Mr. Fiancé(7)

I can’t believe it when Gavin calls my bet. “Call,” Gavin says, his hands shaking slightly. Joe gives Gavin a look but shrugs as Gavin moves in the chips, and then he flips over the turn card.

King of diamonds. Gavin blinks, his eyes tight. “Check,” he says.

Inside, I grin. I’ve got him. Even if he had two kings in his hand, he loses. “One hundred thousand.”

There’s not a sound in the room as everyone looks at Gavin, wondering what the fuck he’s doing. Finally, he takes a deep breath and slides his chips into the middle. “Call.”

Joe drops the river, and I feel a sense of concern. But then I see it’s the ten of clubs. No chance in hell he can beat me, but his next words confuse the hell out of me. “Five hundred grand,” he says.

Gavin gives me a tight smile and slides the money in. Has he lost his fucking mind? “This one’s mine,” he gloats.

“Hardly,” I say with a laugh, pushing in my chips. “Call.” Gavin grins again and turns over his cards. “Four sevens.”

As soon as I see the pair of sevens, the air is ripped from my lungs.

I stare at the cards in disbelief, feeling numb all over. He raised five grand on a pair of fucking sevens and then flopped four-of-a-kind? How lucky can you be? I can’t believe it—he flopped a four of a kind. Around the table, everyone seems to be echoing my shock. Old Joe, Kevin, and Jason are frozen like statues, staring at me with surprise in their eyes.

I clench my jaw, anger rising from the pits of my stomach. It doesn’t matter though. I accepted the bet and I lost.

I get up from my seat, feeling absolutely defeated, ignoring all the eyes on me. “I’ll transfer the funds to your account in the morning,” I say, keeping my tone even, even though I’m fucking pissed with myself. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.

It fucking sucks losing that much money, but it’s not going to break me, though it’s sure going to hurt.

“I’m done for the night. That’s gonna put me on tilt if I keep playing,” I tell them, turning to leave.

“Wait,” Gavin says, standing up.

I turn, arching an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

Gavin glances around at the other men. “Are we done for the night? Let me talk to Oliver alone.”

Without saying a word, Kevin, Jason, and Joe get up, gather their things, and leave the room, each one casting sympathetic looks my way as they file out.

“What’s this all about?” I ask. “It’s a lot of money, but you know it’s not going to break me.”

Gavin stares at me for several moments before asking, “What if you could keep your money?”

I frown. “What do you mean? I got overconfident and lost fair and square.”

Gavin goes silent, studying my face. Finally, he speaks up. “I have a proposition for you.”

“What—”

“You do a favor for me and we’ll call it even.”

I want to tell Gavin to go fuck himself. I’m a man, and I pay my debts. But a part of me is intrigued now, and I’m dying to see what Gavin has up his sleeve. “What kind of favor?”

Gavin steeples his fingers together, staring at me, appraising me.

“Well?” I ask, the anticipation killing me. “What is it?’

His next words shoot across the table like a speeding bullet. “I need you to pretend to be a friend’s fiancé for a week.”

I let out an incredulous laugh. I was totally not expecting something like that. “What?”

Gavin proceeds to tell me all about his friend, who’s the godmother of his child and best friend of his wife, and how she’s gotten herself into a bind because of a lie.

“Absolutely not,” I say firmly when he’s done, shaking my head. I’m not gonna lie, his offer is tempting. But there’s no way I can accept it. I have too much lined up. Business meetings, lunch dates . . . and there were those repairs to my mom’s attic I’d promised her I’d fix myself instead of paying some stranger to do it. “I’m not disrupting my life and plans to be some chick’s cuckold for a week.”

Gavin leans forward in his seat. “Just think of it this way . . . you get to spend a week with a chick for over half a million dollars.”

“My half a million dollars,” I say dryly.

“Was your half million,” Gavin corrects. “And you can keep it if you just do this one little thing.”

I stare at him long and hard. His words are tempting enough, but it suddenly dawns on me how invested he is in this.

“You set this whole thing up,” I accuse. “You knew I was the only single guy in our circle. You’ve been waiting all night to try to get me in this position.”