CHRISTMAS.
Okay, technically it now was the day after Christmas, but I hadn’t had a Christmas yet, and I was enough of a kid to hold that against the Fates.
I’d asked Santa for a sexy Frenchman in his skivvies—my kind of package.
But, instead of getting what I asked for, I’d gotten an attempted murder in a whorehouse masquerading as a massage parlor and a night talking to the cops.
Clearly, when it had come to the naughty-or-nice thing, I’d fallen on the wrong side of that line. I planned on holding that against the Fates as well.
But I was alive, so there was that.
Yes, I had lost my Christmas cheer, which wasn’t unusual. Cheery was not an adjective anyone would include in my epitaph. Living down to expectations, it’s what I do.
The Metropolitan Police Department, Metro to those of us who held it in low esteem—and deservedly so—had kept us for hours. Thankfully, Detective Romeo had ridden to my rescue and busted me out early. Miss Minnie was still hanging on, but when I’d checked an hour or so ago, the doctor had said it would be touch and go once she came out of surgery.
Nothing to do but go home.
Home. A lantern in the storm.
The streets of Summerlin were quiet, everyone sleeping off Christmas. One neighbor already had put his tree to the curb, decorations and all. I didn’t even want to think about what had precipitated that. I’d had enough sad for the night.
My borrowed red Ferrari easily recognizable, the guard waved me through the gate.
The garage light clicked on as the door rose. I still couldn’t reconcile my life with a house in the suburbs, a fiancé, a future stepchild, and a garage door clicker with the me I used to be. Funny that. Life choices. The suburbs or the Strip? Jean-Charles or Teddie? And why did choosing one always mean losing the other?
Tiptoeing through the mudroom into the kitchen, I tried to be quiet as I set down my keys and purse. The lingering aromas of dinner—something Italian maybe—curled around me. Toys littered the floor. A game of Operation had been shoved to the side of the large country table. Four place settings. Mine still had a knife and fork atop a clean napkin folded, waiting.
I felt the guilty prick of unmet expectations.
The strains of Moonlight Sonata led me to the bar off the kitchen. Jean-Charles had waited up for me.
He stood in front of the fire, attired as I’d asked for, his hands clasped behind his back, worry pinching the skin between his eyebrows into a slight frown. His eyes closed, he swayed to the music, lost in it. A few inches taller than my six feet, my fiancé…yes, my fiancé…had waited and worried, making me feel lucky indeed. The Fates be damned.
To be honest, I still couldn’t get used to the idea of getting married. And to such a man! Tall enough, as I said, trim in all the right places, with full lips, chiseled features, wavy brown hair he wore just a trifle long, and a smile that lit his robin’s egg-blue eyes, he was a feast for sure. And he could cook! An added benefit, since I’d never been known to pass up a meal. But it was the way he looked at me, the way he listened, and the way he made me feel that had won my heart.
My heart.
The one I’d taken back from Teddie.
Sensing me standing there, he opened his eyes. His smile warmed me to the core, banishing my murderous evening. Holding his arms wide, he welcomed me into an embrace.
Tucking my face into the crook of his neck, I let him hold me. And I knew I could get through anything if this…if he…was waiting for me at the end of it all.
“You are okay?” he whispered, his breath warm against my cheek.
I tried not to think about Miss Minnie, the look in her eyes—imploring, scared. Even though I’d washed off her blood, I could still feel the warmth, the vitality…her essence…as it leaked out of her. I could feel her fear, her fight. I shivered.
“What’s the matter?” Jean-Charles sensed my discomfort.
I pulled him over to the couch then curled under his arm, tucking my feet up under me after I’d shucked my shoes.
And I told him.
The song started over twice before I had finished. Jean-Charles hadn’t said a word—he’d simply held me tight and let me talk. When I’d finished, he kissed my forehead. “You are going to Macau.”
It wasn’t a question—he knew I had no choice. Well, I guess we all have a choice, but letting Irv Gittings get away was not one of them. But we both knew that wasn’t exactly why I was going.
Teddie.
I’m not sure I could find the words to describe all that Teddie had been and continued to be to me. Best friends, my first love, my biggest disappointment, and now, back to best friends, even though it still rankled that he looked better in my clothes than I did. Teddie had been Vegas’s foremost female impersonator. I’d even let him wear my vintage Chanel and my Manolos, even though he stretched them out. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is…was. The break in my heart still hurt when I thought of him.
