Play Me Right (3 page)

But how can I expect Sebastian to accept who I am and the responsibi
lities that come with being me? Especially when I was once engaged to Carlo Valducci, the son of the man responsible for Dylan’s death. How can I possibly expect him to want to have anything to do with me?

Then again, it’s not fair to him that I make the decision for him. That I hide behind my fears instead of giving him a chance to make a choice himself. Maybe he’ll kick me out on my ass, but then again, maybe he won’t. Or maybe I’ll be so fed up with him and his own control issues that I’ll walk away voluntarily.

Whatever happens, I owe it to him to be honest with him. Owe it to myself. Whatever happens after that is going to happen…and since I don’t have a crystal ball, I’m just going to have to take the risk. And pray my heart isn’t completely broken in the process.

She’s here.

Aria’s here. She just walked out onto the casino floor, dressed in her standard uniform as she stops by first one high roller table and then another, obviously collecting drink orders.

I school my features, try to do my best to look like I’m listening to what Mickey is telling me as I stand in the middle of the Eye, my gaze glued on Aria. On her legs. Her breasts. Her beautiful face

She looks tired. Or maybe I’m just projecting, hoping these last four days have been as miserable for her as they’ve been for me. Or maybe she looks like that because she still hasn’t recovered from the fact that her lover is a callous asshole who mistreated her. Who took and took and took from her, forgetting to give her anything back.

Just thinking about that night makes me furious at myself all over again. But I tamp that anger down before it can get out of control. Before it stops me from doing what I so desperately want to do, which is finding Aria and apologizing to her the way she so obviously deserves. What happens after that is up to her, but I owe her an apology and I am going to deliver it.

As I continue nodding to Mickey, even contributing a few sentences here and there, I go over every apology plan I’ve concocted in the last four days as I waited for a sign from Aria that she was willing to talk to me. As far as signs go, her showing up to do her job isn’t much of one, but at this point, I’ll take it. I’ll take anything she wants to give me.

For a control freak, that’s a hell of a concession and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me nervous as hell. But I don’t care. Some things are worth being nervous over.

I’ve just decided to wait until she goes on break to ask her to come up to my office when one of the asshole whales reaches out and grabs her. He wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her against his side as he says something that is obviously suggestive. And neither the blackjack dealer nor the security guard ten feet away do anything about it.

“Goddamnit!” I turn on Mickey like a crazy man, interrupting her mid-sentence. “How many fucking times have I told you in the last week and a half that I don’t want those bastards touching the waitresses? I’ve made myself perfectly clear on the issue and instead of dealing with it, your security guard is down there standing around with his head up his ass.”

She looks at me wide-eyed. I’ve never talked to her—or any other employee—like that before. But damn it, they know the rules. They know what expectations I have, including the very reasonable (in my opinion) expectation that no one gets assaulted in my casino.

“Everyone knows about your directives, and we’re working on making sure follow-through is at one hundred percent. But we also try to be a little more delicate with the high rollers—”

“Fuck delicate and fuck the high rollers. They need to keep their hands to themselves and your security guards need to make sure that this happens. No one should have to come to work and deal with that shit. No one.”

“You’re right,” she tells me, and she looks sincere. “But it’ll take time until the word gets out to not just the staff but the customers.”

“It’s not going to get out to the customers if my staff doesn’t start doing something about it.”

“You’re right. Absolutely. I’ll talk to him.”

“No, I’ll talk to him. And if he’s lucky, I won’t fire him.”

I don’t even bother waiting for the elevator. Instead, I storm down the three flights of stairs that separate the Eye from the casino floor. I’m hoping it’ll give me a chance to calm down, but I’m still furious when I finally get to the high roller section—and find Raoul standing exactly where he was when I was watching him a few minutes ago.

“You. Get over here,” I spit at him, refusing to cover the last of the distance between us. I don’t normally go in for these stupid-ass power games, but screw it. He doesn’t deserve the courtesy of me coming to him. One way or the other, he is going to figure out that I’m the one in charge and he will do as I direct. Or I’m going to cram his badge down his throat and kick his ass out of my casino once and for all.

I’m currently learning toward the second option.

He starts walking, but before he reaches me, Aria is there, her hand on my chest and her gorgeous dark eyes looking beseechingly up at me. “It’s not Raoul’s fault,” she tells me. “It’s mine. I told him the other day to only interfere if I ask him to.”

“Yeah, well, first of all, that’s not what I told him to do and I’m the one paying his salary. So he needs to listen to me. And, second of all, why the hell would you tell him something so stupid?”

“Don’t call me stupid.” Her eyes narrow dangerously.

Too bad I’m not in the mood to heed the warning. She’s put me through hell the last four days and now she’s doing something deliberately stupid, something that puts her at risk when she doesn’t have to be. I’m not having it. “That isn’t what I said and you know it.”

“Close enough. And I told him that because otherwise he’d spend the whole night walking from one customer to another, telling them to keep their hands to themselves.”

“I’m fine with that. It’s what I pay him to do.”

“No. You pay him to keep the money on the casino floor safe. And if he’s too busy looking out for me to watch the money, eventually there’s going to be a problem.”

