Rise of the Notorious (39 page)

When he woke up that morning, he had no idea his life was about to change. He felt his lover’s hands slide over his chest, felt her lips warm on his cheek as her body curled against his own. Her hair trailed over his face as she rose up to kiss him, the words on her breath smooth as honeyed wine.

“
Je t’aime
, darling,” Madison murmured, her heart beating softly against his, naked skin over naked skin.

A smile teased up the corners of Wyatt’s mouth as he pulled her to him, his hands winding into her hair and holding her face over his. His eyes opened slowly as he took her in, the morning light accenting the soft angles of her face. He stared into her heavy-lidded, sultry eyes and felt his blood begin to race in his veins.

Without a word, he crushed her mouth with his and savored her, never fully sated. She was like a drug to him, an addiction he could never shake, never control.

Waking up beside her every morning was like shoving a box full of needles filled with heroin at an addict and expecting him not to shoot up. It was like dangling a bottle of whiskey over the head of a miserable alcoholic, desperate and greedy for that old familiar burn.

Little did he know that within the hour, he would decide to leave her.

She slipped from his grasp with a wink and went to shower, and he listened to her get ready. When she was set to go downstairs to her office, she kissed him one last time.

“Grant’s flying in tonight. I expect you to play nice,” she said with a grin, patting him on the cheek.

Wyatt chuckled. “Big brother doesn’t much care for me, sweetheart. He thinks I’m a bad influence on you.”

She shot him a curious look, lifting one sculpted eyebrow. “Funny. I thought
I
was the bad influence on
you
.”

He rolled over onto his side, propping up on his elbow as the sheets slipped down to barely cover his waist. It took all the control she had to not slide back into bed with him and blow off the entire work day.

“I think we are both too set in our ways to be influenced by anyone,” he told her, that trickster’s grin flashing over his face. “We’re originals, you and I.”

“Yes, we are.” She smiled then, and the effect it had on him was devastating. What should have been innocent beauty was tainted by Devil’s fire. He wouldn’t have wanted her if she didn’t possess that distinct bite of wickedness.

She swept from the room without another word, leaving only the scent of her perfume to linger behind her.

With a grunt, he fell back against the pillows, wondering how in the hell he had ever managed to catch such good luck.

Then again, a seasoned gambler holds true that good luck always runs out given enough time to do so and knows to call it quits before the hammer falls. Perhaps that was why he had married her three weeks earlier, in a desperate, spontaneous attempt to keep a hold on her, to normalize whatever it was they had together. It was his way of quitting the game and making it real.

Even though she insisted it be their little secret for now, he still liked knowing he had taken every step possible to make her his and his alone.

There would be no one else for him, or for her.

It was those thoughts that stayed with him as he made his way downstairs into the casino to begin his day as pit boss. It was a position he liked to think he had earned off the sweat of his own brow, but his darker nature knew it was because of Madison. Just like the expensive, expertly tailored clothes he wore and the flashy Mercedes he drove…she had supplied it all. He knew it was part of that lucky streak he had been riding this last year, and he seriously wondered when the pieces of this castle he was building were going to fall out from beneath him.

When he received a phone call from Duke, asking him in for a meeting, a warning light clicked on in his head. He didn’t know what caused it, but he tried to push back the uneasy feeling as he headed straight to his boss’ office.

He walked past Duke’s bubbly and well-endowed secretary with a wink and let himself in.

“What’s going on, boss?” Wyatt greeted, putting on a cheerfully careless mask as he successfully swallowed his earlier bad feelings. He watched as Duke turned in his desk chair to face him, his expression oddly somber.

“Have a seat,” Duke requested, nodding at the chairs that sat before his wide, oak desk. Wyatt did as he was told and sat back casually, keeping an easy smile on his face.

The office around them was spacious and luxurious, typical of a Vegas showman like Duke. Presentation was everything in the business, and he kept his office as ostentatious as his upscale home in the wealthiest suburb of Vegas. Bold colors, oversized, plush furniture, expensive photographs of Vegas and the casino cluttered the two walls, while floor to ceiling windows graced the rest of the space. Outside, Wyatt could see Las Vegas baking in the rising sun.

“I wanted to ask you a question, Wyatt,” Duke began, steepling his fingers together as he leaned back in his chair.

“Hit me.” Wyatt could feel the tension in the air, could sense that he wasn’t going to like whatever it was that came out of Duke’s mouth.

Turned out he was dead right.

“Why do you feel the need to steal from me?”

Wyatt bristled. “Excuse me?”

Duke only managed a tight smile. “Why did you steal from me? After all I have given you, all Madison has given you. Yet you couldn’t hold back your natural compulsions, could you? The renegade living within your heart couldn’t let you live on the straight and narrow, could he?”

Wyatt’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t steal from you, Duke. You’ve got the wrong guy.”

“Do I?” Duke scoffed, shifting in his chair restlessly. “I’m afraid I don’t. The evidence against you is quite damning.”

“What the hell do you think I stole?”

“What does anyone steal in a casino, Wyatt?” Duke said with a sardonic grin. “Money. Cash. And a lot of it.”

“Liar,” Wyatt charged, jumping to his feet then as the disgust and anger barreled through him. “Let me see your proof.”

Duke let out a measured breath, then reached for a file folder to his right that held a photograph. He tossed it across the desk to Wyatt.

“That’s the money, stashed away in your employee locker downstairs.”

Wyatt lifted the photograph and stared at it dully. “I never use that locker. You know that. Why would I if I live right upstairs?”

