Sucker Bet (Vegas Vampires #4)(8)
Author: Erin McCarthy

That was a good point. Gwenna was sedate. Steady. Reliable. Even in her stupid insane devotion to Donatelli she was predictable. She had always loved him and no one else. But if she was with another man…

"They look rather intimate, don’t they?" Ethan asked, studying his sister’s posture. She was leaning toward the man slightly.

He wouldn’t have expected Gwenna to take a mortal lover, but as long as she was staying away from Donatelli, Ethan was happy. Of course, that didn’t mean he trusted anyone around his sister until he was certain of his intent. "Can you get this guy’s name from Gwenna? I’ll have Seamus run a background check on him."

Ethan didn’t even have to look at his wife to know she was rolling her eyes. It was her favorite response to him, one he had to admit turned him on. Virtually everything Alexis did turned him on, which made for a very satisfying marriage.

"Here’s an idea," Alexis said sarcastically. "Let’s leave Gwenna alone and let her date whoever she wants. In peace. Without interference. You know, like let her make her own choices, whether they’re mistakes or not. I like that better."

Gwenna and the mortal man moved off in the direction of the hospital coffee shop a few feet away. Ethan glanced down at his wife and scoffed. "Like you did with your sister? You’ve been telling Brittany what to do for twenty-six years."

Alexis, sexy little spitfire that she was, bristled. "That’s totally different."

"How? We both love our sisters and we both stick our noses in their business. Just admit it."

"I won’t."

"Which makes you a bigger hypocrite than me." Ethan saw the guy put his hand on the small of Gwenna’s back as they got in line for coffee. "At least I’m honest about my protectiveness."

And as they soon as they got back to his casino, he was going to put in a call and have Gwenna’s new little friend checked out.

God, they were both f**king morons. That’s all Donatelli could think as he stared at his two principal bodyguards, Smith and Williams. Maybe he should just kill them both and start over from scratch. Surely he could find better staff if he discreetly advertised.

"Explain to me again how it was possible for Ringo to enter a locked room that the two of you were standing in front of?" Donatelli sipped blood from a wine goblet on the sofa in his hotel suite and glanced down at his cell phone. No missed calls. He was starting to get impatient with his ex-wife, Gwenna. She should at least have the courtesy to call him back. Where the hell were people’s manners these days? And he was still absolutely stunned that she had used such a foul curse word with him. That was completely unlike Gwenna and, he had to say, rather unbecoming.

Smith cleared his throat. "Well. We thought he was allowed to go in there. He said he was. So we sort of let him in."

"And just stood there while he walked off with a week’s supply of heroin?"

"I guess so."

"That was several grand worth of drugs." Like money grew on goddamn palm trees. Donatelli strove for patience. Not his strong suit. Never had been. He checked his phone screen again before he even realized what he was doing. Damn it. He felt his temper rising and surging, settling to pound at his temple. Where the f**k was Gwenna and why wouldn’t she talk to him?

"We didn’t…"

That set him over the edge. "You didn’t know. I know. Because you’re both f**king idiots." He pinned them with a hard stare. "Go tell Ringo I want my supply back. Break a few bones, show him I’m serious. And if he won’t be reasonable, bring his wife to me. I’m sure I can convince her to exert her influence on her junkie husband. And he’s fond of the silly bitch for whatever reason."

He waved them off. "Now get the hell out of here and send Katie to me."

His mortal lover would distract him. Ease the hard ache that had settled in his cock. Make him forget for twenty minutes that he missed his wife, that he burned for Gwenna still, that after nine hundred years of knowing each other, she was tightly entwined around his heart, his life, his very existence.

He would convince her that it was time to reconcile. That was what he wanted, almost more than the political power he had achieved in the Vampire Nation, and he would have Gwenna. Again.

Gwenna wasn’t sure why she had agreed to go get coffee with a total stranger, but there was something about the way he was looking at her that had made her say yes. She didn’t even like coffee, and though vampires could drink liquids, she didn’t really enjoy it. It tended to sit in her stomach like a boulder. Yet Detective Thomas’s eyes—a rich, deep chocolate brown—stared right into her. There was total focus on her, despite his obvious tragic loss. There was no shifting of his gaze around, no cajoling words or dissembling. Maybe it was because he had just walked away from death, but he came across as straightforward, honest, still and steady.

That was very appealing, and the complete opposite of Roberto.

So much so that she had gone into the coffee shop even when she’d known that her brother and her sister-in-law were standing in the lobby watching them. She was also curious about what the detective thought of the murder, and was aware of his pain, sympathetic at the loss of his sister. If he wanted company, she was willing. She could use some herself frankly. .

"What’s your first name?" she asked as they sat down at a tiny table by the window. It was dark outside and the crowd in the shop was thin. "It’s too cumbersome to keep calling you Detective Thomas."

"Nate." He gave a brief smile. "Not as cool of a name as yours, but it works. It’s short for Nathaniel, though no one calls me that but my mother."

"Does your mother live here in Vegas?"

"Yeah, but she’s in Australia right now. My parents…" He paused and cleared his throat. "They thought my sister was going to be okay. She was in remission, so they went to Australia for a month to visit my mom’s family. I called them yesterday, but with making arrangements and the long flight, they won’t be here until tomorrow."

Gwenna’s heart squeezed. "Oh, your mother must be so devastated that she couldn’t be here."

He gave a brief nod, than leaned back in his chair. "Sure. But I don’t want to talk about it. Tell me about your friend’s baby."

Nate might as well have said, "Distract me." Gwenna could understand that, the feeling that the grief was so huge and monstrous that you could only process it a tiny piece at a time or it would consume you. She could chat with him… she wanted to chat with him. Here was someone who didn’t know her, didn’t think of her as that poor sop Gwenna, Donatelli’s passive ex-wife. There was nothing back at the casino that she needed to rush home to, and part of her was dreading going to her suite and finding Roberto standing on the doorstep waiting for her.