Chapter 13
13
FOUR DAYS LATER
COEN
F rank Sinatra croons through the speakers while just outside the window to the left of my table, lights dance and water shoots from the Bellagio fountain in a choreographed dance intended to captivate.
I stare at the show but barely see it, taking a sip of my pre-dinner drink. A huge part of me wishes I could just delight in the spectacle the way the tourists lined up along the front of the fountain do.
They ooh and ahh . Take photos and videos. Some dance on the filthy Las Vegas Boulevard sidewalk. Others just gape at the display, stunned by its grandeur and beauty.
There was a time when I was the same.
When I could enjoy moments like this.
Sitting in a beautiful restaurant with a good drink in one of the most exciting cities in the world, watching a show made of nothing but water, lights, and music, that has become one of the major tourist spots in a town filled with them.
Not tonight.
Maybe not any night ever again.
My dark mood has followed me since Monday morning when I woke up to an empty bed and then had to go have that very uncomfortable conversation with Dad. As I had hoped, he did the “dirty work” and explained to the rest of the family precisely what went down when Satriano met with me, what he asked me to do, and the interesting information I learned about his new businesses.
But my mood didn’t get any better as the week progressed, compounded by the various “mini emergencies” that seemed to pop up around the hotel and casino.
Keys that wouldn’t work.
Malfunctioning machines.
Drunk patrons.
They’re just growing pains.
We’ve been open for less than six weeks.
There are bound to be complications and minor problems here and there. That’s true of any business, especially one that caters to tourists in a city like New Orleans. But now it’s become my job to ensure they’re resolved.
Since the moment I returned home, I was thrust into this role at the hotel, which I hadn’t expected to be waiting for me when I got back. It’s important—work Savage or Gabe or even Cass should be handling. But they have enough on their plates, and somehow, they handed it to me like it was always intended to be that way.
Executive General Manager.
I’m not even sure what that title means, but at least staying busy kept me from having too much free time to dwell on how Allegra disappeared or the gaping hole it seemed to leave in my heart when it shouldn’t have mattered.
She’s not the type of girl who stays.
I knew that the first time I met her.
But I let one incredible night together somehow convince my better judgment to take a hike and allow my soul to desire hers in a way that is truly unhealthy.
Evidenced by my current inability to even watch the show outside with any hint of joy.
Bishop observes me from her seat across the table from me. “Are you going to be like this the whole trip?”
Fingering my glass, I scowl at her. “You didn’t have to come with me.”
She raises a brow. “To Vegas or to dinner?”
“Either.”
She snorts and swirls her fruity drink before she takes a sip and tosses her long braids over her bare shoulder, exposed in the silvery thin-strapped dress that hugs her toned body. “Yeah, right. Like anyone, including me, was going to let you leave town again without an escort.”
Tonight, she doesn’t look like she’s working as my bodyguard. She’s ready to go out on the town, even though she knows full well I never do the night before a tournament.
A nice dinner.
Perhaps a few drinks.
Then to bed early so I’m prepared for what will meet me at the table.
I pull my glass to my lips and take a long drink. “You mean a fucking babysitter .”
She grins. “Same thing, isn’t it?” Leaning back slightly in her chair, she tips her drink toward me. “And maybe if you hadn’t run last time, you wouldn’t need one.”
Smartass.
I scowl at her and return to watching the water show. At least it can’t talk back and point out very accurate facts that I don’t want to be reminded of. Like that Satriano got to me so easily less than a week ago when I should have been untouchable—something Gabe, Saint, and Bishop have been looking into almost non-stop since.
“Did you or your dad ever figure out how Satriano got into my building?”
It’s a low blow, a dig at her ability to actually do this job, and she knows it. But Bishop doesn’t ruffle easily—if at all.
She lets it roll off her back. “No…which is why we changed the code for the elevator in your building and your condo. The best guess from the tech guy, as of when I talked to Dad earlier today, was that Satriano somehow hacked the digital system, got in through the back door, and used a skeleton code to get up.”
That’s comforting.
I’m about to tell her as much when Bishop issues a low whistle. “Well, I’ll be damned…”
The surprise in Bishop’s voice draws my attention from the window and toward her, but she isn’t looking at me.
She’s watching the front of the restaurant, and I follow her gaze.
