“Oh, I have an idea.” She spooned coffee into the little filter, then waved the utensil threateningly at him. “I don’t want you coming around there anymore. Not tonight, not ever. Understood?”
“How’d you know I was going tonight?”
“I work there. I can find out what I want.”
“Did Larson tell you? Holy shit, Emma. Are you fucking him?”
“No!” she cried, fumbling the filter and nearly dropping it before she could get the lid snapped on. The very thought was so preposterous and . . . and . . . “This isn’t about me! This is about you. I don’t want you mixing with Damien, Ben. For all our sakes.”
“I can beat that asshole.”
“Oh, really? Is that why you’re down thirty grand? Is that why he has three bracelets already, because you can beat him? You’re good, Ben, but he’s a shark. You are out of your goddamn mind if you think you can beat him. Let it go.”
Ben’s bleary eyes narrowed on her. “You sure know a lot about him and think a lot of him to not be screwing him.”
“I work for the man. I know what he’s like. I’m not sleeping with him.”
They fell silent while first one and then another cup of coffee finished brewing. Bentley nosed through his food bowl before bounding out his doggy door into the fenced backyard, and Emma wished she could follow him into the sunny morning and away from this conversation. Instead, she brought two mugs to the table and sat with her brother. Reaching across, she grabbed both his wrists before he could pick up his mug, staring him in the eyes. “Listen to me. Stop this. Right now. You were doing so incredibly well. You had it under control.”
“I always have it under control,” he snapped, pulling away from her, leaving her hands limp on the tabletop. “And I don’t need your lectures, Auntie Em.”
It was what he always called her when she was riding his ass, but right now she was raw, and it chafed more than it usually did. “Then get the hell out of here, because a lecture is all you’re getting from me today. And, by the way. I’ll be there tonight. Upstairs. Sitting right there, watching as you ruin yourself. If you go after tonight, I’ll be there then, too. I’ll be there every damn night waiting to see if you show up, if I have to be. I’m not letting you do this again. Not to me, not to Mom and Dad.”
“Why does every fucking thing I do have to be about you or Mom and Dad? The world doesn’t revolve around y’all, and I don’t either.”
“You’ve made that abundantly clear, but I know where you go when the enforcers are after you.”
“No one’s after me.”
“Yet.”
“If you want to spend your life worrying about shit that hasn’t even happened, go ahead. But I’ll be out living mine.”
“You do that,” Emma said coldly. “Push everyone away. See how far you get. Why are you even here, anyway? You had to know this was coming.” He probably needed money already, and now he couldn’t ask. Or he simply knew there would be free coffee at her house.
Ben sat silently for several minutes, slowly twirling his cup. “I didn’t think you worked that late,” he said at last, obviously not intending to answer her question.
“I usually don’t. I was onto something important. Turned out . . . well, it wasn’t as important as I thought it was.”
“Like what? I’d love to get something on Larson.”
“What is this vendetta you have against him?”
“No vendetta. But I’ve studied him. His tournaments are all on YouTube, you know. He has tells like everyone else. He isn’t indestructible. I can take him apart.”
“Like you did last night?”
“Last night I was a little off my game, but I’ll get it back. I swear, Em. I know how to beat him.”
“How did you even find out about his room?” She’d never told a soul.
“People talk at other rooms.”
An uneasy idea twisted through her mind. “Ben, no matter how bad this gets, don’t you dare roll on him.”
To her relief, he scoffed and shook his head. “I’d never be allowed in another room in this city if anyone found out I did that.”
True. If only there were some other way for Ben to get blacklisted, Emma would be all for it, but Players getting raided wouldn’t be good for anyone. Rumor had it Damien had connections that would ensure it never happened. Whatever that meant. The less she knew, the better off she was. She asked no questions. She did her job and went home.
Except for tonight. How had Damien put it? The belly of the beast. If Ben was going in, then she was going, too. She was the only one who might be capable of pulling him from its jaws again. Their entire family depended on it.
