She still fought the urge to tell him. There, with the swell of the music and the water dancing so elegantly among the colored lights, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to say she loved him. That she always had. She needed to confess why she’d run and that she’d regretted it every day of the past three years. It was the right moment.
The music thundered the finale and, at last, the lights dimmed and the water went still. The crowds of people around them dispersed, but they stayed at the railing.
“Did you like it?” he asked.
“Yes, it was wonderful.” And it was. But not nearly as wonderful as it was to watch it with him. How many other things in her life would be better because he was a part of it? If she didn’t speak up now, she might never know. She wished she hadn’t seen Tessa play today. Perhaps then she would have the confidence to speak her heart’s desires without the fear of her sister’s deception ruining it all. And it still might. But maybe if she told him how she really felt before any of it came to light, he would know she meant it. And they might survive it.
Annie turned to look at Nate. His dark eyes watched her face, a finger reaching out to gently move a strand of hair back behind her ear. It was those little things, those intimate gestures that convinced her he cared, even if he hadn’t said it. It gave her confidence to finally speak.
“Nate?” she said, her voice nearly a whisper.
“Yes?” he said.
She’d spoken before her brain could talk her out of it, but now she wasn’t certain what she should say. “I...I want to stay.” She stumbled through her words.
“Stay? At the fountains?”
“No,” she said, taking a deep breath. “I want to stay with you...beyond the tournament.”
Nate’s eyes widened with surprise, but he remained silent, almost as though he wasn’t quite sure he could trust his ears.
“These last few days have been wonderful. I’m not ready to give that up yet. If you’re willing, I’d like to give us another try. A real try. Because...” Her heart stopped in her chest, the confession of love still lingering on the tip of her tongue. “I think I’ve fallen in love with you.”
Nate swallowed, the lines of his throat working hard as he struggled with a response. She could see the conflict in his dark eyes. The hurt from before was still on his mind, and there was no way she could erase that from his memory. She could only replace it with new, better memories.
She turned away, looking down at the dark, swirling water. His silence pressured her to speak and fill the void. Somehow it was easier to confess in the dark when she didn’t have to look at him. “If you aren’t interested, I understand. I mean, I know this isn’t what this week was supposed to be about. I know that you have no reason to forgive me for what I did to you. But I’ve always loved you. Even then. It just scared the hell out of me. It was such an intense feeling I couldn’t take it. But being away from you was worse. I’d learned to live with the pain, but coming back here made it impossible. I don’t want to leave again.”
“Then don’t,” was his quiet reply. His fingertips pressed into her, pulling her closer. “Stay with me.”
Annie closed her eyes and leaned into him. Her head rested against his shoulder. It wasn’t a declaration of love, but it wasn’t a rejection.
There was still hope that, in time, there would be more.
Ten
N
ate couldn’t sleep. He woke up just before dawn and found his brain whirring a hundred miles an hour. Something was bothering him, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. He should be happy. Annie wanted to stay with him. She’d confessed she was in love with him. And yet...he hadn’t quite let himself fully believe her words. She had said those things before and she’d left. What would make it different this time?
He rolled over in bed and looked at Annie in the dim light. She was curled into a ball beside him, her soft breathing the only sound in their room. Watching her sleep was always one of his favorite things. But he was too wound up to just sit there.
He quietly flung back the sheets, tugged on some lounging pants and made his way down the hallway to his office. He switched on the small lamp. It illuminated his corner of the room and revealed the blue personnel file sitting on his desk.
Darrell Thomas.
Nate had too many employees to know the names of every single one, but it frustrated him that he couldn’t immediately put his finger on who this guy was. He reached out and flipped open the file. A color print of his badge photo and a copy of his sheriff’s card were attached to the front.
He didn’t recognize him. Darrell was fairly nondescript. He was slightly heavyset with short dark hair and a closely cropped beard. None of his features were particularly noteworthy. He was the kind of person you saw and immediately forgot. It probably suited him well, given his line of work.
Darrell had a clean record. You couldn’t get a sheriff’s card without one. They usually did a thorough screening before they hired someone, but if he was good enough not to get caught, there was nothing to stop them. He found several positive performance reviews. Good, solid work references. He had ten years of experience as a dealer in Vegas, with the past two at the Sapphire. He’d also worked at a couple downtown casinos and the Tangiers before coming here.
Nate’s jaw clenched as it occurred to him how many opportunities this man had had to cheat not only him, but also other players, over the years. People like him had nearly destroyed this hotel when Nate was a teenager. His father had sat back, powerless to stop the vultures that pecked at the broken carcass of his life. Nate was not vulnerable like his father. Tournament contract or not, he wouldn’t tolerate this in his hotel.
He glanced at his desk clock. Gabe was as poor a sleeper as he was. They both worked ridiculous hours and drank far too much coffee. Nate grabbed his radio and put out a call to his head of security. “You around, Gabe?”
