The Fidelity Files (Jennifer Hunter #1)(48)

It was like having our own personal referee of the game, the dealer's only purpose being to make sure we each knew the rules, we each knew the stakes, and neither one of us got hurt in the process...well, at least not physically.

Little did the dealer know he was chaperoning the exchange of much higher stakes than just sixty dollars.

Parker's move was exactly what I had anticipated. He read my earlier hesitation and interpreted it as fear. Fear that my hand might not be good enough. This was, of course, exactly how I wanted him to interpret it.

Now, without any hesitation, I immediately pushed all my chips into the center of the table. "All in," I declared.

"Re-raise. Make it three hundred," the dealer broadcasted after counting my chips.

Re-raise, make it your fiancé, I thought.

Parker scrutinized me. As did the rest of the table. Who was this girl? She sits down looking relatively clueless in her tight jeans and revealing top, and in only twenty minutes she's managed to get a pot up to nearly six hundred dollars.

I kept a straight face, only revealing a very small, select portion of my intentions. Just enough to keep things interesting.

By this time two of Parker's buddies had appeared from a nearby table and were standing behind him, observing the action.

I was sure he had the three kings. If not, he would have folded. Especially with the flush possibility on the board. Which means he'd had me beat until the last card fell.

Three kings is a very difficult hand to fold, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't. And I was certain that by the end of the night he would wish he had.

Parker called my raise and pushed a large stack of chips into the middle. The dealer instructed us to flip over our cards. The look on his face was one of pure horror. The only hand that could have beaten him was staring back from my side of the table. I couldn't help but silently observe the interesting foreshadowing of the situation.

"She pulled the heart on the f*cking river!" he groaned to one of his friends.

I smiled as the dealer pushed me the large pile of chips. "Sorry, that's just the nature of the game," I replied, half sympathetically, half gloating. It was exactly the combination he would respond to.

He sucked up his manly pride, and in a sincere voice and a very sportsmanlike manner, offered up a courteous, "Good hand."

"Thanks," I replied, as I attempted to stack up all my newly earned chips.

I pretended not to notice as Parker and his friends made a joint decision to call it a night at the poker tables and move on to a club. I strained my ears to hear where they were planning to go, but unfortunately, I wasn't able to catch a location.

"Well, it's been nice playing with you," he said in the general direction of the table, but more specifically to me.

There were a few murmurs from the other players, reciprocating the sentiment, and I looked up and said, "Yes, a definite pleasure."

Before leaving, he turned back around, as if he were going to say something else, but all that came out was, "Maybe I'll see you around."

I smiled. "Maybe you will."

And he would.



AS SOON as the boys were out of sight, I scrambled to throw my

chips into a rack, grab my stuff, and make my way to the cashier.

I cashed out with exactly $650 more than I had started with.

As I stuffed the bills into my bag and headed toward the front entrance of the casino, I made a mental note to start taking on more assignments where I got to make an extra 650 bucks on the side. Not a bad arrangement at all.

I hid myself from view as I watched Parker and his ten or so friends hop into a consecutive series of taxis in front of the hotel. I would have to find out their destination before I went upstairs and changed into my "clubbing" uniform.

After the last cab pulled away from the curb, I walked outside and approached the taxi attendant. "Can you tell me where those guys went?" I asked, slipping a hundred out of my bag and into his hand.

He looked down at it, his reaction implying that this kind of request was not uncommon around here. "The Palms," he replied calmly and resourcefully, as if I had only asked him where the nearest ATM was.

"And what's the name of the club there?"

He looked down at my bag, the very direction from which his hundred-dollar bill had just emerged.

I groaned. "I don't think so," I said, turning on my heels and heading back toward the front door. I was quite certain the concierge would be happy to tell me the name of the club inside the Palms Hotel... for free.

"The nightclub Rain is there," he called after me.

I turned back around. "Thank you for your help."

"I get off at midnight. Can I look for you there later?" he asked with a flirtatious raise of his eyebrows.

"I don't think so," I said again, before returning to the casino.

An hour later I reemerged into the cool desert-night air in a slinky turquoise dress, a pair of "intention to f*ck" heels, and an eye makeup job worthy of a Vogue photo shoot. (Mostly because I copied it from one.)

"Palms Casino?" the taxi attendant asked me with a smart-ass inflection and a sly smirk.

"Yes, thank you," I said flippantly, as if our previous encounter had never taken place.

He put me into the next cab and I was off, ready to accidentally bump into Parker Colman for the second time this evening.