Vice (2 page)

“Kate, what am I going to do? There’s so much to think about. Bank accounts, the mortgage. And the kids keep asking for their dad.” She ran a hand over her pale, wet face. “I can’t do this alone.”

She held Lisa by the shoulders and looked into her friend’s eyes. “You’re not alone. I will be with you every step of the way. And you’ll get through this, I promise.” She sighed, but rather than lightening, her heart felt heavier for it. “Come have a coffee. It won’t fix anything, but it’ll make you feel more human.”

Her friend offered a watery smile. “I wouldn’t have been able to do it if it hadn’t been for your example, Kate. Every time I wanted to cave, I remembered how you cut your father off. How you told him no and stopped giving him money. I kept thinking, ‘I need to be strong like Kate.’ He needs to hit rock bottom.”

She stared at Lisa as an insidious sick feeling wormed its way through her.

Strong like Kate. What a laugh.

Lisa hugged her and wandered to the coffee table where the rest of the group flocked around her, eager to help.

It took Kate a second to realize her hands were shaking, and by that time she knew she was good and angry. It felt better than feeling guilty, and she’d stopped being sad a long time ago. Sadness didn’t help, but anger felt good. Anger helped her focus and forced her to see clearly.

What she saw in her memory was a seven-year-old girl crying as her parents argued outside her bedroom. She heard her mother’s voice, begging her father not to go to his usual haunts.

But her father always went out, and some nights he didn’t even come back. Instead, he’d stumble home the next morning, or days later, usually with his wallet empty. Granted, he’d never frequented luxurious casinos like Liam Doyle’s. Her dad had been more the type to lose himself in a dingy back room card parlor. Not that it mattered. Different location, same vice. Kate had seen it again and again, and now she had to watch her friend experience the same misery.

The most ridiculous part was Lisa regarding
her
as a fucking role model.

Most days, she vacillated between blaming herself and blaming Vegas. It was so much easier to blame those who made gambling possible. Then she didn’t have to examine her own actions. Her own choices.

As her fury once again took root, she sought an outlet,
any
outlet that turned the spotlight away from her past. As a newly-unemployed jingle singer, she didn’t have the resources to launch a full-scale war on Vegas. God knew the casinos would be there until the end of time.

But she knew how to cause a stink. She’d always had a bit of rebel in her.

As she searched her brain for a target, she found only one. Suddenly, her anger had a face. A pretty one with devil’s horns, much like how she imagined Liam Doyle’s.

Liam stood alone in his office suite at the newly-built Vice, his crowning achievement. In five minutes he would head outside, cut a big ribbon, smile and welcome Las Vegas into what he knew would become its hottest property.

So why wasn’t he pumped? When he opened Sin, he’d been delirious. When he opened Luxe, he’d been happy. But now?

Maybe the novelty had worn off.

Yet for some reason his pulse felt erratic. He took a long look at himself in the full-length mirror in the office bathroom and breathed deep, hoping to steady his off-kilter heartbeat. Dr. Chan said he worked too hard, and it was taking its toll.

No, it was just a strange case of nerves. Preparing for a grand opening forced his body into a state of hyper-awareness, like a runner before a track meet. Hell, he hadn’t had a good sleep in weeks. Between dealing with designers and kitchen staff and suppliers, he was bound to be on edge.

He just couldn’t afford to show it.

He looked himself up and down. The well-dressed, serious man who stared back from the mirror showed no outward signs of nervousness. His suit, ordered from Cad and the Dandy, his favorite Savile Row tailor in London, was pressed to perfection. His shoes gleamed and his silver cufflinks shone under the office lights with what his stylist Xavier called “understated elegance.” Damned if he knew what that meant, but apparently he was supposed to be the embodiment of it.

He adjusted his signature navy silk tie, chosen from his armada of navy silk ties. Xavier was always trying to get him to expand his color range, but Liam liked navy. If he had to wear a suit, it had to include a navy tie. Sure, he would have been more comfortable in jeans and cowboy boots, but Xavier demanded he look the part of a shark today. As the stylist had stated, “You can go back to being scruffy tomorrow.”

