Hot Number (22 page)

Nick couldn’t help jerking upright in his
chair. “Holy shit. I mean, that’s amazing.”
Math?
He could
have taken twenty guesses and still not come up with the right
answer.

She stiffened. “Why is it so amazing?”

The coolness in her voice warned him to watch
his step. He didn’t want to say something stupid, but he just
couldn’t envision her as a mathematician, especially at some place
as high-powered as the University of Chicago. But why not? He’d
seen tons of evidence—including at the blackjack table—that Sadie
Bligh had a mighty brain.

“I guess I have a stereotype of a math
professor in my head—an older, absent-minded guy in a tweed sports
coat. Sure as hell not a smoking hot young woman.”

She visibly relaxed. “Excellent recovery. I
like your answer. The smoking hot part, anyway. As for stereotypes,
though, they usually exist for good reason. Sadly, math and science
were male preserves for a very long time. But it’s changing.”

Now that the basics were out of the way, he
wanted to move on to more personal matters. “What about your
family, Sadie?”

“The less said the better,” she ground out in
so grim a voice his radar switched on again.

“Come on, babe. Don’t leave me hanging here.
Are your mom and dad still alive? Any brothers or sisters?
Enquiring minds want to know,” he said, trying to keep it
light.

She screwed up her face. “God, Sheriff, I
feel like I’ve been transported back to the gulag. But I can see
that you’re going to keep dogging me about this, aren’t you?”

He gave her what he hoped was a winning smile
as he shrugged.

“No surprise there. Fine, then,” she said in
a disgruntled tone.

Shit.
No doubt about it, the
post-sexual buzz had departed the building. Unfortunately, he had
no choice but to carry on.

“My mother and father are both math
professors,” she said. “They met when they taught at MIT, and
divorced when I was ten. No other children. Mother remarried and
moved to France with her husband, who’s a professor at the
University of Lyon. She made it crystal clear that I’d be better
off staying in the States with my father.”

Jesus.
What kind of mother did that?
“I’m sorry. That must have sucked.”

“To be rejected by your own mother? Yes, you
could say that,” she said in a carefully neutral tone. “Shortly
after she decamped, Dad moved us to Chicago so he could take the
chair of the math department.”

“He raised you by himself?”

Her mouth pulled downward in a cynical curve.
It looked horribly wrong on that sweet, pretty face. “Actually, I
was mostly raised by a series of live-in nannies. My father didn’t
have very much time for me. Not even when I started winning math
competitions.”

Nick frowned. “Still, you ended up following
in his footsteps.”

“Of course. All I ever wanted to do was
emulate him.”

“So you became a math professor, just like
your dad,” he said gently. He understood the psychology behind that
one. Nick had wanted to be exactly like his father, too. But his
dad, unlike Sadie’s, had never been anything but a supportive and
proud parent.

She let out a bitter laugh. “No, not just
like him. I became a mathematician, all right, but I was always
just daddy’s little girl. The precocious kid of a famous father.
Really good, but never good enough to measure up to the brilliant
and illustrious Professor Anthony Bligh.”

His chest ached with sympathy for her. “Why
are you so down on yourself? You’re young, Sadie. You’ve got lots
of time to make your mark.”

“Easy for you to say. You don’t know what
it’s like in my world.” She put her hands together in the universal
time out signal and gave him a weak smile. “Look, can we change the
subject? I didn’t come to Vegas to rehash all my angst. Exactly the
opposite, in fact.”

“Sure.” He figured he’d gotten everything out
of her that she was willing to share. It had assuaged his concerns,
but that didn’t mean he could avoid dealing with her situation at
the Desert Oasis. Carson would to see to that, and she would
probably take it better from Nick than she would from his boss.
Besides, he didn’t have a choice if he wanted to keep his job.

“So, speaking of Vegas, you’re clearly
enjoying yourself in the casino. At least after that first
night—the one we’d both just as soon forget.”

She brightened a little, obviously relieved
at the change in subject. “I am. And I’m glad I didn’t let you
scare me off with your police state tactics.”

He scoffed. “Hell, I treated you with kid
gloves, sweetheart.”

