Page 9 of Gambler's Conceit

I’m shaky as I get first to my knees, then grab the bedpost to bring myself to my feet. “I’m sure you can afford another one,” I say dismissively because people like him can afford to just throw clothes away.

I don’t want to stand around and talk, though, not in the light when he’s not distracted and can analyze every mark and every scar on my body.

I don’t want him to see I’m shaking, either.

I flee into the en-suite bathroom, closing the door behind me—and I hope like hell he doesn’t follow.

THREE

VORTEX

“How’s my favorite brother doing?”the text reads

I sigh. Connie only pulls out the compliments when she wants something. It’s been at least a week since she last asked for money, so it doesn’t surprise me that she’s gearing up to ask for more. “What do you need?”

“Nothing! LOL”comes the reply.

I shake my head like she’s there to see it.“How much?”

I should tell her no. She’s just going to spend it on some new get-rich scheme, all the while telling me it’s her big break to have her own fancy lifestyle. No matter how many times I try to tell her I can get her a job at the Roi de Pique, she insists she can make her own way.

“Just 5!”

Great. She means either five hundred or five thousand, depending, and I’m willing to bet she’s after the five grand.

Before I can answer her, Caleb comes out of the bedroom, dressed in a t-shirt and track pants instead of the suit he’d been wearing before. I’d say he’s dressed to head to the gym, but I know he’s not going anywhere after that rigorous—and loud—fuck.

I slide my phone into my pocket. “Got everything you requested, boss,” I tell him, sitting up straighter in my chair at the dining room table.

I’ve set out the trays of food the restaurant staff had brought, which is a fucking feast for more than three people can reasonably eat in a day or even two. I’d known he wanted a variety for the kid, though. He hadn’t needed to tell me that much.

There are benefits to knowing someone for years.

“Thank you,” Caleb says, coming over to sit at his usual chair. He starts serving himself some of the food but stops when his cat jumps onto the table.

She meows at him and tries to sniff his plate.

“No, Miss K,” Caleb says, picking her up and putting her back down on the floor. “You know you can’t have human food.”

“You shouldn’t let her on the table, boss,” I say, wrinkling my nose as I think about just where those paws have been. “What if she steps in the food?”

“I don’tlether on the table,” Caleb points out. “She jumps on the table, then I put her on the floor, and then she?—”

Miss K starts to jump onto the table again, but this time Caleb gets his arm out in time to block her from landing properly. She awkwardly falls to the floor and stares at Caleb, as if daring him to say anything about the ungraceful landing.

I snort, shaking my head. I like cats well enough, but not near my food.

I’m too hungry to focus on it for long, though. The drive back to Calamity City had been long, and I’d been waiting for him to finish his fuckfest before I served myself.

A fuckfest I could’ve watched, apparently, though I’m not sure how I feel about that particular offer. My boss and I might be friends, but I don’t know that we’rethatclose.

“Your boy going to eat?” I ask as casually as I can manage.

I want to get another look at the pathetic hitchhiker who’d caught my boss’s attention—and I want to find out what’s going on with the strange order to keep him inside the penthouse.

My phone pings with another message, but I don’t pull it out of my pocket. It’ll just be Connie trying to wheedle her way into the money she knows I’m going to give her eventually anyway because I don’t know how to say no to my little sister.

“I’m sure he is.” Caleb stares at the bedroom door as he eats. “He probably hasn’t had a good meal in months, and if you’d seen the scars on him…” He shakes his head. “Makes what Don Alfonso did to Cherry look like child’s play. That boy’s been tortured.”