Today, as he opened Vice, even he conceded scruffy wasn’t appropriate. Vice would be his greatest achievement yet in the town where he was born. His other casinos did very well, but his marketing team had ensured the hype for this new property would launch him into the stratosphere. Already people demanded to get in, and after today,
everyone
would know Liam Doyle.

The build had gone off without a hitch. His designers had delivered on their promises of excellence. Everything was ready. The dealers, poised on the floor, waited for the first customers to flood in. The catering heads stood at the ready, with the finest of Vegas fare on their menus.

They just needed to open the door.

He almost allowed himself a small smile of satisfaction, but then he heard
her
voice in his head.

I don’t want you. I never wanted you. The sooner you get used to the idea, the better.

Fuck. How was it she always managed to cut through his pride and savage his serenity?

Now her face appeared in his mind’s eye, smiling but cold. As in all his visions of her, she shut the car door that final time, leaving him alone on the sidewalk. Her perfume lingering like a fragrant insult.

Liam clenched his fists, forcing the memory away.
Why are you thinking about her now? She’s nothing to you.

He wiped at the perspiration on his brow and took a few cleansing breaths. He could do this. He’d done it before, and he’d do it again, creating avant-garde casino-hotels the world would remember long after he was gone. His properties would be his legacy, and a hard-won vindication to the one who deserted him all those years ago.

If only he didn’t feel her name was secretly inscribed on the cornerstone of each of his hotels. If only he didn’t feel they were secretly hers, that he owed her his success.

No, he owed no one. No more dwelling in the past. He had a casino to open.

Finally granting himself that one little smile, he turned away from the mirror and headed for his office elevator.

The elevator opened before he could summon it. Wade Kennedy, his head of security, normally took care of problems before they ever got to his door. A capable and intimidating man, Wade didn’t come to him like this unless he felt an incident warranted his special attention.

“Uh, Liam. We seem to have a situation outside.” Wade nodded toward the office window, the one with the best view of the front entryway.

From his fourth-floor kingdom, Liam could survey all who would enter Vice. He liked it that way, and had all his casino offices designed in similar fashion. He liked the energy, liked seeing the crowds as they lined up to get into his hotels, especially at night when the city lit up. He got up from his desk and walked to the window, with Wade following.

He might have expected to see any number of interesting sights: impatient crowds, brawling drunks, cabbies fighting over the best spot. Hell, he might even have expected to see Shania Twain riding up on a horse. The last thing he expected was a picket line.

Or rather, one picketer, standing off to the side, motioning at the waiting customers.

He spared a glance for the hand-painted message on the picket sign:
Gambling destroys families. Shame on you, Liam Doyle!

He turned to Wade. “Seriously? This is our situation? Just get rid of him.”

“Her. It’s a her.”

“Okay. Get rid of her then.” He stepped around Wade’s bulky body and headed for the elevator.

“Liam, I tried everything short of throwing that little hell raiser over my shoulder. She won’t budge.” The man threw up his hands. Liam had never seen him so frustrated before. Wade had broken up numerous fights between enormous, inebriated men in his casinos. Why should he be flummoxed by a lone, female picketer?

“Call the police and get her off my property. It’s that simple.”

“I threatened to do that, but she’s not actually
on
your property. She’s on the sidewalk.”

In an attempt to preserve the boutique hotel experience, the architect had suggested a design in which the entrance remained close to the sidewalk. “It’s all about clean lines, Liam,” the architect had said. “It has a fresh, New York feel.” He’d compared the design to the one he created for Liam’s pal Alex Markov, a club owner whose bars were the talk of the Big Apple.

He hadn’t considered whether the design would make things nice and cozy for a sidewalk protest. Damn. Is this what he had to look forward to? His
clean lines
made it easy for the whack jobs to access the entrance.

Wade continued. “She has a copy of the city by-laws with her and keeps quoting government shit at me. When I told her I was calling the cops, she laughed and said, ‘Go ahead, big boy. This is a peaceful protest. I know my rights.’ And she’s right. She’s not obstructing pathways. She’s not forcing leaflets on the customers. She’s just…there.”

Wade frowned like a cartoon bear who’d had his honey snatched away. “She’s been lecturing me, telling me I should be ashamed of working for you. Told me I should get a job that doesn’t steal food out of babies’ mouths. Go work for Cirque du Soleil. She…she hurt my feelings, man.”