My heart stops for a second, then begins to beat rapidly as Allegra approaches, weaving her way through the tables and around waitresses and waiters, the slit in her slinky red dress revealing her entire leg with each step.
Good God…
I down the rest of my drink and motion to our waiter for another one as she reaches us, but she doesn’t look at me.
She focuses on Bishop, offering her a genuine smile—or at least I think it is. It’s almost impossible to tell if anything is genuine with this woman. “Bishop, it’s nice to see you again.”
Bishop raises her brows slowly at Allegra, then glances over at me. She may not have any idea what really happened between us earlier this week, but given my foul mood before we came—and now—she must have a pretty good guess. “Is it?”
“I didn’t mean to interrupt.” Allegra finally allows her gaze to slide to mine. “But I figured you’d be here the night before the tournament, and I hoped we could talk.”
It’s my turn to raise a brow at her. “Talk?”
There are so many things I would love to say to this woman, that I would have if she hadn’t disappeared from my arms, my bed, my condo, my fucking city like a damn thief in the night.
Even with my people trying to locate her, they didn’t have any luck.
She wanted to vanish into thin air and did a damn good job of it.
And she clearly didn’t give a single fuck how it affected me.
Yet she wants to talk…
Allegra pleads with her eyes the same way she did when she was under me, begging for me to give her release less than a week ago. I eventually caved to her then—gave in to my most base need to see hers met, despite my desire to make it last and ensure she understood what it’s like to be on the receiving end of the Hawke ire.
I gave in to her .
Everything in me screams not to do it again.
Not to let her in.
Not to give her even a single inch.
Because she’s the type of woman who will take that inch and turn it into a mile—maybe more.
But I’ve never been particularly good at listening to my better judgment.
It’s what got me in this mess in the first place.
I turn my gaze to Bishop. “Would you mind finishing your drink at the bar…where you can keep an eye on me?”
God knows she isn’t going to leave the restaurant. She’s my permanent shadow for as long as this Satriano business continues, which doesn’t seem to have an end in sight.
Bishop scowls but pushes to her feet, adjusting her dress. “Fine, but as soon as my food arrives, I’m coming back.”
Allegra offers her a knowing grin. “Fair enough. I wouldn’t want to miss it, if I were you, either.”
Offering me one last long look of warning, Bishop stalks away in her heels, a strange mix of power, muscle, and grace that only she can pull off. She slides onto an empty stool at the end of the bar, only a few yards from us, but far enough away and separated by enough tables that she won’t be able to hear our conversation.
Something tells me I won’t want her to.
Allegra slowly lowers herself into the chair across from me, her gaze reserved, the usual energy she exudes dimmed by something I can’t quite place.
Regret?
Does she actually feel bad about how she just left me?
That would be hoping for too much, and I learned long ago that having any sort of dreams only means having them squashed under life’s proverbial foot. This woman certainly already did that with one of her stilettoes.
“How did you know I’d be here?”
She offers a half-smile. “At dinner at your grandmother’s, you said Lago was your favorite restaurant in Las Vegas when Pope was talking about taking Alessandra there.” Her slender shoulders rise and fall, making the low-cut V of her dress shift to expose even more of her absolutely perfect breasts. “I figured you wouldn’t miss the opportunity to come here the night before the tournament.”
So, she was paying attention…
And to something so small.
I don’t know if I should be happy about that or annoyed.
“You disappeared on me…”
She absently plays with the napkin Bishop tossed on the table, staring out as the fountain show winds down. “I know.” Her bottom lip disappears under her teeth, and she finally meets my gaze again. “I wanted to apologize for that.”
“Why’d you run?”
Her eyes soften, but there’s something else underneath it.
It looks an awful lot like fear.
“You know why…”
I lean forward slightly across the table. “Do I? I think you’re going to have to remind me because all I know is that I went to bed with my arm wrapped around you and my dick still buried inside your cunt, but when I woke up, the sheets were cold, and you had left that note like a goddamn calling card from an assassin.”
She winces, and I immediately regret how that came out, but not the words because they’re all true.
That note was the ultimate fuck you to me.
A slap in the face after what we shared that night.
