Hooked #3 (The Hooked Romance Series - Book 3) by Claire Adams Read Free Book Online Page B

the people, the roll of the great machines. He kneaded
more and more against my skin, helping me to relax. “Tell you what,” he murmured.
“We’re already here, yeah? We’ve driven all this way?”
    I nodded. I was adamant about not playing, but this
didn’t mean we couldn’t enter. He had come all the way to Iowa for this place;
it had to be special to him. I wanted to know what was important to him. Could
I be important to him? Or was I a floozy, just another woman? Perhaps he did
this with all the girls.
    “We’re already here. And I won’t spend very much,
okay? I’ll just spend five thousand at a time.”
    My eyes widened, shocked at his throwing away five
thousand dollars, just at a time. To me, this was more money than I had ever
seen in one place. This money would save my life. And to him—it was like
betting five dollars. Maybe ten.
    “Just five thousand,” he assured me again, looking
for a nod, a yes, anything.
    And so I gave it. “Of course,” I murmured. “Five is
good.”
    He traced my face with his finger and leaned down,
giving my nose a small tap with his lips. Something trembled inside of me.
“It’s going to be all right.”
    We waltzed into the immaculate casino. I stood on
his arm like a queen. A few of the most beautiful people I had ever seen—again
and again—looked toward us, eyeing us as the competition. Their eyes flashed. I
poised my face in such a way that seemed high and mighty. I arched my eyebrow
toward the women who glared at me and they turned away, frightened, suddenly,
at my appearance of wealth.
    If they only knew, I thought, about my smelly
apartment and my cat Boomer. The thought made me giddy with happiness. How we
can pretend to be people we’re absolutely not, even when we’re so starkly
ourselves on the inside.
    Drew rounded the corner and traded his five thousand
for chips. I looked at the chips in his hand as he slipped them into his
pocket. He pulled one out and looked at me, kissing it precisely. He handed it
to me. “For good luck,” he murmured. I felt its frigidness in my fingers as I
folded it back and forth in my hands. How much was each one worth? Did I want
to know?
    We walked toward the blackjack table. In my head, I
knew Drew would be a blackjack player, so much like my losing father. My father
always told my mother and me that he started out winning, every evening. That
he got hot. And then—and then—the tables changed. They altered. I arched my
eyebrow toward Drew, uncertain. Was he a winner? He sat down at the table and
patted the soft green. The man dealt him and the others in. I stood behind him,
watching his cards, watching how so many of the other players lost and lost,
while Drew continued to win. Did these people all have millions of dollars to
blow? Were they all maintaining the five thousand dollar rule?
    “And another one for Thompson,” the dealer declared
to the world, hitting Drew with more and more coins. Drew looked at the coins
dispassionately, as if un-amused by them. He aligned them in a little colony on
his right. I watched as the stacks grew higher and higher.
    I was holding onto his arm, my eyes bright in my
head. I had given up on sad thoughts of my father, especially on my third
martini. I remembered how my mother had turned so hateful, so riotous in the
days after his death. She had disallowed everything, and thusly, I had fled. I
didn’t belong there.
    But this man—this handsome man before me—was such a
winner. He understood the intricacies of money; he understood how it lived, how
it breathed. He could manipulate it however he wanted. “You are so talented,” I
murmured, kissing him on the forehead. I didn’t know why I did it; it just felt
right.
    “Talent has nothing to do with it,” Drew said toward
me. “It’s luck.” He turned back toward the dealer, declaring that he was ready
to take a break. The dealer bowed his head toward him, and Drew marched from
the table, taking me on his arm. I looked