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But what if this was her last chance? A man who would fly thousands of miles for a highly secretive event could disappear just as easily given half a chance. She’d been lucky to be in the right place to find out where he’d be at this point in time.
Fate had handed her the opportunity. She wasn’t going to blow it.
The limo hit a bump, bringing her back to reality.
Despite the glitzy lights and Vegas-style atmosphere, the tiny island of Macau held a charisma and steeped-in-history feel that had spilled over from mainland China. She held her breath as they crossed over the Lotus Bridge into Cotai, their final destination.
Bicycles raced alongside sports cars and nineteen-fifties buses in a spectacular blend of ancient and modern.
Less than ten minutes later, they rolled to a stop. Exiting, she looked around and her trepidation escalated. The underground car park was well lit enough to showcase top-of-the-line luxury sports cars and blinged-out four-by-fours next to stretch limos. The net worth in the car park alone was enough to fund the annual gross domestic product of a small country.
The buzz of excitement in her group fractured her thoughts and she hurried forward into waiting lifts. Like her, the other nineteen hostesses were dressed in red gowns for the first evening, and the ten male hosts dressed in red jackets.
Six bodyguards accompanied them into the lifts and Ruby stemmed the urge to bolt as the doors started to close. Five seconds later it was too late.
The doors opened to gleaming parquet floors with red and gold welcoming carpet running through the middle of the vast, suspended foyer.
On the walls, exquisite tapestries of dragons flirting with maidens were embellished with multihued glass beads. Red and gold Chinese-silk cloth hung in swathes from the tapered ceiling to the floor, discreetly blacking out the outside world.
Two winged staircases led to the floor below where a sunken section in the middle had been divided into twelve gaming tables, each with its own private bar and seating area.
All around her, masked men in bespoke tuxedos mingled with exquisitely clad women dripping with stunning jewellery that complemented their breathtaking masks. Granted, the number of women was marginally less than men, but from the way they carried themselves Ruby suspected these women wielded more than enough power to hold their own against their male counterparts.
A tall, masked, jet-haired woman wearing a sophisticated-looking earpiece glided forward and introduced herself as Head Hostess. In succinct tones, she briefed them on their roles.
Ruby tried to calm her jangling nerves as she descended the stairs and headed for the bar of the fourth poker table.
A bar she could handle.
Nevertheless, she held her breath as the first group of men took their places at the table. They all wore masks in varying degrees of camouflage and design. As she mixed her first round of drinks and delivered it to the table, Ruby tried to glean if any of them resembled her quarry.
One by one, she dismissed them. Eventually, they drifted off and another group took their place.
A grey-haired man—the oldest in her group—immediately drew her attention. He carried himself with command and control, but he was too old to be Narciso Valentino and his frame was slightly stooped with age.
He snapped his fingers and threw out an order for a glass of Sicilian red. Ruby pursed her lips and admonished herself not to react to the rudeness. Five men took their places around the table, leaving only one other space to be filled.
Safely behind the bar after delivering their drinks order, she watched their bets grow larger and bolder.
Music pumped from discreet loud speakers, and through a set of double doors guests took to the dance floor. It wasn’t deafening by any means but Ruby felt the pulse of the provocative music through the soles of her feet.
She swallowed down the mingled distaste and latent fear as she noticed things were beginning to get hot and heavy as guests began to loosen their inhibitions.
She could do this. Just because she was a Trevelli didn’t mean she would lose sight of her goals. Decadence and excess were her parents’ thing. They needn’t be hers...
The lights overhead dimmed.
A door to one side of the lift labelled The Black Room swung open and two men stepped onto the gangway.
One wore a gold half-mask that covered him from forehead to nose. The aura of power that radiated from him raised the very temperature of the room.
But the moment Ruby’s eyes encountered the second man, her belly clenched.
The head hostess drifted towards him but he raised a hand and waved her away. At the sight of those slim fingers, recognition slammed into her. She watched, dry-mouthed, as he sauntered down the steps and headed for her side of the room.