“It’s not just you. I don’t want anyone who works for me to go through that kind of harassment. And if keeping you safe and watching the money is too much for Raoul, we’ll put another guard on each shift.”

“Another guard?” she asks, amused. “One to watch the money and one to watch me?”

It sounds stupid. I know it does, but I’m still riled up that that jackass had the nerve to put his hands on my woman and I don’t give a shit how stupid I sound. “If that’s what it takes. I want you safe.”

“And I’d like to make enough tips to live on, since the salary you pay me is shit. Having a security guard breathing down their necks all night, treating them like criminals, isn’t exactly conducive to squeezing tips out of anyone.”

“Again, I don’t care.”

“Of course you don’t! You’ve got enough money that you don’t have to worry about something as mundane as how much you make in tips—or if it’s going to be enough to pay your rent at the end of the month.”

“Just because I have money doesn’t mean I don’t know what it means not to have it,” I tell her. “I’ve spent my entire adult life working to better the lives of people who have nothing. To get children in developing nations clean water and food and medical care, so don’t point your finger at me and act like I live in an ivory tower because I believe no woman should have to be sexually harassed at work. I’m not the enemy here.”

“I never said you were. But knowing that people are suffering because they have a lot less than you is very different than actually trying to make ends meet when you have very little. Believe me, I know. Until I walked away from my family and tried to make it on my own, I had no idea what it was like to be poor. Had no idea what it meant to struggle every week just to have enough money to pay for gas and milk and a loaf of bread.

“So, yes, you might be a saint, you might work for fifty different charities, but that doesn’t mean you know anything about being poor. So why don’t you stop trying to decide what I can and cannot put up with, because the truth is, I can put up with a hell of a lot more than you can ever imagine.”

Her speech is still ringing in my ears when Aria goes to wrench her elbow from my grasp. I don’t let her go, though, not now that she’s finally talking to me. Sure, she’s angry, but I don’t give a shit. She’s kept so much locked up inside of herself for the entire time we’ve known each other that the fact that she’s finally cracking—f
inally letting me in, no matter how unwittingl
y—means everything to me and I’m not about to let her walk away in the middle of it.

“So why don’t you tell me?” I demand. “Better yet, why don’t you show me what you can put up with instead of constantly walking away from me?”

“You make me sound like a coward. I
don’t
constantly walk away.”

“Well, you sure as hell don’t stick around to talk things out, either, do you? From the first time we made love, you’ve been ducking out on me the second things get uncomfortable for you.”

“Yeah, well, the last time we made love things got a hell of a lot more than just uncomfortable, didn’t they?”

Shame burns in my gut but I refuse to back down to her, not right now. Not when everything is riding on me being able to convince her to move past what I did to her. Being able to convince both of us to move past it.

“I’ve been trying to apologize to you for what happened since the moment I knew I’d gone too far. I want to talk to you about it—have waited four days to talk to you about it. So throwing it in my face like that is pretty damn shitty, don’t you think?”

For the first time since I came down to talk with her, she looks uncomfortable. More, embarrassed. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want your damn apology, Aria! When are you going to get that through your head?”

“Well, what do you want then?” she demands, hands on hips and looking for all the world as exasperated as I feel. For the first time, I feel a stirring of hope. Because beneath my exasperation is an unshakable love for her. I can only hope that beneath hers, there is something similar.

Or any kind of love at all, really. Or maybe just not hate. I might be proud, but I’m not stupid. I’ll take anything she wants to give me right now, as long as it’s something. I can build on something. It’s the apathy that comes with her feeling nothing that scares the hell out of me.

“I want you,” I tell her, as clearly as I possibly can so there will be no mistakes. “I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you rack that whale and the only thing that’s changed is I want you a hell of a lot more now that I know you than I did then.”

For a second, she doesn’t say anything. She just looks at me, and while I can see a million different emotions going on inside of her, I’m not sure any of them is the one I want from her. Not sure any of them is what is currently tearing me up inside.

The feeling only intensifies when she answers, “I need to work.”

“You need to…work?” I’m ready to pour my heart out, and she’s talking about work? The answer doesn’t compute.

“I’ll come up to your office on my break.” Her eyes are wide and uncertain, her lower lip trembling a little as she glances around the casino. “I just took a drink order. I have to—”

“Bullshit. This isn’t waiting four hours until you go on break. I want to know what’s going on in your head now.” I wrap my hand around her wrist and start to pull her toward the elevator.

But she digs in her heels. “Wait! You can’t keep doing this. I need this job.”

“It’s yours until you decide you don’t want it anymore. No one’s going to fire you.”

“Maybe not, but they
should
fire me. I keep walking off the job!”

I look pointedly at my hand, which is still wrapped around her wrist. “Actually, you keep getting dragged off the job. I’ll make sure David knows the difference.” We’re at my private elevator now and the door opens the second I run my card over the sensor.

“Later,” I tell her as the doors close behind us and I push her up against the wall. “I’ll make sure he knows later.”

And then I’m kissing her. Kissing her and kissing her and kissing her, like I’ve done in my dreams—in my nightmares
—every night since she walked out of my office. And she’s letting me. More, she’s kissing me back like she’s missed me as much as I’ve missed her.