CHAPTER ONE

      IF THERE WAS ever a time for Gabe Foster to be content, it was right now. He had everything a young man could want—wealth, prestige, a successful career and promising future, any woman he wanted and good friends. He’d just returned home to Las Vegas from a month-long work trip to Hong Kong, where he’d helped facilitate a merger of one of his biggest clients. The trip had earned him and his firm, Burnham & Associates, a significant amount of money, and because of it, he was a shoo-in to become a senior partner, the position he’d been groomed to take since he’d been a young adult.

      “Your shot, sir.” A voice at his side broke his reverie.

      “Sure, thanks.” He covered for his lack of attention, reaching for his glass.

      “No, you’re still the shooter.” The stickman gestured once more to the pair of dice on the craps table in front of him.

      “Oh damn, sorry!” Gabe snatched up the dice and surveyed the table. Just like him to zone out in the middle of a heater with nine hundred dollars at stake.

      Everything was going well for Gabe. He should have been on top of the world. But there was something missing. But with a table full of gamblers, he didn’t exactly have time to consider what it was. Introspection was for quiet mornings over coffee, not at a craps table during a winning streak.

      He rattled the dice in his hand and tossed them down the table, expertly bouncing them off the end. Five and three.

      The dealer flipped the button to the eight on the felt-top table, his hands moving nimbly as a flurry of bets descended on the surface. A pair of frat brothers were clapping their hands, praying for protection from “Big Red,” the seven roll that would end this streak. To Gabe’s right a retired dentist and his wife were having the time of their lives in a real Vegas moment.

      Gabe was flying solo tonight. He’d met with his friends, the Brotherhood, at Di Terrestres. But they’d all gone home early in the evening—heading home, or to the office.

      Gabe hadn’t wanted to stick around Di Terrestres—the erotic club they owned, where people could come together, socialize without having to worry about their extracurricular activities and more basic, biological proclivities being reported by the press or gossip blogs. Of all of the businesses owned by the Brotherhood, Di Terrestres was the crown jewel. The ultra-exclusive club, which boasted clothing-optional areas and playrooms catering to more erotic tastes, had made them all millionaires many times over, and made them a hot commodity among the rich, famous and influential.

      It wasn’t his problem that all his friends had headed home to wives and fiancées, or had chosen to work on his first night back in the city. He was a young, single, rich and reasonably good-looking man in one of the hottest party destinations in the world. He could find fun on his own. He looked up at the crowd that had surrounded the table, all winning, urging him to keep playing. Strangers who he held—their chips on the table—in his palm along with the hottest pair of dice he’d ever encountered.

      He looked past the group, across the casino floor, as two women left the nearby nightclub. Speaking of the hottest he’d ever encountered. Both were gorgeous, but one held his attention. She was tall, her long dark hair falling past her shoulders to the center of her back. Her fair skin told him she hadn’t spent much time underneath the scorching Las Vegas sun. Definitely a tourist. The women stopped at the nearby casino bar. The brunette turned her head, and somehow, their eyes connected over the frenetic energy of the floor. He smiled, and so did she, before she turned back to her friend and sipped from the glass the bartender had brought her. The noise, the chaos, the bright lights dimmed, and all he could focus on was the elegant, beautiful woman in the short strapless dress, as she said something to her friend and again looked in his direction. She smiled. Gabe knew a signal when he saw one.

      Taking a step back from the table, Gabe handed the dice to the dealer. “I think that’s it for me tonight,” he told everyone. “It’s been fun.” He started to turn away and, removing his phone from his pocket, checked the time—the night was still young and so was he. The man who’d been standing next to him—the one who, thanks to Gabe, had won a substantial stack of chips—called to him as he walked away. “Hey, buddy, what about your chips?”

      He looked down at his own newly won stack and pointed to the man. “You’re up. Let it ride.”

      * * *

      Ellie Carrington wiggled her toes in her stiletto booties. Her feet were tired, her toes most likely covered in blisters, but the two straight hours of dancing with her best friend, Rachel, had been worth it. “That was so much fun,” Ellie told her. “I can’t believe I almost spent the night at the office.”

      “Aren’t you glad I convinced you to ditch work and party?”

      Ellie thought about the unopened emails filling her inbox and tried to contain her grimace. Since the day she’d started work at her father’s law firm two weeks ago, she’d gotten right down to work, aiding some of the more senior associates with their clients. “Despite the things I’ll have to catch up on tomorrow, yes I am. But just this one time, though.” This was just one small step back for her, a slip back into the world of old Ellie.

      “Why were you working anyway? I thought you had dinner plans with your father,” Rachel said.

      Ellie’s laugh was short and humorless. “He canceled.”

      “Again?”

      “Yup. That’s the third time.”

      Ellie had arrived in Las Vegas two weeks ago. After completing law school, she’d started working at her father’s law firm as a junior associate.

      Her reasons for coming to Las Vegas had been threefold. She mentally ticked them off again in her head, as she’d done dozens of times before: 1) to practice law and work for her father, one of the most prominent and well-regarded lawyers in the state; 2) rehab her image—the celebutante party girl she’d been had finally grown up and gotten her life together. She was an adult, she had a career and hopefully the gossip blogs would forget about her forever; and 3) most important, to rebuild her relationship with her father, Charles. Ellie had figured that number three would be the easy part. “I don’t know what he wants. I moved here to work for him, hoping we would have the relationship we never had, but it turns out I’m still the daughter he never wanted.”

      Rachel