“You abused me horribly,” she said with a
pout. “I thought about suing, or maybe filing a complaint with the
American Civil Liberties Union.”

He couldn’t help laughing. “Okay, if I did
cross the line a bit—and I’m not admitting anything—I think I’ve
made amends for it, haven’t I?”

She unleashed a sexy smile that spiked his
blood pressure. “Maybe, but you’re going to have to keep working at
it. Let’s just say you’ve made a reasonable start.”

“Thank you, ma’am. I do pride myself on my
work.”

“I’ve very aware of that, and very
grateful.”

Now, with the mood lightened, it was time to
get down to business. Sadie had relaxed since they stopped talking
about her family. “So,” he said casually, “is your luck at the
tables still holding?”

Sadie gazed at him from across the old oak
kitchen table, the one he’d been sitting at since he was a kid. He
should be feeling comfortable and in control, but the wary
expression on her face sent a wave of guilt washing through
him.

“It seems to be holding up fine,” she said.
“I’m sure my streak will come to a tragic end soon, though. It’s
extremely difficult to defeat the house for any length of time,
from what I read in a book I picked up.”

He got the distinct feeling she was trying to
pretend she was a novice. “That’s right. Everybody loses
eventually. It makes sense to walk away when you’re ahead. But most
people can’t bring themselves to do it, and they leave town with
their pockets empty.”

Sadie shook her head vigorously, and her
auburn curls bounced. “I understand, but I didn’t come to Vegas to
do what makes sense. I’m supposed to be doing everything
but
what makes sense. That’s the whole point of my trip.”

She fell silent for a moment, gazing
pensively at her wine as she swirled it around in the balloon
goblet. “I don’t really understand it, but playing blackjack has
been energizing—like getting a shot of adrenaline when I most
needed it.” She glanced up at him but then quickly shifted her gaze
to the living room. Nick’s heart sank at the revealing gesture.

“So, I’m just going to let it ride,” she
continued, “and if I lose my stake, then it’ll be just what I
expected. Whatever happens, I’ll go home with no regrets.” She
finally brought her gaze back to meet his, as if daring him to
challenge her.

Nick was pretty sure Sadie was lying, and if
he was interrogating anybody else, he’d pounce on him. But not on
her. Not after everything she’d told him. She wasn’t in it for the
money, he was confident of that. Something else was going on, and
he needed to see her in action to figure it out, especially since
she obviously had no intention of sharing her motives. Still, it
would be better to warn her off now, before she got into more
trouble. Before Carson made him throw her ass out onto the
street.

“But you’re already ahead by a lot of money,”
he said in a reasonable voice. “Maybe you should just quit now and
enjoy your winnings.”

Her expression blanked for a few seconds, and
then she slowly sat up very straight. “I never mentioned that I was
ahead by a lot of money
.”

Oh, shit
.
Bad slip-up
. He gave
her a rueful smile, realizing it was time to come clean, at least
about knowing how much she’d won. “Sadie, it’s not exactly a secret
that casinos know everything that goes on at their tables and
slots. Players who win consistently get their totals monitored. Not
to the penny, but the pit bosses keep their eyes open and report.
So do the operations room staff, who see it all on the
cameras.”

She arched her brows as she carefully slid
her glass away from her. “So, let me make sure I understand this
correctly. You’re saying I’ve been under active surveillance?”

He didn’t like the stubborn cast to her jaw.
Did she really not understand that casinos monitored everything?
“Hell, Sadie, of course. You, and dozens and dozens of others. It’s
nothing to get worked up about, because it’s standard operating
procedure at every casino. And you know how many surveillance
cameras there are at the Oasis. We’ve been dodging them for the
last three days, remember?”

She let out an angry huff of breath. “I
suppose I should have known. You people are more than happy to
relieve patrons of their hard-earned money, but will go to any
lengths to avoid giving up a dime of your own, including spying on
perfectly respectable tourists like me. Talk about a gross invasion
of privacy!”

