She’d come to him at sixteen, straight off the streets of New Orleans where she’d kept herself and Missy alive scamming the tourists at games like three-card monte. She was good but her winnings were meager. You could only play for so long before the cops moved you on.
Alain had appeared one evening on the edge of the little crowd collected around her. He’d watched while she took some jerks who’d left their brains in their hotel rooms along with their baggage.
During a lull, he’d stepped in close.
“You’re good, chérie,” he’d said with a little smile. He sounded French, but with a hint of New Orleans patois.
Savannah had looked him straight in the eye.
“The best,” she’d said with the assurance of the streets.
Alain had smiled again and reached for her cards.
“Hey,” she said, “leave those alone. They’re mine.”
He ignored her, moved the cards around, then stopped and looked at her. “Where’s the queen?”
Savannah rolled her eyes and pointed. Alain grinned and moved the cards again. This time, his hands were a blur.
“Where is she now, chérie?”
Savannah gave him a piteous look and pointed again. Alain turned the card over.
No queen.
“Watch again,” he said.
She watched again. And again. Five minutes later, she shook her head in amazement.
“How do you do that?”
He tossed down the cards and jerked his head toward the big black limo that had suddenly appeared at the curb.
“Come with me and I’ll show you. You’re good, chérie, but I’ll teach you to use your mind as well as your hands. We can make a fortune together.”
“Looks like you already got a fortune, mister.”
That made Alain laugh. “I do, but there’s always more. Besides, you intrigue me. You’re dirty. Smelly.”
“Hey!”
“But it’s true, cheérie. You look like an urchin and you sound like one, too, but there’s a je ne sais quoi to you that intrigues me. You’re a challenge. You’ll be Eliza to my Professor Higgins.”
“I don’t know any Eliza or Professor Higgins,” Savannah replied sourly.
“All you need to know is that I can change your life.”
Did he take her for a fool? Four years in foster homes, one on the streets, and Savannah knew better than to get into a car with a stranger.
She also knew better than to let something good get away.
She’d looked at the limo, at the man, at his suit that undoubtedly cost more than she could hope to make in another five years of hustling. Then she looked at Missy, sitting placidly beside her on the pavement, humming a tune only she could hear.
Alain looked at Missy, too, as if he’d only just noticed her.
“Who is that?”
“My sister,” Savannah replied, chin elevated, eyes glinting with defiance.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s autistic.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning she can’t talk.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
It seemed a fine distinction no social worker had ever made.
“I don’t know,” Savannah admitted. “She just doesn’t.”
“There are doctors who can help her. I can help her. It’s up to you.”
Savannah had stared at him. Then she’d thought about the long, thin knife taped to the underside of her arm.
“You try anything funny,” she’d said, her voice cold, her heart thumping with terror, “you’ll regret it.”
Alain had nodded and held out his hand. She’d ignored it, gently urged Missy to her feet and walked them both into a new life. Warm baths, clean clothes, nourishing food, a room all her own and a wonderful residential school for Missy.
And he had kept his word. He’d taught her everything he knew until she knew the odds of winning with any combination of cards in any game of poker, blackjack or chemin de fer.
He hadn’t touched her, either.
Until recently.
Until he’d started looking at her through eyes that glittered, that lingered on her body like an unwelcome caress and made the hair rise on the back of her neck. Until he’d taken to pressing moist kisses into the palm of her hand and, worse still, calling her from her room in his chateau or her cabin on his yacht whenever he had visitors, showing her off to men whose eyes glittered as his did, who stroked their fingers over her cheekbones, her shoulders.
Which was why she’d agreed to take Sean O’Connell to the cleaners.
It was the best possible deal. Alain would get what he wanted. So would she. By the night’s end, she’d have enough money to leave Alain and take care of Missy without his help. To run, if she had to—though surely she wouldn’t have to run from Alain.
He’d let her go.
Of course he would.
Savannah raised the champagne flute to her lips. It was empty. Just as well. She never drank when she played. Tonight, though, she’d asked for the Cristal at the bar, felt the need of its effervescence in her blood.
Not anymore.
She put her empty glass on a table and smoothed down the shockingly short skirt of the red silk slip dress Alain had selected. It wasn’t her style, but then the life she was living wasn’t her style, either.
Savannah took a deep breath and emptied her mind of everything but the game. She shook back her long golden hair and stepped out of the shadows.
Ready or not, Sean O’Connell, here I come.
CHAPTER TWO
GOLDILOCKS was finally going to make her move.
Sean could sense it. Something in the way she lifted her glass to her mouth, in the way she suddenly seemed to draw herself up, gave her away. He wanted to applaud.
About time, babe, he felt like saying. What took you so long?
Of course, he didn’t. Why give the game away now? He’d have bet a thousand bucks she had no idea he’d been watching her, no idea he was even aware of her.
He was.
He’d noticed her as soon as he’d entered the casino. Or not entered it, which, he supposed, was a better way of putting it. He’d learned, long ago, that it was better to take his time, scope a place out, get the feel of things instead of walking right into a situation. So he’d been taking his time, standing in the arched entry between the foyer and the high-stakes gaming room, sipping Jack Daniel’s on the rocks as he watched.
Watched the tables. The players. The dealers. In a casino as in life, it paid to watch and wait.
That was when he’d noticed the blonde.
She was tall, with a great body and legs that went on forever. Her face might have inspired Botticelli and just the sight of that lion’s mane of sun-streaked, silky-looking hair made him want to run his fingers through it.
Sean sipped his bourbon.
Oh, yeah. He’d noticed her, all right.
She was checking things