Chapter Thirty-Five
They decided to try several new MRE flavors for lunch since it was hopefully the last time they would have a reason to eat them. The pasta and teriyaki chicken were not terrible, but Enrique looked forward to returning to his personal chef’s cooking.
The cabin was picked up, all items used returned to their original locations and there was still plenty of time to wait.
“How bout a rousing game of Blackjack? You beat me mercilessly at Go Fish, War, and Rummy. It’s time to enter my world now,” Enrique suggested as they took their places on the couch in front of the dying fire.
“That is the game where you try to get as close to twenty-one as possible without going over, right?” Leigh asked.
“Correct. And there is usually, but not always, a small wager involved to keep things interesting. Are you up for the challenge?” His warm honey eyes had a mischievous glint .
“I’m fine with playing the game, but gambling… not my thing. I have issues with people throwing hard-earned money away on a game, and I have student loans to pay for.” Leigh picked up her two cards and decided whether to ask for another.
“I never play for money. Back in the boy’s home, we played for help with our chores, extra dessert, that kind of thing. With my brothers, we play with chips for bragging rights or to get donations for a charity or something. Harmless fun. What do you say?” Enrique had yet to pick up his cards. He had an agenda here and was going to apply as much charm as needed to convince her.
“I’m not sure exactly what we would wager on. We are in completely different universes as far as income. You have a staff to do your chores. This is silly.” Exasperated with him before the game even began, she placed her cards back down on the couch cushions.
“That is the beauty of playing this game with a billionaire. If you win, you can make me pay to help or accomplish something beyond your means, and if I win, I get something more valuable than money.” His most charming smile played on his lips while hope radiated from him.
Leigh knew he really wanted to play with wagers and felt like she was being cornered into something she may not like. “I don’t feel comfortable wagering you for money when you would be wagering for something like my time or assistance. It feels weird. I mean, what would I even wager? You donate a free hot meal at the homeless shelter, and I give you twenty bucks off your half-million dollar bill for the ski lessons? It’s ridiculous. Let’s play for fun and save the betting for the men.” Having said her peace, she picked up her cards again and took an extra card off the top of the deck.
“Not so fast, trust me on this. It’s going to make things so much more interesting. Let’s do this. I will give you say… Five hundred grand to wager. You decide what causes are worthy of that amount of investment. I will wager you things that have no monetary value. Your student loan budget is safe with me.” Enrique placed his elbows on his thighs and leaned in slightly, anxious for her response.
Leighann’s hand drooped in front of her, cards forgotten as she regarded him. He was thrumming with energy like a little boy about to unwrap a gift and hoping it held the toy he had been asking for. Something was going on here… Realization hit her so hard it nearly knocked her backward, her cheeks flaming with embarrassment and anger.
“Enrique Knight Rodriguez, if you thought for one nanosecond that I would play strip poker with you, you have lost your ever-loving mind!” She jumped up from the couch, throwing the cards in his face, before stomping a few feet away. “I can’t believe you would even… My brother is going to tear you apart when he hears about this. And trust me, he will hear about this. He has a way of pulling the most uncomfortable details out of me, and he is going to want a play-by-play of this entire sleepover. I can’t even… You… UGH! ”
She stood by the fireplace, hip cocked, arms crossed over her chest, eyes blazing blue flames that mesmerized him momentarily. Leighann was the most beautiful woman he had ever met, but angry, she took his breath away.
Leigh was fuming. Here she was, letting her imagination run wild with possibilities, listening to her heart say this was the man she had been waiting for all these years, and then he went and blew it all up. She had convinced herself that all the tabloids were wrong, and he wasn’t a womanizing playboy, and then he suggested… that. She didn’t have a violent bone in her body, but right now, she wanted to slug him right in the kisser.
Leigh tried counting to ten to calm her anger, fully expecting an apology. What she wasn’t expecting was laughter. Full belly, deep, rumbled laughter. From him!
She started tapping her foot to help her keep count. She was on forty-eight when he finally finished with a moan. “That was funny, Leighann—good one. I knew Curtis had a sense of humor, but wow, yours is right up there with his. For the record, it still hurts to laugh.” Enrique wiped the tears from his eyes and glanced her way again, all humor leaving his feature, sincerity taking its place.
“Sweetheart, there is no world in which I would proposition you in that way. I was honest when I said you shouldn’t lump me into the gentleman’s club. I’m not one. I’m also not a total cad. I respect you too much to even suggest such a thing. I respect your brother too much to suggest such a thing. And yes, I’m fully aware that he would stake me in the middle of the desert and let the critters tear meat from my bones if he found out I even thought of you in such a dishonorable way. That’s not even mentioning what my family would do to me if they found out I dishonored you. Hannah nearly burned my face off to address my chronic tardiness. If she found out, I asked a woman, any woman, to play strip poker with me outside of the bounds of marriage… I don’t know what she would do. Probably cry in disappointment, which would be worse than force-feeding me an entire bushel of Carolina Reaper peppers. And my brothers… They have worked so hard to reform me. Hearing I acted dishonorably would bring their wrath down on me, too. Then there is the whole, ‘I don’t break promises thing,’ and playing strip poker with a stunning woman, not my wife, paves the way to breaking pact number four, which I proposed, by the way.” Enrique ran his hands through his hair before making eye contact with Leigh as she reclaimed her seat on the couch. “As I said, there is no universe in which I would ask you to play strip poker with me without first saying, ‘I do’ in front of all our family.”
