Fancy Pants (Wynette, Texas #1)(4)

Fully conscious of his eyes upon her over the spinning roulette wheel, Chloe watched the small ivory ball jostle from rouge to noir and back again before finally coming to rest on black 17. She permitted herself to look up and found Jack Day gazing at her over the table. He smiled, crinkling his mustache. She smiled back, confident that she looked her very best in a silver-gray Jacques Fath confection of satin and tulle that emphasized the highlights in her dark hair, the paleness of her skin, and the green depths in her eyes. “You can't seem to lose tonight,” she said. “Are you always this lucky?”

“Not always,” he replied. “Are you?”

“Me?” She emitted one of her long, dramatic sighs. “I've lost at everything tonight. Je suis misérable. I'm never lucky.”

He withdrew a cigarette from a silver case while his eyes trailed a reckless path down her body. “Of course you're lucky. You've just met me, haven't you? And I'm going to take you home tonight.”

Chloe was both intrigued and aroused by his boldness, and her hand closed instinctively around the edge of the table for support. She felt as if his tarnished silver eyes were melting through her gown and burning into the deepest recesses of her body. Without being able to define exactly what it was that set Black Jack apart from the rest, she sensed that only the most exceptional woman could win the heart of this supremely self-confident man, and if she was that woman, she could forever stop worrying about the fat girl inside.

But as much as she wanted him, Chloe held herself back. In the year since her mother's death, she had grown more perceptive about men than about herself. She had observed the reckless glitter in his eyes as the ivory ball clattered through the compartments of the spinning roulette wheel, and she suspected that he would not highly value what he could obtain too easily. “I'm sorry,” she replied coolly. “I have other plans.” Before he could respond, she picked up her evening bag and left the room.

He telephoned the next day, but she gave her maid orders to say she was out. She spotted him at a different gambling club a week later and after giving him a tantalizing glimpse of herself, she slipped out the back before he could approach. The days passed, and she found she could think of nothing else but the handsome young playboy from Chicago. Once again he telephoned; once again she refused the call. Later that same night she saw him at the theater and gave him a casual nod, a hint of a smile, before she moved away to her box.

The third time he telephoned, she took the call but pretended not to remember who he was. He chuckled dryly and told her, “I'm coming for you in half an hour, Chloe Serritella. If you're not ready, I'll never see you again.”

“Half an hour? I can't possibly—” But he had already hung up.

Her hand began to tremble as she replaced the receiver on the cradle. In her mind she saw a spinning roulette wheel, the ivory ball skipping from rouge to noir, noir to rouge, in this game they were playing. With trembling hands, she dressed in a white wool sheath with ocelot cuffs, then added a small hat topped by an illusion veil. She answered the door chimes herself exactly half an hour later.

He led her down the walk to a sporty red Isotta-Fraschini, which he proceeded to drive through the streets of Knightsbridge at breathtaking speed using only the fingers of his right hand on the steering wheel. She gazed at him out of the corner of her eye, adoring the lock of chestnut hair that fell so carelessly over his forehead as much as the fact that he was a hot-blooded American instead of someone predictably European.

Eventually he stopped at an out-of-the-way restaurant where he brushed his hand against hers whenever she reached for her wineglass. She felt herself aching with desire for him. Under the intensity of those restless silver eyes, she felt wildly beautiful and as thin inside as she was outside. Everything about him stirred her senses—the way he walked, the sound of his voice, the scent of tobacco on his breath. Jack Day was the ultimate trophy, the final affirmation of her own beauty.

As they left the restaurant, he pressed her against the trunk of a sycamore tree and gave her a dark, seductive kiss. Slipping his hands behind her, he cupped her buttocks. “I want you,” he murmured into her open mouth.

Her body was so replete with desire that it caused her actual pain to let him go. “You're too fast for me, Jack. I need time.”

He laughed and tweaked her chin, as if he were especially pleased with how well she played his game; then he squeezed her breasts just as an elderly couple came out of the restaurant and looked their way. On the drive home, he kept her amused with lively anecdotes and said nothing about seeing her again.

Two days later when her maid announced he was on the telephone, Chloe shook her head, refusing to take the call. Then she ran to her room and indulged in a passionate fit of weeping, fearing she was pushing him too far but afraid to risk losing his interest by doing anything else. The next time she saw him at a gallery opening, he wore a henna-haired showgirl on his arm. Chloe pretended not to notice.

He showed up on her doorstep the following afternoon and took her for a drive in the country. She said she had a previous engagement and couldn't dine with him that evening.

The game of chance went on, and Chloe could think of nothing else. When Jack wasn't with her, she conjured him in her imagination—the restless movements, the careless lock of hair, the roguish mustache. She could barely think beyond the thick, wet tension that suffused her body, but still she refused his sexual overtures.