He doesn’t look at me. His voice is pitched low, his words rapid, his eyes pleading with Gibson. “One more extension, that’s all I’m asking for. Another twenty, just to give me another shot. Hell, I’ll take ten and not complain.”
His desperation is shocking. Embarrassing. “Daniel, please.”
It’s as if I am invisible to him. That’s how tight a grip his panic has on him. “Come on, Gibson. You gotta help me out here, man.”
The older man’s face is sober, his calm unwavering. But then he releases a slow breath. “I will see what I can do.”
Retrieving his phone from his pocket, Gibson calmly exits the salon.
“Are you insane?” I hiss at Daniel when we’re out of earshot from anyone else in the room. “You can’t possibly be crazy enough to keep borrowing money and gambling it away. What’s wrong with you?”
“I don’t have it.” His reply is toneless, wooden. “I can’t pay back seventy-five grand tonight. I need to recoup my losses and then some, or I’m fucked.”
I step back, mutely shaking my head. “You said you had it under control. You said the money you were getting from the new project was enough to cover the risk.”
“It is. It will be . . . but not until the work is under way. If I can’t make good on what I owe Jared Rush from this game tonight, there might not be a project anymore.”
Oh, God.
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I can’t believe this is happening.
Gibson returns, his schooled expression telling us nothing. He puts his phone back into his pocket, then formally extends his arm toward the salon’s exit. “If you would follow me, please, Mr. Hathaway.”
I’m not sure if I’m supposed to accompany them or not. I have no idea where they’re going, but the last thing I want to be is left alone to wait for Daniel in the salon or anywhere else in this strange place.
Besides, I’ve never seen him so unnerved and anxious before.
As upset with him as I am for his stupidity tonight, I’m scared for him, too.
I’m scared for both of us.
I slip my hand in his and walk with him to whatever awaits us at the other end of the long hallway.
4
MELANIE
We are taken to a private elevator, then up to the top floor of the five-story mansion.
Daniel fills the short ascent with nervous chatter about the unlucky cards he was dealt during the last game and second-guesses about how he could have turned the odds in his favor if he’d been able to play a few more rounds.
He doesn’t seem to notice the other man’s silence. He’s still talking as if he’s going to get another chance to sit at the table again and try to recoup his losses with more of Jared Rush’s money.
I have no such delusions.
Gibson leads us out of the lift and down an opulent corridor. This floor seems more personal, more intimate than the one we just left. I might be tempted to gape in awe at the fortune in framed art on the walls and the beautiful museum-quality furnishings everywhere I look, but I can hardly focus on a thing. My heart is pounding. Every fiber in my body is taut with apprehension.
Gibson pauses with us outside a pair of towering, closed double doors at the far end of the hallway and I feel as if we’re being brought to the gallows.
His sober announcement only confirms my dread.
“Mr. Rush thought it would be best to discuss the matter with you in private,” he says to Daniel.
“Oh. I didn’t realize he was here.” Daniel swallows, his palm going a little sweaty against mine.
Gibson inclines his head without comment. “He’s expecting you inside, sir.”
Daniel clears his throat and offers a stiff nod. “Sure. Okay, thanks.”
As Gibson turns the antique brass handles and the doors start to swing inward, Daniel swivels a blanched look over his shoulder at me.
“Maybe you should wait out here, Mel. This business is between Rush and me.”
Honestly, there’s nothing I’d like more than to avoid whatever awaits inside this room. But I’ve never been afraid of confrontation before, and as much as I appreciate Daniel’s attempt to shield me from his problems, that’s not how I’m wired.
If we’re a couple, that means his problems are mine as well.
I shake my head and lace my fingers more solidly through his. “It’s okay. We came here together, so I’m going in with you.”
Gibson remains in the hallway as we enter the room. He closes us inside the masculine study with a soft clack of the latch at our backs. It echoes in my ears like a gunshot.
Facing us is a massive walnut desk that looks like it belongs in an English manor. The piece dominates the dimly lit chamber, but the big chair behind it is empty.
Not that my gaze lingers there for long. Like the rest of my senses, my vision is pulled toward another point in the enormous room.
The place where Jared Rush is seated on an oxblood tufted-leather sofa.
He’s even more arresting than any photo can convey.
Dressed in a dark suit and snowy white dress shirt unfastened below his tan throat, he is leaned back against the glossy leather, one ankle resting on his opposite knee. In his long-fingered grasp a lit cigar smolders, tendrils of fragrant, cedar-and-spice smoke curling up from the glowing tip.
Although he’s staring straight at us, he hardly acknowledges our arrival.
No greeting. No pretense of friendliness.
“Hey, Jared. Thanks for seeing me,” Daniel says a bit too cheerily. He steps farther inside, pulling me along by our clasped hands. “Hell of a game going on down there. It’s damn hard to walk away when there’s a million-plus in chips on the table just waiting to be won.”
His chuckle is met with a prolonged silence.
“I understand you ran into some bad luck tonight.”
The flat statement of fact is voiced in a deep baritone, carrying the smooth traces of a Southern accent. His hair is long, a