“Yep. I’ve actually been here all night, running through those videos from yesterday afternoon. You may want to come down here. It’s some interesting tape.”
Nate frowned. He’d made a quick call to Gabe before dinner while Annie was in the shower. He’d asked him to find video of Annie in the casino yesterday afternoon. He’d never seen her that upset. She wasn’t the kind of woman who was easily rattled and wasn’t really forthcoming with her feelings. Finding her on the roof, hysterical and sobbing, had him worried. Something had gotten to her. Something she didn’t want to tell him.
Nate needed to see what had set her off and hoped that there would be a video clip of it. Nearly every square inch of the casino was monitored with surveillance cameras, so he was certain it was on film. It was just a matter of locating Annie in thousands of hours of digital recordings.
“I’ll be right down.” Nate dressed quickly and headed downstairs to the security offices. He found Gabe facing a panel of surveillance screens, cuing up a clip of tape date-stamped the day before. “What did you get?” he asked, leaning over Gabe’s shoulder.
“Well, it took me a while, but as you know, I have no life. I was able to narrow down the tapes based on where you saw her last and the time. Although I do have to warn you, I ended up finding more than you probably bargained for.”
A sinking feeling settled in Nate’s stomach as the gray screen unscrambled and began to play.
“You said you saw her take off around this time, so I’m cuing up the video a couple minutes before.” Gabe tapped a finger against a woman’s image on the screen. “You can see her here, walking through the casino.”
Nate watched as Annie moved through the crowd, stopping to watch another table still in play. She looked interested, nodding and clapping appropriately as hands were won. “What table is she watching there?”
“Five.”
Nate flipped open his file and started looking at yesterday’s play statistics. The winner of table five had been Tessa Baracas. She’d outplayed quite a few big names. “Tessa beat Paul Stein?”
“I know. It would take a miracle for her to beat out a former champion. Or maybe just a little help. Check out the name of the dealer.”
Nate’s gaze ran over the sheet, and what he saw forced a muffled curse. “Darrell Thomas. I know we let him keep dealing so we could catch him in the act and not tip off the others, but please tell me you got him for something.”
“Darrell hasn’t taken a leak without a security shadow since we caught wind of his involvement, but even then we’ve got almost no evidence to charge him. I keep letting him deal in the hopes we’ll have a break. Whatever they’re doing, they’re good. Watch this.”
Nate looked up to watch the video again as Annie’s passive expression changed. Her face stiffened, her eyes visibly widening despite the poor video quality. Her head shook subtly from side to side as she looked at someone off camera. Then she started to hyperventilate. Her hand flew to her chest as she spun and disappeared from the frame.
“Wow.” Whatever she’d seen at that moment had not only been bad, but unexpected. And yet she hadn’t run to him with the news, either.
“That’s what I said. She didn’t like what she saw. Made me curious, so I kept digging.” Gabe fiddled with the digital files, bringing up a clip from another camera. “This one was from the overhead camera on table five.” His finger brushed over the tops of the remaining players’ heads. “We’ve got Paul here, Tessa here and then Darrell Thomas dealing, of course.”
They watched in silence, trying to detect what happened, but it was hard to see. Darrell dealt her cards. She looked at them, pulling them toward her, and then sat fidgeting with her hair. That had to be when it happened, but if they’d cheated in that moment, it would be hard to prove in court with a video like this.
“Run it back again.” The recording ran a second time, but there was still nothing to see. Nate’s frustration was mounting. There had to be something. A slight detail he was missing. Something, anything, to nail them with.
“Wait, watch this next part,” Gabe encouraged.
Nate narrowed his eyes at the screen as Tessa looked up from her cards and gazed into the crowd. From the angle, they couldn’t see her face, but after a moment, she turned back to her cards and continued to play.
“I think Annie saw it happen. Whatever they did.” Gabe cued up the tapes to the exact same time on two adjacent screens and paused them. “It’s hard to tell, but Tessa is looking in the direction where Annie is standing. Right after that, Annie shakes her head. Perhaps they had some sort of private exchange that panicked Annie and sent her running.”
“Damn.” Nate flopped back into a chair and clapped his hands to his thighs. He felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. “No wonder she was upset. She knows she has the proof we need.”
This was exactly what Nate had been worrying about. Why he’d kept his feelings for Annie to himself even as she looked at him and silently pleaded for him to respond in kind to her declaration of love. There was something about it that hadn’t rung true.
He wanted to trust Annie. He wanted to believe her when she said she didn’t have any knowledge of Tessa’s involvement. He wanted her confession of love and offer to stay beyond the tournament to be more than just a ploy to protect her sister.
But he was a cynical, practical businessman and knew better. If a person felt the noose tightening on them, they would say or do anything to save themselves. Or someone they loved. The truth of the matter was that Annie had come to Vegas to play poker and get a divorce, not for a reconciliation. Her offer might be nothing more than a bargaining attempt.
Or perhaps she really did mean it and was conflicted about her knowledge.
