The Park's Empire: Handsome Strangers...: The Prince's Bride. GINA WILKINS

muscles. “Emily would like to play,” he said, his voice bland. “Perhaps the roulette wheel?”

      “Certainly.” Esteban took one of the handheld walkie-talkies from a guard and spoke into it, his fluent Spanish liquid and musical. He handed the small transmitter back to the guard. “It’s arranged. Would you like to play in a private room upstairs or down on the floor?”

      Lazhar looked at Emily. She was half-turned away from them, her face animated as she drank in the sight of the colorful crowd shifting under the glittering lights, her gaze following the activity on the casino floor with obvious interest. “Downstairs—I think Emily will enjoy the excitement of the crowd.”

      “Very good.” Esteban gave a quiet command and the guards moved down the shallow, carpeted steps. “If you and Miss Parks will come with me, Lazhar…”

      A ripple of excited whispers followed in their wake as the three crossed the huge room, the guards clearing a path in front of them with Lazhar’s personal bodyguard following behind.

      Lazhar was accustomed to celebrity status and the attention his presence always received. He accepted it as part of the downside of being born into the royal family. But tonight, he was more aware of being the focus of all eyes because of Emily. Would the attention worry her? Annoy her? Scare her? How would she handle it?

      He needn’t have worried, he realized a few moments later. Emily dealt with the attention with calm serenity. Most of the casino guests were intent on their own gambling, but a small crowd of onlookers gathered around the roulette table where Esteban himself manned the wheel. Lazhar seated Emily on one of the tall, low-backed stools upholstered in red leather and took the seat beside her.

      There were four other people at the table, three men and one woman. The men nodded briefly in greeting, while the woman’s gaze flicked assessingly over Emily and lingered for a moment on Lazhar before returning to the wheel on the table in front of them.

      “Roulette is easy to learn.” Lazhar rested his arm on the back of Emily’s chair and leaned close to her, his lips brushing the delicate shell of her ear. “Esteban will give you chips.” He gestured at the stack of playing chips on the table in front of each player. “You notice that everyone has different colored chips so the dealer can quickly identify the bets.” He nodded at Esteban and the dealer deftly counted and then slid two handfuls of blue chips across the table to Emily. “Now you place your chips on the numbered squares on the table, wherever you’d like.”

      Emily looked up at him. “How do I know which numbers to choose?”

      “Some players have lucky numbers they always play. Some believe in intuition and playing their hunches for the night.”

      “I don’t have a lucky number and my intuition is silent. So how do I pick a number?”

      “Tell me the first number that comes into your mind—quick, don’t think about it.”

      “Seven,” she said promptly.

      “Now another number.”

      “Twenty-two.”

      “Okay. Now pick any combination of those numbers between one and thirty-six—add, subtract, whatever—and put chips on those numbers.”

      She stared at him for a moment, a small smile curving her lips. “Does that work? Will I win?”

      He shrugged. “I have no idea. It was my grandfather’s system and he swore that it worked for him.”

      “That’s good enough for me.” She looked at the table with interest and carefully placed chips on seven, twenty-two, and twenty-nine. Then she paused, studying the table, half-turning to murmur. “Why are some of the chips sitting directly on top of the numbers, and some placed at the corners?”

      “The ones on the corners are ‘corner bets’—the bet covers the four numbers that join at the corner where the chip sits.” He nodded at the black and red squares numbered from one to thirty-six and her blue chip resting squarely in the center of number twenty-two. “Your bet on number twenty-two is called a ‘straight bet’—the ball has to stop on the wheel at twenty-two in order for you to win.”

      “Hmmm,” Emily tapped the tip of her forefinger against her chin and considered the table. “Which bet has the best odds?”

      “The straight bet—the odds are thirty-five to one.”

      “Then I’ll stay with that.” She smiled at him, the elusive dimple at the corner of her mouth appearing and disappearing in a flash. “If I win, I win big.”

      “True.” Amused at the risk-taker attitude in Emily when he’d mostly seen her exhibit cool, calm control up until now, Lazhar nodded at Esteban.

      The dealer acknowledged him with a barely perceptible nod in return. “Bets down, ladies and gentlemen.” The other players around the table nodded and Esteban spun the wheel in one direction and the small silver ball in the other. The ball left the track, rolling onto the spinning wheel. “No more bets!”

      The ball bounced and moved, coming to rest in a black compartment of the wheel.

      “Black twenty-nine.” Esteban called out.

      Emily clapped her hands with glee. “I won!” She looked up at Lazhar. “I did win, didn’t I?”

      “Yes, you definitely won,” he said dryly, exchanging an amused glance with Esteban as the dealer stacked a large pile of chips in front of her.

      Emily’s eyes rounded. “I won all that?”

      “The odds were thirty-five to one.” He grinned at her. “You wanted to win big, remember?”

      “I remember.” She flashed him a wide smile. “This is fun.” She watched the other gamblers at the table as Esteban either deftly swept away their lost chips, or paid out their wins. Each of them instantly returned chips to the table.

      “Should I pick the same numbers, or different ones?”

      “Your choice. What do you want to do?”

      “I think I’ll use the same numbers.” Emily put chips on the numbers she’d chosen for the first round. Then she took three chips from her winnings, stacked them neatly on top of the original pile that Esteban had given her, and moved them aside.

      “What are you doing?”

      “I’m playing with the money I won and leaving the original chips alone. That way,” Emily explained, “when I lose the chips I’ve won, I’ll know it’s time to stop playing. If I mix the two piles together, I’m afraid I won’t remember what the original investment was.”

      Surprised, Lazhar searched her earnest expression.

      “What?” A tiny frown pleated her forehead between her brows and he smoothed it away with his fingertip. Faint pink color bloomed on her cheeks and throat.

      “I’m impressed,” he said softly, his gaze holding hers as Esteban set the wheel and ball in motion and announced no more bets.

      “Why?”

      “Because very few people are wise enough to play with the house’s money and not theirs. Especially not when they’re new to gambling—they usually get swept up in the excitement and lose track of the amount of money they’re investing.”

      Emily glanced at the stack of blue chips. “How much money am I investing?” she asked, curious.

      “Red seven,” Esteban announced.

      “This is a hundred-dollar table,” Lazhar said casually.

      “A hundred dollars?” Her gaze flicked from him to the table, where Esteban was once again collecting from the losers and paying the winners. He deposited a stack of chips in front of Emily and she looked at Lazhar. “Are you telling me that each of the chips I’m playing with is worth a hundred dollars?”

      “Yes.”