* * *
“You’re not wearing that, are you?”
Liz’s exclamation greeted Emma as she left her bedroom, and she stopped dead and looked down at herself. “What’s wrong with it?”
Sitting on the living room couch holding a glass of wine, her best friend waved a manicured hand down the length of Emma’s body. “You’re wearing pants. You’re showing no skin.”
“I’m not going for the nightclub. I’m avoiding it at all costs.”
“You’re not going for work, either. And what’s wrong with the nightclub?”
Nothing was wrong with the nightclub, except for all the beautiful girls in their shrink-wrap dresses grinding on frat boys; the alcohol, the throbbing music. That wasn’t exactly her style. Emma shook her head, heading for the kitchen and contemplating a glass of wine for herself. Her stomach was in knots. Whether it was the thought of Ben ruining himself further or being in the presence of her boss again, she wasn’t sure. Both.
Liz, privy to the entire sorry affair, said, “Maybe if you look hot enough, you’ll throw Damien off his game. You can be Ben’s secret weapon.”
Emma hooted with laughter at that, taking a wineglass down from the cabinet. “Not likely.”
“You are way too hard on yourself. Come in here.” Liz stood and walked to Emma’s bedroom, carrying her own glass.
“Liz—”
“Hush. Come. Now.”
Sighing, Emma abandoned her task and followed her former college roomie, dreading the impending assessment. Her closet was in a sorry state. Aside from work clothes, she was a jeans and T-shirts kinda girl. Liz wouldn’t approve of a single thing she owned.
It only took Liz three minutes to figure that out. “We’re going to need to swing by my place,” she announced, thumbing through a sea of neutral colors.
“No. That isn’t necessary.”
Liz stepped back and shook her blonde head. “You drive me crazy. Here you’ve been blessed with this glorious red hair, and you insist on toning it down. Just once I’d love to see you in knock-out green. Or purple. Hell, at this point I’d settle for black.”
“I like what I like, Liz. Leave me alone.”
“What you like isn’t going to get you laid.”
“I’m not trying to get laid. I’m trying to stop my idiot brother from ruining my family.”
“It hasn’t occurred to you that getting laid might be the key to that?”
Emma stared wide-eyed at her friend. “Are you suggesting I sleep with Damien Larson to clear my brother’s debt? Who are you right now?” Except that she knew. Liz was Liz, and she loved her even if she did have some crazy ideas.
“You said he was hot. It sounds win-win to me.”
“He is hot. That’s beside the point. He’s . . .” Emma trailed off, wondering how to describe Damien. The devil was all that would come to mind. Beautiful. Tempting. Seeking whom he may devour. “He’s aptly named.”
Liz laughed at that. “At least let me doll you up. Please, Em? You can be a perfect angel tonight if you want, but I’d love to see you slay. I know you have it in you. Let’s go to my place.”
Some best friends might consider it a blessing to be the same size, but when two best friends’ tastes couldn’t be more opposite, and one best friend was pushy as hell, it could be a curse as well. E
mma acquiesced at last, letting Liz drive her over to her apartment for a full makeover that she sat through grudgingly. Liz slipped her into a green sleeve of a dress that left Emma’s slender arms bare and her legs on full display. Strappy fuck-me heels followed, and she nearly drew the line, but Liz’s pout wasn’t to be denied. Then her friend came armed with a curling wand and enough Urban Decay palettes to paint the walls.
She sat through Liz’s dabbing, lining, and brushing, obeying all commands, struggling to keep her eyes from watering when Liz came in with the mascara and liner. Her friend had the patience of a saint, but this was her thing, and Emma so rarely let her do it.
The clock ticked later and later. It was getting close to nine. Ben might already be there. Just as Emma was getting ready to rush Liz along, she stepped back, flourished her brush, and proclaimed, “Ta-daaaaa!”