Either way, when the tournament was over, Nate was fairly certain he would lose Annie no matter what was said or done.
Hell, he wasn’t certain if he’d ever had her back in the first place. He had no real way of knowing if Annie cared about him or anything but her tournament. But, damn it,
he
cared. He didn’t want to choose his life’s work over Annie. How dare she put him in a position where he had to choose between doing the right thing and losing out on their chance at happiness together?
Gabe’s voice startled him out of his thoughts. “It gets worse. Look at your schedule for today.”
He flipped open the file, grabbing the page. It was easy to find Annie’s name among the rapidly dwindling roster. She was playing on table six today. His finger ran over the list, pausing at the other names there. So was Tessa. “How the hell did they end up at the same table? That’s against tournament regulations. Patricia wouldn’t do that. She knows better.”
“Yes, like you said, someone is tampering with the schedule. Normally someone would complain, but they’ve both been doing so well, the other players might be happy to see one knocked out. This could be a positive development,” Gabe reasoned. “At this point, we don’t have enough evidence to get Tessa or Darrell, and even Keith Frye’s testimony won’t get us much unless we can use it to pressure one of them to confess. We need more time, and only one person in that group is going to make it through to the final table tomorrow. If you could get Annie to let Tessa win, we c—”
“Impossible,” Nate interrupted. There was no sense in letting Gabe go on. “She’d never go along with that. This tournament is everything to her.”
Gabe sighed. “Okay, well, how about getting her to help us expose them somehow? If she saw what happened yesterday, she knows how they work. She tells us, we watch closer. Maybe we can catch them in the act. Or if she sees them do it again, she can tip us off. Give us some sort of signal.”
“That’s a lot of
if
s, Gabe.”
The security manager frowned. “You don’t think she’d do it? She wants to win, doesn’t she? If Tessa is cheating, it’s possible that Annie might not make it to the next round. I don’t know about you, but that would irritate me, even if it was my sister.”
Nate nodded. He was right. If given the choice, Annie would choose the tournament.
Gabe said something else, but Nate didn’t hear him. His mind was deeply entrenched in the best way to approach Annie. It was a delicate subject. No one liked cheaters, but it was even worse in their culture to be a snitch. They’d gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to keep her spying a secret, not that he’d minded, but now that it involved Tessa, he had no leverage.
If she wouldn’t help him voluntarily, he’d have to set aside their personal relationship and play this game as he would with anyone else.
* * *
Annie made it to the tournament area that morning without seeing Nate or Tessa. To tell the truth, she was relieved. She needed to focus on her game, and seeing either of them would just remind her of the rock and hard place she was wedged between.
She checked in and was assigned to table six. Only a few tables were left, with the top nine players advancing to the final table. If she won today, Annie would have made it further than she had in any tournament. She’d be guaranteed a handsome payout even if she went out on the first hand.
Even with everything going on, she couldn’t help but grin with excitement as her game chips were reissued and she made her way across the loudly colored casino carpeting to begin the game. It was enough to make a girl’s heart flutter with nerves, like kissing her first crush.
Only two other players were sitting at her table when she arrived. She recognized them both by face but couldn’t remember their names. They were good to have made it this far, but their streak would end. Annie would see to it.
She found her assigned chair at the table and settled in. There were still a few minutes before game time, so she closed her eyes and tried to gather her focus.
“Annie, may I speak with you privately for a minute?” Nate’s voice came over her shoulder, but it was unusually stiff and formal. She told herself it was because of the tournament. They were publicly a couple, but he was always professional.
Still, she frowned, getting up slowly from the table. “What’s the matter?” she asked. Was her wire malfunctioning again?
Nate caught her elbow and led her a good distance from the tournament area. “There’s a problem,” he said once out of earshot. His face was gravely serious, without the slightest hint of the man she’d made love to beneath it. “It’s about Tessa.”
Annie froze, her desire to return to the game table dwindling rapidly. He knew. She hadn’t told him, but somehow he’d found out. She looked into his dark eyes, searching for a hint of how much information he really had. Her face tightened, her defenses rising to prevent her from giving away anything he could use against Tessa. “What about her?”
“I’ve seen the surveillance tapes from yesterday. I know you saw her.”
Her eyes widened with panic. “Nate, I—”
He held up his hand to stop her. “Don’t bother explaining. It isn’t important.”
“Okay,” she said slowly. This was not the reaction she was expecting. She would actually be less disconcerted if he was angry and yelling. That, she expected. “So what do you want?”
“I wanted to warn you that Tessa is going to be playing at your table today.”
Annie groaned before she could stop herself. It was bad enough playing against her sister, given how badly they both wanted to win. Knowing Tessa was cheating and could possibly bump Annie out of the tournament was even worse. “How could that happen?”
“Someone is manipulating the roster. But this is our chance to nail them. Tell me how they’re doing it. We need to know if we’re going to catch them at it.”