Socialite's Gamble. Michelle Conder

      ‘Yes, it was terribly busy, wasn’t it?’ she said briskly.

      Having made her mind up to put off the inevitable, the only option left open to her was to keep pretending that everything was completely as it should be.

      Feeling marginally better when he didn’t make another comment, she showed him to his seat on the raised circular dais that held the main table and plastered a serene smile on her face. When he handed her his jacket she reached for it, only to find it suspended between both their hands. The wonderful scent of spice and earthy man rose between them and when he didn’t immediately release the jacket she glanced up. His face was closer than she expected, his blue eyes deep pools of lethal sensuality. The heating pad that had attached itself to her face increased a few more degrees until her cheeks stung with it.

      ‘Oh, and, Miss Chatsfield?’

      She blinked, unable to do anything but stare. ‘If you wouldn’t mind getting the phone number of the local police for me. I have an incident to report and I didn’t have time to do it before.’

      Oh, God. This was it. She would once again be confirmed as the airheaded younger sister of the Chatsfield family. The naughty girl. The one who shouldn’t have even been there.

      And she had no one else to blame but herself.

      ‘Incident?’ she said weakly, wondering if she threw herself at him and begged for mercy if he would listen. Then she remembered his icy disdain and arrogance at the airport.

      ‘Nothing for you to worry about,’ he said, finally letting go of the jacket to take his seat.

CHAPTER THREE

      AIDAN LEANED BACK in the velvet-lined chair at the main gaming table and hooked his arm over the back.

      The suspense must be killing her, he thought, shocked to find that he was enjoying himself. He’d almost whistled a merry tune when she’d nearly fainted dead away in front of him after he’d mentioned the police.

      He had no intention of calling them, of course, but feeling her worried eyes on him all evening would be punishment enough.

      Or would have been if those tingling little glances didn’t have the unexpected result of making him totally aware of her, as well.

      It was unconscionable, really, to have his attention so divided when he needed to focus the most.

      But okay, so far, the game was going according to plan. Ellery was anxious enough to make some rash plays, but not enough to make him quit. Aidan knew the old bastard loved nothing more than to look good in front of his compatriots and would want to finish the game on a high.

      Aidan’s clear-eyed gaze fell on him now, the older man’s attention once again firmly wedged somewhere in the vicinity of Cara Chatsfield’s cleavage.

      He told himself he was glad Ellery had been as distracted by her as many of the other men at the table because it made his job that much easier.

      Still, he felt his jaw knot as he watched her smile and work the table, her long-limbed sensuality and graceful movements promising hours of untold delights.

      She was very practiced for one so young. And very comfortable having older men paw her. Or was she? Now and then Aidan was sure he’d caught a hint of uncertainty in her expression. A hint that she wasn’t enjoying herself half as much as she pretended.

      Yeah, he mocked himself, she’s a real woman of substance.

      She played them. Some knew it and played along, hoping to get her into the sack anyway, but some didn’t and they were all but salivating. Aidan wondered if she was just biding her time. Waiting to see which one of them ended up on top before making her move. It would match his experience of women.

      So why then, he asked himself not for the first time, did he find her so damned attractive?

      An oil-rich sheikh broke into his unwanted musings by calling a time-out to use the bathroom. The croupier gave them fifteen minutes and all the men got up to stretch. Aidan didn’t. He could sit here all night if it meant destroying Martin Ellery. And he was more than halfway there.

      His prowess, he knew, had surprised Ellery because Aidan wasn’t by nature a gambler. He’d always been too conservative. Like his father. But he knew poker was Ellery’s weakness and so Aidan had painstakingly learned the game. Learned to be good at it. His natural tendency to hide his emotions helped. Another trait he shared with his father.

      His now-dead father, thanks to Martin Ellery’s criminal machinations fourteen years ago that had broken his father’s spirit. And now Aidan would break his. He would snap it in half. He would systematically destroy his pride, his reputation, his confidence … Hell, he wanted Ellery to lose his very reason for living. No man deserved it more.

      And Ellery knew he was on the ropes; his dwindling stack of chips signified his run of rash calls and bad bluffs was coming to an end. A smarter man would have got up and walked away by now. Ellery’s ego would keep him at the table. Aidan knew it and he counted on it.

      Stretching his legs out in front of him he signalled for another glass of iced tea. He hated the stuff, but to the other players it looked like whisky and it put them at ease. Made him look like a serious player.

      Absently he noticed that Ellery had crossed the room and was holding Cara Chatsfield’s arm and once again, his gut tightened. The man had been pawing her all night and by the sound of Cara’s husky laugh she didn’t mind.

      So hell, why should he?

      It wasn’t like she was some naive little nobody. This was a woman who would go to the opening of an envelope. And for sure he had been wrong about the hint of vulnerability he’d noticed earlier. Maybe he’d been seeing something he wanted to see in her.

      And why, he asked himself, would he want this woman to be anything other than what she was?

      A vacuous bimbo. He let his eyes wander up her creamy throat to her full mouth and slanted emerald-green eyes ringed with black kohl. They had to be as fake as her hair. Though as to the latter he would admit that the pink gamin hairdo made her look like an erotic pixie. A very tall erotic pixie.

      Just then she leaned closer to Ellery to hear whatever dribble was coming out of the swine’s mouth and he hated the dazzling smile on her face as she led him from the room. It was open and engaging and transformed her from beautiful to the kind of woman men went to war over.

      And where the hell were they going now? Ellery’s suite? The break was only fifteen minutes. Surely Ellery would want to savour her if he got that chance.

      Annoyed with the direction of his thoughts, Aidan settled more deeply into his chair and absently watched the glittering crowd. There were only two ways to make it into this room. Money or promise. The men usually had the former, the women the latter. It was the lay of the land. But not usually his land. Aidan usually worked, worked out and slept. In that order. Occasionally he dated and even more occasionally he joined members of his executive team for a drink. But since the death of his father last year, he’d been driven by a deep, yearning restlessness. A restlessness that he would finally put to bed after he crushed Martin Ellery and took everything that he held dear—his company and his self-worth.

      Frowning as his gaze lingered on the private doorway Ellery and Cara had disappeared through, he tried to tell himself that the Chatsfield socialite was not his problem. That it was not his job to protect her if she was too stupid to see the man for what he was.

      Aidan had made it a point years ago never to become emotionally involved in any issue, and really, Cara Chatsfield did not seem like the kind of woman who needed protecting from anyone but herself.

      So did he care about whether or not the old man had his hands inside her dress? If he had his mouth on hers? If he was kissing his way down her creamy throat—

      Hell.