“I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”
She shook her head, shaking her honey-colored hair against her shoulders. Her hair looked like silk in the casino lighting, and he knew he should be concentrating on her words but instead just wanted to bury his hands in her hair and hold her head still for a soul-deep kiss.
“I just realized that I am lucky in a million little ways,” she said.
He took a deep breath and reached for the concentration that he was known for. Then he took her by the wrist and led her away from the noise and the crowds to an alcove tucked away in the corridor. “What are those things?”
She bit her lower lip and his concentration almost flew out the window. What would her mouth taste like?
“It will sound silly,” she said.
“I just called you my lucky charm, I think we’re already into silly.”
“Did you mean it?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She smiled at him then and her expression was so…tender that his heart almost broke. “That wasn’t silly, Max. It was very sweet.”
“Ah, hell, God save me from being sweet. You’re supposed to look at me and think, What a sexy guy. Not a sweet man.” But he liked that she thought of him that way. No one had ever seen him in that light before. They’d called him ruthless, determined and successful, but never sweet.
“Can’t you be both?”
“I don’t know, can I?” he counted.
He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer to him. Her words—that she wasn’t ready to date—echoed in his mind as he held her. Hell, neither was he, but holding her soothed that bit of loneliness that had been echoing through his soul.
“I’m not sure this is on the approved list of acceptable activities between a VIP and his hostess.”
“Your boss is one of my best friends, so I think I know how to make this right.”
“For you?”
He realized again that he was moving too fast. Her comment still ticked him off because he’d always been the kind of man that others respected. “No, Roxy, for you and when you know me better I’ll expect an apology for that.”
“I’m sorry. I’m much better at light social talk, or performing up on the stage where I can’t say the wrong things.”
“You didn’t say the wrong thing.”
“Yes, I did. I offended you.”
“I get offended daily.”
“How?”
“Usually from investors of rival companies. Or the board of directors of a company that I want to take over. Sometimes from my second in command, but he says that’s to keep my ego in check.”
“He’s your friend, then?”
Max thought about Duke and nodded. “Yes. He saved my life once.”
“Did you repay him?” she asked, with a shrewdness he wished she didn’t have.
“Of course I did. I couldn’t let that kind of debt languish.”
“Have you ever let any debt languish?”
“No, I haven’t. I like to keep things even,” he said lightly because he knew that he really preferred to keep the balance tipped toward him. To make sure that he was the one who did just a bit more in a relationship.
“But you’re bossy. So I’m guessing that you like to be in charge all the time.”
He shrugged his shoulder. “What can I say? I run an international conglomerate. I have to lean toward the type-A personality.”
“Just in business?”
He shook his head, uncomfortable pursuing this topic. “You were going to tell me what you were lucky at.”
“I was?”
“Yes, you were.”
“Is that an order?”
She was sassing him. And he liked it, but he gave her a quelling stare. One that always made the office staff jump through hoops for him.
“I’m not intimidated,” she said. “But I will tell you what I’m lucky at….”
She paused and he waited for her to continue.
“I’m lucky in being alive. Now, if I can just remember how to live.”
Three
Max played for four hours straight, insisting Roxy stay close by. She enjoyed being with him but the combined cigarette and cigar smoke was giving her a headache.
“I need to step outside for a few minutes. Breathe some fresh air.”
Max nodded. “I’m going to play one more hand and then we’ll go get some breakfast.”
Since it was almost six o’clock, it would be an early breakfast but she didn’t mind. She doubted that he’d only play one more hand.
Most of the men she’d dated had been gamblers. She’d met them all in a casino, and they never left any table or game after just one more hand or roll.
Six months time had made a huge difference in how she spent her days. Normally she would have been arriving at the casino about now and heading to the rehearsal hall for an intense dance workout and review of the previous night’s show.
Instead, she was fetching drinks and keeping a man who didn’t need the incentive in the casino. She hadn’t felt this lost since she’d turned eighteen and realized that she no longer had a place to stay at the group home in which she’d lived. Two months left until high-school graduation, and she’d been on her own.
“Rox?”
She glanced over her shoulder and saw Tawny and Glenda crossing the casino, heading toward the rehearsal hall. Glad to see her old friends, she tried to smile. This feeling of envy, jealousy and embarrassment was exactly why she’d been avoiding them. They were still doing something she no longer could, and she felt a weird combination of envy, jealousy and some joy every time they visited her.
“Hey, girls. How’s the show?” she asked. Both of them were still fit and pretty. Roxy looked at them and didn’t feel the same sense of belonging as she used to. She shifted her weight, trying to feel as if she could still fit in if she wanted to.
“Not the same without you,” Glenda said. “Roger has been really mean lately. One small slip-up and he reams you a new one.”
“Well it’s his butt on the carpet if the show isn’t good,” Roxy said. Roger’s temper was legendary, but he usually only exploded if the chorus was loafing. And she couldn’t imagine Glenda or Tawny loafing. They took dancing as seriously as she did…had.
“I didn’t see you at the blackjack tables earlier. I hoped that meant you’d be backstage,” Tawny said.
“Not yet. I still have a few more surgeries before I’ll be ready.” But that wasn’t the truth. She’d never dance again. The combination of the strenuous show moves and the weight of some of the headdresses they wore would be too much for her body. The doctor had told her after her last surgery that dancing in Vegas was out. A showgirl no more.
“Get well soon, girl,” Glenda said, giving her a hug before the two women moved on.
Roxy leaned back against the wall for a second. She really wanted to sink into it and become invisible. Then she remembered she was in public and straightened up, forcing herself to head for the exit.
The