Zach laughs and looks at me with an appreciative glance. “Poker is not all Monte Carlo is good for.”
I give him a saucy smirk, for some reason tickled by this blatant objectification. Perhaps it’s because I sense the teasing manner underneath it.
“Careful, my date for the night seems like the jealous type,” I retort.
And just where did that notion come from?
Zachary laughs good-naturedly, and Magnus allows one side of his mouth to hitch up into a smile.
“I don’t know, I’m feeling pretty lucky these days,” Zach says, for some reason looking at Magnus with a cunning gleam in his eye rather than me, which makes me think his “getting lucky” may be related to poker.
“Oh sí, sí, sí!. This is the place!”
We all turn at that loud announcement to find a young, brash, but strikingly handsome man walk in with two women on either side of him.
All three of the new guests have given the term “evening wear” their own interpretation. He’s wearing a brocade tuxedo jacket with a paisley red bow tie. For some reason, it works on him. His dates look like they’ve taken a pair of shears to perfectly acceptable evening gowns to show as much leg as possible. To be fair, if I had legs (and ass!) like theirs, I’d be inclined to show them off as well.
This must be the infamous Sebastian De León and his plus-two.
I turn to see Magnus’s reaction and find his face perfectly unreadable. He might as well be the concierge at a high-end restaurant, greeting this guest in the same professionally polite manner that he would any other.
Sebastian unwraps an arm from around the waist of one woman and points at Magnus with a grin. “El Rey!”
If Magnus is at all flattered by the royal label, he doesn’t show it. But he does walk over to greet the man warmly, allowing himself to be pulled into some version of a bro-hug that I’m sure he loathes. I stand back to enjoy the show.
“And the night gets even more interesting,” Zach says behind me. I turn to find him scrutinizing Magnus and Sebastian with a keen look in his eye.
When I turn back around, I scan the room. He has a point.
The Spanish “footballer” (which I’m worldly enough to know is a soccer player in American terminology).
The Dutch founder of Conniver Media, who would rather talk about hunting.
The American professional poker player.
The mysterious, but inconspicuous man who has yet to be introduced.
And of course, the women who came with them.
It’s like the opening to a walks-into-a-bar joke.
The only question is, what the hell is Magnus’s punchline?
Chapter Twenty-Six Magnus
As though on cue, an announcement is made that dinner is ready to be served.
I knew Sebastian would be arriving late. As though I would have invited anyone to this party without first doing my homework. He’s a notorious prima donna who likes to make an entrance.
I instructed my staff that dinner would not be served before the final guest arrived, nor would it be one minute later than after they made their appearance.
The guests are all guided upstairs to the upper deck, where the table is laid out. It’s a stunning setting, not that I give a damn beyond impressing those who feel the need to be impressed.
What’s far more important to me is the seating arrangement. It isn’t just a concern about the inflated egos in the room and who should and shouldn’t sit at the head of the table. It’s keeping certain people well away from others.
I watch Ruben. Thanks to his date, he’s already fully lubricated on Fernet-Branca, his beverage of choice. It’s true what they say about liquor magnifying one’s personality. Hopefully, his disgustingly lascivious nature will be enough of a turn-off to keep Sloane from showing him too much attention. Just to make sure, I’ve placed her at the other end of the table.
When we’re all seated, I’m at the head, with Ruben on my right to soothe his ego at not taking the other end, where Sebastian sits like a peacock, feathers on full display. I’ve seated him in between Sloane and Ruben’s “date” to give him a chance to fluff those feathers even more. Fortunately, Sloane seems at least amused by his machismo rather than turned off by it.
Ruben should be satisfied by the fact that Sebastian’s own dates are sitting directly across from him on my left and in the seat next to him. He’s as much a sucker for young, attractive female attention as he is for big game hunting. Fitting, since he treats them almost the same way.
I’ve deliberately kept Zach closer to me. He sits on the other side of Sebastian’s date on my left. As I assumed, his intelligence, specifically emotional intelligence, which allows him to read people too well, extends outside the world of poker. He has to know that this specific selection of dinner guests is not as random as it appears, even if he hasn’t figured out “what the end game is.”
The dark horse in attendance is nothing more than Simon McCune. He’s a freelance financial journalist, one of the few not under the Conniver Media umbrella. Too ethical to be bought, but smart enough to pick up the scent of a big story. He’s already written a few insightful pieces about my past year of selling off assets and hoarding money. He’s written even more about who I’ve been meeting with, speculating with the rest of the world as to what I’m up to. I’ve strategically placed him on the other side of Sloane. Whatever tidbits she gets from Sebastian’s inadvertent crowing—and the man is notorious for speaking before thinking—Simon will get as well, and hopefully, put two and two together. Although his wife sits across from him, I’m hoping that being placed between Zach and Ruben’s hired plus-one for the evening will keep her occupied.
