Play Me Wild (Play Me 1)

“That’s ridiculous—”

“It’s not. I wish it was, because the idea of anyone treating a woman like that anywhere, but especially in my casino, infuriates me. But it’s not ridiculous. And you know what else isn’t ridiculous? The fact that when I had my chief of security call a few other casinos, he found out that this isn’t the first time you’ve been mixed up in something like this. In fact, you’re already banned from the Bellagio, New York–New York and the Venetian for incidents very similar to what happened here last night.”

I push to my feet, give him a look that tells him I’m not dicking around, that I’m in control of this situation and have been from the beginning. “So, to be sure that there is no misunderstanding about what’s going to happen, let me spell it out for you. You’re going to pack up your bags and your girls, and you’re going to get out of my hotel. Today. If you leave in the next hour, you won’t be charged for the four days you’ve already spent in this suite and the four million dollars you currently owe the casino will be forgiven.

“If you choose not to accept what I’m offering you, then I will have you removed and you will be billed for every penny you’ve spent in this hotel in the last four days. Now, it’s your choice which way you want to go, but I strongly suggest you take the first option.”

I turn away then, very deliberately giving him my back even though I know it’s a risk. Still, for guys like this, the humiliation of being ignored, of being dismissed, is about a million times worse than having a punch thrown at them. Which is why I can’t resist showing him just how unimportant I think he is. About as unimportant as he feels Aria and that woman last night are. As unimportant as all the girls—and boys—he’s built his empire on.

He’s cursing in Russian, a bunch of words I don’t understand. But I don’t need to understand them to figure out that he’s gotten my message.

“You aren’t going to get away with this,” he tells me, his accent suddenly ten times stronger than it was five minutes ago. “Don’t you know who I am?”

I do look at him then. I can’t resist. But I make sure my stare is flat and unimpressed as it rakes over him from the top of his half-bald ponytailed head to the tips of his bare feet. “I know exactly who you are,” I tell him after a minute, making sure he can see precisely how unimpressed I am by who, and what, he is. “It’s why I never want to see you anywhere near my hotel again.”

With his curses ringing in my ears like music—it’s early but still I can consider my day complete now that I’ve ruined his day so absolutely—I let myself out of the suite.

“One hour,” I remind him before closing the door behind me. Somehow I don’t think it will take that long.

Chapter Three

Aria

“I’ll be over later, Lucy. I have a few errands to take care of first,” I tell my sister as I climb out of my car and start the long trek toward the Atlantis, through the hotel’s employee parking lot.

“Do you promise?” she demands. “Because Mom has gone crazy and won’t even let me get out of bed. I’m losing my mind here.”

“She’s not crazy. She’s just…overprotective. You did have major surgery less than a week ago.”

“And I survived it just fine!” Lucy harrumphs. “Just like I’ve survived all the other ones. But we all know it hasn’t fixed anything, that it’s just prolonging the inevitable. And I don’t want to spend the rest of my inevitable lying around in bed when I could be doing things!”

It’s a punch in my gut to hear her talk about her own death so flippantly. There’s a part of me that knows it’s good that she isn’t in denial, that she’s fighting this damn disease with everything she’s got. That she’s as healthy as anyone with a severe case of brittle bone disease can be. But there’s another part—the part that keeps me in Vegas even when I want to be far, far away—that gets ripped open just a little more every time she talks about it. Every time I have to face the fact that my little sister won’t be around forever. That she might not even be around for ten more years.

“I know, I know,” I soothe, glancing at my watch as I all but speed-walk across the parking lot. It’s almost two, damn it, which means if I want to get over to the house to see Lucy before my father gets home, I need to hustle. I should have come first thing to pick up my damn paycheck, but I spent the morning online, looking at want ads and trying to find another job.

Unfortunately, it’s summer and most of the jobs I’m qualified for—even if I wasn’t keeping my Vassar degree in philosophy under wraps along with my real last name—have already been taken by college students wanting to spend their summer vacations partying in Vegas.

All of which means I’m pretty much screwed, at least if I don’t want to go running back to Daddy for help. Which I absolutely refuse to do.

I have a little money saved, not much, but enough to last six weeks without getting paid. Two months if I cut out my weekly therapy sessions—which I really don’t want to do. But considering the alternative—going home with my tail tucked between my legs—a few weeks without seeing Dr. Collins is a small price to pay.

It’s one hundred and twelve today and I’m sweating by the time I reach the casino/hotel and I pause for a moment, right inside the doors, to soak up the air-conditioning and say good-bye to my sister.

Then I wind my way through the casino with its blinking lights and ringing slot machine bells, heading for accounting to pick up my check. By my calculations, it should be about forty-eight hours’ worth—a full week before my five days off—and then a full day yesterday. Which sounds like it should be a decent amount, but really isn’t when you think about how long this paycheck has to last me since there won’t be any more tips until I find another job.

I figure it will be a relatively quick procedure—I’ve been fired, after all. It’s not like that requires an exit interview. But when I get to accounting, they send me over to human resources and when I get to HR, they send me upstairs to Mr. Caine’s office.

Which totally pisses me off. I mean, come on. Yes, I hit a high roller but the jerk totally had it coming. Plus, I’ve already been fired—what the hell else does the old man want to do to me?

I’m tempted to duck out, to say to hell with the whole thing. But I need that paycheck—it’s the only thing standing between me and asking my father for money—and I’d rather hook on the Strip than ask him for a cent. Not because he wouldn’t give it to me, but because he would. The only problem is it would come with about a million strings attached to it and I am so done with that. It took me twenty-four years to cut those damn strings and gain control over my own life and when I did, it was messy as hell. No way am I voluntarily tying myself back up in them.

My stomach is roiling a little by the time I get to Mr. Caine’s office on the thirtieth floor. Not because I’m nervous about meeting with the big boss—I don’t get nervous like that anymore—but because I’m afraid of what he’s going to say. This is Vegas and these guys have all the power. If he doesn’t want to pay me because the high roller has suddenly decided to sue or something, there’s nothing I’m going to be able to do about it. Not without an attorney that I can’t afford anyway. And not when I’m the one who’s so clearly in the wrong.

Not that I’m about to admit that to him or anyone else. No, I need that damn paycheck and I’m not walking out of here without it.

When I get to his office, I check in with his secretary—an older woman with short hair and a sour expression that reminds me of the nuns at Our Lady of Lourdes, the all-girls Catholic school I attended all the way through my senior year in high school. She tells me to take a seat, but I ignore her. Instead, I wander over to the window and look out at the Strip far below me. From here it looks almost magical—the dirt and porn pamphlets and desperation are a million miles away.

I can’t help remembering a time when they were always a million miles away, a time when the glitter and the glam was all I knew of Las Vegas.