The Girl Who Always Wins (Soulless 13)

Everyone stared at me.

I put my cards down—a pair of sevens.

With nothing, I won the pot.

The pile of chips was pushed to me, and the other opponents at the table immediately got up to get their next drink.

I didn’t take the chips in the center. My eyes remained on him, suspicious.

Wordlessly, he turned over his cards.

A royal flush.

“What the hell was that?” I cornered Mason at the bar, the two of us waiting for our drinks to pop up.

With his devilish charm and handsome smirk, he gave a shrug, his hands in his pockets.

“Seriously, we’re splitting this.”

“I don’t want it.”

“You think letting me win is going to get me to sleep with you?” I asked incredulously.

“No. Not trying to get you to sleep with me.”

“Did my boyfriend not make it clear that I wasn’t interested?” It hurt just to say that because he wasn’t my boyfriend anymore. He wasn’t my future husband, my partner in life, a man my father would love like a son.

“Ex-boyfriend.”

My eyes narrowed, unsure how he knew that.

“I just want a dinner. If you want to sleep with me afterward, I won’t say no.”

The bartender put the drinks on the counter.

“You’re unbelievable.”

“You’re single, and I’m sorry. Let’s give it another try.”

“I told you my dad doesn’t like you.”

“Then I’ll get him to like me.”

“Yeah…don’t think that’s possible.”

He grabbed his glass and took a drink. “I think it says a lot about my character that I’m willing to try.”

“It says more about your character that you didn’t show up to meet him in the first place.”

He took another drink, just staring at me.

“What?”

“Get it all out. Tell me off. Whatever you gotta do so we can move on.”

“Move on?” I asked in surprise. “I don’t understand what I’m doing to give you any indication there’s anything to move on to.”

“Right now?” he asked. “Nothing. But I know how you felt about me…and that kind of thing doesn’t just go away.”

“Well, I know how you felt about me…”

“If that were right, why would I be here right now? Trying for the third time?”

“Because you like the chase, just like last time.”

He rested his arm on the bar between us, getting a little closer to me. “I’m not chasing you to sleep with you. I’m chasing you to be with you. I want to make this work, to make it go somewhere, maybe get married and pop out a bunch of beautiful geniuses like you…”

I stared at him for several seconds, his words echoing in my mind multiple times.

“What?”

I shook my head. “How did you know I was bluffing?”

“Because I know you.”

“You didn’t know me in our other matches.”

“But I know when you’re sad…and I can tell that you’re pretty devastated right now. You give yourself away.”

I grabbed my glass and nursed my broken heart with a drink.

“What happened?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

He gave a slow nod. “He’ll regret it. Trust me on that.” Blue eyes. Sharp jawline. A smooth charm that was better than the scotch in his hand. He was used to getting what he wanted, and he wasn’t going to stop until he had me.

“I honestly think you’re wasting your time. If you’re looking for something serious, you can make that happen with any woman you find. They’ll be happy to have you, to have your babies and all that shit.”

“You’re right. But like I said, you’re the only woman I want those things with. I was an idiot who learned it the hard way…but I learned. I can’t see me settling down and doing the diaper shit, but I can’t see me being single for the rest of my life when I actually love someone.”

I stared at him, focusing on what he just said.

“Yes. I love you.”

I didn’t know what to say, never expected to hear him say it, especially with such sincerity. “I just got my heart broken by a man I love—”

“We can take it slow. That’s fine with me.”

When Mason had broken my heart, I’d fantasized about him coming back to me at least a dozen times. It was never this aggressive, never this forward. Back then, I would have been weak enough to succumb.

“Let’s get some dinner. I’ll let you buy—since you took all my money.”

“I didn’t take it. You threw it at me—”

“Then you can make it up to me by buying me a steak dinner.”

“Daisy.”

I heard the voice like a speaker system in my head, recognized it because it’d been in my dreams almost every night. But I assumed it was a figment of my imagination…because that’s all it ever was.

But then I turned…and saw him standing there.

Gray t-shirt with sculpted shoulders, shadow on his sharp jawline, anger in his pretty eyes.

Mason turned to him, still in disbelief.

I stared at Atlas, my mind unable to comprehend what I was looking at. It was him, in Atlantic City, just a foot away from me.