Keir O'connell's Mistress. Sandra Marton

not dating anybody for a while. You understand?”

      “Sure.” He put the double OJ and vodka on her tray. “Bet the guy who ordered this hasn’t tipped you yet, right?”

      “Clever man.”

      “He gives you any trouble, you need any help, just sing out.”

      “Will do. Thanks.”

      “Hey, no need. I live to serve.”

      Cassie laughed, plucked a couple of cocktail napkins from the stack on the bar and brought the drink to the guy at the dollar slots. She dipped her knees the way you were supposed to, put a napkin beside him and the glass on top of it.

      “Your drink, sir.”

      “I hope you got it right this time.”

      “Double vodka and orange juice, just as you ordered.”

      The man picked up the glass, slurped half of it down while he fed tokens into the machine. Cassie started to walk away.

      “Hey! You take this back to that bartender and tell him—”

      Coins began to cascade from the slot machine. Music played, lights blinked, and the river of silver kept coming.

      “Lookit this! I hit the jackpot.”

      It certainly looked as if he had. Coins were still pouring out.

      “You must of brung me luck, little lady.” Grinning, the man stuck a beefy paw into the shimmering explosion of silver. “Here. This is for you.”

      Cassie lifted her eyebrows. “Why, thank—”

      The words caught in her throat. He’d handed her two dollars. She narrowed her eyes, opened her mouth—and felt a hand close around her elbow. Inez, her replacement, marched her away from the machine.

      “Do not,” Inez said through a toothy smile, “tell el puerco what you think of him.”

      “Two bucks,” Cassie hissed. “That’s what he gave me, after four drinks and a couple of hours worth of nastiness.” She craned her head, looked back over her shoulder. “He must have hit for a thousand.”

      “Six thousand,” Inez said, still smiling and still hustling Cassie toward the employees’ exit, “and he is the slime of the universe, but you want to keep your job, right?”

      “Inez…”

      “Remember the rules, Cass. Employees are always polite to guests.”

      The rules. The Desert Song’s rules. Keir O’Connell’s rules, not Cassie Bercovic’s. If she told the guy what she thought of him, O’Connell would sack her.

      Too bad the boss didn’t have rules that governed his own behavior.

      “Here.” Inez took Cassie’s tray and handed her the small purse she’d left behind the bar. “Now, go home.”

      “Once, just once, I’d like to tell a guy like that what I think.”

      “Wait until you’re ready to quit. Then come into the casino and security will give you special dispensation to clobber the sleazebag of the night.” Inez grinned. “Okay?”

      Cassie sighed. “Okay.”

      “Until then…you’re rude, you’re crude, you lose your job.”

      “I know.”

      “Good, ’cause the big man’s serious when he tells that to employees. If you have a legitimate beef with some SOB, you take it to O’Connell and let him handle it.”

      Inez was right. That was Keir’s policy, and wasn’t that amazing because if you wanted to talk about rude, crude sons of bitches, he was your man.

      And why did she keep thinking about him this morning? She wasn’t going to do it again, except maybe to consider that as bad as the guy up to his wrists in silver was, Keir was worse.

      “Okay,” Cassie said, with the stretch-the-lips smile she’d learned putting in six nights a week strutting across a stage with the Eiffel Tower on her head. “I’m going home.”

      “You do that. Just leave Mr. Big Tipper to me.” Inez fluttered her lashes. “I’ll be so sweet when I talk to him that he’ll pass out from a sugar overdose.”

      Cassie laughed and gave the other woman a quick hug. “Good night.”

      “You mean, good morning.”

      “Whatever. Have a good one.”

      “Yeah. You, too.”

      Cassie thought about taking the stairs to the basement locker room but she was just too tired and her feet really were killing her. Maybe it was these shoes. They were new, and the straps cut into her flesh.

      She pressed the call button for one of the employee elevators. Sighing, she slipped one foot from her shoe and rubbed her cramped toes against the carpet.

      Wearing three inch heels wasn’t fun, especially if you’d spent most of your life torturing your tootsies.

      Rule Number Three of Cassandra Bercovic’s Survival Guide, Cassie thought, grimacing as she pressed the call button again. If you started doing pliés at seven and high kicks at seventeen, forget about high heels because your feet would be a hundred years older than the rest of you by the time you hit twenty-nine.

      The problem was, Rule Number Three was pitched into the dust by Rule Number Four.

      The Higher The Heels, The Better The Tips.

      It was the truest rule of all, and she needed every penny she could come by if she wanted to hold out for the right management job. She didn’t know where she’d find it or when. Her only criteria was that the place had to be small and pretty, and light-years from Las Vegas.

      Then she could trade in these torturous stilettos for a nice comfy pair of orthopedics.

      The thought made her smile.

      Sighing, she slid her shoe back on, stepped out of the other one and flexed her toes.

      Except for the one jerk, she’d had a pretty good shift. Two shifts. Most people had been pleasant, the tips had been decent, and the only guy who’d tried to hit on her was so decrepit that she’d almost felt sorry for him.

      Cassie glanced up at the unblinking lights on the panel over the cars. What was taking so long? That hot shower and soft bed were calling to her…well, maybe she’d wait on the bed part. She’d sign on to her computer, see if, by some miracle, her grade was waiting in her e-mail in-box. And there was something she wanted to check on, a question she was pretty sure she’d gotten right on the exam but she wanted to look it up and be sure.

      Tired or not, she preferred going online early in the day, while things were still relatively quiet in her apartment complex. It had been tough, getting into the habit of hitting the books after you’d been out of school for almost a dozen years, especially when you’d been such a miserable failure while you’d been there the first time.

      Maybe that was why she hadn’t told anyone she was taking the course. This way, if she flunked out, nobody would know except her. She might have told Dawn, who was her best friend, but she’d sensed that Dawn had enough trouble of her own without having to worry about offering encouragement to a terrified student.

      And then Dawn had fallen head over heels in love and she’d plunged into planning a beautiful wedding at Gray’s uncle’s ranch in Tex—

      Cassie stiffened.

      Uh uh. She wasn’t going there again. Forget Texas. She’d wasted enough time the past month, going over what had happened, what she’d said, what Keir had said, trying to figure out how she’d ended up in that garden, letting him make a fool of her.

      Actually, it wasn’t was all that difficult to understand. The romantic setting would have