Love's Gamble. Theodora Taylor

herself to those three sentences and held her breath. She’d hoped that the simple act of introducing herself with a big smile and an emphatic compliment would have the same effect it did back when she actually made a game out of getting into VIP.

      It did.

      Mike Benz smiled back at her and said, “Would you like to come up?”

      “Sure!” she said, her smile becoming even brighter.

      He offered her his arm, and with a sheepish look, the mountain unlatched the velvet rope before stepping aside to let them pass.

      Just like that she was in! Pru’s heart beat in her throat as they came to the top of the stairs. Hoping hard that her gut had been right and that Max Benton really was there tonight.

      “M.B.!” a voice boomed across the area.

      Mike Benz threw his arms in the air and yelled back “M.B.!” like a kid playing a game of Marco Polo.

      Pru had to work hard to keep a triumphant smile from breaking out across her face. She had bet right. Max Benton approached them, dressed in a white linen suit with a V-neck T-shirt underneath. His on-trend look, paired with intentionally scruffy black hair and at least three days’ worth of beard growth, somehow managed to make him look as if he’d rolled out of bed and a high-fashion ad at the same time. It was easy for Pru to understand in that moment why women around the world had fallen at Max Benton’s feet. Why, according to the nauseating amount of research she’d done on the Benton heir, he’d been dubbed the Ruiner in certain feminine circles.

      One reality starlet had claimed she wasn’t able to date anyone for a year after spending a few weeks with Max. Pru remembered her tale with an inner grimace. Once you go Max, you never go back.

      “I didn’t know you were here,” Mike Benz said to Max as they clasped hands and exchanged a one-armed hug. “Why didn’t you text me?”

      Max threw him a lazy smile, his pale green eyes shining with their usual wicked gleam. “Figured you’d get up here sooner or later,” he answered.

      Pru watched the exchange from her position on Mike Benz’s arm. Max was so insanely good-looking, even more so in real life than in the many pictures of him floating around the internet. If not for the jagged imperfection of his nose, which had been broken a couple of times without proper resets, Max might have been too pretty. But as it was, the crooked nose on top of so much symmetry only made it that much harder for Pru not to stare at him, even though she was trying to play it cool.

      Max, however, didn’t seem to have any problems keeping his eyes off her. He barely spared her a look while he and Mike Benz exchanged small talk about how Mike liked New Orleans. Pru was actually beginning to think that Max didn’t remember her and she’d have to awkwardly reintroduce herself, when he said to Mike, “So you know Pru, too?”

      He still hadn’t looked directly at her, Pru noticed.

      “Ya, man, we met outside VIP,” Mike Benz answered.

      Pru quickly rushed in then with her cover story. “One of the girls I used to dance with back in Vegas moved out to Miami and decided to have her bachelorette weekend here in New Orleans.” This much was true—even if that bachelorette night had happened years ago, not tonight as Pru had insinuated.

      “Anyway, I was pretty sure you were up here in the VIP area even though the guy downstairs kept saying you weren’t.” She squinched her face to further sell the story. “Trina’s bachelorette weekend was wild, so I almost believed him. Like maybe I’d just been crazy, thinking it was you up here and not some other guy that maybe looked like you.”

      She held her breath, hoping Max didn’t see straight through her technically-true-but-not-really story.

      Max pegged her with a look, his eyes shrewd, as if he was deciding whether or not to believe her. But then he said, “No, it was me you saw, and I’m glad you decided to bring the party up here.”

      “Me, too.” She turned to give Mike Benz another one of her showgirl smiles. “Thanks, Mike!”

      Mike grinned down at her. “No problem. Any friend of the other M.B. is most definitely a friend of mine.”

      “Oh, goody,” she said, doing her best imitation of the coquette she used to be. “I love making new friends.”

      She could sense Max watching her closely as she and Mike made flirty exchanges. This was another huge gamble. Openly flirting with someone else in order to get his attention. But from what she’d read, Max had a competitive streak a mile wide. In his twenties he’d drag raced on every continent except Antarctica. In his thirties, he’d been spotted at high-roller games with million-dollar stakes. And just a few weeks before Cole had cut him off, a story had surfaced about Max wagering the Benton New Orleans in a bet with another hotel heir about who could swim one hundred meters faster. Luckily he’d won that bet, considering he didn’t have the authority to make that kind of wager in the first place.

      But in any case, Pru sensed the easiest way to engage Max was to play to his sense of competition. And apparently she was right.

      Max looped an arm around Pru’s shoulders and said, “I’ve got a couple of bottles back at my table. Let’s catch up, Pru.”

      Then he nodded toward Mike Benz and said, “You can join us if you want.”

      * * *

      An hour later, Pru wasn’t so sure who was scheming on whom. The three of them were sitting on a plush white couch, arced around a small table with a silver bucket full of ice and champagne bottles at its center. Max had his hand on her knee as he once again filled her glass with champagne. He’d yet to let her glass get more than half-empty. But as attentive as he’d been, he’d spent most of the night talking with Mike Benz about a hotel he was planning to build in New Orleans.

      He’d explained the boutique hotel would sit somewhere between its luxury and lower-tier counterparts. With an Old World Parisian aesthetic outside, and a modern European design inside, the planned hotel would also have a hot nightclub that would attract and cater to the many singletons and unmarried couples who flooded into New Orleans every weekend, looking to have fun. Apparently, Max wasn’t as disconnected from the experience of the non-VIP nightclubber as she would have thought, because he painted a picture of a trendy and sophisticated hotel with prices within reach of people in their twenties who hadn’t been born with silver spoons in their mouths.

      Pru could actually imagine herself going out of her way to stay at a place like that back when she’d been in her early twenties. It was also a very intriguing idea, coming from Max, since his hotel would probably be competing with both the Benton New Orleans and the planned Benton Inn New Orleans, which would be opening its doors in the fall.

      She didn’t have to fake her interest in the conversation. In fact, she had to keep reminding herself to surreptitiously pour out half flutes of champagne whenever both men weren’t looking (with a silent apology to whomever was in charge of cleaning the club’s carpets at night’s end). And by the time Max was done telling Mike Benz about his plans, both she and the DJ were leaning all the way forward.

      Max eventually asked Mike about his plans after his residency was through, and Mike confessed he didn’t have any. By the time Mike’s break was over, the two had all but made a formal deal for Mike Benz to be the first resident DJ at the hotel Max would be opening.

      Pru observed Max as he watched Mike Benz leave. Though he’d made it seem as if he was the one doing Mike a favor, he now wore a self-satisfied smile. And Pru began to suspect then that Max hadn’t invited her over to his VIP table to just one-up Mike Benz. Rather, he’d been using her to achieve his ultimate goal. Getting Mike Benz to agree to a handshake deal.

      This gave Pru pause, because if she was reading the situation right, Max wasn’t quite the useless ne’er-do-well he’d come off as in the online gossip blogs. In fact, she’d bet money Cole had no idea what his younger brother was up to.

      Her suspicions were confirmed when Max’s