Page 23 of Sin & Sapphire

“Blow on my chips for luck?” the man beside me asked.

“I don’t seem to be having much of it myself,” I murmured.

“Maybe both of our luck will change with this,” he said with a wink, holding a thousand-euro chip to my lips. Instead of blowing on it, I leaned forward and kissed it.

He dropped it in front of me, then held up another chip, for five thousand euros. “Give daddy another kiss,ma chérie.”

Fucking gross.I did it anyway, giggling and playing the game. The pit boss watched me with cold eyes but didn’t say a word. Fine. It was fine. I was a dumb American tourist playing at scamming a casino. Clumsy and inelegant at my attempts to count cards. I wanted them to think it wascute. Worth letting me continue so they could continue to watch my breasts above my low-cut dress, threatening to spill out with each enthusiastic exclamation, every time I leaned over the table.

Exhilaration rushed through my veins as we played, my pile of chips remaining steady. The dealer could have shuffled, but I kissed a hundred-euro chip and tossed it at him, winking.

Could I be any more obvious?

ShouldI be more obvious?

I ignored Jean-Marc and turned my focus back to the dealer.Twelve. Hmmm.The cards left in the deck were low. Or should have been.

The dealer laid down another card in front of me. Sixteen.

“Carte,” I said again.

To my delight, it was a five.

“Vingt-et-un,” the dealer said. I waited patiently for the other players to finish, and then the handsome dealer pushed my chips at me.

I tipped him again, and he grinned, revealing straight white teeth and a pretty smile I might have let persuade me into bed in another life. Not this one, though.

No clocks. No way of telling time. Just the endless shuffle of cards, the dim light of the casino that turned us all more beautiful than we were in real life, and the clack of plastic chips hitting one another.

We played hand after hand. Triumph rose in my chest as Jean-Marc’s winnings grew and mine remained even, and I allowed myself a moment to daydream of freedom.

And then he lost. Big. Not enough to cut into his winnings, but enough to sour the mood at the table.

That was my signal. I collected my chips and slid them into the empty rack beside me.

“I’d like to close out,” I said, pushing the rack at the dealer. Rapidly, he exchanged my chips, leaving me with nine chips of a hundred euros, and a handful of smaller chips, then passed a card across the table to me with a wink.

His number.

I smiled, shoved another chip at him, then swept the rest into my purse, my hands trembling. We were done. Almost done. All I needed to do was cash out and walk my pretty ass out of the casino, and then I’d be home free.

“Mademoiselle,” a gravelly voice said as I pushed back from the table.

“Oui?”

The two men standing behind me were huge, thugs forced into suits so they wouldn’t look like the criminals they were in a fancy casino like this one.

The man beside me flinched, but I was born and raised in the American mafia. It’d take a lot more than a tattooed thug in a suit to scare me.

“Le patron aimerait vous parler.” The boss wanted to speak with me.Shit shit shit shit shit.

I stood, allowing the short, sequined hem of my dress to drape high over my thighs rather than tug on it and reveal my nerves. The men handling Jean-Marc lifted him by his arms as he struggled. Idiot.Act the innocent, I thought at him, willing him to understand the right play here.

I might be relatively new to small cons, but my scumbag father had taught me all about how to cheat and lie.

The two goons sandwiched me, one in front and one behind, leading me through the maze of high-stakes tables and into a nondescript hallway.

“Ne faites pas le con,” one of them cautioned when they noticed me looking for an escape. Don’t be an idiot.

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