“Did you know she was a dancer?”
He didn’t answer, didn’t think she was really looking for an answer. This wasn’t about him.
“She was beautiful. So talented. But she put a lot of pressure on herself to be the best in her company while also being the best mom. I knew something had changed in her, but she’d sheltered me so much I didn’t have a context for understanding that she’d begun using drugs—speed, mostly, to help her get through her days. They found some downers in her purse after she died too, probably the only way she could sleep at night.”
Charlie reached down between them and grabbed her hand, threading his fingers through hers.
“We were on our way up to see my father when she died. She never took the money he’d offered her to help raise me. She was too proud. But I wanted new ballet slippers for my recital, and she couldn’t afford them. She was swallowing her pride to ask him for money. I didn’t know him very well then—we didn’t do visitation or anything because he’d honored my mother’s decision to raise me on her own. I didn’t appreciate the kind of humility it took to ask my father for money. But she was doing it. Dance was so important to me. I wanted to be like her, and she could hardly afford the lessons, let alone the recital outfits.”
Charlie’s chest tightened. Why hadn’t her father insisted on providing for Riley? Insisted on being part of her life? At least the as**ole had been lucky enough to know he had a daughter.
“There was a big storm that day, and we were in that elevator when the power failed. Maybe it was the stress of being stuck or maybe she was anxious about seeing my father, but her heart had been battered by drug abuse, and she had a stroke. When the door opened to my father’s executive suite, she was on the floor and I couldn’t get her up. I screamed for help but…” She closed her eyes.
“She was already gone,” Charlie finished for her.
“She was dying and I couldn’t help her. For a long time I thought she wouldn’t have died if we hadn’t been in the elevator. I know better now. She’d been too hard on her body, and it was a matter of time.” She gave a forced smile. “I guess by the time I was old enough to understand, my fear of elevators had evolved into an out-and-out phobia.”
Charlie rolled so she was under him. Supporting himself on his forearms, he looked down at her. She hadn’t shed a single tear telling her story, but he kissed her cheeks where the tears should have been. She closed her eyes and didn’t protest, and he sank lower and kissed the skin between her breasts, right over her heart.
When he spoke, his voice was rough. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. Then he slid his arms under her, taking her with him as he rolled to his side.
She pressed her palm against his chest. “It was a long time ago.”
“Hush and let me hold you,” he said. He felt the moment she surrendered to it, the moment she melted against him and closed her eyes.
There was more to the story, but she didn’t need to fill in the blanks for him to understand. Her father hadn’t been in her life before, but he must have stepped in when her mother died. She’d lost her mother that day, but she’d also lost her life. And the new life she’d been given couldn’t have been an easy one. Charlie had seen the way Riley lived to please her father. What he hadn’t seen for himself, he’d heard from Lacey.
Charlie threaded his fingers through Riley’s hair, wishing he could take away her hurt. Wishing he were the kind of man who stuck around…the kind women wanted to have stick around.
When he’d been served with those paternity papers, there had been a part of him that had understood Angela’s decision to keep the child from him. He would be a shitty father. Or would have been. Now? He wasn’t sure.
Riley moaned in her sleep and shifted to press her cheek against his chest.
I love you.
Why was it that the love of a sweet little brunette could make him believe for the first time that he could be worthy of title father?
He pulled Riley into his side, wanting to sleep with their bodies pressed together. The clock read 3:00. She needed to work in the morning, so he wouldn’t wake her, but the smell of her skin mingled with the scent of sex on the air made him ready for her all over again.
He still couldn’t believe he’d taken her in the elevator. She’d been so terrified and so vulnerable. As crazy as he would have thought it was if someone else had said so, she’d needed him to slide into her in there. She’d needed him to replace the bad memory with a good one.
Something about it still nagged at him. As if he’d exposed her. As if—
“Shit.” The word came out a puff of breath against her hair, and she turned in his arms, moaning softly before settling into the soft bed again.
Carefully, so as not to wake her, Charlie shifted her and slid out of bed. He tugged on a pair of basketball shorts and trod out to the elevator. He held his breath as he waited for it to open.
The door slid open and a curse slipped from his lips as he spotted what he had wished against sense he wouldn’t: surveillance cameras.
He closed his eyes. The surveillance specialists in the Grand Escape Resort and Casino surveillance room would have seen everything. Worse, they now had access to the evidence. Charlie didn’t have to be a rag mag journalist to know that footage of him and Riley going at it in the elevator would be the kind of ratings spike any network would kill for.
