Page 3 of Luck of the Draw

Two aching holes, side by side in his heart, that were permanent evidence of Brennan having loved and lost. One carved into his heart by is childhood sweetheart, Josephine, who discarded him when she learned he was enlisting in the Marine Corps immediately after high school. The other by Liza; the woman who had become one of his best friends and would never know that the way he loved her was a hell of a lot deeper than he pretended it was.

The secret Brennan would take to his grave.

While kissing Liza’s forehead, Brennan caught sight of Sunny McCarthy-Beauregard, the grandmother of their friend, Ophelia, seated at one of the reception tables, eyeing him and Liza. Ninety-something-year-old Sunny was the queen of gossip in the small neighborhood of Algiers Point, where his friends lived, and where he spent most of his time. Brennan had a sneaking suspicion that if anyone was going to figure out his deep, dark secret, it would be her.

The way Sunny was watching Brennan and Liza as they danced made it clear she was already skeptical of the uniquely close platonic friendship. But Brennan wasn’t too worried about that. Everyone knew Sunny’s wild imagination had only gotten wilder with age, and it wasn’t like Brennan was ever going to act on his secret feelings anyway.

“And now that we’ve fixed all of the problems Connor and I had,” Liza added, lifting her face away from his to offer a wide, mischievous grin, “I’m going to help you find a great girl.”

“Oh come on now, L., sweetheart,” he playfully reproached her, rolling his eyes up to the strands of lights and then sliding them back to her face. “No.”

She tsked. “Yes.”

His brow pulled low. “No.”

Liza scoffed and then clasped his hand to lead herself through a spin, lifting his arm high before turning on the balls of her feet. “I swear to God, B., you are the most stubborn man alive.”

He chuckled, drawing her back into his arms. “And you are the most stubborn woman alive when it comes to this topic. I like my life exactly the way it is. I’m not interested in limiting my options to one, single woman.”

Especially since the only woman he had eyes for belonged to his best friend.

“That is such crap.” She squared her gaze on him and arched one dark, elegant eyebrow. “This should be your new goal. Everybody always needs a goal to work for. Yours should be to really let yourself get over Josephine and open your heart and mind to the idea of finding your soulmate.” She stared him down for another second as though challenging him, and then she leaned against him, resting her cheek on his collar bone. “And I’m going to help you.”

“It’s really not about Josephine anymore,” Brennan returned, “it’s about the fact that I—”

“Oh no? Then who’s it about now?” she queried, full of snark. “Who have you been captivated by that you’re somehow hiding from me?”

Oh I wonder,he mused, his own mind equally full of snark, but with a healthy dose of melancholy.

He picked up Liza’s hand off his shoulder to kiss the back of it, then lifted her arm to push her through a spin, and deftly, gracefully drew her back toward him.

“Well,youof course, honey,” he declared suavely, holding her even closer to lead her through another quick turn. “You reallylight my fire.” Holding one of her hands, Brennan nudged her shoulder to spin her away from him until their arms were fully extended, and he arched his eyebrow coyly. “Are you here with anyone? What are you doing later?” He tugged her hand to make her spin back into his arms. “We could go back to my place.” He hovered his mouth next to her ear and murmured in a husky voice, “I have a bitchin’ record collection.”

Liza chortled exactly how he wanted and needed her to. It was the safest way to deal with everything. Just turn it all into a joke about Brennan’s reputation as New Orleans’ most dashing and charming ladies’ man.

Nobody needed to know that his infamous, rakish behavior was now just an excuse to hide the sad truth about his life:

The only woman Brennan Riley wanted was the only one he couldn’t have. And no matter what other women he encountered, that just wasn’t going to change.

2

LAKE SHORE, NEW ORLEANS

Six Months Later

During a mid-week brunch with his parents at their Lake Shore mansion, Brennan’s father, Orson Riley, IV, pulled a thick stack of folded papers out of his interior jacket pocket and slapped it down on Brennan’s plate of half-eaten crepes.

“A hundred thousand dollars,” Orson declared in his thick southern accent. “At Harrah’s. This month. Have you got an explanation for yourself, son?”

Some might say all life was a game of luck, but Brennan knew better. Life was really more like a game of poker; the perfect combination of luck and skill. If thirty-one years on this planet had taught him anything, it was that life was just a luck of the draw. And this morning, Brennan had drawn a bad hand.

Nevertheless, it was far from the first time Orson had brought up Brennan’s tab with the casino marker. It had always been swept under the rug before, so Brennan inclined his head to one side and subtly lifted one shoulder, brushing off the topic as he’d always done.

“I’ve been on one hell of a hot streak, Dad. I’m up twice that.”

Orson stared at Brennan, brown eyes like daggers that were poised to shank him, and he clenched his jaw. “Do you realize your annual spending is seven times that of the average dual-income household in Louisiana?”

Brennan stretched his mouth into a closed-lip smile and raised his eyebrows. “That’s impressive.”

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