Duke shrugged indifferently. “I have no idea. I suppose you use it to hide stolen cash before you can dispose of it.”

“This is fucking ridiculous and you know it. I’m being set up!” Wyatt growled, tossing the photograph back to his boss. He seriously considered throwing around a few more objects for good measure, but withheld the urge. It wouldn’t do to lose control here, not now.

“Who in the world would possibly set you up?” Duke asked, eyebrows raised curiously. “I’m more inclined to believe that you just couldn’t help yourself.”

“Right. Because the opportunity never presented itself in the three years I’ve worked here.” Wyatt shoved his hands into the pockets of his tailored slacks, his jaw tightening. “Tell me what this is really about, Duke.”

“This is about you stealing from me and me giving you two solid options to choose from,” Duke replied, sitting back in his chair again. “You see, I have not yet gone to the police with this matter. I felt it would be better, and less messy, to handle personally.”

Wyatt’s lips curled into a sneer, but he said nothing.

“Your first option is, of course, to leave the casino immediately. I want you out of the Vasser Hotel, out of Las Vegas, out of Nevada. You leave at once, and you say nothing of this to Madison. She does not need the pain of knowing you are a thief and a liar. Better that you break this clean and get out of her life, and our lives, for good.”

Wyatt found for a long moment that he couldn’t breathe. He relished in his initial impulse to strangle the man across from him, but knew that such a move would only make matters worse. No, it was better to hear him out. A deer in the crosshairs has no choice but to run, as it stands no chance against the hunter.

Duke smiled predatorily. “Your other option is to stay and take the fall. The police will arrest you, put you in prison. My cousin, your
wife
, will be shamed.”

“How do you know about that?” Wyatt snarled, violence flashing in his eyes.

Duke laughed. “You think there’s anything that goes on in my town that I don’t know about?”

Wyatt only grimaced, knowing he was being painted into a corner. “I won’t leave her.”

“You won’t convince her to leave with you, either. Her place is not with you, it’s here with her family. I think both of us know she deserves better than to be the wife of a felon. Of a gambling addict, a drug pusher with ties to the cartels in South America—”

“That’s a goddamn lie,” Wyatt shouted, his control shattering in one explosive burst. “I never—”

He froze then as the door behind him opened and Raoul walked in, looking just as stunned to see Wyatt as Wyatt was to see him. Both men stared at each other for a long, heavy moment as silence filled the room.

Raoul blinked, straightened, and shifted his gaze to Duke. “You asked for me?”

A half laugh bubbled out from within Duke’s throat as he watched the two men with dark amusement. It was clear he considered himself the clever cat, toying with two rabid mice and thoroughly enjoying it.

“I did, Raoul. Come in. Join us.”

Raoul shot a look back at Wyatt, both cautious and aggressive, as he slipped into the room and shut the door. His sneer was instinctual and the hatred in his eyes spoke louder than his words ever could.

“Better to be alone than in bad company,” he muttered under his breath.

Wyatt’s jaw clenched as he glared at the man. “This is your doing, isn’t it?”

Raoul only rolled his shoulders, sniffing disdainfully.

It was all Wyatt needed to see to confirm the truth. Before Raoul could even flinch, Wyatt had lunged at him full force and shoved him up against the door to the office, his forearm pressing underneath the man’s chin. Raoul clawed at his arm, matching his rage as they stared forcefully into each other’s eyes.

“She is blinded by your charms, but I see who you really are, snake,” Raoul hissed. “
Veo lo malo en los ojos.
”

Wyatt bared his teeth in a fierce grin. “She’ll never forgive you for this.”

“She won’t be finding out about it, Wyatt, because you’re going to leave,” Duke interrupted from safely behind his desk. “I assure you that is the best solution here. Otherwise, I’ll have to turn over this evidence to law enforcement, and trust me, they will not give you such an easy out.”

Wyatt released Raoul, his hands clenched into fists as he weighed the limited options he had, turning them over and over again in his head. His hands dove into his hair as he fought back the urge to scream, to rage, to destroy. None of that would help Madison. Nothing he did at this point would give her comfort, happiness. No, his only option was to decide which way he wanted to hurt her.

As much as it tore his ravaged heart to pieces, he knew that he couldn’t allow her to be tangled up in a crime, despite how ludicrous it was. Duke was too powerful, too well connected in the city to give him any chance of fighting the charges. As for Raoul, who knew what kind of lies he would slip into Madison’s ear to turn her against him as he stood trial for something he hadn’t even done.

No. Leaving her was the only option he had. And leaving her was exactly what he was going to do.

He turned to his boss, calmer, his fury simmering to a slow boil now that he knew his path and had gotten over the shock. Eyes of molten steel bored into Duke’s baby blues, and the threat, the violence, was clear as day.

“I’ll play along, Duke. I’ll leave the city, leave it all behind. But if I ever,
ever
, come across you again somewhere down the road, you can bet I’ll beat your goddamn face in.”

Duke’s eyebrows rose as he tilted his head slightly. “I know you’re upset, Wyatt, but a threat like that may make me change my mind about turning this over to the police.”

Wyatt only scowled. “Burn it. I’ll go.”

He turned on his heel and got in Raoul’s face one last time, eyes on fire. “I hope you understand what you’re doing. This will cause her more pain than I think you realize.”

Raoul’s sneer deepened. “She is a survivor.”

Shaking his head, Wyatt stormed from the room, slamming the door shut behind him. He took the back way up the stairs to get to the suite he shared with Madison and prepared himself for how he was going to get out without seeing her.

If he saw her, he knew he wouldn’t have the strength to leave.