Page 2 of The Billionaire's Accidental Legacy

So she’d done what she always did. She used her brain to solve her problems.

She’d centered herself, and she’d gone into a big room in her mind and imagined a ribbon, made of pretty blue silk. She’d imagined it was tied to her feelings, connecting her thoughts to them. She’d taken out a pair of gleaming scissors and cut that ribbon. Severing it entirely.

She didn’t need feelings anyway.

She and Maren had escaped five years ago, finally, at seventeen and eighteen. She had purpose. She didn’t need feelings.

They wouldnotbe frightened.

They wouldnotbe poor. They would never be vulnerable or endangered,ever.

They would use every asset they had to make themselves safe and secure, to play their way to the kind of lives they really wanted.

They had also decided that there would have to be an endgame.

Because once you were willing to dip your toe into the murky waters of theft and con artistry, it was easy to lose yourself. Easy to drown. That was where crime lords came from. It was how your morals began to strip themselves away entirely.

She could not ever allow herself to be quite so lost.

So this was it. The last show.

Their long con had been shockingly easy. Because they were new, they were young and they were women. Beautiful women, at that.

It wasn’t vanity for her to think so. Beauty was nothing but a well-fitted dress and some brightly colored makeup. In these circles, beauty could be put on and taken off like a costume, with relative ease.

No one was looking deeply at the features of her face. They were looking at her bold red lip and her cleavage. End of story.

The cleavage went a long way in ensuring she was underestimated. By all those men who were so sure they were smarter, better.

Men who believed that they could read any room. And above all else, men who believed they would always triumph.

She didn’t feel guilty about it.

If you gambled, you might lose. And when you underestimated an opponent on sight, you were a fool.

That was one saying she did believe to be true: a fool and his money were soon parted.

And if she was the instrument of that grand divorce, all the better.

Especially when it ended up in her pocket.

But they had decided there would be a limit.

This exclusive poker game had been an absolute mission to gain an invite to. Partly because she and her sister were not notorious.

That was important.

They had done their very best to move beneath the radar. They didn’t want to draw the attention of their father, and in general Jessie found the concept of painting a target on your back foolish.

Young women getting big prizes at poker games might have been headline grabbing, were they not haunting private games, games played by royalty, by criminals. People who did not wish to have attention shown upon their habits.

They weren’t masters of disguise; they didn’t have to be.

A change in gown color, hair color and makeup meant that they were rarely remarked upon. They also hadn’t played the same crowd twice.

Tonight would be different. Tonight would be high profile. And that was why tonight was the end.

But if they won, it would be by far their biggest score, and they would be able to be done with all of this.

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