Loe raamatut: «Friends With Benefits»

CHAPTER ONE

ALEXA LAWSON STEPPED OUT of the plate glass elevator onto her casino floor. While her uncle was out of the country on business she was the head bitch in charge at Halcyon, the newest and hottest den of decadence in Las Vegas. She was known in town for running all three of her uncle’s casinos, but this one was her baby because she’d designed it on her own.

Halcyon was the only casino in Vegas with a true woman’s touch. Twinkling fairy lights draped sensuously from the ceiling like long ropes of iridescent pearls, their reflection dancing across the lavish white marble floors. Gold finishes and furniture glittered like starbursts under brushed-brass chandeliers, and luscious greenery with exotic cream and peach blooms burst from the walls as reminders of the earthly pleasures one could find when people lost their inhibitions.

Designed after a wedding Alexa had been to in Athens, the casino was old-world romance with a touch of new-world naughtiness.

On her way out the door for the day, she snagged a chocolate-covered fig from the tray of a passing waiter. Wearing nothing but a pair of beige linen pants and a leather wristband with Halcyon embroidered in gold on it, this new waiter with his chiseled abs was a customer favorite.

His name tag read Apollo, but she doubted that was his real name.

“I see you’re taking the casino’s theme seriously,” Alexa told him. She glanced down at the tag hanging from the gold chain around his muscled neck and back up again to his sexy grin.

“Yes, ma’am,” Apollo returned, giving her a jovial wink that made her smile.

“Are you flirting with your employees?” a familiar voice said from behind her. His voice was deep with just a little grit in it, like a rich and chalky cabernet sauvignon.

Her best friend, Carter Hayes, appeared beside her looking supremely amused.

She thanked the waiter and he left to spread the wonder that was his abdominal region to the paying customers.

“Hey there, darling,” she said, biting into the fig. She met Carter’s eyes as she caught a smear of chocolate in the corner of her mouth with her tongue. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”

He shook his head at her deliberate provocation. Teasing him was one of her favorite pastimes. He could be so uptight. It was one of her responsibilities as best friend to make sure he lightened up sometimes.

Shoving his hands into the pockets of his worn chino pants, he frowned. “We should talk somewhere else.”

“Is that so?” she asked. She took another bite of the fig, letting her lips linger on it just a moment longer than required. “Sounds important.”

A corner of his full mouth quirked. “You know you’re turning me on, right? I’m not made of stone.”

She laughed. “Trust me, I know.” One of her girlfriends had bragged to her only days ago about how much of a real live man he was. She’d stopped Maggie before she shared any real details, but it had been enough.

Carter plucked the fig out of her fingers and popped the rest of it in his mouth before she could torment him with it again. His strong jaw chewed, the muscles methodically clenching and unclenching, his eyes on hers. Then he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his tanned, corded throat. He’d been her nerdy, shy neighbor who’d once asked her out with a “check YES or NO” note, but he’d all of a sudden grown up into one of the richest people in Las Vegas as well as its most eligible bachelor.

“Was it good for you?” she asked, her eyes sliding to the fig stem in his hands.

“Always,” he told her with a wink.

Shaking her head, she started walking toward the elevators. It wasn’t unusual for Carter to show up at one of her casinos. He’d created a facial recognition software that took pictures of customers and then matched them to a database to make sure dealers and customers weren’t working together to win money from casinos. It did a lot of other stuff, too, but that was the part she understood. It had been over a decade since he’d done the grunt work of programming software, but his right arm had a sleeve of binary code tattoos to remind everyone how he’d built his fortune.

Inside the elevator, she stuck in her key card to go to her private office floor.

“I see you’re wearing my favorite hoodie today.” When he was out with other girls he wore bespoke three-piece Savile Row suits that hugged his broad shoulders and cost more than a down payment on a house, but she didn’t warrant that kind of effort apparently.

He looked down at his navy blue sweatshirt. “You have a favorite?”

