into the Porsche and fled into the country
roads, dust and sand rollicking all around us. Drew played fast and loud music
on the speakers, and I nodded my head in time with the music. It wasn’t
Tchaikovsky. But it was truly remarkable how the music emanated with the
raucous nature of my soul.

I opened the car window, allowing the chilly October
air to roll over my arms and through my hair. I yelled into the wind, and Drew
yelled as well. We were just two physical beings, propelling ourselves into the
nighttime sky.

Finally we pulled into a large parking lot. At the
helm of the parking lot stood a remarkable building that was reminiscent of an
old castle or a Greek temple. My heart beat quickly, gazing at its incredible
wonder. We pulled up—fast—in the front, waiting for the valet driver. At this
point, the realization struck me like a rock.

We were at a casino.

My eyes were wide, and I spun toward Drew. My heart
was beating too fast now. It was out of control, mashing itself with the beat of
the rock music. I reminded myself that he couldn’t have known; he wouldn’t have
known. I couldn’t go in casinos; I couldn’t gamble because of my past. It was
too rocky. It was too fresh in my mind. “I’m so sorry, Drew,” I whispered. The
valet driver opened the door and helped me from the car. All the while, Drew’s
eyes
were on me, confused, perturbed
. What was wrong
now? I was sure he was wondering. Could he please this peasant girl in any way?
He had brought her to the ball; he had taken her into the world. Did she just
want to go back to the kitchen to scrub the floors?

Drew rounded the car and took my hand, looking at me
deeply. “What’s wrong,
Mol
?” he asked. “Please. We
don’t have to go in here if you don’t like gambling—” His voice was hushed. He
wanted to respect me. I somehow recognized this in him. I reminded myself that
he had grown up with Mel—that he and Mel had been a sort of team. I could trust
him. (Or could I? I was always on the fence about this.)

“It’s not that,” I said. I felt the cold October
wind glide through my jacket, through my slim red dress. “I just. I’ll find
something else to do while you
gamble
. Okay?”

Drew pulled in front of me, blocking me from
entering the casino. He shook his head, disallowing me to take another step
forward. I could hear loud music and the sound of slots from the inside. I felt
like my heart was going to explode. I thought only of my father; never at home,
always at the casino. Always spending our money away, leaving my mother and I
with nothing after he died of that goddamned heart attack. My mother, her face
teary-eyed, blotched. She hadn’t allowed me to drink or gamble. Once, a friend
and I had played a scratch off game at the kitchen table, and my mother had cried
in the other room. The memories were too deep. The innocence bled into terror
too quickly.

“Please. Tell me what’s going on,” he whispered.

I cleared my throat. I could hardly look at him. “I
just. My father died when I was really, really young.
Nine.
But before that, I remember the alcohol.
The gambling.
The drugs.
He did it all at a casino outside of
Indianapolis. It disgusted me, the way he used our money. He just completely
obliterated my family, and then he left us.” I felt my body shaking.

Drew placed his fingers on my shoulders, kneading
into my skin with his strong thumb. He sighed. We continued to listen to the
music rollicking from the casino. “Molly. I’m so sorry to hear this.” His eyes
were so firm, so stoic. “You know I lost my father when I was quite young, as
well.”

I shook my head, feeling my heart break all over
again. “What happened?” But he just shook his head; he didn’t want to go into
it. I didn’t want anyone else to go through that sheer pain I had gone through;
I didn’t want anyone to have to endure the loss of a parent. This was still so
strong in me—this pain—all these years later. “I’m so sorry.” My voice broke.

The silence between us drove us to listen to the
humming conversation of the people, the roll of the great machines. He kneaded
more and more against my skin, helping me to relax. “Tell you what,” he murmured.
“We’re already here, yeah? We’ve driven all this way?”

I nodded. I was adamant about not playing, but this
didn’t mean we couldn’t enter. He had come all the way to Iowa for this place;
it had to be special to him. I wanted to know what was important to him. Could
I be important to him? Or was I a floozy, just another woman? Perhaps he did
this with all the girls.

“We’re already here. And I won’t spend very much,
okay? I’ll just spend five thousand at a time.”

My eyes widened, shocked at his throwing away five
thousand dollars, just at a time. To me, this was more money than I had ever
seen in one place. This money would save my life. And to him—it was like
betting five dollars.
Maybe ten.

“Just five thousand,” he assured me again, looking
for a nod, a yes, anything.

And so I gave it. “Of course,” I murmured. “Five is
good.”

He traced my face with his finger and leaned down,
giving my nose a small tap with his lips. Something trembled inside of me.
“It’s going to be all right.”

We waltzed into the immaculate casino. I stood on
his arm like a queen. A few of the most beautiful people I had ever seen—again
and again—looked toward us, eyeing us as the competition. Their eyes flashed. I
poised my face in such a way that seemed high and mighty. I arched my eyebrow
toward the women who glared at me and they turned away, frightened, suddenly,
at my appearance of wealth.

