Gabe nodded and left the room.
“I’m surprised you’re so interested in not impacting my card playing. You never seemed to care much for my career before.”
Nate knew he hadn’t been supportive enough of Annie. For some reason, he hadn’t seen playing cards as a career. It was a game, not a job. Time had given him perspective on his mistake, but their disagreement on that point had likely been a deal breaker for her. He didn’t push all the blame for their ruined marriage on Annie—just the fact that she’d run instead of talking through their issues like adults.
“I know it’s important to you,” he said. “But it’s also important to us. We need you to play in the tournament as long as possible. If you get eliminated on the first day, we’ve lost our insider.”
Annie glanced down at the table with a sigh. “I should’ve known you had an angle.”
* * *
“You’re kidding me, right?” Tessa Baracas glared at Annie across the bright turquoise table of the Desert Sapphire’s Mexican cantina, Rosa’s.
Annie didn’t look at her. Instead, she focused her gaze on her uneaten dinner and the platinum wedding band searing her finger. She hadn’t been looking forward to having this conversation, especially with a wire taping their every word. “No, I’m serious.”
“Did you not learn your lesson the last time?” Tessa looked horrified. Her skin, so pale compared to Annie’s olive tone, was even lighter with shock, if that was possible. Her red-gold hair was pulled back into a tight, sleek ponytail, her jewel-blue eyes wide with surprise and confusion.
The eyes were the sole feature Annie and Tessa seemed to share. The sparkling-blue color was the most noticeable trait they’d inherited from their mother. Sure, they had similar builds, with ample curves and heart-shaped faces, but that’s where the similarities ended.
They had different fathers, ones that their mother had apparently hand selected for the sole purpose of creating beautiful babies. Tessa’s father was a ghostly pale Irishman with hair like fire. Annie’s father was Italian with jet-black hair, warm brown skin and a full sensual mouth—at least, that was what she’d been told. She’d never met him. Their mother had never stayed in one place long. Never kept a man longer than he was of use to her. Which was why Tessa looked as if Annie had just slapped her across the face when she mentioned reconciling with her husband.
Tessa shook her head and slumped back into her seat. “You need to be focused on the game. Not on men. You of all people should know that. It was the first thing you taught me when I started playing.”
“Do you think I planned this? Because I didn’t.”
Tessa anxiously moved food across her plate with her fork. “You shouldn’t have come back here. I just knew you weren’t strong enough to resist Nate’s magic penis.”
A nervous laugh burst from Annie’s lips before she could stop it. Her sister’s irritated expression immediately silenced it. Tessa was being totally serious. “Did you really just say that?”
“Yes. And it’s true.”
“Well, first,” Annie began, hoping Gabe wasn’t listening in yet, “thank you for thinking so little of me that I could be easily manipulated by good sex. Second, a magic pe— Hell, I can’t even say that, it’s so ridiculous. There’s no such thing, not even on Nate, as gifted as he might be.”
“I just don’t trust him. I don’t like him.”
Annie felt the unfamiliar urge to defend her husband. “You’ve never even met him,” she argued, realizing as she spoke that she’d thought of Nate as her husband for the first time. “You’re letting Mom’s paranoia cloud your judgment.”
“And you’re letting the magic penis cloud yours.”
Annie sighed. “Please stop calling it that.”
“Then is it about the money? I mean, you eloped, so there wasn’t a prenup, right?”
Annie’s mouth fell open in silent shock for a moment before she could gather the words to respond. Money had never even been a consideration in their relationship. She made great money at poker. She didn’t need Nate’s fortune, or anyone else’s, for that matter. “This doesn’t have a thing to do with money, Tessa. How could you even ask me something like that?”
“Okay, if you say so.”
Annie tried not to frown at her sister and diverted her angry gaze back at her food. Tessa was so bad at reading people. She was passable at hiding her own emotions but clueless when it came to figuring out her opponents. Until she had that down, she wouldn’t go very far in poker.