Gambling with Gabriella (Menage MfM Romance Novel) (Playing For Love Book 2) (6 page)

S
he’s not Chloe
.

As the sun rises in the sky, I watch Gabriella sleep peacefully. She’s curled up into a ball, every blanket tangled up in a cocoon around her. She’d bristle if I tell her, but she looks adorable.
Like a sleeping angel.

It’s been almost ten years since I’ve felt this level of connection with another human being. Not since Chloe, as a matter of fact.

And you ended up ruining Chloe’s life.

I shy away from that thought, from the familiar sense of self-hatred that rises, unbidden, even after eight years. I know that I’m not responsible for what happened to Carter’s sister. She was on a path of destruction, and the time we spent together was just a pit stop on her personal highway to hell. Still, the nagging guilt remains and it’s acted like a wall around my heart.

“Breakfast, Crawford,” I tell myself firmly. “And coffee. Now’s not the time to fall to pieces. Not while Noah’s still missing.”

C
arter leaves
before Gabby’s awake to talk to the teams of people that have been working through the night trying to find Ed Wagner. Before he takes off, he stands at the edge of the bed and looks down on Gabriella’s sleeping form.

“You feel it too?” he asks me quietly.

He doesn’t need to elaborate - I know exactly what he was talking about. What we shared last night, the three of us - it was more than sex. When she walked away after our night in Manhattan, neither of us had been able to forget her. Now, she’s here again.

This time, I don’t want to let her go without a fight. Life doesn’t offer too many second chances, and when one comes my way, I’m going to seize it and hold on. She is scared of trusting us. I’m going to show her there is nothing to fear.

It’s a few minutes after nine. I sit at the kitchen island and open my laptop with a cup of coffee next to me. For a few moments, I sip at the beverage and answer emails, but my mind isn’t on the task in front of me. Thoughts hammer at my head. Concern for Noah wars with empathy for Carter. I think murderous thoughts of Ed Wagner, who is putting us through so much grief.

Of course, I think about Gabriella, how can I not? She’s special. Fiery and passionate, but with a sweetness that shines through, and a sense of humor that makes her irresistible to be around.

“Hey.” As if my thoughts can summon her, she walks through the doorway, wearing my t-shirt. “I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed your clothes.”

“It looks far better on you than it ever did on me,” I respond with a smile. “Do you want breakfast? I can call down for it. And coffee?”

“Tea please, not coffee,” she replies. “My mom’s English. She likes to claim that my preference for tea is the only thing I got from her.”

I dial room service and put in an order for food and tea. When that’s done, I cock my head to one side and survey Gabby. There’s so much I don’t know about her, so much I want to learn. “And your father’s Brazilian?” I ask.

She nods, pulling up a barstool and sitting next to me. “He’s a retired soccer player, but you already knew that.”

I frown, confused. “I didn’t, actually. Why would I?”

“Oh.” She blushes faintly. “I just assumed that you had a background check done on me last night.”

“Is that what passes as normal in New York dating circles these days?”

She glares at me, her fingers playing with a strand of her hair. “I thought that’s what you rich guys do. Especially when you need me to track down Carter’s nephew.”

“You really have some issues with trust,” I say with a shake of my head. “I don’t have some kind of dossier on you. I prefer to get to know the women I’m dating in more old-fashioned ways.”

“Is that so? How did you know my dad’s Brazilian then?” She folds her arms across her chest in a protective huddle, and I instantly want to soothe her.

“You told us that the first time we met,” I remind her, grinning at the memory. “Then you taught us some Portuguese swear words. Afterwards, we sang Spanish drinking songs. You are very multilingual.”

She turns scarlet and fidgets with a pen on the island, twirling it between her fingers in a restless motion. “I’d forgotten that,” she admits sheepishly. “I do some silly things when I’m drinking.”

“Like losing a hundred grand?” I’m curious about her poker debt. That’s a lot of money to lose in one night.

“Ah,” she says wryly. “Cue the judgment. I’m kind of surprised you held off condemning me for as long as you did.” She doesn’t look at me when she resumes speaking. “I live for that rush,” she says softly. “The moment you look at your hand and you know it’s a winner. The times when adrenaline tingles up your spine, when you know that something special is going to happen.” She sighs. “You own a casino. I thought you might understand it.”