He stopped in front of her bar.
Silver eyes bore into hers, drilling down hard as if he wanted to know her every last secret. The smile slowly left his face as he continued to stare at her, one eyebrow gradually lifting in silent query.
His silver and black onyx mask was artistically and visually stunning. It revealed his forehead and the lower part of his face and against its brilliance his olive skin glowed in a way that made her want to touch that chiselled jaw.
Piercing eyes drifted over her in a lazy sweep, pausing for a long second at her breasts. Her breath hitched in her throat as her body reacted to his probing gaze.
Narciso Valentino. If she’d had two dollars to rub together she’d have bet on it.
Her mouth dried as she looked into his eyes and lost every last sensible thought in her head.
‘Serve me, cara mia. I’m dying of thirst.’ His voice was raw, unadulterated sin, oozing what Ruby could only conclude was sex appeal.
At least she thought so because the sound of it had transmitted a tingling to parts of her body she hadn’t known could tingle just from hearing a man’s voice. And why on earth had her hands grown so clammy?
When his brow arched higher at her inactivity, she scrambled to think straight. ‘W-what would you like?’
His eyes moved down again, paused at her throat, where her pulse jumped like a frenzied rabbit.
‘Surprise me.’
He turned abruptly and all signs of mirth leached from his face.
Across the small space between the bar and the poker table, he speared the silver-haired man with an unforgiving gaze.
The man stared back, the part of his face visible beneath his mask taut despite his whole body bristling with disdain.
Animosity arced through the air, snapping coils of dangerous electricity that made Ruby’s pulse leap higher. Her gaze slid back to the younger man as if drawn by magnets. She told herself she was trying to decipher what sort of drink to make him but, encountering those broad shoulders again, her mind drifted into impure territory, as it had outside the nightclub in New York.
Focus!
The older man had requested a Sicilian red but instinctively she didn’t think the man she’d concluded was Narciso would go for wine.
Casting her gaze over the bottles of spirits and liqueurs, she quickly measured the required shots, mixed a cocktail and placed it on a tray.
Willing her fingers not to shake, she approached the poker table and placed his drink at his elbow.
He dragged his gaze from the older man long enough to glance from the pale golden drink to her face. ‘What is this?’ he asked.
‘It’s a...Macau Bombshell,’ she blurted out the name she’d come up with seconds ago.
One smooth brow spiked as he leaned back in his seat. ‘Bombshell?’ Once again, his gaze drifted over her, lingered at the place where her dress parted mid-thigh in a long slit. ‘Would you place yourself in that category, too? Because you certainly have the potential.’
Right, so really he was one of those. A Playboy with a capital P.
A man who saw something he coveted and went for it, regardless of who got hurt. The clear image of his hand on another woman made her spine stiffen in negative reaction, even as a tiny part of her acknowledged her disappointment.
Irritated with herself, she pushed the feeling away.
Now she knew what sort of man she was dealing with, things would proceed much smoother.
‘No, I wouldn’t,’ she said briskly. ‘It’s all about the drink.’
‘I’ve never heard such a name.’
‘It’s my own creation.’
‘Ah.’ He sipped the champagne, falernum, lemon and pineapple mix. Then he slowly tasted the cocktail without taking his eyes off her. ‘I like it. Bring me one every half-hour on the button until I say otherwise.’
The implication that she could be here for hours caused her teeth to grind. She looked from the dealer to the other players at the table, wondered if she could ask to speak to Narciso privately now.
‘Is there a problem?’ he queried.
She cleared her throat. ‘Well, yes. There are no clocks in this place and I don’t have a watch, so...’
The silver-haired man swore under his breath and moved his shoulders in a blatantly aggressive move.
‘Hold out your hand,’ Narciso said.
Ruby’s eyes widened. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Give me your hand,’ he commanded.