I introduced her to the entire family. She played board games with Vivi and Charlotte after dinner and melted into the fabric of our Sunday night so easily that it almost seemed as if she were meant to be there all along. Then what we shared at my place after…
And she just left.
She releases a long sigh as the waiter slides my drink onto the table and takes the empty glass from me. “Anything for you, miss?”
Allegra shakes her head. “No. I’m good. Thank you.”
He moves away from the table, and I shift back slightly, almost afraid to get close to her again. Even this slab of wood between us doesn’t seem like enough to stop me from doing something stupid, like lunging across it and smashing my mouth against hers.
“Look, Coen, I know you think this is all a game?—”
My spine snaps straight at her words, her attempt to shift the perception of what went down, and I snort, shaking my head. “Isn’t it? You sought me out in Atlantic City. You played me like a fucking fiddle. Then again, in Monaco and Macau. Then you show up in New Orleans acting like…” I search for the right way to explain how it felt to see her at Hawke Hotel, for what happened in that penthouse. “I don’t know. Like maybe something had changed, and I thought it did that night.” Shoving my hand back through my hair, I shake my head, looking away from her and out over the now still lagoon that will be filled with another show in only half an hour. “Maybe it was na?ve to believe that someone like you isn’t always playing a game.”
“You were playing one, too.”
Her soft accusation makes me grit my jaw, and I turn back to face her.
“You’re not wrong, Allegra. I was. Was being the operative word. That changed for me because I thought it had for you. Especially after dinner with my family…”
She averts her gaze—unable to or unwilling to look at me.
Or maybe because she fears what her eyes will reveal.
I asked her to be honest with me.
Told her I needed that.
And she let me take her in that bed over and over again that night. Knowing damn well what I expected in return when we woke in the morning. And rather than give it to me, she ran .
“All I want is to be able to trust you, Allegra. And if you can’t give me that, then…”
I let my words trail off because I don’t really want to say them. Even the thought of actually saying it feels like acid crawling up my throat.
She fiddles with the napkin again, considering my words. “It’s complicated, Coen.”
Leaning forward, I drop my voice and lower my head until she’s forced to meet my gaze. “No, it isn’t. Either you’re with me because you want to fuck with my head at the table or you’re with me because you want to fuck me…and maybe more. Those are the only two options.”
She releases a heavy sigh, a pink blush rising across her cheeks. “You know it’s the latter.”
I raise a brow at her. “Is it? Because you’re here in Las Vegas when one of the biggest poker tournaments in the world is being held at the Venetian. One you knew I was playing in and that you promised you wouldn’t. So, did you come here to talk to me, or did you come here to play?”
Her shoulders tense.
It’s all the answer I need.
“That’s what I thought.” I huff back into my chair again and take a long sip of my drink. “You know damn well the two of us should not be at a table together, Allegra. It isn’t fair.”
That silvery-gray gaze cuts to mine again. “Life isn’t fair, Coen. That’s something I learned a very long time ago.”
“Believe me, I’m well the fuck aware of that fact. But you deliberately going out of your way to mess with me, to rattle me, to throw me off my game…” I tighten my fist on my drink, remembering the threat in Satriano’s gaze when he sat across from me in my condo and laid down his expectations. “You have no idea what you’re putting at risk.”
I need to win to pay him back.
I need to win to keep him from looking elsewhere for someone to assume the debt he believes both Atlas and I owe him.
“Then explain it to me, Coen.”
“I can’t. But know it’s about more than winning a fucking card game for me.”
Her dark brows rise, surprise lighting her face. “What could possibly be worth more than five million to you?”
“You met all of them on Sunday night.”
* * *
ALLEGRA
Coen’s words twist like a knife in my gut as the faces of all the Hawkes flit through my head like a movie. Replaying every minute I spent with them all on Sunday—a night that reminded me of what a family really is.
And made me realize that not having one had caused more damage than I cared to admit.
His mother, who sought me out after dinner and apologized for the interrogation, saying she would love to grab coffee one-on-one and get to know me better.
Those little girls who begged me to play Trouble with them while everyone else enjoyed their dessert and sat around chatting.
The babies who eventually woke and wanted attention, each of them cuter than any human being has a right to be.
All the cousins who chatted with me like I was always a member of the family, explaining inside jokes and telling me stories about each other that I have no doubt someone in that house didn’t want told.
