“Right.” She sighs and stares across the waiting area at the exit. “Why I hate normal. So yeah, I have a degree in psych because I’m interested in people. What makes them tick. But school was too ordinary, too boring. Too structured and delineated and confining. So I figured why learn from a textbook when I can study the Bellissimo clientele to my heart’s delight? And the money’s good.”
Something inside my chest rearranges. I can’t quite name the clawing need rising up. A desire to fix her pain? Protect her from more of it? Free her from all the bullshit of life? As if that could be done. No, life’s a shithole for most everybody. A few people rise above because they have that raw potency the rest of the population foregoes. I think that may actually be what Corey’s talking about with her rejection of normal. She’s not going to lie down and take it. She’s fighting back, even if being a croupier seems like she laid down to take it to the rest of the world.
“You ever think about going back?”
“To school?” She raises her eyebrows. “Nah. I often think I should. I won’t have any career to fall back on when my boss fires me for calling him an asshole one too many times.” She darts a glance under her lashes at me that makes my dick twitch in my pants. I might have been wrong about her not being submissive under all the bluster. “Or if I break my ankle and can’t stand behind the table for hours on end. Or when I get bored with categorizing gamblers. But I really can’t get myself excited about it. Up until I dropped out of grad school I was still trying to prove my worth to my dad, who never saw it. And now that I finally realized my idiocy, I just can’t make myself do things that conventional wisdom says I should do.” She shrugs. “I don’t want to be ordinary.”
* * *
Corey
Oh shit. What in the hell made me overshare like this?
Stefano stares at me, his dark, curling lashes thick and beautiful against the backdrop of such a masculine face. I can’t read him, but his attention makes me shift in my seat, change the crossing of my legs.
A nurse comes out and calls for Trisha. We all stand up and watch as Trisha rushes over. When she returns, she says, “They said he came out of surgery and is stable. He probably won’t wake up tonight, so she said I should go home to rest and come back tomorrow.” Her lip trembles.
Stefano reaches in his pocket and produces a business card. “My cell number’s on there. Keep me posted, all right?”
She bobs her head, eyes filling with tears. “Yeah, okay. I will. Thanks so much.”
He touches her shoulder. “The Bellissimo will take care of all the medical expenses and missed pay. All Joey needs to worry about is recovering.”
Trisha surges forward and gives him a tight hug around his waist.
Stefano one-arm hugs her back. As we walk away, he interlaces his fingers with mine. My breath stalls a moment. After all the things he’s done to me—we’ve done together—it’s odd that holding my hand is the gesture that feels most intimate, but it does.
It’s tender. Sweet.
Things I don’t associate with Stefano Tacone, royalty to the Vegas underworld.
I can’t even imagine why he’d do it, and yet it also feels perfect. Exhilarating, even.
On the ride back, he calls into the casino for a report and lets them know the status of Joey.
I arrive back at the Bellissimo a changed woman. It’s like I’m seeing things for the first time as I glide in with Stefano’s hand on my lower back. Seeing them from his perspective, realizing how much he has to worry about with Nico gone.
And yet he doesn’t ditch me straightaway, as I expected. I wasn’t even going to complain. No, he asks me which restaurant in the casino is my favorite.
“Caffe Milano,” I tell him, indicating the eatery modeled after a Italian sidewalk cafe. It has cute little tables nestled together and sprawling outside the restaurant in a lush patio. “They have the best Caprese salad.”
His lips twitch and he leads me there, requesting the table out on the “sidewalk”—which really just means outside the pseudo-enclosure, with a view of the casino hustle and bustle.
“Is this so you can keep an eye on things?” I ask as he holds my chair for me.
“Yes. You keep an eye out, too.”
I love that he recruits me like this, the way he did last night on the floor before the ill-fated game. He thinks I might have something to contribute to his efforts. It makes me want to please him, which is probably dangerous territory. I don’t need to be working hard to impress a guy. I did that way too long with my dad. But maybe I purposely chose a loser like Dean because I didn’t want to have to impress a guy.