Only mildly curious, Emma stood and walked to the full-length mirror, almost dreading what she would see. But her mouth parted at the sight that greeted her. The girl staring back was a stranger, yes, an unrecognizable, smoky-eyed, redheaded siren. But she was . . . well, she didn’t look half bad. The green dress pulled out a similar hue in her hazel eyes and emphasized the fire of her hair, so her friend had been onto something there. She’d never thought she would describe herself as sultry, but that was the word that came to mind. Holy hell, she looked sultry.
Liz was more jubilant than Emma had ever seen her. She bounced to Emma’s side and fiddled with her hair. In her heels, Emma towered over her. “I love it,” Liz said. “Love it. Seriously, I wish I could go witness this.”
In the reflective glass, Emma watched her pink-glossed lips twist as she met her friend’s gaze. “I wish I didn’t have to.” She fiddled with one soft curl that lay in front of her bare shoulder. All the sultriness and contouring in the world couldn’t hide the worry shadowing her expression. “But you did a great job. Am I on fleek?”
Liz rolled her eyes. “Oh my God. Sure. On fleek. Every eye in the room will be on you, that’s all I know.”
The only eye she was concerned about tonight was her brother’s, watching her disapproving scowl as he got his ass handed to him by her boss.
Chapter Four
On first glance, he saw a gorgeous redhead in a knockout green dress saunter into the room.
On second glance, he saw Emma.
Emma.
She’d come, just like she’d said she would. He’d figured it would be one of those empty threats, though any prospect of seeing her outside a work setting could hardly be considered a threat. Damien had been looking forward to it.
He glanced across the room, where her brother sat at one of the tables, grim-faced, already bleeding chips, and in danger of busting out. Emma homed in on him right away. Damien watched the shift on her face, the way her mouth set in a thin slash. And he watched as she surveyed the rest of the room, her gaze finally alighting on him.
He lifted his tumbler of scotch in her direction in a grim salute. Her chin immediately jutted up, the obstinate little maneuver that always made him think of branding the pale column of her throat with his mouth. Encircling it with his hand as he brought his lips lower, teasing at the plunging neckline of that dress.
Gone was her usual conservative attire. No glasses hid her wide, assessing eyes tonight. Her red hair was artfully arranged around her slim white shoulders, no pencil holding it up in place while another pencil rested behind one or both ears. Funnily enough, even with no less than two spares on her, she was always hunting for a pencil whenever he was in her office. He never called attention to the fact. He liked it when he flustered her.
The very first time they met for her job interview, he’d known almost from the moment she walked in the room that she was the one. They hadn’t spoken much beyond a standard question-and-answer session, but it had been her professionalism, her guileless wit, the way her cheeks turned rosy—and she couldn’t quite always meet his stare. He was well-versed in reading people, and he’d known her reluctance to look him in the eyes wasn’t shiftiness. It was pure, unawakened submission, and he’d been hard before she left the room. Aside from his immediate attraction to her, this was a woman who, as his employee, wouldn’t cheat him or lie to him. That was really all he required of someone handling the club’s accounts. Well, that and a strong affinity for numbers, which her résumé, degree, and transcripts had proven before he ever set eyes on her. As time had passed, he’d come to value her contribution to his workplace more than her beauty, and relegated her in his mind to hands-off status.
Right now, all he could think about was putting hands on.
Emma moved then, taking long, somewhat uncertain strides toward him, and Damien got his first real look at what that dress and those shoes did to her legs. Lengthened them, shaped them. Made him imagine those slim ankles locked around his hips. The image was no less tantalizing for its impossibility; in fact, it was more so. But while her attire screamed “siren,” her expression looked much as it had this morning: like she wanted to take his head off.
“How long has he been here?” she murmured as she approached.
“Drink?” he asked, gesturing to the array of liquor bottles behind the bar at his elbow.
“Damien, don’t bullshit me. How long?”
“Two hours.”
“How bad is it?” No sooner had she asked than a slam from the table across the room signaled her brother busting. Emma’s head jerked in that direction. Her smooth, pale shoulders rose as she inhaled, deflated as she sighed. He cataloged every move, every emotion that crossed her face. The desolation there was fascinating to watch.
