She played along. “Well, it’s an unusual name. A family name, actually. My mother’s TeJoan and my father’s TeJack.”
“Ah.” He grinned. “That explains it.”
She settled back in her chair. She knew how Vegas worked. She wasn’t naive enough to believe any of this was real. A guy like Nick could have any woman in the room. At the moment, she had all the sexual allure of a middle-school teacher with swollen ankles. No, he was trying to throw her off her game, win back some of his money. It wasn’t personal, just strategy.
“And you’re just plain ol’ Nick,” she said.
“Yup. Just plain ol’ Nick.”
“Well, just plain ol’ Nick, nice stack of chips you’ve got there.”
“Not as big as yours, though.”
“You don’t play as well as I do.”
“True,” he said. “Got any pointers?”
“Sure. Quit while you’re ahead.”
“That’s what you should do, TeAnne. Quit while you’re ahead.” Except he wasn’t smiling when he said it. Teddy flushed for a different reason altogether. Did he work for the casino? Or Sergei?
Teddy refocused her attention on the table. She noticed that the businessmen had left, replaced by two of the plastic blondes who had pulled up in the limo earlier. A fat stack of chips sat between them. It was time to get to work. She had been playing tight all night. No big moves, no showy hands. But with the addition of the plastic blondes, the mood at the table shifted, like when she’d hit the accelerator on her old Volvo. Stakes shot up with each hand. Her winnings grew. The rest of the players leaned in.
* * *
A little after two in the morning, Nick caught her eye. The last few heavy losses had been his, but he wasn’t backing down. She peeked at her hole cards and made up her mind: he was her next target.
She pushed every round. Raised big before and after the flop and again at the turn. She studied Nick. Again, Teddy waited for the feeling of anxiety to take hold, but nothing. Her body turned cold, so cold her skin pebbled. There was a faint metallic tang on her tongue.
She spun around to find that the African-American guy she’d noticed earlier had returned. She tried to focus on the game, but now she couldn’t get a read on anyone. She couldn’t tell who was holding, who was bluffing. Her head pounded. Not a seizure—not now. She reached for the meds in her bag, her throat suddenly dry. Her hands shook and she spilled pills on the carpet. She bent down to gather them.
When she looked up, she saw Sergei drifting by the tables, checking out the action. Teddy swallowed. He hadn’t noticed her, not yet, but if there was anything her bookie was good at, it was sniffing out weakness. Sure enough, his gaze landed on her. There was no recognition in his eyes, but his frown told her he was thinking. Teddy did not want to be the one to make Sergei Zharkov think.
“Ma’am?” the dealer said. “Your bet.”
Every sensation she experienced was magnified, the blast of the AC on her already cold skin, the itch of her wig, the feeling of pills in her hand. She could hear conversations from tables away as if they were unfolding next to her. Teddy’s vision swam as she tried to focus on her cards. A pair of jacks with one on the board, giving her three of a kind. She was up $50,000. A minute ago she’d thought her cards were enough to win, but now she wasn’t sure. She was playing blind. She shoved her entire stack of chips into the pot. It was an ugly move, but it was the only thing she could think to do. A gasp sounded around the table. Over one hundred thousand riding on a single card. The pit boss strolled over to watch. So did a pair of casino security guards.
The other players folded fast. All eyes shot to Nick. He waited a beat. Then, his gaze fixed on Teddy, he met her bet. “You know,” he drawled, “it’s funny. All my life, I’ve been lucky with the ladies.”
“That’s how the saying goes,” Teddy said. “Lucky in love, unlucky at—”
The corner of his lip twitched as if he was fighting a grin. He flipped his cards.
Two queens. A third sat on the board.
She’d lost it all. Everything. Gone.
CHAPTER TWO
TEDDY STUDIED THE CARDS SPREAD before her. She didn’t want to believe it, but there they were: three queens. Nick had taken her for everything.
The edges of her vision went dark, and for one mortifying moment she thought she might pass out—just fall face-first on the center of one of the Bellagio’s best tables. She did a quick mental check: no tingling in her fingers, no nausea. It wasn’t a seizure, just plain ol’ terrifying panic, brought on by the psychotic amusement-park ride that was her life.
“Hey,” she heard Nick say, as though speaking to her from a great distance. “You okay?”
She caught his eye and quickly looked away. “Fine,” she said, pushing back from the table. If this were an amusement-park ride, she wanted off. Her legs felt like Jell-O, just as they had when she’d been twelve and ridden the Tower of Terror at Disneyland with her dad.
Oh, God, my dad.
She didn’t want to think about him. Teddy searched for a comeback to brush off Nick’s concern, but she had nothing. She didn’t even know what her next move would be—all she knew was that she had to get out of the casino. Now.
“I’m done for the night, I think,” she said, gesturing toward her cards.
From the corner of her eye, Teddy caught another glimpse of Sergei. She grabbed her purse and moved toward the exit that would take her out of the poker room and onto the casino’s main floor.
“Just a minute, ma’am,” the pit boss called after her. She glanced back to see him standing with one finger pressed against his earpiece—an earpiece