He didn’t bother getting dressed. He headed to the surveillance room with bare feet and chest.
He pounded at the door and waited. Nothing.
The mechanisms in the camera above the door whirred as the camera swiveled to focus on him.
Shit. They weren’t going to let him in for nothing. He stared straight into the camera and said, “Someone’s cheating on the casino floor.” Then he said a swift prayer he wasn’t lying.
Sure enough, the big steel door swung open and a surveillance officer stepped out. The door closed behind him.
“Charlie Singleton.” Charlie extended a hand.
The man, whose badge identified him as “Crew Chief,” took Charlie’s hand reluctantly. “I know who you are. What can I do for you Mr. Singleton?”
“Do you know why I’m here?”
“Not a clue,” the man said, his voice dry and unamused.
“How long have you been on duty tonight?”
“My crew came on at midnight.”
Charlie let out a breath. They wouldn’t have been the ones behind the camera when he and Riley had been in the elevator. “I need to see some footage from around ten o’clock from the suite tower elevator.”
“It’s nice to want things.”
“I’m willing to give you something in return.”
“What’s that?”
“I can show you someone who’s at the casino tonight scamming you.”
“My crew would have seen it.”
Charlie raised a brow. “Can you be so sure? You know how bad it looks when another crew finds something your crew should have seen weeks ago.”
The man studied Charlie for a long beat. “Fine. But I’m not showing you anything until you deliver.”
Charlie nodded, a rush of breath leaving him as he followed the man inside. The surveillance room was filled with screens monitoring every angle of every public space in the casino.
“Where are the cameras covering the baccarat tables?” he asked.
The officer pointed to a group of screens in the corner of the room being monitored by another officer.
“There she is,” Charlie said, pointing to a woman who frequented Grand Escape. Tonight the woman wore a long black dress. He’d seen her at Grand Escape enough times to guess when she’d be at the tables, and he’d watched her closely enough to know what she was doing.
“Run facial recognition software on her,” the crew chief directed to his seated officer.
With a few key strokes, the woman’s vital stats appeared on the screen: her name, occupation, dates she visited the casino, games she played, wins and losses, even her credit history.
Charlie let out a low whistle. “I’m impressed,” he said, referring to the system.
“Not so much,” the officer said, misunderstanding. “She loses more than she wins, and any wins she’s had have been small.”
Charlie shook his head and reached up to tap the screen that showed the woman placing a bet on another man’s hand. “How’s he doing?”
“We’ve been watching him,” the crew chief said. “He’s raking it in tonight, but he seems clean.” He narrowed his eyes at the screen. “Search the computer for a connection between the lady in black and our man here.”
“They haven’t played in the same table game here before,” the officer said, scanning the results as they came up on the screen. He looked up at his boss. “She used to work at the Black Diamond,” he said, “and according to this the man who profited off her bets is a bouncer there.”
“How’d you know they were playing the system?” the crew chief asked.
Charlie shrugged. “I noticed her the other night.” Maybe it was years of playing poker, of watching for the bluff, but he had a decent eye for cheats.
The chief nodded. “I’m true to my word.” He looked to the officer seated before them. “Rodney, pull up—”
“No,” Charlie said. “Your eyes and mine only.”
The chief gave him a knowing grin. “Oh, I get it now. Who’s the special lady?”
“Like I’m going to tell you.” Frankly, if Riley’s identity wasn’t clear from the video, he’d let it go. A sex tape of a man with a reputation wasn’t the kind of news it would be if said man appeared with a woman known for her straight-laced life.
“I guess I’ll see for myself soon enough,” the chief said. He led Charlie to an inconspicuous corner and sat down at the keyboard. “May I ask, Mr. Singleton, what you hope to gain by seeing this footage?”
Charlie released a breath. “Right now I’m just gathering information.” It all depended on whether or not the camera revealed Riley. If it did, well, he’d go from there.
“What time?”
“Around twenty-two hundred hours.”
Suddenly the image of him walking into the elevator appeared on the screen, the time stamp on the bottom of the screen read 22:02.34. He stood in the elevator, hands in pockets as he rode down to the lobby to meet Riley. Just as the elevator doors slid open, there was a blip in the recording. The screen read 22:14.41 and Charlie was exiting the elevator behind a brunette whose face was hidden from view.
“What the hell?” The crew chief tapped at the keyboard and replayed the same sequence. He moved to another computer and repeated his keystrokes with the same results. “Holy shit,” he said, looking over your shoulder. “You must have some sort of fairy godmother.”
