Читать книгу Las Vegas Nights - Cat Schield - Страница 12
ОглавлениеA week went by before Logan admitted defeat regarding Tiberius’s files. Scarlett had been right. Someone could spend decades going through the fragments of data. The hotel and casino owner had accumulated thousands of interesting tidbits throughout the years, some of it newspaper articles, some rumors, many firsthand accounts of events that had never become public knowledge.
The problem was, there was so much information, most of it random, that connecting the dots would take forever. Logan had neither the time nor the patience to locate the needle in the haystack. If he’d had some idea what he was looking for, he might have been able to ferret out Tiberius’s killer. But although the files held a lot of smoking guns, many of the people who’d once held them were long dead.
Nor were the cops interested in looking through the files. They were looking at the wife of a local businessman. Apparently the woman had been having an affair and after finding a file on her at his office, the police had a theory that Tiberius was blackmailing her. Logan didn’t believe it. Tiberius collected information on people, but he didn’t appear to use it. If he had, the casino owner wouldn’t have been nearly bankrupt when he died.
Despite having no luck, giving up the hunt was the last thing he wanted to do, but Scarlett was eager to have her historian comb through the files in search of material they could use in her Mob Experience exhibit, which was due to open in a few weeks. He could have given the key to one of his guys to return. In fact, that would have made a lot more sense. He was hip-deep in the data Lucas had sent to him from Dubai. They needed to have a proposal done in the next couple days and he’d lost a lot of time in his search through the storage unit.
Instead of leaving the key with Scarlett’s assistant, a stunning blonde woman with an MBA from Harvard, he tracked Scarlett herself down on the casino floor. He found her chatting with one of the pit bosses. With her hair cascading down the back of her sleeveless bronze sheath, she looked every inch a successful hotel executive. His chest tightened as he watched her smile. Seven days away from her should have diminished his troublesome attraction. Instead, he’d found his thoughts filled with her at the most inopportune times.
Desiring her had been his Achilles’ heel for some time now, but he’d been able to keep his head in the game by remembering that she was first and foremost an actress and a woman who enjoyed manipulating men. Until last week, however, he’d never spent an extended time alone with her. He’d been working off assumptions he’d made from their infrequent encounters.
He now knew she was more than the manipulative man-eater he’d first dubbed her as. Not that this made her any less dangerous. Quite the contrary. His fascination with her had ratcheted up significantly. And not all of it was sexual. He’d enjoyed her company at dinner. She was provocative and took great pleasure in testing his boundaries, but she was also very well-read and had surprised him with her knowledge of Las Vegas past and present.
She was more clever and insightful than he’d thus far given her credit for. She knew her limitations and had a knack for hiring people who were experts in their field. It’s why her hotel was so well run, he’d decided after eight days of listening to Madison go on and on about how smart Scarlett was. For the first couple of days his niece’s hero worship had worried him. But Madison hadn’t mentioned L.A. once in the past several days, and he was happy to let her praise Scarlett’s virtues if it meant his niece was going to give college a try.
“Hello, Logan.” Scarlett had finished her business with the pit boss and caught sight of him. “Are you looking for Madison?”
“No.” He held his ground against the onslaught of sensation that battered him as she drew close enough for him to smell her perfume and see the gold shards sparking in her green eyes. “I came to return this.” He handed her an envelope containing the storage key.
“You’re done with it, then?” She slid the envelope into the black leather folder that contained her daily notes. “Did you find what you needed?”
“I looked through our client’s files and removed anything of interest.” He paused before saying more. Lucas would be angry with him for spilling even that much. “I also found a number of secrets that should never see the light of day.”
“Then they won’t.”
“You can’t guarantee that.”
“Some of those files have been hidden for over fifty years,” she reminded him. “What makes you think they can’t stay that way for another fifty?”
“Because Tiberius was killed for something he knew.”
“That hasn’t yet been determined. Besides, no one but you and I know I have the files.”
“You forget about John Malcolm.”
“Attorney-client privilege. He’s not going to say anything.”
“I’d feel better if the files were destroyed.”
“I can’t do that. Grady can’t wait to get started on them.”
Logan could hear the determination in her tone and knew he was wasting his breath. He could only hope he and Lucas were wrong about the connection between the files and Tiberius’s death. Yet Logan couldn’t shake the sense that something bad was going to happen.