She believed him and felt bad for assuming the worst. “I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions. You looked like you were angling for something, and I couldn’t figure out what. I know strip poker is a popular seduction game, so my mind went there.” She shrugged her shoulders, still confused by the whole situation and trying to process the little nuggets of information he had shared. “Hannah almost burned your face off for being tardy? What is pact number four? Yes, my brother has his ways of making people wish they never crossed him. I wouldn’t rule out staking you in the desert, but that sounds a little dramatic.” Now, a beautiful smile lifted her lips; she was trying to bring some humor back into the situation. One she had ruined with faulty assumptions.
“I think staking a man in the desert for dishonoring you would be more than appropriate. Yes, I have a habit of being fashionably late, even to family functions. On more than one occasion, Hannah’s dinner has been less than fresh because she makes everyone wait for me. She is a stickler for a family meal. I guess she thinks I need to correct that bad habit once and for all, at least where my family is concerned, so she decided to teach me a lesson this year at our New Year’s Eve dinner. She added Carolina Reaper oil to my pudding. It burned like you would not believe and made the rest of the evening very unpleasant. It was effective. I will try never to be late for my sister’s events ever again. As for pact number four. We were all teenagers with raging hormones, and Fernando and I had just really started to get into girls. Hannah and Anthony had recently married, in name only, so they could get us all out of the boy’s home. I overheard Hannah worrying about what would happen if one or more of us got girls pregnant. She was asking Anthony the best way to address the situation and make sure we had the knowledge and what we needed to be safe, consensual, gentlemen. Anthony’s stance was celibacy is always the best policy, and Hannah laughed. She said Anthony was a saint, but he needed to be realistic: his brothers grew up on the streets with the worst of role models, and we were all blessed a baby hadn’t been made yet. I decided right then and there to propose a pact: no one makes any babies until we are financially ready and have a happy home to bring them into. We all knew how hard life could be, and I wanted to make sure we didn’t do what our parents did to us to any more kids. I’m not sure I would have thought about it if I hadn’t heard Hannah upset about it. I would have done anything to make her happy, and not fooling around made her happy. I didn’t even wait until New Year’s Eve. That night at dinner, I just put it out there. Everyone saw the reasoning and agreed. Pact made. They can put whatever they want in the papers, but my brothers and I are not playboys.”
“Wow! I really like Hannah. I hope I get to meet her someday. Going back to the wagers. If it wasn’t strip poker, what were you hoping to achieve? You definitely had an agenda,” Leigh accused, still not sold on the idea but trying to be open-minded now.
“Do you accept the terms of the game? You spend five hundred grand of my money, and I get something not monetary or inappropriate from you?” Enrique stretched out his hand for her to shake in agreement. “Trust me, Leigh, I will do my very best never to hurt you again. This is the first step, baby.”
Leigh scrunched her nose. “I don’t like the endearment baby. Fine. I will play—until I won’t. We will see.” She shook his hand one time firmly, then picked up the fresh cards he laid in front of her.
“What’s your wager?” he asked .
Taking a moment to think, she lifted a delicate shoulder as if to say, ‘Why not?’ and said, “If I win, you have your people find the person who owns this cabin and offer to replace it with one that is a little more weather-tight and has solar panels or something.”
This time, he laughed lightheartedly. Glancing at him, she realized there was a dimple-like curve in his cheek when he smiled fully. It wasn’t a full hollow, but she found it very attractive.
“That’s more like it—good one. I will definitely do that. If I win, you will go on a date with me of my choosing, a surprise.”
“Oh. That’s all this was. A way to wrangle a date out of me without the risk of rejection! You are such a man.” Leigh rolled her eyes but played along.
For the next hour, they played. Enrique won most of the hands, and his wagers ran the gambit from dates to secrets about Curtis to answers to random questions. The three hands Leigh won rung promised support to the at-risk youth sports scholarships and an all-inclusive relaxing vacation for her brother where he could just chill and not have to worry about anyone’s safety. Her wagers didn’t even come close to a hundred grand, so Enrique determined he would find a worthwhile ski program and make a donation in her name or open a scholarship fund for low-income kids looking for ways to pay for lessons and competition entries.
He couldn’t remember the last time he smiled so easily around someone who wasn’t Hannah or any of his brothers. She made him feel like a new person. He was glad they were being rescued, as he needed to check in with his staff to make sure the disaster from the previous few days had been cleaned up, but he was sad that their time alone was coming to an end.
It was different here in the glow of the hearth. He felt a warmth inside—the kind you feel when you’re sitting with an old friend—a friend you had no idea you had been looking for your whole life until you found them. That was the kind of warmth that existed between them now. He hoped they could maintain that connection after they left the shelter of their little shack. He was falling for this woman hard and looked forward to seeing where this went.