Page 47 of The Alpha's Gamble
I blinked after her.
She liked me. She actuallylikedme. That had been friendly, not fake-customer-service-friendly, and not even you’re-fucking-my-boss friendly.
What the hell? No one had ever treated me like that in the Morrigan on my many visits before, no matter how much money I’d lost or how many expensive bottles I’d overpaid for. They’d bent over backward to give me whatever I wanted, including a fuck sometimes, but they’d never been…nice.
Maybe it really did come down to the way I’d been acting and not my connection to Declan. The first week or so of being here, before everyone knew Declan owned me, I’d been just another faceless gambler. No one special. Not a human being, an individual.
I’d hated being treated like that.
And some of those long nights when I’d already slept as much as my body could stand, I’d thought about how I’d always done the same to them. Anyway, I’d tried to be nicer when I came downstairs.
Gods. They’d noticed. Had I been that much of an asshole my whole life?
When the security guard at the door the waitress had sent me to nodded, smiled, and opened it for me without my even having to ask, I started to wonder if I’d somehow entered the Twilight Zone—or if I really, truly had been that much of an asshole my whole life.
Fuck.
No one stopped me on my way down the long, gloomy hallway or getting on or off the elevator. It dinged and let me out on the nineteenth floor.
It was a totally different world up here. Plush carpeting, walls painted a pleasant pale blue instead of that horrendous institutional gray, and nice wooden doors opening into people’s offices. I headed down the hall, glancing out of the corners of my eyes as I did. Yep, normal offices, with desks and computers and people in business casual doing office-y things. Spreadsheets, maybe? Or email? Search me, really. They seemed busy and cheerful enough, though I couldn’t imagine how. Working in an office like that had always been my worst nightmare.
The offices got bigger and nicer as I went along. I followed my nose. I could scent Declan on the air, very faintly, a pleasant whiff like a trace of woodsmoke on a winter night. Finally I reached the end of the hall and what would probably be one of the corners—it had way more than four—of the sprawling building, on the southeast side.
Yep, definitely the corner. The huge office had a desk for a secretary outside it, although it didn’t have anyone sitting at it right then, and through the big interior window I could see through the office to its exterior windows: a view of the Strip on one side and the expanse of off-strip Vegas on the other.
My breath caught as I moved around the secretary’s desk and took a step inside the doorway. Definitely Declan’s office, because the mouthwatering scent of him had gotten richer and deeper, as if it’d permeated every piece of furniture. Even though offices in general made me twitchy—especially executive offices, where I’d been conditioned to expect various angry relatives belittling me—this one felt like home.
I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, letting my negativity melt away. So I’d wanted to avoid making myself more vulnerable to Declan than I’d already become, which meant avoiding him whenever I could. Whatever. The itchy, irritating tension I’d felt while wasting my time on the casino floor had gone, and the relief nearly overwhelmed me.
His scent grew stronger, and I felt that prickle of awareness I always had on my skin when he was near.
So it didn’t startle me when his voice came from behind me. “What are you doing here?”
“I was bored.” I opened my eyes and turned around to find him standing less than two feet away, close enough that his height advantage made me tilt my head up.
He raised an eyebrow at me, hands on his hips, appearing more bemused than annoyed. He’d shed his suit jacket and tie at some point and rolled up his shirt sleeves, and yet somehow he still managed to look like the boss and not like a slacker.
“Blow through your hundred bucks already?”
He brushed past me on the way to his desk, not pausing for so much as a touch. I turned to follow him, carefully wiping my expression blank to hide my disappointment. What had I been expecting, a kiss hello? He’d never kissed me. Not once. And I wasn’t his mate. I didn’t want him to kiss me, anyway.
He could’ve groped me or something, though, right? For fuck’s sake. He could at least do me the courtesy of treating me like his whore, not an unwelcome copier toner salesman.
Declan dropped into his desk chair with a sigh, gaze immediately snagging on the screen of his open laptop. He clicked away for a minute, typed something, clicked something else, while I stood there disregarded and awkward. Right, because he either couldn’t or didn’t want to fuck me at the moment, and he didn’t have any other reason to pay attention to me.
At long last he looked back up again. “You know, my grandmother used to tell me that you couldn’t be bored unless you were boring. And then if I kept making a nuisance of myself, she’d give me something to do. I already gave you money so you’d have something to do.” Translation: so I’d be safely out of his way. I swallowed hard, cold disappointment curdling in my gut. What else had I expected, though? This was exactly why I’d told myself I’d stop throwing myself at the brick wall that was Declan. Because it always hurt. “Do you need me to give you something else to do? Because frankly, I’m too busy to entertain you.”
“I didn’t come up here to be entertained.” A lie, but maybe he wouldn’t notice. Besides, “entertained” wasn’t quite the right word. Soothed? Shit. Maybe I should admit to wanting him to entertain me. I hurried to add, “And no, I’ve been making money every day, actually.”
Declan leaned back in his chair and grinned at me, eyes faintly sheened with gold. Genuine humor or a threat? Why not both?
“So what you’re telling me is that you ripped me off for a suite, a line of credit, and an endless supply of expensive liquor. You’re supposed to be paying off that debt by staying here. And instead,I’mpayingyouto take even more money from my establishment. Even after I told you how I felt about card-counting, particularly when done by you.”
For the love of…fuckhim. I lifted my chin and stared down my nose at him. “For one thing, you didn’t believe me when I said I could count cards. That’s your problem. And for two, a hundred dollars a day wouldn’t get you photos of my feet on the open market, much less access to my ass. For what you’ve been doing to me, I’m probably already ahead. Even with the line of credit.”
Declan looked at me wide-eyed for a moment, shook his head, and finally burst out laughing. “You know, I actually missed you bitching at me the past few weeks?” he said after he’d subsided—and then stopped abruptly, frozen, his mouth open a little.
As if he’d startled himself with the words that had come out of his mouth.