“Do you have time for a cup of tea?” Her offer came at him out of the blue. “I got some of that green stuff you and Violet drink.”
He opened his mouth to refuse, thinking she was flirting with him as always, but then saw her expression was serious. “Sure.”
“Can I invite you up to my suite without you getting the wrong impression?”
“Unlikely.”
“What a naughty mind you have.” Amusement flared in her eyes and was gone just as fast. “I really could use your advice.” She looped her arm through his and turned him in the direction of the elevators.
A week ago he might have assumed she had a nefarious purpose for luring him upstairs. That was before Tiberius’s files had come to light. And Scarlett was radiating an apprehensive vibe, not a seductive one.
“My advice on what?”
“I discovered something in the files I took from the storage unit, and I’m not sure how to handle it.”
Logan felt his anxiety kick in. Had she possessed the answer to Tiberius’s murder all along?
“Which ones?”
She frowned. “The ones on my family.”
So her concern was for Violet or Harper. His agitation diminished slightly.
“I took my father’s file because I was curious about a man my mother rarely talked about,” she continued. “It was a pretty thick file and took me three days to get through it all. He had affairs with a lot of women. I don’t know how Harper’s mother stood it.”
“The way I understand it, she split all her time between New York City, the Hamptons and their winter place in Boca Raton. I don’t know how often she came to Las Vegas.”
“That’s what I gathered from her file.” Scarlett paused as they neared the elevator. Other people were waiting within earshot and she obviously didn’t want them to overhear her, so she changed the subject. “How was your week? Successful?”
He knew she was referring to his search of the storage unit and shook his head. “Not at all. Your friend is going to have his work cut out for him. There’s a lot of history.”
“He’ll be delighted.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t call this week.” The apology came out before he knew what he was saying. “It was a hectic few days.”
Surprise fogged her expression for a moment. “It’s okay. I had a lot on my plate, as well.”
“Lucas and I are developing a security system for a sheikh in Dubai. He has an extensive art collection that he wants to display and the logistics are proving quite complex.”
She watched him with lively interest as he spoke. “Sounds fascinating,” she murmured.
When the couple riding in the elevator with them got off on the twelfth floor, the snug space seemed to shrink.
“I don’t know about that, but it is challenging.” It wasn’t like him to fill the silence with chitchat, but her open and sincere manner made him long to draw her into his arms and capture her lips with his. This frequent and increasing urge to kiss her was becoming troublesome. To his relief, the elevator door slid open on fifteen before he could act.
“I’d love to learn more about what it is Wolfe Security does besides casino security.” And to her credit, she seemed to mean it.
“Perhaps another time.” And there would be another time, he realized. She’d found a way beneath his skin and he feared it was only a matter of time before she took up permanent residence there and started redecorating. “Right now, I’d like to hear about what you found in Ross’s file.”
She waved her leather portfolio near her door’s lock. All the rooms in Fontaine Richesse used proximity cards to open rather than ones with magnetic strips. The radio frequency in the cards was a harder technology to copy. Logan had been suggesting it for use in Fontaine hotels for three years as a more effective security measure, but none of the executives wanted to upgrade. Until Scarlett came along and decided it was the system she wanted in Fontaine Richesse. Now, all of the new Fontaine hotels had this system and as the older hotels were being remodeled, proximity card systems were being added.
Before she entered her suite, she gripped his arm. “Logan, I’m really afraid of what this is going to do to my family.”
He stared at her, a bad feeling churning in his gut. This wasn’t Scarlett being dramatic or overreacting. Genuine fear clouded her expression and thickened her voice. What could possibly have upset her to this extent?
“Tell me.”
She entered her suite and headed for the kitchen. “I’ll get the water started. The files are on the table.” Scarlett indicated a stack of neatly arranged folders on the coffee table. “I noticed something odd about my father’s business travel.”
Logan sat on the pale green couch, noting its decadent softness, and leaned forward to view the contents of the open file. Tiberius had jotted some notes about Fontaine Hotels and Resorts’s trouble with their Macao casinos. Ross had gone to investigate.
“What am I looking at?”
“See when he left? July 1980. He was gone for four months.”
Logan shook his head, not understanding what Scarlett was getting at. “What’s the significance of that?”