She found herself obeying before she could think not to. He removed an extremely expensive and high-tech-looking watch from his wrist and placed it on her right wrist. The chain link was too large for her but it didn’t mask the warmth from his skin and something jagged and electric sliced through her belly.
When his hand drifted along the inside of her wrist, she bit back a gasp, and snatched her hand back.
‘Now you know when I’ll next need you.’
‘By all means, keep me waiting as you try out your tired pick-up lines,’ the older man snapped with an accent she vaguely recognised.
Silver Eyes shifted his gaze to him. And although he continued to sip his cocktail, the air once again snapped with dark animosity.
‘Ready for another lesson, old man?’
‘If it involves teaching you to respect your betters, then I’m all for it.’
The resulting low laugh from the man next to her sent a shiver dancing over her skin. On decidedly wobbly legs, she retreated behind the bar and forced herself to regulate her breathing.
Whatever she’d experienced when those mesmerising eyes had locked into hers and those long fingers had stroked her was a false reaction. She refused to trust any emotion that could lead her astray.
Focus!
She glanced down at the watch. The timepiece was truly exquisite, a brand she’d heard of and knew was worth a fortune.
Unable to stop herself, she skated her fingers over it, her pulse thundering all over again when she remembered how he’d looked at her before slipping the watch on her wrist. She shifted as heat dragged through her and arrowed straight between her legs.
No!
She wasn’t a slave to her emotions like her parents. And she wasn’t the gullible fool Simon had accused her of being.
She had a goal and a purpose. One she intended to stick to.
Exactly half an hour later, she approached, willing her gaze not to trace those magnificent shoulders. Up close they were even broader, more imposing. When he shifted in his seat, they moved with a mesmerising fluidity that made her want to stop and gawp.
Keeping her gaze fixed on the red velvet table, she quickly deposited his drink on the designated coaster and picked up his almost-empty one. He flicked a glance at her.
‘Grazie.’
The sound of her mother tongue on his lips flipped her stomach with unwanted excitement. She told herself it was because she was one step further to confirming his identity but Ruby suspected it was the sheer sexiness of his voice that was the bigger factor here.
‘Prego,’ she responded automatically before she could stop herself. She bit her lip and watched him follow the movement. A deeply predatory gleam entered his eyes.
‘I want the next one in fifteen minutes.’ His gaze returned to his opponent, who looked a little paler since the last round of drinks. ‘I have a feeling I’ll be done by then. Unless you want to quit while you’re behind?’ he asked, sensual lips parted in a frightening imitation of a smile.
The older man let out a pithy response that Ruby didn’t quite catch. Two players quickly folded their cards and left.
The two men eyeballed each other, pure hatred blazing as they psychologically circled one another.
Narciso laid down his cards in a slow, unhurried flourish. His opponent followed suit with a move that was eerily similar and made Ruby frown. The connection between the two men was unmistakable but she couldn’t quite pin down why.
When the older man laughed, Ruby glanced down at his cards. She didn’t know the rules of poker, but even she guessed his cards were significant.
She held her breath. Not with so much as a twitch did Narciso indicate he’d just lost millions of dollars.
‘Give it up, old man.’
‘Mai!’ Never.
* * *
Ten minutes later, Narciso calmly laid down another set of cards that won him the next game. Hearing Giacomo’s grunt of disbelief was extremely satisfactory. But it was the indrawn breath of surprise from the woman next to him that drew his attention.
He didn’t let himself glance at her yet. She’d proven a seriously delicious distraction already. He had plans for her but those plans would have to wait a while longer.
For now, he revelled in Giacomo’s defeat and watched a trickle of sweat drip down his temple.
They were barely an hour in and he’d already divested him of several million dollars. As usual, Giacomo had been lured in by the promise of trouncing his son, enabling Narciso to lay the bait he knew wouldn’t be resisted.
The last game had won him a midsize radio station in Anaheim, California.
It would be a superb addition to his already sizeable news and social media portfolio. Or he could shut it down and declare it a loss.
