Southern Sinner (North Carolina Highlands 3)

I don’t fall easily. Not like that. Not for someone who doesn’t want me back.

But it happened, and now my head won’t stop spinning, and I can’t stop hurting. The embarrassment is real and so is the pain. This is horrible.

I never, ever want to feel this way again.

I want to forget.

“Make me a promise,” I say.

“Shoot.”

“Don’t let me do anything really stupid.”

“Like?”

I look Rhett in the eye. “Like fall in love again. That shit—Rhett, it hurts something fierce.”

He frowns. “Hank,” he says softly. “You can’t punish yourself like that. Yeah, you obviously need to give your heart time to heal, but don’t cut yourself off that way. You’re a good guy, and you deserve to be happy.”

The words he doesn’t say hang in the air between us. You deserve to be happy the way Samuel and Emma are happy together.

I swallow again. Look down at my feet and shake my head. “Just—promise me, okay? That’s all I ask.”

I feel his eyes on me. A heartbeat passes. Then another.

“Okay,” he says at last. “But that promise expires at the end of this trip, you hear? Then all bets are off.”

I wave him away. “By then, we’ll be in Vegas, and who falls in love there? I’ll send over the flight details when I have them.”

Running away like this is a gamble. What will happen to my job? And what about my relationship with Samuel? Will my absence really help all of us heal?

I have no idea. But leaving is a bet I’m willing to make.

Chapter One

Hank

January

“This seat taken?”

The brunette at the blackjack table glances up from her cards. Her warm brown eyes meet mine, and my pulse skips a beat.

She’s gorgeous. She’s got long, dark eyelashes, full lips, and tousled hair that falls past her shoulders.

And those luscious tits spilling out of her shirt? Curvy hips and thighs filling out a pair of gray-washed jeans?

Yeah, I’m really hoping this seat is free.

“All yours,” she replies. Her gaze flicks down my body, lingering a beat too long on my arms and shoulders before she turns back to her cards.

My fingers curl into the ivory leather of the seat back. My lips twitch.

I fucking love Vegas.

I also love when girls don’t recognize me. It makes the chase that much more fun.

“Let’s split these aces,” she tells the dealer.

I slide onto the chair and set my chips down on the table, eyeing her left hand as she places a pair of green chips—hundreds—beside an identical pair below her cards.

No ring.

“Split aces?” I ask.

The brunette turns her head to look at me. “I always split aces and eights.”

I settle my elbows on the edge of the table. I don’t miss how her eyes move appreciatively over my bare forearms.

“Why is that?”

“Because the deck has more face cards than anything else, and face cards are—”

“Worth ten.” I grin. “I’m only part newbie gambling jerkoff. I know enough to lose most of my money, not all of it.”

She grins too, her gaze locking on mine. “Then you know we’re trying to get our cards to add up to twenty-one in blackjack. So if you’ve got an ace, which counts as one or eleven, or an eight”—she taps the card with a dark-painted fingernail—“and odds are you’re going to get a face card when you hit, then voila! You’ve got eighteen or blackjack, times two. Isn’t that right, Helen?”

The dealer, a petite middle-aged woman, nods. “Absolutely, Miss Carter.”

Miss Carter’s eyes are lit up, and she’s biting her bottom lip as she smiles.

She knows her shit, and she’s proud of it.

“Okay.” I nod at her cards. “Let’s see if it works.”

She taps the card again, glancing at Helen. “Hit me.”

Helen slides a card from the dispenser and flips it on top of Miss Carter’s first ace with a crisp flick.

Queen of spades.

Miss Carter flashes me a wide, blindingly white smile. “Told ya.”

“All right, all right. Let’s see if you can do it again.”

Helen moves to the second ace, flipping over an eight of clubs. I wait with bated breath for Helen to deal herself a card. She draws a two, making twelve with her Jack, and then draws a ten.

Bust.

Miss Carter’s arms fly up, and I immediately reach for a high five. No way is anyone else beating me to this girl. Not Helen, not the old dude on the other side of the table, and definitely not the younger dude next to him.

Miss Carter high-fives me, a solid smack that sends a zing down my arm. She turns that supermodel smile on me.

For a second, her hand lingers on mine, and a charge of electricity moves between us like lightning in a summer storm, unexpected and potent. Almost makes me jump.

Damn.

Today began like any other on what my brother Rhett calls my belated retirement bender: breakfast in my suite. A workout to sweat out my hangover. Lunch. A round of golf at the hotel’s course while Rhett was at practice.