“I do understand,” I reply, leaning forward and covering her hand with mine. “I wasn’t judging you. Just curious, I guess.”

Her eyes search my face. She doesn’t want to believe me, but I’m not lying. The game has owned me many times. I’ve lived for the same feeling of exhilaration she describes.

Finally, she nods. “I’ve thought about that game so many times,” she says. “And whichever way I slice it and dice it, the only conclusion I can draw is that the game was crooked.”

“You think it was Sammy?”

She shakes her head. “I can’t see it.” She starts to add something, but a knock at the door interrupts our conversation.

I get up to open it, and a white-shirted waiter enters the room, wheeling a cart of food and an assortment of tea. He starts to set it up and I wave him away. “I can manage,” I promise him. “Thank you.” No doubt the manager has instructed him on exactly how to set up, but I’m far more interested in continuing my conversation with Gabby.

“Tea?” I offer when the door shuts behind our waiter.

She selects a tea bag and I pour some steaming water into a white mug etched with the Grand River logo, and hand it to her. “You were saying?” I prompt her.

“I don’t think it was Sammy,” she replies. “The more I think about it, I’m convinced it was the dealer at my table, working with one of the players.”

“Have you told Sammy about your suspicions?”

She gives me an incredulous look. “Of course not. How’s that going to sound? Hey Sammy, I owe you a hundred thousand dollars, but I think your tables are rigged. I don’t have a death-wish.”

Her voice turns animated as she speaks. Her eyes sparkle and her pitch rises. She’s so very expressive that I could watch her all day.

That’s just creepy, Crawford.

I push the basket of assorted pastries towards her. “There’s an omelet too,” I offer.

She laughs. “It’s an improvement over the selection at Motel 6,” she quips.

“You’re staying at the Motel 6?”

I must look disapproving, because she huffs in irritation. “Dominic,” she says very slowly, as if she’s talking to an idiot. “I know that in your world, this isn’t even a consideration, but I don’t have any money for fancy hotels.”

“The Motel 6 is in the crappiest part of town,” I point out, “and I have a vested interest in keeping you safe. I’m coming with you to pick up your things, and I’m going to arrange for a room for you here.”

She opens her mouth to argue, then she shuts it. “Thank you,” she says.

I’d been bracing myself for a fight, and I’m surprised I don’t get one. Mentally adding
unexpected
to the list of her qualities, I munch on a croissant.

“
S
o tell me something
, Dominic,” she turns to me in my car. “Carter works for you, right?”

“Yup.” Traffic is unusually heavy for a Wednesday morning. School’s out, but I’m still surprised at how busy the roads are.
The beach must be jam packed with people.
That thought leads to me imagining Gabby in a bikini, and I have to fight to concentrate on driving.

She doesn’t know the distinctly sexual direction my thoughts have taken. “You two seem really close.”

“We were in college together,” I tell her, navigating around an idiot driver who has swung wildly into the right lane in order to turn left. “We’ve known each other for a very long time. And technically, I’m Noah’s godfather.”

“So you knew his sister as well?”

“Yup.” I don’t want to talk about this, but I owe her the story. She’s putting herself in danger to help us find Noah. She deserves the complete truth.

That’s not why you are being honest with her, Crawford. You’re hoping this relationship will go somewhere.

I ignore my annoying inner voice that insists on pointing out inconvenient truths. “I used to date Chloe a long time ago, when she was twenty-three and I was twenty-five. We dated for two years, until she started using again.”

“Were you in love with her?” She doesn’t meet my eyes as she asks the question, and her voice is quiet.

“Yes,” I admit. “I was crazy about her. It killed me when we broke up. I was hoping that she’d go clean. Instead, she started dating Ed Wagner.” I can’t keep the tone of loathing out of my voice. “A year later, Noah was born.”

“Is he your kid?”

I shoot her a startled look. “No.” I take a deep breath. “I wish he was.”

“Do you still love her?” Soft as the first question was, this one is barely a whisper.

“Had you asked me five months ago, I would have said yes.”

