“Then let me be more clear. One spin of the roulette wheel. Black, you pay me. Red, you fuck me.”
I gape at him. “But I just told you. Getting my head straight. Sex. How it messes me up, and—”
“You said it wasn’t about avoiding sex. Just that sex knocks you off track. But I’ll be keeping you on track, Jamie. First Vegas, then Dallas, and then I go back to LA, no questions asked.”
“I—”
“We won’t be dating,” he says. “Nothing like that. Just the same terms as before.” The heat in his voice is unmistakable. “You. At my mercy.”
I swallow. My head says I should say no, but every other part of my body is screaming for me to say yes.
I lick my lips. “And the payment? If it’s black, I mean?”
“I’m salaried at Stark International. But I’ll calculate my hourly rate. We can start the clock when we arrive in Vegas.”
I narrow my eyes. “How much exactly,” I demand. He does a quick calculation and tells me a number that comes near to making me faint.
“Are you insane? I can’t afford that.”
“Well then,” he says with a wicked grin, “you’d better hope for red.”
Chapter Eight
Because we slept until almost noon and then had an absolutely fabulous breakfast of greasy eggs, bacon, and melt-in-your-mouth biscuits at the motel’s dive of a coffee shop, it is already past four when we finally roll into Vegas.
Even in the daylight, the city feels alive.
If Manhattan is your snooty stepmother and Los Angeles your hippie brother, then Las Vegas is your crazy-ass cousin who doesn’t know what to be when he grows up.
Everything is gaudy, bright, and larger than life. Paris bumps up against Egypt, and the whole place has a Disneyland feel to it.
It’s probably terribly wrong of me to love it, but I do. Especially the Strip, where all the biggest and best casinos and hotels line up like a receiving line, welcoming everyone, from people with Stark-like billions all the way down to me, with my nearly empty checking account.
I gawk out the window as we drive, feeling a bit like an eager puppy taking in the sights. I don’t even gamble much, and I still love Vegas. I think I feel a camaraderie with it. We’re both a little bit tacky sometimes.
We pass the iconic Caesar’s Palace, and moments later, pull up in front of the magnificent Starfire Resort. The drive circles a fountain, and I watch, mesmerized as colorful columns of water rise and fall.
A bellman hurries to open my door while a valet takes the car from Ryan.
“Shall we?” Ryan asks, taking my arm.
“I’ve never stayed here before,” I say. “I’m pretty much a low-rent end of the Strip kind of girl.”
“You’ll love it. And I’m not surprised the producers are putting the actors up here. Starfire is one of the most luxurious hotels on the Strip.”
I’d received the follow-up e-mail from Georgia while we were on the road. The station has booked me a room at the Starfire, and I have an interview scheduled the next morning with Ellison Ward, a British actor who is all the rage now that he’s won an Oscar. They’ve even flown in a cameraman to do the filming. All I need to do is review the file, tweak the suggested questions, and not screw up.
When I first read the e-mail, I was surprised that a Dallas station could arrange a one-on-one with somebody of Ward’s stature. But after I read the research material, I understood. Apparently Ward’s mother lived in Texas for a few years and had a fondness for The Metroplex that she’d passed on to her son.
Honestly, it was quite a coup for the station and for me. Undoubtedly, the piece would go national, and I’d get some serious exposure, all of which would help in my quest to get back to LA someday.
That, of course, only made the “don’t screw up” part of the equation all the more important.