If they only knew, I thought, about my smelly
apartment and my cat Boomer. The thought made me giddy with happiness. How we
can pretend to be people we’re absolutely not, even when we’re so starkly
ourselves on the inside.

Drew rounded the corner and traded his five thousand
for chips. I looked at the chips in his hand as he slipped them into his
pocket. He pulled one out and looked at me, kissing it precisely. He handed it
to me. “For good luck,” he murmured. I felt its frigidness in my fingers as I
folded it back and forth in my hands. How much was each one worth? Did I want
to know?

We walked toward the blackjack table. In my head, I
knew Drew would be a blackjack player, so much like my losing father. My father
always told my mother and me that he started out winning, every evening. That
he got hot. And then—and then—the tables changed. They altered. I arched my
eyebrow toward Drew, uncertain. Was he a winner? He sat down at the table and
patted the soft green. The man dealt him and the others in. I stood behind him,
watching his cards, watching how so many of the other players lost and lost,
while Drew continued to win. Did these people all have millions of dollars to
blow? Were they all maintaining the five thousand dollar rule?

“And another one for Thompson,” the dealer declared
to the world, hitting Drew with more and more coins. Drew looked at the coins
dispassionately, as if un-amused by them. He aligned them in a little colony on
his right. I watched as the stacks grew higher and higher.

I was holding onto his arm, my eyes bright in my
head. I had given up on sad thoughts of my father, especially on my third
martini. I remembered how my mother had turned so hateful, so riotous in the
days after his death. She had disallowed everything, and thusly, I had fled. I
didn’t belong there.

But this man—this handsome man before me—was such a
winner. He understood the intricacies of money; he understood how it lived, how
it breathed. He could manipulate it however he wanted. “You are so talented,” I
murmured, kissing him on the forehead. I didn’t know why I did it; it just felt
right.

“Talent has nothing to do with it,” Drew said toward
me. “It’s luck.” He turned back toward the dealer, declaring that he was ready
to take a break. The dealer bowed his head toward him, and Drew marched from
the table, taking me on his arm. I looked back at the other sad sacks who
remained on, looking at their chips in confusion. How had they lost so much?
How would they tell their wives, their husbands about what had happened there
that evening? I imagined the world beyond the glamor, beyond the high heels,
beyond the make-up; the world that had existed, for example, in my own home. It
hadn’t been beautiful. It had been lonely, desolate. We had had to make tough
decisions, like trading in televisions for food money or giving up on ideas of
vacations just to keep the house.

But I had to right my brain about it. I was pretty
smart about money; I was doing the best I could. I didn’t normally gamble. Sure,
I had lost my dance studio. But it had been through no real fault of my own. I
wasn’t going out and spending, spending, and gambling. I was simply treading
water in a wayward sea.

Drew, in this moment, was my rock.
My pillar.
I turned toward him as I walked away from the blackjack
table.

“How are you seriously so good at that?” I hissed at
him. I gripped his arm tight as I kept winding my head around, looking at
everyone else in the casino. Everyone else appeared to be losing. Drew had
mastered this game, this path.

But Drew looked at me with a harsh smile. “You’re
going to want to keep your voice down,” he murmured. “You want to know how I
win so
much?
”

I
nodded,
my eyes large.
“Please. Tell me.”

Drew whispered in my ear. I could feel his breath
hot on my neck. “I count cards.”

My face grew bright with admiration. Drew was not
only cheating at this gambling situation; he was also a blissful genius. He
wasn’t really gambling at all—not like my father who blindly gave away our
things, our life. Rather, he had his money and he made it bigger.

“How do you do it?” I whispered back. I sipped on my
martini, loving the way the liquid rolled over my tongue.

“I’ll teach you, if you like,” he murmured back.

He rushed through the basics in the corner by the bar.
Girls continued delivering us drinks, as if on cue. “I just have them keep them
coming when I’m here,” Drew explained as he sipped from his whiskey. I was
already quite drunk; he was looking blurrier and more handsome every time I
sipped from my drink. Casinos were marvelous; high living was marvelous.

“Okay. So you know
,
you
need to beat the dealer. Yeah?” he began. I nodded. “Okay. When you count
cards, you have to remember; cards between 2 and 6 have a value of a plus one.
Cards between seven and nine have a value of zero. Cards between ten and ace
have a value of negative one.”

“Negative one,” I repeated, trying to keep it all
straight in my head. I had never been great at math, and my palms had begun to
sweat. Could I really do this? I couldn’t even keep funds to my name. “Wait—Can
I put up your tokens? I don’t have—I mean. I don’t want to bet any of my own
money.” My face burned as I asked this.