Page 29 of A Promise of Peridot
Rhett brought us each another round of drinks, and I drank my bitter, pungent spirit down in a single long swallow before asking for two more. The current hand at play was down to Mari and Griffin. He had significantly more coin than there were items of clothing left on Mari, and had chosen to raise.
“Just fold,” he said to her, on edge.
“But I have great cards.” She smiled coyly.
“I can tell from your face that you don’t.”
“Don’t listen to him, doll,” Rhett jumped in. Then, not as quietly as he intended, he muttered to Trevyn, “I want to see that blouse come off.”
Ryder shot Rhett a foul glare and leaned forward to shield Mari from their eyes. But Mari hadn’t even noticed their exchange as she cross-referenced her cards with the five laid out on the table.
Griffin leaned closer to her. “Will you please fold?”
“You’ll just have to wait and see,” Mari retorted, still trying to add her cards up in her head. As if realizing shedidindeed know what she was doing, Mari beamed. “Oh! I call.”
Griffin’s face became stone.
“How about with that stunning necklace of yours?” Crawford mused. I wondered if he knew something about the piece, being the collector that he was.
For the first time all evening, Mari’s smile slipped.“No,”she said too quickly. The table shifted in uncomfortable silence. “No,” she tried again, more pleasant this time. “I call with my blouse.”
Griffin’s eyes went as wide as the coins on the table.
“Woah there, Red, you sure?” Ryder asked.
“I’m sure,” Mari said, laying down her cards with pride. “Not too bad, huh?”
They were actually decent. A pair of sevens. With the other seven on the board she had three of a kind.
She looked up at Griffin, her eyes lit with the challenge. “And what do you have, Commander?”
The entire room had narrowed in on them. Even Crawford was absorbed in their standoff. Griffin’s jaw was rigid, his green eyes like frosted glass as he didn’t even look down to his cards once before saying, “You’ve got me beat.” He pushed his stack of coin toward her gently, and buried his cards back in the deck.
I raised a brow at him as Rhett groaned.
Mari whooped and hollered. “I did not expect that!”
“Nice one, Red,” Ryder said with a half laugh.
Kane caught my gaze, looked to Griffin, and then gave me the tiniest shake of his head, confirming what I already assumed to be true. Griffin had not really had the lesser hand.
“Where’s Princess Amelia tonight?” Fedrik asked Kane, before sipping his mug of ale.
Ugh. Not him, too.
“How should I know?”
“I assumed you two were...?”
I attempted a semi-interested smile as Rhett dealt the next hand, though my brain was screaming.
Kane said only, “You assumed incorrectly.”
“Ah, my mistake, then.” Prince Fedrik took a peek at his cards before throwing them in the center of the table to fold.
“Are you interested?” Kane asked. “I assumed King Eryx would have had the agreement drawn up for your nuptials the minute he entered the city.”
“Eh.” Fedrik leaned back in his chair with ease, exposing a thin band of tanned abdomen. “My parents have given up on arranged marriages. Didn’t go so well the last time, if I recall.” He shot a half smile at Kane. “And,” he added, “she seems a bit... intense.”