Unfortunately, our relationship had been a bit one-sided. Teddie had fallen more in love with himself than with me. In the race of love, a distant second wasn’t what I was hoping for, wasn’t what I needed.
Teddie left.
I’d let him go.
Then he came back—a ruse created by my parents, but I couldn’t exactly prove it. That’s where things had gone from bad to abysmal.
Teddie had fled house arrest for a murder he didn’t commit. Somewhere in that pea-sized brain of his, he thought it would be a good idea to go off half-cocked to Macau to bring Irv Gittings to justice and, according to Mona, me back to his bed.
So not happening.
But, regardless, somehow it was my fault, in a roundabout sort of way—I hadn’t handled Teddie’s return very well. My friends and family argued with my assessment. But, my fault or not, I felt responsible. And the only way to live with it was to make it go away.
And somehow, some way, I needed to put my feelings for Teddie to bed. Okay, a bad analogy, but I needed to get him out of my head and my heart. Time to move on. But I couldn’t let him die for me.
A martyred love—just what I needed. Of course, it wasn’t all about me, but right now I was feeling a bit put-upon.
A fly the spider had singled out for dinner.
So, yes, for a myriad of reasons, I had to go to Macau.
Teddie was ill equipped to deal with Irv Gittings and the Chos, and the God-knew-who-elses of the Chinese underworld. Unlike Teddie, I had a lifetime of dealing with lowlifes. So, the job fell to me.
There was that irony again.
While Jean-Charles wasn’t pleased, to put a nice spin on it, he was trying to be supportive.
“And Cielo?” he asked, still holding me, still loving me, but a slight mock in his voice, as if choosing Teddie over a hotel was an incomprehensible choice. To be honest, I agreed with him.
Cielo. My very own hotel. The Grand Opening loomed—New Year’s Eve.
My birthday.
And I had to go to Macau. I couldn’t even begin to process how stupid an idea that was, so I didn’t.
Maybe, just maybe, the police would do their job and I wouldn’t have to go.
Right. And maybe Irv Gittings would turn himself in, the Chinese would stop trying to game the system, and Teddie would be alive.
Teddie. Are first loves ever forgotten?
I pulled Jean-Charles’s other arm around me. “Everything is in place. I’ll have my phone. And maybe you will help me stay on top of things?”
“Of course. However it is not ideal.”
“But it is inevitable.”
He kissed my forehead. “I do love that about you, always riding to the rescue.”
Tilting at windmills that had developed a habit of shooting back—that’s my gig. I lifted my face to his for a long, sweet kiss.
“Macau will be dangerous,” Jean-Charles said after I released him, his accent making the whole thing sound somehow wonderfully delicious and exciting.
“No more than here.” In the last couple of days, I’d been shot at more times than I could count. Frankly, it was getting old. Maybe a change of scenery would change my luck. Yeah, even I didn’t believe that.
“I cannot argue with that.” He toyed with the large diamond on my left ring finger. “You owe it to me to come back.”
“I know.” Desperate to change the subject before we ruined Christmas, I placed my hand on his stomach, skin to skin. I gasped at the sizzle, the electric connection that arced through me. It happened each time we touched, but still surprised me.
Jean-Charles pulled in a deep breath through his nose. He felt it, too.
I let my hand wander. “I haven’t had my Christmas yet.”
He chuckled, a low rumble in his chest. “And what did you ask for?”
“A handsome Frenchman wearing very little.”
“Then you must’ve been a good girl.” He pulled my shirt free and worked a hand under it. Cupping my breast, his thumb teased the nipple to a peak through the thin fabric of my bra.
“I am always good,” I said in my most suggestive voice. Somehow I didn’t laugh. “But I’m feeling naughty.” I worked my hand down to test just how…engaged my Frenchman was—an embarrassing lack of control, even for me. Could I plead unfulfilled homicidal tendencies, all that unused adrenaline? That and the fact that I was head over heels, all contributed to my taking what I needed.
My Frenchman had already risen to the occasion.
He stood, then pulled me to my feet. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I captured his mouth as I pressed myself against him.
His tongue tangled with mine. He groaned when I deepened the kiss. “The bedroom?” he managed.
“The kids?” I figured he had that well in hand, but it never hurt to ask.
