Page 49 of The Alpha's Gamble
“It’s not that I don’t like it.” I didn’t like it, but I couldn’t admit defeat two seconds into his test, could I? Because this had to be a test. He’d throw this bullshit at me, wait for me to cry uncle, and then pack me off back to the casino to play low-stakes blackjack until he wanted me for the one thing I was actually good for, getting him off. “But what do I do with it?” I asked, more plaintively than I’d hoped to sound.
“It’s a list of independent casinos, some on Native American reservations, some in Vegas, some in Reno, and so on. They’re color-coded.” I looked again, and shit, they were color-coded. At least, some of the boxes were different shades of blue and green and pink. That had to be what he meant. “There are customer demographics, numbers of slot machines per casino, numbers of different types of play tables…” He went on for a while, explaining what all the different columns were for and then directing me to a different tab with more categories and more numbers until my head started to ache. It probably only took five minutes or less.
It felt like five years.
“…So you’re going to want to go online and look them up, make notes about how they’re positioning themselves in the market, what they’re emphasizing and what they’re using as their main selling points. Compare that to the data and see what patterns emerge. Understand?”
Kind of. Sort of. Not really. I nodded at him.
Declan shot me a skeptical look. “Do you?”
What I truly didn’t understand was why he’d give this to me, when I obviously didn’t understand and would fuck it up immediately. I’d probably click on something and delete the whole thing.
I nodded again.
“Okay.” That sounded equally skeptical. “Don’t worry,” he added dismissively, throwing it over his shoulder as he got up and went back to his desk. “This is only a copy, so no harm done if you fuck it up. The marketing department’s working on it too. Maybe you’ll come up with something they haven’t thought of.”
In other words, busywork. That no one would ever look at or use. And he couldn’t have been clearer that he didn’t think I’d come up with something his trained, skilled, trusted marketing people hadn’t.
Well, okay then.
My eyes stinging, and the spreadsheet’s ugly color-coding blurring a little in front of them, I turned back to the laptop and opened up an internet browser.
Chapter 16
Kind of Endearing
I woke up the next day just after eight o’clock, early by my previous standards but late by the standards of the company I kept these days. The cold coffee pot, holding only a few teaspoons of dregs, told me that Declan had been up and gone for hours. The usual hundred dollar bill sat beside it.
That felt a little bit like I’d been slapped. I’d sat there and worked on that stupid spreadsheet for three full hours the day before without even getting up for a glass of water. I’d only stopped when Declan stood, put on his jacket, and told me it was quitting time.
But apparently he assumed I’d be right back to blackjack and vodka today.
Well, fuck him.
I made a fresh pot of coffee, ordered some room service—an omelet, because I knew if I had any carbs at all I’d fall asleep with my face in the keyboard—and dressed in the closest thing I had to what the other people I’d seen in the offices had been wearing, black slacks and a blue button-down. I couldn’t wear a suit. All of mine were designed to look natural on the deck of a yacht or at a wedding, not behind a desk.
And then I found my way to the offices, all the way downstairs, across the casino, into the back, and then up again.
Declan’s assistant had returned, a nice-looking middle-aged lady who reminded me of a nanny Brook and I used to have when we were little kids. She waved me through, and Declan just stared at me for a second, sighed, and got the laptop I’d been using back out of the cupboard again without a word. Not so much as agood morning, the asshole.
Although he did look tired and busy, not too surprising since he’d been fucking me late into the night and then up at the crack of dawn.
And this time he bothered to give me my own login and password. Maybe that was progress?
I sat down equally silently and started to work. But the laser focus I’d achieved the day before eluded me this morning. Partly it was the sunshine pouring in through the windows, casting glare on my screen and reminding me that there was a world out there where people were living their lives blissfully spreadsheet-free.
But also, Declan kept getting phone calls, or maybe making phone calls, but either way he kept on talking to people. And while the words themselves were boring as hell, the sound of his voice…did things to me.
Even when he said, “I need those numbers by tomorrow morning,” or “Call Steve, I think he already talked to Amy about that,” his deep voice sent a little shiver down my spine, lodging in my still very faintly aching ass.
Gods, I shouldn’t love that ache. I shouldn’t crave being fucked again as soon as it faded, which it did quickly thanks to my body’s supernatural healing. I was an alpha. And maybe that felt less and less important with each passing day away from my father’s hypocritical lectures. But all of my family’s fucked-up-ness aside, alphas usually didn’t like getting fucked. We just weren’t wired that way.
Well, apparentlyIwas. His knot had been so thick inside me last night, opening me up and filling me until I couldn’t move or speak actual words or do more than make sounds that seemed to drive Declan even wilder…
“Blake!” I startled and looked up to find Declan standing by the coffee table and frowning down at me. By his impatient tone, he’d already tried to attract my attention at least once. Had I really missed the actual, live, present-moment Declan standing next to me because I’d been so lost in daydreaming about last night’s Declan pounding me into jelly?
Gods. I needed help.