He’d been expecting anger from her—at least
for a little while—but such righteous outrage? A casual player
wouldn’t normally get bent out of shape about routine monitoring,
and a professional card counter would expect it. Not only that, but
it irked him that she would finger him as one of the bad guys. She
should know him well enough by now to understand he had her best
interests at heart.

“You people?” he asked, letting his
irritation show.

“Well, it’s
your
casino. And it’s
your
job
to enforce the rules, isn’t it,
Sheriff
?” Her rising color showed him she was really getting
worked up. “Is this another interrogation? Is there another set of
rules I should be following that I don’t know about? Perhaps I
should even be calling a lawyer?”

Nick groaned. “Fuck, Sadie. All I did was ask
whether your luck was holding out. I’m not interrogating you. I
just want you to use that All-Star brain of yours and act
sensibly.”

“Sensibly! I think not, Sheriff. No one, and
certainly not you, is going to tell me how to use my brain or how
to run my life. So, I’ll thank you to keep your opinions and advice
to yourself.”

She threw her napkin down on the table and
stood up. “I find I’ve suddenly lost my appetite. I’d appreciate it
if you would call me a taxi.”

He sat there, stunned. “You’re kidding me,
right?”

The cut of her jaw went from stubborn to
mulish. “Now, please.”

Great. He could practically see steam blowing
out the top of her head. There was no point in trying to talk her
down off the ledge, at least not tonight. And right now he was so
annoyed with her—and with himself—that he wasn’t even sure he
wanted to.

“Fine,” he growled. His chair made a loud
scraping sound as he pushed it back.

Sadie grabbed her bag and stood by the front
door as he called the cab. As he eyed her rigid body, Nick tried to
figure out how a beautiful evening had gone straight down the drain
in less time than it took him to chew through two bites of the
ruined steak. He obviously hadn’t handled the situation as well as
he could have, but Sadie had overreacted big time. Playing
blackjack was obviously damn important to her, maybe even important
enough to blow up their relationship. Not very flattering, by any
analysis.

But, then again, were they really in a
relationship? Was that even possible, given how he barely knew her?
Why the hell couldn’t he figure this situation out?

Still, knowing so little about her was not
normal for a guy who made his living watching and interrogating
people. Of course, damn little that had happened between him and
Sadie Bligh over the past forty-eight hours could be called
anything approaching normal.

* * *

It was after one in the morning when Cassie
finally knocked on Sadie’s door. Sadie had left messages on her
friend’s hotel voicemail and on her cell phone, imploring her to
come to her room the second she got the message. She needed to talk
through this whole mess with Nick or she’d have to go down to the
lobby bar and drink mojitos until she passed out. One minute she
wanted to murder him using every medieval torture implement she
could think of, and the next she was burning with shame for her
outraged behavior at his house.

But what did he expect? He’d been
spying
on her, and he hadn’t even tried to deny it. Was he
spending time with her because he genuinely liked her, or because
it was part of his job? Just the thought that it might be the
latter made her sick to her stomach, maybe as sick as when she’d
heard the news about the Eagleton Prize.

Cassie sat down on the bed, her makeup
decidedly worse for the wear. She looked like she hadn’t slept for
days.

“Where were you all evening?” Sadie said. She
heard the sharpness in her voice and instantly winced. “Sorry,
Cass. I seem to have lost my manners tonight, along with my
bearings.”

Cassie yawned, waving off her apology. “I met
up with some girls at the Mirage and they talked me into going to
see the Blue Man Group. We got a little drunk and, well...” She
shook her head. “But forget about me, Sade. What’s wrong with you?
You look like you’re about to go Chernobyl on me or something.” She
studied Sadie’s face for a few seconds, and then nodded. “Ah,
things went south with Saxon, right?”

“South? I’d say they’re nearing Antarctica by
now, and headed straight for the Pole.” Sadie flopped down on the
small loveseat in the window alcove.

“What the hell happened? I thought you guys
were going to have a cozy evening at his place?”

Sadie pulled her legs up under her, feeling
gloomier by the second. “So did I. In fact, it started out
brilliantly with steamy sex in the shower before dinner. Nothing
like that had ever happened to me. It was—”