One for the Money

My body hardens. I’m having explicit ideas of ways I can take Eva in this alley. She’d probably like them, too. I’ve learned that high-society women enjoy a bit of roughness. They want something that silk sheets and bubble baths can’t give them.

I knock on the door three times.

In the faint moonlight, Eva gazes up at me. She looks exhilarated, fully alive, and breathtakingly beautiful. It makes me want to corrupt her in every way I can imagine.

Chapter Three

Eva

I’ve been to countless showings at this art gallery.

Apparently they deal in more than sculpture.

Clay pieces move across baize-covered tables. Alcohol flows freely. The underground poker club is in full swing when we arrive.

“How come I never knew about this place?”

“Overprotective brothers,” Finn says with a shrug.

“Leo knows about this?” I ask, but then of course he does.

He knows everything that happens in Bishop’s Landing and most things that happen in New York City. It would have been just like him to come here in his wild youth—and not tell me. His best friend. We’re close, even for siblings.

But I can’t quite shake the protectiveness out of him. “I’m going to kill him.”

A fight breaks out over a table. Playing cards fly. Men in suits break it up.

It’s over in a flash, but I find myself behind Finn. Somehow, in those few seconds, he put himself between me and danger. A shiver runs through me. A delicious one. That fistfight was a reminder that this is illegal. But playboy or not, Finn Hughes will protect me.

For this night only, he’s mine.

“You okay?” he murmurs, his gaze assessing me, seeing if I’m freaked out by the fight. Chickening out already? he asked before we left. I’m determined to prove him wrong.

I make a show of looking at a nonexistent watch. “I’m okay, but it looks like you’re on your way to losing twenty-five cold, hard cents in that bet.”

“You don’t stand a chance, sweetheart.”

He leads me down a narrow staircase into an even darker room, with fewer tables and a singer wearing a sparkling dress. The high roller room. Of course a Hughes would be allowed into any room, but it’s interesting to me that they don’t even ask.

They know him by sight.

Glasses clink. Chips clack. Low laughter rolls beneath it all.

Finn puts down a small stack of hundreds.

It’s immediately replaced by chips.

He puts the entire stack in front of me.

I feel my eyes go wide. “This is too much.”

“I know what you’re worth, Morelli.”

It’s not that I’m a frugal person. I was raised in luxury, and I like nice things. Money doesn’t impress me. That’s what comes from being raised an heiress.

I wouldn’t blink an eye at an expensive dinner or some other purchase.

“Listen, I understand trading money for things. But I don’t understand gambling. It’s trading money for… what? Risk? The chance to lose everything?”

“For fun, sweetheart. Don’t you ever pay for fun?”

A snort is not quite a ladylike answer. But it’s true. Even the money I spend on behalf of my family doesn’t feel recreational. No, it’s about society. Status. And business.

I run my fingertip along the stack of clay chips.

It’s a lot of money to spend on fun. And maybe I don’t feel like I deserve it.

The dealer calls for the ante, and I push forward five hundred-dollar markers. That’s the entry amount. The minimum to play the game.

It makes my heart pound.

Or maybe it’s Finn, standing so close to my stool.

He’s only standing so close because the rest of the stools are full, I’m sure. He’s only leaning near me so he can see the cards on the table. If my heart beats faster, that’s only because it’s been so long since I’ve had a man’s warm breath brush my temple. Since I’ve felt a man against my back, almost intimate despite the public setting.

Cards are dealt.

I don’t play at casinos, underground or otherwise, but I know the basics. The pairs and the straights and the flushes. Which is how I know the cards in my hand are a whole lot of nothing. Suddenly that five-hundred-dollar ante feels like a fortune. It feels like a loss.

Why did I think this would be a good idea?

Disappointment sinks in my gut.

Then a low voice murmurs in my ear. “Patience. Good things come to those who wait.”

My breath catches at the masculine purr. It feels like sex surrounding me, sensual cashmere that makes my eyes close. “I’ve been waiting a long time.”

I’m not sure where the words come from. I didn’t feel like I was waiting. I’m not Aurora sleeping in a forest, dreaming of a kiss from Prince Charming.

I have no interest in kisses.

And Finn Hughes is no Prince Charming.

He puts his hand on my hip. His thumb brushes my skin through the silk of my dress, back and forth, back and forth. It’s startling. Intimate. It could be excused as a casual gesture between friends. The natural result of close proximity. Almost.