“Of course. That one brings out your eyes.”

He laughed. “Whatever you say, Alexa.”

“I pay attention, Carter. You give me far too little credit.”

He crossed his thick arms over his chest and raised a judgmental sandy brown eyebrow that winged up over the top of his round tortoiseshell glasses. “You haven’t returned a single text I’ve sent you in the past three weeks. The only reason I know you’re alive is because of social media. The photo montage of your current dating spree is impressive even for you.”

“Now, Carter, let’s not argue,” she appealed, giving him a jovial pat on the shoulder. “I’m sorry I didn’t answer your texts, but I am running three casinos in Uncle John’s absence, you know.”

“And playing just as hard, apparently.”

Alexa shrugged again. “It’s Vegas. I have a reputation to maintain. Besides, at least I haven’t chosen any of your friends to sleep with. That’s a little close to home, don’t you think?”

He had the decency to look embarrassed. “I didn’t know you and Maggie were friends until afterward.”

“For a man so interested in my social media presence, it would have only taken a quick search to find out.” She should keep her mouth shut. It wasn’t any of her business who he slept with. It wasn’t like she was scrolling through his follower list before she slept with someone.

The elevator dinged open and they stepped out onto her floor. They suspended their conversation until they reached her office. She loved what she thought of as her sanctuary in the middle of the chaos. Sprays of cream roses, peach peonies and blue hydrangeas graced her desk and sitting area, while ivory velvet curtains framed the large window overlooking the Vegas Strip.

“Dinner?” she asked, making them both dirty martinis at her minibar.

“Mexican?” he suggested.

She recited their orders to her assistant over the phone, then handed him a drink.

She took a seat on the white velvet sofa next to him. “I see you haven’t brought me a gift, so I hope the news you’re intending to share with me isn’t too bad.”

He pulled a small package out of his sweatshirt pocket and she blew out a breath. She didn’t want bad news when she’d been having such a good day.

“There are two things, but I’ll tell you the mostly good one first. We’re building a satellite office in San Francisco, so it looks like I might be gone for a while.”

Alexa stared at him, jittery anxiety pooling in her middle. “You’re leaving Las Vegas?”

“Not permanently, but for probably at least a year.”

“An entire year?” she spluttered. “Are you serious?”

At his affirmative nod, she tried to digest his bombshell, but the wrenching in her gut made it hard to think. She stared blankly at the sign on the coffee table in front of her of a famous singer/dancer who was starting Halcyon’s first residency in a month. She’d worked day and night to put the event together, enticing the performer to her casino instead of one of the more established places, but the accomplishment felt like dust in her mouth now.

Carter was her best friend, her rock and her brother all rolled up into basically the most important person in her life, and they’d been together since elementary school in the same city. She didn’t doubt the strength of their friendship, but a lot could happen in a year. They’d miss so much of each other’s lives—the small, mundane details of the day-to-day, late-night drinks and quickie lunches that made their friendship tick. Plus, he’d been right earlier—she’d barely seen him the past couple of months as it was.

“But it’s not final yet?” she asked hopefully.

“The final plans for the office need to be approved by the board, so it’ll be a month or so before we can start officially hiring, but it’s definitely happening.”

“Well,” she managed, her voice unnaturally cheery to cover up the sudden urge to cry, “congratulations on the expansion, but you really should have brought me more chocolate considering the circumstances.”

He handed over the package, a small box wrapped simply in silver paper with a periwinkle satin bow. Pulling it off, she lifted the lid and found eight delicate and colorful chocolates. “I know these didn’t come from anywhere around here,” she told him.

“I got back from Paris earlier in the week.”

“Parisian truffles,” she cooed, slightly mollified by his typical thoughtfulness. “A man of taste and sophistication as usual.” She closed the box and stuffed it into her purse. “Were you planning on giving these to some other girl before you found out you were leaving?”

He met her eyes, amusement dancing in his. “You’re the only woman I give truffles to, Alexa.”