Even the less-than-welcoming members of the Hawke family, like Luca, Saint, and Gabe, who all watched me suspiciously, were never outright hostile. Given how I met Coen, I couldn’t exactly blame them for getting that vibe and questioning my motives.
But through all of it—every conversation, every joke, every playful rib, even the minor arguments that broke out—I could feel how much they cared.
Not just about Coen but about every other person at the table.
Guilt and jealousy eat away at me like acid, burning me from the inside out the longer I sit here with him. He waits for me to respond to his statement, but I’m not sure how.
It shut me down fast.
The winnings from this tournament aren’t what is most important to Coen Hawke, and I should have known that the moment I walked in Nana’s door—if not before that.
I manage to swallow that lump in my throat and nod slowly. “I see…”
Coen fingers his glass, allowing that smooth, polished, practiced facade to fall back into place. “So, tell me, Allegra, what do you care about?” His gaze shifts to mine, filled not with anger but pity. “Besides stabbing me in the back?”
I flinch at his words because they’re not far from the truth.
He leans forward again. The blue of his eyes sparkling from the candle in the center of the table. “I looked into you, you know. After Monaco. We have a lot of connections, people who can find out anything about anyone…”
Stilling my desire to shift restlessly, I raise a brow. “And?”
“And your mother passed away when you were twelve.”
Despite my best effort to remain unaffected, I flinch again. “Yes. I already told you that at dinner.”
The corner of his lips tips up slightly. “You offered some very broad brushstrokes of your life, but you definitely held things back. Where did you go after that?”
I swallow thickly, then reach forward and take his drink, my fingers brushing over his, the contact lighting my whole body with that same fire I’ve been trying to forget. His eyes follow my hand as I drag it across the table toward me and then raise it to my lips and take a long sip from it.
The spicy, warm bourbon washes over my palate, and I swallow and raise a brow at him. “Bourbon?”
That same heat I just felt burns across his eyes like fire on water. “I’ve suddenly developed a taste for it.”
My pussy clenches at the memory of him pouring it on me and licking it off. The sweet burn and slow glide of his greedy tongue seeking out every last drop.
Fuck.
I press my thighs together, thankful the table conceals the move from the man who can so easily turn my body molten with a few words and a look.
“Where’d you go, Allegra? Because you don’t seem to have anything that you care about. No ethics or morals. No people in your life. My sources say you popped up at a few boarding schools in the States and Europe, but then you’ve kind of been living as a nomad, occasionally going back to your place in New York, but mostly moving from hotel to hotel. I assume chasing games.”
He watches me and waits for a response that I don’t offer.
There isn’t much I can say.
“That about sums it up, doesn’t it?” His jaw hardens, his hands tensing on the table. “Are you even capable of caring about anyone else, Allegra? Is that the problem?”
The accusation raises my hackles. “Don’t pretend you care about me, Coen.”
He jerks forward so fast that I recoil slightly. That flame burning through his eyes has become a raging inferno that looks ready to consume anything in its path.
“You think I don’t care about you?”
The need to defend myself against the pain in his voice gets the better of me. “I think you want revenge for what I did to you…and it would be warranted?—”
“Goddamn it, Allegra.” He releases an annoyed sigh, spreading his palms flat on the table. “Of course, I do. Did. But if you think that hasn’t changed...”
He sits back with a huff, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
His eyes hold a wildness and slightly unhinged look that make him apppear downright feral.
I have never seen him this worked up before—at least, not when his head or cock wasn’t buried between my legs.
“What has you so on edge, Coen? And don’t say it’s just about me because it’s not.”
A muscle in his clenched jaw tics as he watches me. “There are things going on that I can’t tell you. And honestly, staying the fuck away from you right now would probably be in your best interest as well as my own. It would probably be safer for you.”
“Safer?”
“The Hawkes have enemies. Powerful ones. We always will.”
Which would explain why Coen has never brought another woman to Nana’s for Sunday dinner. Why he never truly opens up to me about anything important.
He’s afraid.
If he lets someone in, that exposes them to whatever perceived danger he thinks is bad enough to keep everyone locked out from what really makes him who he is.
“So, that means you’ll be alone the rest of your life?”