Jean-Charles had a five-year-old son, Christophe. A head full of blonde curls, a smile to match his father’s, and eyes a deeper blue, the boy, taking a lead from his father, had wormed his way into my heart before I’d known what was happening. Jean-Charles’ niece, Chantal, a culinary student intent on following her uncle into the business, was also bunking at her uncle’s place. Two kids, two of us—we were horribly outnumbered.
“They are asleep.” Jean Charles sounded less than certain.
“Here?”
“Yes.” He broke away for a moment and closed the double doors as I shucked my shoes. “Kids,” he added, tossing the word like water onto a fire. Nothing like children to kill the sexual mojo.
“Always plotting,” I said, completing his thought in the same way he completed me.
Sex with kids in the house was a bit different than my usual pick-a-partner-and-a-piece-of-furniture-and-have-at-it. I’d learned this lesson the hard way. Jean-Charles and I had about herniated ourselves in the bathroom, doors locked, the theme song to Thomas the Tank Engine at a decibel level suitable for torture. Mind-blowing sex, but that song now conjured physical reactions I didn’t think the creators intended.
The bar, with its windows and louvered doors, presented a new challenge.
As I shucked my clothes, I lowered the blinds and secured the doors. Ever the Frenchman, Jean-Charles lingered over the perfect wine. If he thought we were easing into this over a perfectly chilled Sancerre, he had another thing coming.
“For later,” he said with a smile, as if he could read my thoughts.
He probably could, which should have terrified me—my brain is hallowed ground, sacred in its weird rituals—but I guess he truly was the One, because I no longer cared if he saw behind the curtain.
As I stepped out of my slacks in the middle of the room, Jean-Charles paused, his eyes alight. Then he thrust the bottle into a bucket of ice and moved around the bar.
He stopped me as I hooked a finger through the fine lace that Mona assured me passed for functional underwear. To me, the stuff gave me a perpetual wedgie, but the effect it had on my Frenchman made me willing to suffer through.
“My turn,” he whispered, his breath warm against my cheek. Deliberately slowing the pace, he reached behind me and undid my bra with a simple flick that always left me in awe. I’d been fastening and unfastening bras far longer than he had, but perhaps not as often as he did, and I couldn’t do it with such skill. I’d love to know his trick, but even I knew some things are best left to lie.
I let him slow it down—history had taught me that slow was definitely better…especially with Jean-Charles—he delighted in each nuance. I was good with that—as long as he stroked all the right buttons.
As it turned out, all that slow and sensuous was way out of reach for both of us. Fear prodding us, love entangling us, we tore at each other with an intense need for connection in the face of a long goodbye.
Goodbye sex is like makeup sex, but with desperation replacing the languid surety of a bit more time.
The tingle of sex still sizzling through me like a shorted wire brought me slowly to consciousness. Enjoying the memory, savoring the heat from my Frenchman wrapped around me on the couch, I lingered in the half-awake state…until I realized the sizzle, which was really a vibration, came from my phone.
Irritation dampened the afterglow, and life came back into focus.
Reality, such a downer…at least parts of it.
Worn out, a bit defeated, deflated at the thought of heading across the Pacific to face God knew what, and totally unwilling to disturb Jean-Charles, I let the call roll to voice mail. For a moment, peace reigned…then the damned thing vibrated a new.
“Perhaps it is important?” Jean-Charles’s voice was husky with sleep. Awake, he decided to nibble on my shoulder, which made it damned hard to not call his bluff.
“Everyone who calls me thinks it’s important. I rarely agree.” I wormed my arm around, my hands searching for the vibration. “Stop that,” I said, pleasure and a giggle infusing each word, which sort of defeated the purpose.
He switched to my ear, making me shudder deliciously.
“That’s not what I meant.” Despite my best intentions to be dour, I giggled. “What time is it?” I asked, trying to get a foothold in the day.
Jean-Charles found the phone under his left thigh, which rested on my right one. I didn’t want to think about how it got there, or if I had inadvertently butt-dialed someone in the past few hours, giving a whole new meaning to the term phone sex. Used to humiliation, I didn’t worry about it too much—except for the host of media-types on speed-dial. Reading about my tryst in Norm Clarke’s column, or his replacement’s—I still couldn’t believe he’d retired—in the R-J tomorrow…later today…would not add to my Christmas cheer, even lacking as it was.
“Still early,” Jean-Charles said between nibbles.