That rang true, since he gave other women more expensive gifts. He’d sent Maggie an Hermès scarf after they’d slept together. Of course, that was the last time Maggie had ever heard from him, but still, an Hermès scarf was an Hermès scarf for pity’s sake.

“How nice to know I’m special,” she returned.

Their eyes met, the muscle in his jaw twitching, and it looked as if he was about to say something but changed his mind. “Unfortunately, there’s more bad news,” he told her, his expression mild again. “Chris Miller is stealing from you.”

“Chris Miller?” she repeated, completely floored. “My best general manager? That Chris Miller?”

At his solemn nod, she digested the truth of the news even though she was loath to. However, she trusted Carter literally more than any other person in the world, so there was no way he was lying, which meant she needed to accept the inevitable.

“How? How long? And how much?”

“He’s been working with one of the new poker dealers, having him lose to one of their friends. The three of them are splitting the takes. Probably two days and over $100,000 so far.”

Alexa laughed because it was an insignificant number for Chris to risk his job over. He made over three times that as his yearly salary. “He must be in some kind of trouble,” she speculated.

Carter shrugged. “You need to fire him. And the dealer.”

She bristled at the order. Of course she would fire them, but she didn’t need Carter to tell her so.

“Would you like to tell me how to do the rest of my job as well?”

He rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. He could be down there right now overseeing another run.”

“I’ll fire him after we eat,” she assured him, taking a much-needed sip of alcohol. She liked Chris and he’d been a good general manager, but she’d learned not to take this kind of stuff personally. The lure of so much free money was quite frequently too much temptation for employees to resist. She did, however, instruct the other general manager on duty to send the poker dealer in question on break.

“I’m sorry about this,” Carter told her. “I thought you’d rather hear the news from me instead of one of your tech guys.”

“That’s nice of you, but it happens.”

Besides, she was more broken up by the fact that her best friend was basically moving light-years away even though he hated San Francisco and the whole Silicon Valley scene. Just two months or so ago after a particularly nasty client meeting, he’d literally spent an entire evening ragging on everything about it, including the relatively blameless and objectively delicious sourdough bread.

Carter responded to a text, which was a thing he did all the time while they were hanging out. His undivided attention didn’t really exist. She assumed it was work-related, but when she glanced over, she saw that a cute blonde girl had literally sent him a nude picture. She looked away quickly since it wasn’t any of her business, but the image was burned in her brain.

Instead of being embarrassed like she was, Carter looked as if getting nudes was just an everyday occurrence for him. And maybe it was. Lord knew her DMs were crammed with dicks both figurative and literal. Of course, unlike Carter had just done, she never responded to said dicks.

“That’s one way to say hello,” she joked.

“Yeah, and a pretty effective one, too.”

She laughed, but the fact that Carter might be dating someone was inspiring something new and terrible in her—pure and simple jealousy. Maybe it was PMS hormones or something, because she’d never cared who Carter dated before. Of course, he’d never been leaving before, either.

Thankfully, a knock sounded and Carter got their food from the delivery guy before she could analyze her wayward emotional state.

While he set out the food, she texted her uncle about Chris Miller’s theft, making sure he knew she had everything under control.

“You got a hot date tonight?” Carter asked, referring to her texting.

She shook her head, setting her phone aside and piling a couple of tacos on her plate. “Nope, tomorrow.”

“So I get woman-about-town Alexa Lawson to myself for an entire night. I can’t remember the last time that happened.”

She snorted. “We hung out just last month.”

“On a Tuesday,” he pointed out. “For coffee.”

“I think we can admit we’ve both been guilty of getting bogged down with work lately,” she acknowledged. “Why don’t we go back to my place and catch up on some movie time? I’ve had to wait for you to finish that documentary series we started and I definitely resent you for it.”

Deep-cut documentaries were one of the first things they’d had in common as kids and had sustained them ever since.

“Sounds perfect,” he agreed.