“What does that mean, Dominic?” Her knuckles are clutching the seat, and her eyes are fixed firmly on her lap. She’s refusing to look at me.

“I met a woman at a bar five months ago, and I couldn’t stop thinking about her.” I risk a traffic accident and reach out for her hand. “I hurt Chloe. I drove her to Ed Wagner. Had she not hooked up with a junkie, who knows what could have happened?” I stare at the car in front of me, but I don’t register its presence. “They binged one night, and she died of an overdose. Noah was two. Ed wanted nothing to do with a child, so he took off.” Those days had been really difficult for me, but my distress had been nothing compared to Carter’s. He’d been
devastated
. If we hadn’t been involved in the day-to-day madness of raising a young child, we would have both fallen apart in different ways. “Since Chloe’s death, I haven’t been able to think about anyone else.” I pause. “Until I met you.”

She makes a scoffing sound, but her grip on the car seat hasn’t relaxed. She’s still tense, and given that I’m inching forward at ten miles an hour, it isn’t because I’m driving like a madman. Our conversation is making her uncomfortable.

I recall her words from last night. She thinks she’s some kind of nice guy repellant. The men she’s dated have given her a reason to be distrustful, to shy away from real emotion, to conceal her feelings behind a derisive exterior.

“You don’t believe me.”

“I’m not calling you a liar,” she rushes to reassure me, as if
that
is what’s important in this moment. “I think your brain is scrambled by sex, that’s all. I mean, I’m the woman you had a threesome with. Unless you do that on a day-to-day basis, of course you are going to remember me.”

“Nope.” I keep my eyes on the road, but I’m sure she’s scowling right now. “That’s not what this is about. That night wasn’t my first threesome. What I felt, I felt for
you
. I’ve had enough sex in my life that I can tell when it’s more.”

She opens her mouth to argue, then she shuts it. We drive in silence till we pull into the Motel 6 parking lot.

T
raffic’s lighter
on the way back. “It’s my turn for the inquisition,” I tease her. “Tell me about yourself.”

She laughs. “The dreaded open-ended question,” she mocks gently. “What do you want to know about me?”

“Everything,” I reply honestly. “Tell me where you grew up. Do you get along with your parents? What do you do for work? What do you do for fun?”

“Whoa there,” she holds up her hands, but she’s still grinning. “That’s a boatload of questions. I grew up in London. My dad played for Arsenal for a few years. My mom was the coach’s daughter.”

“What do you do for work?”

“I’m a PR rep,” she answers. “I represent Brazilian and Portuguese soccer players. My firm finds them endorsement deals in North America, and I work with them because I speak both soccer and Portuguese.”

I grin. She’s funny. “Did you move to New York for work?”

She nods. “In London, everyone only knew me as my father’s daughter. I just wanted to make it on my own.”

That sentiment, I can understand. It also explains why she hasn’t asked her parents for money to pay off Sammy. Gabby’s got an independent streak.
I like it.
“And for fun?”

She rolls her eyes at my questioning. “You already know about the poker,” she answers. “Apart from that, not much really. I have a set of friends I hang out with every week.” A fond expression fills her face. “They’re a great group of women. What else do you want to know?”

“Do you get along with your parents?”

“Absolutely,” she says instantly. “My parents are great. Well, they’re great, except for the fact that they think I should get married and give them grandbabies.”

“Don’t you want to get married?”

She shrugs, and she wraps her arms around herself again. “I don’t have the best history with men,” she replies finally. “Love, relationships, romance, marriage - these things aren’t exactly a priority anymore.”

I’m often accused of being direct.
You have the subtlety of a bull in a china shop,
Chloe used to complain. It’s a reputation I come by honestly. “Will your parents object to you dating two guys?” I ask bluntly. I want Gabby. I don’t want this to become a problem.

She gives me a startled look, her eyes wide in her face. “Dominic,” she mutters, “I think we are getting ahead of ourselves.”

“No.” We’ve tiptoed around the issue long enough. “If you don’t want to date us, Gabby, all you have to do is say so, and we’ll both back off. But if this is because of your bullshit theory about your effect on men, then we are going to prove you wrong. We aren’t going to cheat on you, and you can trust us with your life. Whatever it takes to show you that, I’m in.”