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I knew from that moment I was in trouble. I was completely and utterly fucked. I tried to fight it, a fight I knew I was going to lose, which was something I was not accustomed to. I needed to put myself out of my misery and finally take what I needed. She was going to be a fight because I knew what she was the first night I saw her. The man she had her arm wrapped around had no idea, but I could tell. From the subtle tics of her jaw when he’d whisper in her ear, to the fake smile she gave him that he never seemed to notice. He was her bank roll. She was using him, and for some reason the idea both pissed me off and turned me on. I would enjoy her using me in any way she saw fit.

I grab my suit jacket from the back of my chair and slip it on as I make my way out of my office. My assistant, Jen, stands, grabbing a pile of papers off her desk. Her stick-straight black hair doesn’t move as she goes to follow me to the elevator. I’m sure she wants to go down a list of items she needs to go over with me. I’m being slack at work, and it’s driving her crazy, and for the first time in my life I don’t care. I have an army of employees; they can handle it. It’s what I pay them to do.

I hold my hand out as the elevator arrives, letting her know I’ll be taking it alone.

“Handle it,” is all I say as the elevator doors start to close. I see a scowl form on her brow, but she quickly smooths it away, replacing it with a fake irritated smile. I know she wants to say something, but she won’t. She’s already tried once, and I quickly shut her down. I’m not sure anyone could talk me off this ledge. In fact, I’m going to jump off it right now.

I make my way across the casino and head straight for the blackjack table. When I spot her, I stop a few steps back and watch her while she plays. She’s counting cards as she laughs with the table, everyone charmed by her. Her slow sweet accent seems to pull everyone in.

She keeps coming back here around every three days or so. Maybe she thinks the Golden Peacock is an easy mark, and letting her win hundreds of thousands of dollars. In truth, I’ve been on to her from the very beginning, I just didn’t care. I wanted her coming back, and I didn’t care what it cost me as she stole from my casino. Furthermore, I wanted her to be comfortable and not to feel the need to have to bring in a bank roll to hide behind, because that’s what she’d been doing that first night. I know if I see her on another man’s arm I might lose it. My obsession has grown too much now. I already see her as mine.

She plays the part of a woman who doesn’t really know what she’s doing while a high roller pays for her chips as she starts to rob us. The high roller has no idea what she’s up to. She’s probably charmed him, and he’d eaten up the idea of a night on the town with her. I could understand that, too. There wasn’t much I wouldn’t do to get close to her. For example, that night, and every night since, I made sure she went home alone. Which, oddly enough, was a room at a casino.

I had her followed that first night, and since then all I can tell is she seems to jump from hotel to hotel. I’d finally gotten her to stay here as I had a casino host offer her a suite. I had no idea how long she planned to stay, but I’d already worked out that little kink after the first week of seeing her. She had this habit of ditching her cellphone every forty-eight hours. I’d tracked one only to have it end up in a trash can. I quickly learned where she had been getting new ones. Always the same store.

I own two casinos, seven nightclubs, and God knows how many fucking restaurants, but this was my first cell store. I bought it, placing one of my own security team members at the counter, and every new phone she got had a little bonus just for me. Like I said, I already knew she was on the casino floor before Dawson walked into my office because I always knew where she was. Always.

The older gentleman on the other side of the table says something to her, making her throw her head back and laugh. Her thick blonde curls bounce with the movement. I’ve lived in Vegas my whole life. Beautiful women are everywhere. You can’t turn around without running into one, even more so when you’re as rich as I am. But now, well into my forties, women don’t seem to hold the same appeal they used to.

She’s different. She doesn’t look like any of them. She has a beauty of her own, and it’s one I’ve never seen before. Her body is lush and full of life just like her. I want to pull her curvy softness to my body and make her give me that big laugh. Feel it run through my body as her warmth molds into me. Everything about her is full. Like you could grab onto any part of her and dig in.

She’s young, too young for me. She’s barely old enough to be in the casino. I’d told myself that was why I should stay away from her. But if she wants to play with the big boys and steal from my casino, she’ll have to deal with me.

It feels like she’s woken me up from a haze I hadn’t realized I’d fallen into. I don’t know what her big plan is, but this time she might have bitten off more than she can chew. She may have been able to ditch other men easily after getting what she wanted from them, but that wouldn’t be the case with me. I’m going to lock myself so deep into her she’ll never escape.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that everyone around me is falling in love. I’d never really thought of having a woman of my own, but now it feels like my whole body needs it. Aches for her.

It’s an ache so deep it’s starting to feel like it has no bottom to it. That all these years I’d spent building this life and working my way to the top would mean nothing if I couldn’t have her.

I stay rooted in my spot as I watch her work. Winning hand after hand after hand.

As if she feels my stare, she turns slightly, her eyes meeting mine. We both just look at one another, neither of us making another move. Her eyes roam over me like she’s sizing me up. I’ve always tried to make sure she never sees me, but time is up. I’m claiming what I want.

She could spend her days counting cards in my casino all she wants. As long as she spends her nights under me as she begs me to take her, begs me to make her mine.

The last thought knocks the air out of my lungs. I want her to be mine. Not just for a night; a night would never be enough. I haven’t even touched her and I know I’ll never get enough. There will be no sating my need for her.

She bites her lip as her eyes meet mine. I bet I was the one thing she didn’t count on.





2





Peaches





Stretching the smile bigger, I think about how all those cotillion lessons weren’t a complete waste.

Mary-Grace Parker Livingston Montgomery Keaton would be happy to know that husband number three didn’t squander away the society training she so desperately thought her daughter needed.

I let out a laugh and play the part all the men at this table expect from me. When people first hear me talk, they think it’s charming and polite. The way my southern accent slows things down puts people at ease and eliminates me as a threat. They think talking slow means I’m dumb, and I just let them keep thinking it.

Little do they know that I was raised by a cutthroat southerner who taught me everything I know. Mary-Grace was the kind of mama who knew exactly how to dress and act for every occasion. She went through men like Kleenex, but never once had her reputation questioned. When she wasn’t married, men would fall to their knees to propose to her, but she would only toy with them until the bigger fish she was after came along.

She had me when she was on her first marriage. The one she said was for love. When my daddy died, I think a piece of my mama’s heart turned to stone, and she never let anyone else in after that. I only have one memory of him. I was about three and he was holding me in his lap. There’s a picture of it in the bottom of my suitcase, and I take it with me wherever I go.

My daddy was the one who named me. He said he and my mama fell in love in Georgia, and there wasn’t a prettier place on earth. Mary-Grace, being the true southern belle that she was, agreed.

After he died, my mama waited for the next man like a snake in the grass. She wanted her next marriage to give her the things she thought she deserved, and she’d keep love out of the equation. Oh, don’t get it wrong, the men who chased her all fell head over heels, but Mary-Grace never felt the same.

Husband number two was a nice man from a wealthy family. Mary-Grace didn’t realize it to begin with, thinking that his money was his own. When she got tired of him tightening the purse strings, she made her plans to move on.

The next husband—the Senator—she worked over like a ball of dough. She caught his eye, and he nearly swallowed his tongue to get at her. He laid down a gold path of what he could give her, and she strung him along until the right moment. Mary-Grace doesn’t do anything fast or without due calculation, and she made sure I paid attention.

“It’s only when the wolf is hungry will he hunt,” she used to tell me. “Don’t feed a stray, Georgia. If he’s worthy, he’ll bring the kill to you.” She would brush my hair every night before bed and tell me all the ways to protect myself and my heart. “Don’t ever rely on a man to give you what you need. Find one and take it from him.”

I can still hear her words ringing in my ears every night when I brush my hair.