www.millsandboon.co.uk

      KATHERINE GARBERA

      took one brief trip to Las Vegas and was hooked with endless story ideas and a fascination with that playground known as Sin City. She’s written more than twenty books and has been nominated for Romantic Times BOOKClub’s career achievement awards in Series Fantasy and Series Adventure. Katherine recently moved to the Dallas area where she lives with her husband and their two children. Visit Katherine on the Web at www.katherinegarbera.com.

      This book is dedicated to my kids, Courtney and Lucas, who keep me on my toes and make every day an adventure!

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      One

      “Hey, sexy lady. Where do you want me today?”

      Raine Montgomery bit the inside of her cheek not to respond to Scott Rivers. Every morning it was the same line or some variation of it. It should have sounded like a pickup line but didn’t. Instead he made her want to believe she was a sexy lady, even though she’d had enough experience with gamblers to know they never told the truth.

      “Can’t decide?” he asked, slipping an arm around her waist.

      She stepped away from him. “In your chair at the table.”

      “Honey, when are you going to loosen up with me?”

      “When you stop flirting with every woman who walks by.”

      “Is it making you jealous?”

      “No.”

      Scott laughed and walked away from her as the other players trickled in.

      She’d gotten into the film business for one reason and one reason only. She’d dreamed of the moment when she’d be called onstage at the Academy Awards to accept her Oscar for best director. She even had her speech rehearsed:

      “I’d like to thank the Academy for recognizing my accomplishments, and I’d like the rest of the world to know that Missy Talbot is a spoiled bitch and my dad isn’t a loser.”

      Okay, so it was a little melodramatic, but she’d been in junior high at the time and it had seemed like the perfect solution to her dismal and dreary life in New Jersey.

      But her dream hadn’t gotten her to the Oscars; in fact, she wasn’t even close to winning a People’s Choice Award or even an MTV one. She doubted anyone was going to be giving her an award for World Champion Celebrity Poker Showdown.

      The taping ran for four weeks, with three celebrities and three champions from across the country who competed. In each week’s episode two games were played and at the end of the show two players were eliminated. When just two players remained, they played two high-stakes games to determine the celebrity poker champ.

      The show was essentially a high-stakes Texas hold ’em poker game where viewers could log on to a Web site and win prizes by correctly guessing if the celebrity winner had been bluffing or really held the cards needed to win.

      Spawned in part by the reality craze that was sweeping through the television industry, the show tapped into the public’s desire to watch celebrities spend their money and their free time. Every four weeks a new group of celebrities and champs were brought in. Then at the end of the season they had a winners-only play-off.

      Their show taped a month’s worth of episodes in one week. Each person on the show signed a waiver promising not to reveal the results, because viewers had the chance to vote on who they thought was the best and win a myriad of prizes that had been donated by sponsors. The celebrities were playing for charities as were the champions.

      Raine had given all the players a wide berth because her producer, Joel Tanner, didn’t like her or any of the crew mingling with the players. In fact there was a clear no-fraternization clause in the contracts signed by everyone on the set, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes. Joel wanted to make sure they didn’t end up with any kind of lawsuit because of the way the players were shown.

      Prizes were given to viewers who chose the winner each week. So how Raine shot and edited the show could influence them. They’d had to fire a cameraman last season because he’d been involved with one of the players and had been giving her more camera time than the other players.

      This set of shows was being taped in the exclusive Chimera Casino on the strip in Las Vegas. Still, it was hard work, and Raine rubbed the back of her neck as she headed toward the director’s booth. Some people called it the God booth because her voice could be heard but she couldn’t be seen. Yet Raine knew she was as far from God as any person could be.

      Especially since right now she was having impure thoughts about actor Scott Rivers. She entered the booth and put on her headphones. Since all of the players were miked, she could hear their small talk. The deep sexy tones of Scott’s voice came over her headphones and she paused to listen. He was the first guy she’d ever been tempted to break her contract for, and she really struggled to keep resisting him every day. She wished he’d lose…. No, that wasn’t true. She knew enough about men to realize that sooner or later he’d stop asking her out, and she honestly wanted to enjoy flirting with him until that happened.

      “Shot down again, eh, stud?”

      Scott glanced over at Stevie Taylor, the notoriously debauched lead singer for Viper, a heavy-metal band that had been on the cutting edge of music fifteen years ago. Instead of being a has-been, Stevie had the kind of talent and energy that had kept him in the mainstream. He simply changed his style to fit the younger audiences’ tastes.

      That being said, the man was an ass sometimes, and Scott suspected Stevie was still pissed off about losing to him at the PGA celebrity golf tournament last month in Hawaii. Or maybe it was the fact that Scott had unwittingly been the object of Stevie’s third wife’s affection.

      “Some women take more time than others,” Scott said. Especially women like Raine Montgomery. Not that Raine fit into a box or a category. In fact, he knew she’d be ticked off that he’d even thought of putting her in one. “They aren’t all impressed with long hair and fast cars.”

      “I guess that means you have to try harder,”