Chapter Two

~James~

“I’m gonna get so wasted tonight!”

“Calm down, Jake, we’re going to a magic show. You don’t want to be messy.”

“Yeah, why the hell you chose to go to a magic show on our first night in Vegas is beyond me, Missy.”

I listened as the ten people in the limo with me bantered about. They were my top sales people from the past quarter, and they were certainly a lively bunch.

Then again, I knew that. While my company had just hit our first billion in profit in a fiscal year, we were still small enough where I knew all of them, their names and their quirks.

Perhaps it was a waste of resources to take my board and my top ten to an all-expenses paid, three-day getaway to Vegas, but we had earned it. We had been working so hard for so long, I had to do something amazing to reward them.

Of course, part of that had involved a contest where the first place person got to pick what show we went to on the first night and the second place winning on the second night. Melissa Decanther had blown everyone away, winning the chance to choose for our premier night in Vegas.

Unfortunately for some of our group, Missy was a magic enthusiast. She adored everything mildly hocus or pocus and when she found out one of her favorite magicians was going to be performing, she claimed that faster than a wildfire in California.

Personally, I couldn’t care less. If I didn’t like the show, I could just slip down to the casino and have some fun. I was in the mood to go with the flow and have some fun; I wasn’t going to be particular about it.

We arrived and pulled into the valet lane to get dropped off. We lucked out that there was room at the hotel connected to the casino where the magician was performing, and I booked all of my top earners fairly nice accommodations while I bought myself one of the most expansive suites with my own money.

I honestly never would have thought that we would come so far in such a short amount of time. My business had been an idea for nearly a decade, but only up and running for three years. We had spent fourteen months completely in the red, so the thought that twenty-two months later we would be in our first billion of pure profit was insane.

I felt no shortage of pride as I watched them all hid in. I took up the end of the procession, preferring to watch over them like little ducks parading through the hotel.

We had our own guide waiting for us, one that I had made my secretary set up and everything. I had offered for her to join us as well, but she had declined as she would prefer to stay out of the city of sin. I, of course, thought that was ridiculous, but I didn’t tell her as much.

“Hello!” The guide said, walking right up to us like she knew us. But I supposed that was her job. If I recalled right, my secretary had sent pictures of all of us as well as mini-bios with all of our likes. “How were all of your travels?”

There was a murmur of generally positive phrases, and her smile just grew that much more broad.

“Fantastic! Now you all arrived fifteen minutes before schedule, so that is fantastic! If you want to follow me to the bar, we’re whipping up the favorite drinks that were included in your profile, and then we’ll head to the show, where you’ll be in some of the best seats in the house!”

“Oh my God!” Missy cried, jumping up and down. “I’m so excited, like so unbelievably excited. You don’t even know.”

“Boy, I know.” Vanessa said from the middle of our gaggle. “You wouldn’t shut up about it the entire flight. I could literally recite every single thing you know about this stupid magician in alphabetical order.”

“Come on, I wasn’t that bad!”

“Guys,” I said, cutting in. They all fell silent, surprised by my interjection. I was told I had that sort of effect on people. I wasn’t sure if it was because of my height, my broad frame or my deep voice, but whatever worked, worked. “I think the guide is waiting to get us those drinks.”

“Oh, right…”

They fell in line after that, and we walked over to the oversized, overwrought and overly lit bar that took up nearly an entire wall of the casino. It was styled to be retro, with plenty of attractive workers to sate people’s thirst with their specialty drinks.

Casinos were funny that way. There was a whole slew of alcoholic beverages that they gave out for free; with a dozen or so servers walking across the floor offering them on the regular. These were to make sure people stayed tipsy or drunk, because inebriated people always spent more than they should.

But on top of all those free libations, there were drinks you could pay more for. These were usually top shelf alcoholic drinks, or one that required a ton of ingredients. And, of course, every bartender’s worst nightmare: the mojito.

I had made sure to buy us a package that included unlimited signature drinks however. Sure, it had been a pretty penny, but what was the point of making money if you didn’t spend it? Nothing. I was born without it and I would die without it. It wasn’t like I had any kids to pass it on to like my own Dad had.

The bartenders were on their game. There were eleven drinks all lined up in a row, yet none of them were watered down by the ice melting yet. One by one, we picked up the drinks on our profile until I grabbed my gin and tonic.