“I don’t understand.” Charlie narrowed his eyes at the screen.
“You’ll have to come back tomorrow and talk to the guys who work the shift before ours.” The crew chief stared at the screen and shook his head. “I don’t know why or how, but your elevator rendezvous with the mystery woman? It’s gone.”
Chapter Thirteen
Charlie woke up, his legs tangled with Riley’s, his arm wrapped securely around her waist, as if he’d been afraid she’d run away in the night.
He slid his hand down her belly and between her legs and she made little moans in her sleep. She was still wet from last night, and it was easy to slip a finger inside her. He wanted her to wake up turned on, wet, and halfway to orgasm.
He swept her hair aside and nibbled down the side of her neck, tasting the sweet-salty tang of her smooth skin after a night of lovemaking.
She moaned and rolled her hips, rubbing her ass against his cock. “Charlie.”
He liked the sound of his name from her sleepy lips. He could get used to waking up like this. Riley in his arms, the smell of sex in the air.
She moaned softly as he withdrew his finger. He traced its damp tip up her body, over her stomach. He found her tight ni**les and rolled them softly. He was rock hard again and was thinking of sliding into her from behind when she bolted upright in bed.
She yanked the sheet to cover herself. “Oh my God!”
He grinned and tugged at it. “Nothing I haven’t already seen, love.”
“It’s seven thirty,” she said wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Her hand flew to cover her mouth. “How could I have been so careless?”
“I took the liberty of calling the concierge and sending him on a special errand for a new suit for you. It’s hanging in the foyer.” He ran a finger down her bare arm, resenting the hell out of the fact that she’d be leaving his bed so soon. “You won’t be late.”
She pushed herself off the bed, studying the floor. “I don’t even want to know where he bought a suit in the hours I was asleep,” she muttered.
“You of all people should know a Grand Escape VIP need only ask to see his wish granted.”
Last night, after he’d taken her on the bed, he’d led her to the shower. Her dark hair had been wet when they’d fallen back into bed, sated and exhausted, and now it fell in ringlets around her face as she paced. “I like your hair like that. Why do you straighten it?”
“I must look like an ungroomed poodle.” Her hands slipped into her hair as she searched the floor.
“It you’re looking for your panties, you needn’t bother. I took care of everything.” He motioned his head toward the other room. “See for yourself.”
He didn’t answer, didn’t think she was really looking for an answer. This wasn’t about him.
“She was beautiful. So talented. But she put a lot of pressure on herself to be the best in her company while also being the best mom. I knew something had changed in her, but she’d sheltered me so much I didn’t have a context for understanding that she’d begun using drugs—speed, mostly, to help her get through her days. They found some downers in her purse after she died too, probably the only way she could sleep at night.”
Charlie reached down between them and grabbed her hand, threading his fingers through hers.
“We were on our way up to see my father when she died. She never took the money he’d offered her to help raise me. She was too proud. But I wanted new ballet slippers for my recital, and she couldn’t afford them. She was swallowing her pride to ask him for money. I didn’t know him very well then—we didn’t do visitation or anything because he’d honored my mother’s decision to raise me on her own. I didn’t appreciate the kind of humility it took to ask my father for money. But she was doing it. Dance was so important to me. I wanted to be like her, and she could hardly afford the lessons, let alone the recital outfits.”
Charlie’s chest tightened. Why hadn’t her father insisted on providing for Riley? Insisted on being part of her life? At least the as**ole had been lucky enough to know he had a daughter.
“There was a big storm that day, and we were in that elevator when the power failed. Maybe it was the stress of being stuck or maybe she was anxious about seeing my father, but her heart had been battered by drug abuse, and she had a stroke. When the door opened to my father’s executive suite, she was on the floor and I couldn’t get her up. I screamed for help but…” She closed her eyes.
“She was already gone,” Charlie finished for her.
“She was dying and I couldn’t help her. For a long time I thought she wouldn’t have died if we hadn’t been in the elevator. I know better now. She’d been too hard on her body, and it was a matter of time.” She gave a forced smile. “I guess by the time I was old enough to understand, my fear of elevators had evolved into an out-and-out phobia.”
Charlie rolled so she was under him. Supporting himself on his forearms, he looked down at her. She hadn’t shed a single tear telling her story, but he kissed her cheeks where the tears should have been. She closed her eyes and didn’t protest, and he sank lower and kissed the skin between her breasts, right over her heart.
When he spoke, his voice was rough. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. Then he slid his arms under her, taking her with him as he rolled to his side.
She pressed her palm against his chest. “It was a long time ago.”