“So helpful.” I glanced at the caller ID. The Big Boss, Albert Rothstein to the masses, Father to me, was the god of the Babylon properties. And as such, mentioning his name usually prompted a genuflection or some other sign of supplication—not from me, of course. I knew his secrets, one of which was that he was human, and, right now, more human than I could handle. Still, he was one of the few people who centered my world.
As I swiped my finger across the face of the phone, all vestiges of warmth, sleep, happiness, and hopes for a normal life evaporated. “Is everything okay?” I was proud I hadn’t shouted.
“Ah, Lucky,” he sighed. “I heard what happened at Minnie’s. When you didn’t call…”
With a sinking heart, I realized I’d added to his worries. He’d already been shot; he didn’t need another load from me. “I’m so sorry, Father. I only got home a couple of hours ago. Calling you in the middle of the night didn’t seem like a good idea.” Of course, I hadn’t thought of calling him, which added a huge line item to my guilt list.
This whole family thing was pretty new, and it still surprised me that there were people who worried about me. Until recently, Mona and the Big Boss had kept his paternity secret. It was complicated, but I understood—apparently even in Vegas and even thirty years ago, it was a felony to have sex with a minor. Mona had lied about her age, but that didn’t change the facts—she was pregnant with me. So, instead of ruining the Big Boss’s career, they’d lied. But now they’d come clean, and my family had doubled in size. And my father was a worrier.
My mother, not so much. Mona had always been there for me, but she slept until noon and wouldn’t even consider worrying until fully caffeinated and the police had issued a nationwide APB. Awakening her usually resulted in an evisceration. To shift from fiercely independent to interconnected at my age was asking a lot. “How did you hear about Minnie?” I asked my father.
“I know people.” That line was “a joke” between us, considering the Big Boss had come up through the ranks of the Mobbed-up Vegas. But now it didn’t sound so funny. “We need to talk.” His voice held the nobody-fucks-with-my-family tone.
Jean-Charles started to move off of me.
“No.” I pulled him back down.
“No?” My father didn’t sound pleased—he wasn’t used to having that tone ignored.
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
“Oh.” Now he sounded confused and perhaps chagrined, as the light must’ve dawned. Used to having me at his beck and call, the Big Boss was still transitioning to the concept of my having a life, a real life, outside of the Babylon. Of course, we both knew that was a clever bit of fiction, but we’d been keeping up the farce.
Jean-Charles caught my lips in a sensuous kiss. I focused all my attention, savoring, making a memory.
“Lucky?” The demanding voice of my father in my ear.
Slowly, reluctantly, I relinquished Jean-Charles’s lips. “I’m here,” I answered my father as I shifted into good-daughter mode. “Are you okay? Mother? The twins who have yet to be named?” Yes, despite my advanced age of thirty…ish, my parents had just given birth to twins. Of course, my mother had been fifteen when she had me, but still. She’d been a hooker after all—you’d think she would’ve learned something. My thoughts took a hard left. My father had been awfully happy lately…. Still squeamish about my parents’ sex life, I shuddered, then wrestled my thinking back on track.
Good at procreation, bad at protection, Mona still couldn’t settle on names. I wondered what that was about.
“We’re all fine. But,” he hesitated, which made my heart skip a beat.
I waited, then felt compelled by worry to jump into the silence. “You know I hate buts.”
My father was more the bull-in-the-china-shop than a beat-around-the-bush type. Still, he hesitated as my blood pressure spiked. “We need to talk. There are some things you need to know.”
Ah, the payoff for all that worry—there really was something to worry about. The Big Boss wasn’t good at hiding things either. “Okay. When?”
“On your way to the airport. They are readying the Gulfstream.”
“Now?” I clutched my Frenchman to me.
“It’s important.”
Two simple words, yet they lodged like bullets in my brain. “Did you send someone to pack for me, too?” Being railroaded was a sure way to piss me off. My father knew that. He did it anyway. I didn’t like what that implied.
“Lucky.” Now a tone of exaggerated patience that wheezed into imploring. So not like the Big Boss. He never implored anyone other than the Virgin Mary, which was sort of funny, all things considered. Rothstein wasn’t a Catholic name, but we each are entitled to our own beliefs and superstitions.
“Where exactly am I going?”
I must’ve still sounded pissed.
When he answered with a “Lucky, please,” he sounded tired. No, more than that—defeated.
Oh, this was so not good.