Sure, it wasn’t the most exciting drink, but I didn’t need some fruity, elaborate cocktail. If I was having alcohol, I wanted to taste the alcohol. After all, what was a drink without a little burn?

We made it to the auditorium without any other shenanigans, and I saw there was indeed a line down the hall and out the door, but we breezed right past it, and our guide lead us down to the comfy, recliner seats where we all filed in to sit down.

“Now you’ll notice on the side of your seat that there’s a call button. Feel free to press that if you need anything! After the show, just stop by the front desk and you will be given your room assignments, key cards and anything else you might need! My name was Becky, and I hope y’all enjoy the show!”

She gave us a cheesy little salute then hustled off, no doubt just in time to greet another group.

“I cannot thank you enough for this!” Missy said, turning and looking to me with big eyes from her seat.

“Don’t worry about it. You earned it.” I gave her a short smile, but that was it. I had long since learned that I needed to walk a fine line with some of my employees. Not because they were scheming or dangerous, just that some of them developed crushes far too easily and relationships were the last thing I was interested in. It just so happened that Melissa was a hopeless romantic, and had probably cycled through everyone in the office at least once for her crush du jour.

Luckily, I didn’t have to worry about that for long, because the lights were dimming and the show was underway.

It wasn’t half bad, but it also was wholly not my thing. I gave it a solid twenty minutes to see if it could catch my attention, but after the good ol’ college try, I told my crew I was going to head to the bathroom and ducked out.

Once I was safely in the hall, I pulled out my phone and checked it. Nothing peeved me more than people who let their bright screens ruin other people’s experience in a movie theater, so between traveling and arriving, I hadn’t had time to check it in ages.

There were still quite a few emails from work, but all of those could wait until tomorrow. I saw I had a couple of text messages, so I clicked on that first.

One was from the local burrito joint telling me about a special. I realized, given my net worth, using a coupon on a ten-dollar burrito bowl wasn’t going to affect me one way or the other, but my frugal nature had been passed down by my mother so I wasn’t going to shake it anytime soon.

But the second text was from Clarissa.

Great.

Clarissa was a beautiful, intelligent and capable woman that I had met in a conference about five years back. Unfortunately, she also happened to be madly in love with me.

She often tried to hide it, and I certainly didn’t do anything to encourage it, but sometimes you couldn’t help what you felt. Once, long ago, she had been my booty call, and while she still tried to reconnect every now and then, I always refused her.

I quickly messaged her that I was in Vegas and I hoped that she was doing well then tucked my phone away.

But her message had me remembering all the nights we used to spend together, entangled around each other’s bodies. Sweating, moaning, exploring.

Shaking my head, I decided to head to that same overwrought bar. My gin and tonic was almost empty anyways.

I stopped as I headed into the casino side of the building, looking around and taking it all in. The lights, the smells, the sounds. I could see how people were taken in and left with nothing by its unforgiving bosom.

I, however, wasn’t really interested in gambling tonight. Instead, I was much more about getting my drink on, so I continued my trek back to the bar.

All was going well, no surprises or anything like that, but as I approached the old watering hole, my eyes caught on a particular woman sitting there.

She was in a nice white blouse and a black pencil skirt, sensible heels on her feet, although one of them had fallen to the floor behind her stool. Her jet-black hair was done up in a braided crown around her head, and while I couldn’t see her full face, I could tell that she was looking into her wallet furtively, counting something while the bartender waited there somewhat impatiently.

I didn’t know what struck me about her, but there was definitely something. Maybe it was her round ass as it perched atop the stool, maybe it was the proud but somewhat defeated slump to her shoulders. Either way, without even deciding, my body took me over to the bar, where I leaned on the counter and addressed the bartender.

“I’ll take care of what she’s having,” I said, placing my empty glass on the bar. “And I’ll take a refill on the gin and tonic.”

The woman looked up at me, surprised, her almond eyes blinking slightly. She was wearing minimal, professional-esque makeup, but her cat eyeliner emphasized the interesting shapes of her features. If I had to guess, she was most likely mixed race, maybe Asian or Latina and definitely Caucasian.

“You looked like you could need a change of luck,” I said simply, giving her a bit of a shrug.

For a moment, I was sure that she was going to tell me to step off, but instead she sighed and gratefully took the drink the server slid to her.

“You’re more right than you know.”