Liam stared at the man who’d been his best employee for years, brought low by a single woman. As Wade’s face turned seven shades of red, Liam decided he needed to take another look at this hellion on the sidewalk. He approached the window again, planted his hands on the ledge, narrowed his eyes at her and glared.

At first he’d only observed the picket sign and its inflammatory message. Now as he looked at the woman carrying it, surprise made him want to draw closer. He’d expected to see some aging hippie in Birkenstocks. What he saw instead made him want to dust off his old, trusty pick-up lines.

He couldn’t make out every detail, but he saw the important things: a severe, red ponytail and the kind of curves that would make Rubens reach for his paintbrush. He stared at her face as she chanted to anyone passing by. Her eyebrows were drawn together in a face made deep pink with ire. Hell, even from four floors up, he could see the tops of her ears flush. She looked like a sexy elf, the kind they drew in Japanese cartoon porn.

And the elf woman was pissed. At him.

He looked away from the harridan and turned to Wade. “Who the hell is she?”

“She won’t tell me her name. She says she’ll only speak to you.”

Liam let out a scornful laugh and paced back to his desk, throwing himself into his chair. He bit his fingernail, an old habit that tended to manifest when he was nervous. Although why this elf woman should make him nervous was beyond him.

“Tell her I don’t negotiate with terrorists, then get rid of her. On any other day, I wouldn’t care. But on my grand opening? This doesn’t look good.”

“But…”

“No buts, Wade. For Christ’s sake, she’s just an itty bitty girl. You’ve handled the rowdy sons of mob bosses.”

“I know, but there’s something about her. I can’t put my finger on it, but she…sorta makes me wanna hug her.” Staring at the floor, still red in the face, Wade summoned the elevator, got in and left.

Hug her? What the fuck?
Liam spent the next few moments staring at the elevator and rubbing his chest, mystified. It was like he’d hired a professional hitman only to find out he had a soft spot for puppies.

Liam went back to the window and stared at the elf again. A strange pitching sensation assaulted him, one that had nothing to do with his grand opening. He couldn’t put his finger on it either.

But, unlike Wade, it didn’t put him in a hugging mood.

Kate spied the security goon as he came back outside again. He’d spoken to Doyle. About her.

Good. He knew she was here. He might even be watching her right now. Well, she’d put on a good show for him.

Clenching her fingers around her placard, she called to the security guard. “Back for more, big boy?”

He grunted. “You need to leave, lady. Now.”

“Why? Because your
boss
says so?” She raised her voice so tourists by the black marble entryway could hear her. “Is the great and powerful Liam Doyle afraid to come tell me off himself? I’m not going anywhere until I talk to that crook.”

“My boss isn’t a crook. Ask anyone who works for him.”

“Yeah, and my tail is purple.” She turned away from the man and called out to a woman approaching the front door. “Excuse me, ma’am. Did you know that compulsive gambling causes emotional distress to countless people and tears families apart? Children are sitting at home, right now, crying for their addict parents to come home.”

The woman turned to her husband, her voice a nervous quaver. “Derek, maybe we should go to the Bellagio instead. They have a fountain in front, not a crazy lady. She might
do
something when we come out.” They turned on their heels and headed back to the Strip.

Kate sucked in a breath, too excited to be offended. Okay, she hadn’t turned them off gambling, she wasn’t expecting to, but she’d turned them away from Doyle’s establishment. Score one for the crazy lady. Maybe she had a new career unfolding on the pavement outside Vice: professional rabble-rouser.

The security guard turned pale. “Oh, lady. You need to stop.”

She lowered her placard for a moment and came up to the monster of a man, though careful to remain on the sidewalk. She eyed his name tag and smiled. “Wade. You seem like a nice person. Do you gamble?”

“Nah. I like my money in my pocket.”

“Then you understand. My friend’s husband has lost thousands of dollars in Doyle’s casinos. Money that should have gone to supporting their children. She had to leave him because it was getting so bad.” She patted down the lapel of his suit. “So please believe me when I say I’m not going anywhere. Not until I talk to Liam Doyle.” She batted her eyelashes at him, not above using whatever feminine charms she might possess. “Now, are you going to arrange a little meet-and-greet, or am I going to keep embarrassing him on opening day?”