“Why?” he asked, walking behind the bar to fix her a fucking drink himself. She was going to need it.
Her wary eyes followed him. “Why what?”
“Why do you let him do this to you?” A shot of Cuervo ought to fix her up. He poured it and slid it across the bar to her. Without hesitation, she picked it up and threw it back, wincing at the burn as she slammed the shot glass back on the table. “I told you,” she said, voice newly husky from the tequila. “My family.”
“Cut him off.”
“We can’t do that. He’s my brother.”
Damien put both hands on the bar and watched said brother get up from the table and pace a circle, his fingers laced behind his head. Everything about him screamed desperation, and when the prey showed fear, the predators closed in. He’d seen it countless times. The man was a swirling vortex who would suck down anyone and anything near him because he didn’t know how to hide his emotions and he didn’t know when to quit.
Damien straightened and shifted his gaze back to Emma’s distress. “Go let him see you,” he told her.
“If he doesn’t care . . .” she began, fingertips going to her lips as she stared at her sibling.
“Then you’ll know. Emma.” He said her name to get her attention, and when she turned her dampening eyes back to him, he felt ice cracking around his heart. “He doesn’t deserve you.”
“Don’t say that. You’ve never—” Shaking her head, she broke off and stalked away. This is what devotion did to people. Damien sighed and tossed a towel into the bin under the bar. Who the hell did deserve someone like her? Across the room, he saw when brother and sister connected, when Emma tried to get through to him. Tried to get him to leave. He also saw when the sandy-haired man shook his head obstinately and jerked his arm from her grasp, walking away.
Motherfucker ought to have his ass kicked in more ways than one, leaving her standing alone in the middle of the room like that. Damien was around the bar and striding toward the jackass almost before he knew it, conscious of Emma’s alarmed expression as he reached him and grabbed his arm. “Hey.”
Obviously expecting his sister had put her hands on him again, he whirled around with fury in his eyes, but it extinguished in one heartbeat upon seeing who had hold of him.
“You and me,” Damien challenged him. “I know you’re busted. I don’t care. I’m willing to
call us even, give it all back.”
Hope dawned in the asshole’s eyes, but it died a screaming death when Damien went on. “But first you have to win. What’s your name again?”
The man’s jaw worked soundlessly for a moment. “Benjamin.”
Emma approached with a clatter of high heels, looking back and forth between them in horror. Conversations died; the plink of chips and shuffling of cards came to a halt all around them.
“Benjamin. If you manage to knock me out, I want you to cash out, get the fuck out of my building, and never come back. Stop tormenting your sister.”
Emma asked the question that was all over Benjamin’s face, her eyes wide and stricken. “What if he loses? Damien, he can’t afford to go in any deeper—”
“Shut up, Emma,” Benjamin snapped, and Damien’s fist clenched, ready to knock him the fuck out for that alone.
“I think she makes a valid point,” he said instead. Control. “You can hardly afford to go further in the red, can you?” He rather enjoyed watching Ben seethe at that. “So, yes. If you lose . . .”
Emma looked as if her entire world balanced on the edge of a knife. She was staring up at him in fear and supplication, as unable as her brother to hide the churning emotion behind her hazel eyes. He could see the rapid fluttering of her pulse at her throat, the fine tremor of the lean muscles under her translucent skin. He’d never had anyone look at him that way before, as if her entire life depended on his next words. And maybe it did. After all her pious preaching about devotion to family, all her insistence that some people were willing to give up everything for others, the thought of putting her to the test was one he savored. How devoted are you, Emma?
The idea, when it hatched, slithered from its shell in his mind, dark and slimy but irresistible. His best ideas usually made him feel like a dirty sonofabitch; that’s how he knew they were good ones. Suddenly nothing seemed impossible anymore. That sweet pink mouth could be his for the taking.
And she would know what she came here to find out: just how much Benjamin cared about her, because any doting brother in his right mind would punch Damien out for the mere suggestion of what he was thinking.