BUY ME - Riley Alexa (мир книг TXT) 📗

“Yeah, I agree. It’s by far my choice. I still think her dad should be in our back pocket, so at least she has to agree to stay with us. Whether we get her pregnant or not.”

I nod my head in agreement, but then a thought occurs to me. “I don’t know about that happening since her contract from the Mistress Auction states they gave her an IUD. I’m no expert on birth control, but isn’t that pretty failsafe?”

Justin gives me a cocky grin as the elevator doors open. “I’ve taken care of that.” He walks out, and I nearly run after him to figure out what he means by that.

When we get to the edge of the pit, Mandy walks up, halting my questions.

“Mr. Cortez, Mr. Cortez. Good evening. I’ve got your itinerary for the evening all laid out.” She hands us packets with pictures of the celebrities and their names and quick bios. Mandy has been our assistant for years now and is extremely efficient. I doubt the girl even sleeps considering the amount of work she puts into us and this hotel.

“Mandy, it’s been six years. You can call us by our first names now.” Justin reminds her of this daily, but she always just smiles and goes back to work. She says she likes to keep things professional because you never know who’s watching.

We hired Mandy when she was nineteen years old and needed a job. Don sent her our way, saying she was a “friend.” We didn’t ask any questions after that, and she’s turned out to be our biggest asset. She’s tall enough to be a Rockette, and rail thin. She’s got dark hair and dark eyes, and people often mistake her for our sister. We don’t usually correct people when they say it, because keeping our casino family friendly works with our image, and we care about Mandy in a sisterly way. Nothing more. It’s worked out well as far as that goes, because she’s only ever expressed platonic feelings towards us as well. Ever the professional, she’s never mentioned a love life or if there was ever someone she cared about. We’ve never seen her with anyone, so we just assume if it happens, it’s her best kept secret.

Once we both look over the packets, we hand them back, and she leads us over to the tables. We shake hands with a few people and pose for pictures when asked to. Mandy takes us to each table so we can meet and greet and be seen. This is the least exciting part of our job, but a necessary one. As we reach the end of the tables, one of the players comes over to Justin.

I look at Justin and he rolls his eyes. Here we go.

“Hey, baby. Long time no see.”

“Natasha.” He gives her a curt nod and turns towards Mandy, making it clear that we need to be going.

Natasha is someone Justin once had a thing with. To say it was casual is an understatement. She asked him out a few times and he finally agreed, but mostly because he thought it would end the infatuation. Natasha is a former housewife of Vegas, and is always on the front page of every gossip magazine. Her ex-husband was caught embezzling and she famously divorced him while he was in jail, and sold her story to anyone with a microphone. I don’t know how she ended up in this poker tournament, but we didn’t make the booking. We agreed to host and the other hotels already had the schedule in place.

From what Justin said, he and Natasha had dinner one night, and she kept pushing for more. He said it was never anything beyond a dinner, but I always felt like there was more he wasn’t willing to tell me.

Mandy seems to read the situation and moves to step between Natasha and us. “Thank you for coming out to support your charity tonight, Mrs. Woods, I didn’t know you’d be in attendance.”

Natasha looks annoyed, but raises her chin and smiles wide. She’s always aware of when the cameras are rolling. “Yes. If you’ll excuse me.” She moves around Mandy and gets close to Justin. She puts her hands on his chest, and I see Justin shiver, and not in a good way. I’m trying not to cause a scene, but I can see he’s uncomfortable. “It’s been a while, handsome. I just wanted to come over and say hello, see what your plans were tonight.”

To his credit, he realizes cameras are probably catching all of this, so he leans in and gives her a kiss on the cheek, whispering in her ear. Her eyes go wide at his words, and then her hands drop as she takes a step back. Her face is a picture of shock for just a moment before her practiced smile is back in place. “It’s always good seeing old friends.” She smiles at him and then looks at me, giving me a wicked smile. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again soon.”

With those words, she turns and walks back to her table, and everyone goes back to their games. We exit the event, Mandy on our heels as we go back to our personal elevator.

“I’m sorry about that. She must have been a last minute entry into the tournament. She had to have paid to take Mr. Conway’s position. I didn’t see him at the tables. I take full responsibility for this.” Mandy hangs her head in shame like we are going to fire her for something like this.

“Calm the theatrics, Mandy. It’s all right. Just keep an eye on her, and let Mark in the pit know she’s to remain on this side of the casino by any means necessary.” Justin pauses, letting Mandy acknowledge what he’s said. “And under no circumstances is she to stay in the hotel tonight. Understood?”

“Yes, Mr. Cortez.”

As Justin and I step inside the elevator, I enter our code for the penthouse. “Just make sure everything is perfect for Stella tomorrow. That’s the main priority.”

Mandy smiles brightly at me and gives us a mock salute. “Aye,aye, captains.”

When the doors close, I look at Justin and open my mouth. But before I can speak, he holds his hand up.

“I didn’t want to talk about it then and I don’t want to talk about it now.”

“If there’s something I should know, now’s the time.”

He looks at me and then looks away, clearly trying to decide if he should tell me something. After a second he shakes his head. “It’s nothing. She’s not a problem.”

“What do you mean, ‘it’s nothing’? What? What is nothing?”

He closes his eyes and sighs deeply. “The night I had dinner with Natasha, something happened. I was just trying to be polite and then forget the night ever happened. I hardly said five words with how much she talked. She was so persistent, and she just wouldn’t leave me alone, so I agreed and suffered through it. I thought maybe if I ignored her, she’d get annoyed and leave. Apparently it didn’t work out that way. I swear to God I never touched her…” His words trail off, and I know I'm going to have to push him to tell me the rest.

“But?”

“But somehow I ended up in her hotel room naked.”

I reach over to hit the stop button, pausing our ascent to the penthouse. “You did what?”

“Believe me, I know how it sounds. I had one glass of wine, and all I can think is that maybe she tried to roofie me. I went to the restroom once, and then another time I had to take a phone call, so she could have done it during either time I was away from the table. I swear the chick is psycho.”

“What happened, Justin?” I’m trying not to lose my patience, but I need to know the whole story.

“When I came to, I was in her hotel bed, and she walked out of the bathroom in lingerie. From what I could tell, she was shocked that I was awake, and then irritated she hadn’t been able to seal the deal. I don’t think she’s too smart because between the roofie and the headache from the roofie, there was no way my guy was in working order.” He rubs his eyes, looking embarrassed and aggravated. “I grabbed my clothes and ran out of the room naked, getting dressed in the hallway. I couldn’t get away from her fast enough. There’s no way I touched her, and I know she had to have help carrying me up to her room.”

“Didn’t you check the cameras?”

He looks at me like I’m an idiot. “Don’t you think that would’ve been the first thing I did? Unfortunately we weren’t here.”