A small fist of cold tension curled through Jenna’s stomach as she clutched her paddle. Frank Epstein also had a longstanding rivalry with her dad, Harold Rothchild. Mercedes could outbid her anyday—and might just do it to annoy one of the Rothchild clan. But for whatever reason the matriarch was here, Jenna was so not losing to the woman.
This was her show.
“I don’t give a damn what she’s wearing,” Jenna ground out through her teeth. “Or how much she has in her bank account. She can’t have him. He’s mine. He’s the whole bloody point I organized this auction.”
“One hundred ten thousand, going once to the lady in silver at the back…”
Again Jenna shot her paddle up, her heart beating faster.
“We now have one hundred twenty thousand from the young lady in red at the front…and oh, wait, was that a slight twitch of the paddle from the mystery bidder’s assistant at the back of the room? Yes…yes…a twitch from the bidder in silver’s assistant at the back. We now have a new bid of one hundred twenty-five thousand big cool ones, people. From our mystery lady at the rear.”
There was a collective intake of breath. A kinetic energy began to pulse through the hall. The antique Egyptian fans turned slowly overhead, and the kettle drums started rolling softly. The FBI agent on stage inhaled deeply, and it expanded his chest.
A hot rush of adrenaline coursed through Jenna at the sight of him, and suddenly she wanted more than just to win him for Daddy’s sake. She wanted him for her own sake. Getting close to Lex Duncan had, however, been her father’s idea—his request, in fact.
Harold Rothchild had asked Jenna to try and seduce information out of the agent after he’d gotten wind that Lex Duncan was now the lead investigator in his daughter Candace’s homicide case. The FBI had also seized an infamous Rothchild family heirloom—the legendary Tears of the Quetzal—a chameleon diamond worth millions that had been taken from Candace’s finger the night of her murder—a rock Candace herself had appropriated from Daddy’s safe and waved around inappropriately and, apparently, at the expense of her life.
A rock rumored to be cursed with an old Mayan legend.
Supposedly, in the right hands, The Tears of the Quetzal would bring great love to whoever held the ring, even momentarily. But in the wrong hands, grave misfortune would be sure to follow.
Jenna thought the legend was a bunch of hooey. Then again, Candace had died because of it. And after Jenna’s attorney cousin, Conner, had failed to retrieve the infamous diamond, her father, clearly obsessed with the stone, now wanted it back at any cost. He’d asked Jenna to help find a way. He’d asked her to try and seduce the FBI agent into telling her where The Tears of the Quetzal was now being kept. And her casino mogul father had been uncharacteristically edgy and insistent in doing so. He hadn’t even mentioned the plan to Conner for fear Conner might tip the agent who’d become something of a friend. Whatever—Jenna was happy to oblige her dad. She liked to make him happy.
Besides, she could pretty much seduce a monk. She didn’t think twisting the buttoned-up, übercool FBI agent around her pinky finger would pose much problem at all.
She’d started by staging a little covert investigation of her own, and she’d learned that Lex Duncan was a keen supporter of the Nevada Orphans Fund. He volunteered for the organization twice a week, coaching at-risk teenage boys. It was clearly a charity Lex Duncan held close to his heart, so she’d come up with the idea a Bachelor Auction for Orphans as the best way to get her hands on him.
Her best friend, Cassie Mills, had then been co-opted into coercing Lex’s partner, Special Agent Rita Perez, into twisting the reticent agent’s considerably muscled arm. It was the perfect plan—Cassie was a student at Rita’s martial arts class at the club, so she already had an in with Lex’s partner.
Besides, organizing the event was fun. Parties, each with more bling and glitz than the next, were Jenna’s forte, her way of escaping reality, her way of running from the dark questions surrounding her sister’s murder.
She wasn’t good at the dark stuff—she was good at escaping. Survival, Vegas-style.
Jenna inhaled deeply and got to her feet. Whispers rustled through the crowd like wind bending the tips of dry grass.
The 25-year-old Vegas casino princess—heiress to considerable Rothchild fortune, and daddy’s girl—was making it clear she intended to lock horns with the grande doyenne of the casino empire. Despite the fact Mercedes was married to Frank Epstein, the grizzled old lion king of the Strip, Jenna wasn’t going to be intimidated by the Vegas matriarch’s pedigree. And the battle lines were drawn over the federal agent standing on the stage, his half naked, bronzed and ripped body gleaming under the spotlights.