“Hush and let me hold you,” he said. He felt the moment she surrendered to it, the moment she melted against him and closed her eyes.
There was more to the story, but she didn’t need to fill in the blanks for him to understand. Her father hadn’t been in her life before, but he must have stepped in when her mother died. She’d lost her mother that day, but she’d also lost her life. And the new life she’d been given couldn’t have been an easy one. Charlie had seen the way Riley lived to please her father. What he hadn’t seen for himself, he’d heard from Lacey.
Charlie threaded his fingers through Riley’s hair, wishing he could take away her hurt. Wishing he were the kind of man who stuck around…the kind women wanted to have stick around.
When he’d been served with those paternity papers, there had been a part of him that had understood Angela’s decision to keep the child from him. He would be a shitty father. Or would have been. Now? He wasn’t sure.
Riley moaned in her sleep and shifted to press her cheek against his chest.
I love you.
Why was it that the love of a sweet little brunette could make him believe for the first time that he could be worthy of title father?
He pulled Riley into his side, wanting to sleep with their bodies pressed together. The clock read 3:00. She needed to work in the morning, so he wouldn’t wake her, but the smell of her skin mingled with the scent of sex on the air made him ready for her all over again.
He still couldn’t believe he’d taken her in the elevator. She’d been so terrified and so vulnerable. As crazy as he would have thought it was if someone else had said so, she’d needed him to slide into her in there. She’d needed him to replace the bad memory with a good one.
Something about it still nagged at him. As if he’d exposed her. As if—
“Shit.” The word came out a puff of breath against her hair, and she turned in his arms, moaning softly before settling into the soft bed again.
Carefully, so as not to wake her, Charlie shifted her and slid out of bed. He tugged on a pair of basketball shorts and trod out to the elevator. He held his breath as he waited for it to open.
The door slid open and a curse slipped from his lips as he spotted what he had wished against sense he wouldn’t: surveillance cameras.
He closed his eyes. The surveillance specialists in the Grand Escape Resort and Casino surveillance room would have seen everything. Worse, they now had access to the evidence. Charlie didn’t have to be a rag mag journalist to know that footage of him and Riley going at it in the elevator would be the kind of ratings spike any network would kill for.
He didn’t bother getting dressed. He headed to the surveillance room with bare feet and chest.
He pounded at the door and waited. Nothing.
The mechanisms in the camera above the door whirred as the camera swiveled to focus on him.
Shit. They weren’t going to let him in for nothing. He stared straight into the camera and said, “Someone’s cheating on the casino floor.” Then he said a swift prayer he wasn’t lying.
Sure enough, the big steel door swung open and a surveillance officer stepped out. The door closed behind him.
“Charlie Singleton.” Charlie extended a hand.
The man, whose badge identified him as “Crew Chief,” took Charlie’s hand reluctantly. “I know who you are. What can I do for you Mr. Singleton?”
“Do you know why I’m here?”
“Not a clue,” the man said, his voice dry and unamused.
“How long have you been on duty tonight?”
“My crew came on at midnight.”
Charlie let out a breath. They wouldn’t have been the ones behind the camera when he and Riley had been in the elevator. “I need to see some footage from around ten o’clock from the suite tower elevator.”
“It’s nice to want things.”
“I’m willing to give you something in return.”
“What’s that?”
“I can show you someone who’s at the casino tonight scamming you.”
“My crew would have seen it.”
Charlie raised a brow. “Can you be so sure? You know how bad it looks when another crew finds something your crew should have seen weeks ago.”
The man studied Charlie for a long beat. “Fine. But I’m not showing you anything until you deliver.”
Charlie nodded, a rush of breath leaving him as he followed the man inside. The surveillance room was filled with screens monitoring every angle of every public space in the casino.
“Where are the cameras covering the baccarat tables?” he asked.
The officer pointed to a group of screens in the corner of the room being monitored by another officer.
“There she is,” Charlie said, pointing to a woman who frequented Grand Escape. Tonight the woman wore a long black dress. He’d seen her at Grand Escape enough times to guess when she’d be at the tables, and he’d watched her closely enough to know what she was doing.
“Run facial recognition software on her,” the crew chief directed to his seated officer.
With a few key strokes, the woman’s vital stats appeared on the screen: her name, occupation, dates she visited the casino, games she played, wins and losses, even her credit history.
Charlie let out a low whistle. “I’m impressed,” he said, referring to the system.
“Not so much,” the officer said, misunderstanding. “She loses more than she wins, and any wins she’s had have been small.”
