Page 41 of Three's a Crowd
‘I could get used to this,’ she joked.
Zach smiled back, but she caught a flash of something else in his expression too. What was it? She couldn’t quite place it.
‘I think I’m having a James Bond moment,’ she said, ignoring her concerns.
‘Why yesh, Mish Moneypenny,’ Zach replied.
‘Is that your best Sean Connery impression?’ she teased. ‘Call yourself an actor?’
He raised his eyebrows at her in affront. ‘Give me a break,’ he said. ‘I usually work with a voice coach for weeks before performing an accent. I know it’s not one of my strengths,’ he continued before she could interrupt with more teasing, ‘but I have a lot of other talents.’
He raised his eyebrow suggestively at her again when he said this, sending heat rushing straight down her spine.
‘Good job,’ she countered dryly, deliberately ignoring his provocative taunt.
He was not making thisjust-being-friendsthing easy for her.
‘Come on,’ he commanded, touching her arm and motioning for her to walk with him towards the exit.
Her arm tingled where his hand had brushed her skin.
They walked past a row of very expensive-looking classic cars, which were lined up along the drive.
‘Wow,’ Daisy said, ‘look at all those beauties.’ Their bodywork gleamed in the light thrown back from the casino’s spot-lit frontage.
‘Yeah, I know,’ Zach said. ‘I think the casino owns some of them, but a lot of money definitely flows through this place.’
He ushered her through the doors of the main entrance.
‘Passport,’ he commanded, holding out his hand to her. She rummaged in her bag and handed it to him. He passed it, along with his, to the lady at the grand front desk who wrote down their details before inviting them to go into the main room of the casino.
It was an incredible sight. The room must have been a ballroom at one point and its towering walls and pale, corniced ceiling gave it real grandeur. Roulette and blackjack tables were set up at intervals along the floor and a magnificent chandelier hung from the ceiling, casting a luminous glow over the proceedings.
The room was thronged with elegantly dressed players, all wearing either evening gowns or dinner jackets.
Daisy suddenly felt completely out of place in her casual outfit.
‘Zach, we shouldn’t be in here, not dressed like this,’ she muttered to him, gesturing to her clothes in dismay. ‘Everyone’sstaring at us,’ she added, suddenly aware that they were causing quite a stir among the onlookers. ‘God, I’m so not prepared for this holiday,’ she said, in a bit of a flap now, her face hot with embarrassment. ‘I don’t own any designer clothes. I’m going to look like a joke at your film’s premiere.’
‘Daisy, don’t worry about it. They’re not looking at us because of what we’re wearing,’ Zach said. ‘It’s because they’re wondering who the beautiful woman is, with that lucky bastard, Zach Dryden.’ He gave her a slow wink.
Daisy could only laugh at that, which helped her relax a little. Though the word ‘beautiful’ caught in her mind and made her cheeks even hotter.
‘Yeah, if you say so,’ she agreed, welcoming the distraction from her feelings of inadequacy.
‘Daisy, you would look gorgeous wearing a cloth sack,’ he stated in his no-nonsense way. ‘Now, come on, let’s get ourselves some chips.’
He marched over to the cashier and took his phone out, ready to use it to buy the counters they needed to play on the tables.
Daisy hung back, frustrated by her lack of funds available for this kind of fun.
He returned a minute later, proffering her half of his stack of chips.
‘What?’ she said, in confusion. ‘Zach, I don’t mean to be a party pooper, but I can’t afford to gamble any money at the moment, and I can’t afford to pay you back,’ she admitted. Shame flooded through her as she thought about her poor status, especially compared to his.
He frowned at her discomfort. ‘Daisy, the last thing I wanted was for you to bankrupt yourself coming here. I wanted you and Adam to celebrate with me, like you let me celebrate with you at Andy and Sally’s anniversary weekend and on your family holidays. I have more money than I need and I don’t haveanyone else to share these experiences with. It means a lot to me that you’ve both come to support me and I want you to have fun while you’re here.’ He took her hand and gently prised open her fingers, placing the chips into her palm, then closing her fingers back around them.
Daisy looked down at what he’d given her. It was a stack of one-hundred euro chips, probably about a thousand euros in all.