His lips press into a firm line. “ Everyone at that table who you met has suffered for being a Hawke…or being with one.”
The mental gymnastics it takes to follow his logic makes my head start to pound. “So, you’re trying to protect me now even when you’re angry and making demands of me?”
“Maybe.”
“What if I don’t need protecting from you, Coen?” I shrug. “The only thing I seem to need protection from is myself.”
“Why is that?”
I take another sip of his drink, staring at the amber liquid. “Because I’ve been making bad decisions.”
“Like? Come clean , Allegra.”
The way the word comes out almost a growl reminds me of the way his voice wavered and dipped as he fucked me within an ounce of sanity.
And I find I can’t lie to him.
“Like thinking I could mess with you…and it wouldn’t mess with me, too.”
The corners of his lips twitch into an almost grin at the admission. “Finally, some honesty.”
“I was honest with you the other night. About everything…”
Need soaks his gaze, matching the throb in my core. We didn’t say much. We didn’t need to. Our bodies. Our touches. They spoke volumes.
“Everything we shared was real, Coen.”
The anger…
The need…
The heat…
The passion…
He fucked me raw, and I would let him do it again and again if he asked because, somehow, I’ve come to actually like Coen Hawke.
Something I never could have anticipated.
And if I had known it was even a possibility, I would have run the other direction as fast as my heels could carry me.
“And what do you want, Allegra? Tell me right here, right now, or this is over .”
I force myself to meet his gaze, even though what I’m about to say is going to be hard for me. Nearly impossible. There’s only one thing I’ve ever wanted. One thing that has always seemed to elude me. “I want to be in control of my own life.”
Those dark brows of his furrow. “You’re not?”
The truth threatens to spill out like a tidal wave.
But it can’t.
At least, not all of it.
“I haven’t been for a long time. I’ve been spiraling, feeling like other people are constantly pulling the strings and leading me in the wrong direction.”
Taking me places, forcing me to do things I don’t want to in the name of loyalty.
“Did I do that, Allegra?”
A smile pulls at my lips. “That remains to be seen. But it certainly wasn’t the direction I thought I’d go. We could be very bad for each other, Coen.”
“Or very good.”
His response comes so quickly, without any thought. And I want to believe that it’s true, that there’s more to this attraction than just sexual, the heat of being opponents across the felt and lovers in the dark, but I don’t know if I can.
Trust.
That word has never meant much to me.
It couldn’t when it was so hard to find it after Mom died.
And I don’t know if I can trust Coen Hawke.
His family seems quite adept at lying, at putting on a facade. His father is a big-shot trial lawyer, and so is his brother. And given what Coen has told me and what I’ve observed, I have no doubt that Coen is capable of everything they are.
All the tricks that help them convince juries in a courtroom and get the upper hand against opponents anywhere else.
Yet staring across the table from him, I have a hard time believing he’s lying now. Not when the sincerity in his gaze radiates across the table and the hope there matches my own.
The waiter appears with two plates, sets one down in front of him and one in my spot.
Before I even have a chance to say anything else, Bishop appears. “I told you I’d be back when the food came.”
Coen and I hold each other’s gaze across the table for a few seconds, long enough to make sitting here in Bishop’s seat with her standing beside us awkward.
There’s more to say.
So much more.
I slowly push the chair back and smile at Bishop. “Enjoy your dinner.”
She offers me a sympathetic look as she takes her seat, pulling her napkin back into her lap.
Before I can walk away, Coen climbs to his feet and closes the few steps to me. The warm, spicy bourbon on his breath and that crisp, masculine scent that seems to cling to him settle over me.
I inhale greedily, in case it’s the last time I get the opportunity.
He dips his head against my cheek, feathering his lips over my ear, and tugs me against him, slipping a key card into my hand. “Venetian—Presidential Suite.”
I shiver at the invitation and promise in his words and close my grip around the card, terrified he might realize his mistake and take it back.
His hand tightens around mine, and he brushes his thumb across my fingers, raising goosebumps across my skin. “I would very much like for you to be there when I get done with dinner.” He pulls back until his gaze meets mine. “We’ll finish this conversation. No games this time.”
If only it were that easy.
I nod and slip from his hold, forcing myself to walk away from them and not look back because if I do, one of them might see the tears streaming down my face now.