Charlie shook his head and reached up to tap the screen that showed the woman placing a bet on another man’s hand. “How’s he doing?”
“We’ve been watching him,” the crew chief said. “He’s raking it in tonight, but he seems clean.” He narrowed his eyes at the screen. “Search the computer for a connection between the lady in black and our man here.”
“They haven’t played in the same table game here before,” the officer said, scanning the results as they came up on the screen. He looked up at his boss. “She used to work at the Black Diamond,” he said, “and according to this the man who profited off her bets is a bouncer there.”
“How’d you know they were playing the system?” the crew chief asked.
Charlie shrugged. “I noticed her the other night.” Maybe it was years of playing poker, of watching for the bluff, but he had a decent eye for cheats.
The chief nodded. “I’m true to my word.” He looked to the officer seated before them. “Rodney, pull up—”
“No,” Charlie said. “Your eyes and mine only.”
The chief gave him a knowing grin. “Oh, I get it now. Who’s the special lady?”
“Like I’m going to tell you.” Frankly, if Riley’s identity wasn’t clear from the video, he’d let it go. A sex tape of a man with a reputation wasn’t the kind of news it would be if said man appeared with a woman known for her straight-laced life.
“I guess I’ll see for myself soon enough,” the chief said. He led Charlie to an inconspicuous corner and sat down at the keyboard. “May I ask, Mr. Singleton, what you hope to gain by seeing this footage?”
Charlie released a breath. “Right now I’m just gathering information.” It all depended on whether or not the camera revealed Riley. If it did, well, he’d go from there.
“What time?”
“Around twenty-two hundred hours.”
Suddenly the image of him walking into the elevator appeared on the screen, the time stamp on the bottom of the screen read 22:02.34. He stood in the elevator, hands in pockets as he rode down to the lobby to meet Riley. Just as the elevator doors slid open, there was a blip in the recording. The screen read 22:14.41 and Charlie was exiting the elevator behind a brunette whose face was hidden from view.
“What the hell?” The crew chief tapped at the keyboard and replayed the same sequence. He moved to another computer and repeated his keystrokes with the same results. “Holy shit,” he said, looking over your shoulder. “You must have some sort of fairy godmother.”
“I don’t understand.” Charlie narrowed his eyes at the screen.
“You’ll have to come back tomorrow and talk to the guys who work the shift before ours.” The crew chief stared at the screen and shook his head. “I don’t know why or how, but your elevator rendezvous with the mystery woman? It’s gone.”
Chapter Thirteen
Charlie woke up, his legs tangled with Riley’s, his arm wrapped securely around her waist, as if he’d been afraid she’d run away in the night.
He slid his hand down her belly and between her legs and she made little moans in her sleep. She was still wet from last night, and it was easy to slip a finger inside her. He wanted her to wake up turned on, wet, and halfway to orgasm.
He swept her hair aside and nibbled down the side of her neck, tasting the sweet-salty tang of her smooth skin after a night of lovemaking.
She moaned and rolled her hips, rubbing her ass against his cock. “Charlie.”
He liked the sound of his name from her sleepy lips. He could get used to waking up like this. Riley in his arms, the smell of sex in the air.
She moaned softly as he withdrew his finger. He traced its damp tip up her body, over her stomach. He found her tight ni**les and rolled them softly. He was rock hard again and was thinking of sliding into her from behind when she bolted upright in bed.
She yanked the sheet to cover herself. “Oh my God!”
He grinned and tugged at it. “Nothing I haven’t already seen, love.”
“It’s seven thirty,” she said wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Her hand flew to cover her mouth. “How could I have been so careless?”
“I took the liberty of calling the concierge and sending him on a special errand for a new suit for you. It’s hanging in the foyer.” He ran a finger down her bare arm, resenting the hell out of the fact that she’d be leaving his bed so soon. “You won’t be late.”
She pushed herself off the bed, studying the floor. “I don’t even want to know where he bought a suit in the hours I was asleep,” she muttered.
“You of all people should know a Grand Escape VIP need only ask to see his wish granted.”
Last night, after he’d taken her on the bed, he’d led her to the shower. Her dark hair had been wet when they’d fallen back into bed, sated and exhausted, and now it fell in ringlets around her face as she paced. “I like your hair like that. Why do you straighten it?”
“I must look like an ungroomed poodle.” Her hands slipped into her hair as she searched the floor.
“It you’re looking for your panties, you needn’t bother. I took care of everything.” He motioned his head toward the other room. “See for yourself.”