“Harper was born in June 1981.” She raised her voice over the scream of the teakettle. “Now look at Penelope’s file.”
Penelope was Harper’s mother. The only daughter of billionaire Merle Sutton, whose fortune revolved around chemicals and refining, her marriage to Ross Fontaine had brought an influx of cash to Fontaine Hotels and Resorts at a time when, unbeknownst to his father, Ross had bought some land without the proper environmental surveys. Ultimately, they’d been unable to develop the property and lost several million on the project.
Logan opened the file and scanned a private investigator’s report on Harper’s mother. Below it were several black-and-white photos that left little to the imagination.
“She had an affair.” He stared at the pictures and felt a stab of sympathy for the woman who’d been part of her father’s business arrangement with Ross Fontaine. “Given the man she was married to, I can’t say I blame her.”
“At first I thought Ross had ordered the investigation.” Scarlett carried two steaming cups over to the couch and set them down on the coffee table before sitting beside him. “I thought it was a little hypocritical of him to have Harper’s mom investigated when he went after anything in a skirt. But it wasn’t him.”
“You sure?” Logan glanced sideways in time to see her lips close over the edge of the cup. “How’s the tea?”
The face she made at him caused her nose to wrinkle in a charming manner. “It tastes like dead grass.” But she gamely tried a second sip. “I checked on the private investigator.” Scarlett pointed to the man’s name on the report. “He’s been dead for ten years, but his partner didn’t find Ross’s name in their list of former clients.”
“Was it Tiberius?”
Scarlett shook her head. “Of course, Ross could have been considering divorce and gone to a lawyer who contacted a PI to get evidence of Penelope’s infidelity. But once he got proof, why not start divorce proceedings? Then there’s this.” Scarlett opened a second file and showed Logan a document. “Harper’s parents were not in the same hemisphere when she was conceived.”
“She might have been conceived during a brief visit either in Macao or here in the States.”
“I agree, but coupled with the fact that Harper’s mother was having an affair during that time, it seems much more likely that this guy—” she tapped the photo “—is Harper’s father.”
* * *
Scarlett scrutinized Logan’s impassive expression while she waited for him to process her conclusion. When she’d found the damning evidence last night, she’d longed to pick up the phone and share the burden with him, but it had been three in the morning and she hadn’t wanted to wake him up.
Loneliness had never been an issue for her. In L.A. when she wasn’t busy with friends, she’d enjoyed spending time alone. It was one of the benefits of growing up an only child. But lately she’d been dreading her own company. Sharing the secret of Tiberius’s files with Logan had turned their animosity into camaraderie and their temporary break in hostility was something she wanted to make permanent.
“Which brings me back to why I invited you up here,” she said, breaking the silence when it began nibbling on her nerves. “What should I do?”
“What do you want to do?”
She decided not to answer his question directly. “If I do nothing, Harper will become the next CEO of Fontaine Hotels and Resorts.”
Logan sat back and stretched his arm across the back of the sofa. The move put his fingers very close to her bare upper arm and made her skin tingle.
“After your father died and before your grandfather came up with his contest to run the company, she was the obvious choice.”
Scarlett pondered his words. “She has the education and the training to be Grandfather’s successor. But Violet has the marketing savvy and the experience of running a Las Vegas hotel to give Harper a run for her money.”
“If you share what you know, Harper would likely be kicked out of the running and the contest would be down to you and Violet.”
“That’s not what I want.”
“You don’t want to run Fontaine Hotels?”
Could she convince Logan that having two sisters who loved her was more important than becoming CEO of a multibillion-dollar corporation?
“You and I both know I’m a distant third in the running. And even if I wasn’t, I would never want to win if it meant hurting either Harper or Violet.”
“Then you have your answer.”
“But I keep asking myself, if I was Harper would I want to know I was living a lie? When I was first contacted by Grandfather, I was angry with my mother for evading the truth about my biological father. I don’t know that it’s fair to put Harper through the same thing.”
“On the other hand, if you’d never found out, you would still be in L.A.”
“Finding out I was a Fontaine was a wonderful thing. I gained an entire family that I’d previously known nothing about.” Having two sisters was such a blessing. For the first time in her life she felt safe and content. “If I tell Harper the truth, she loses her entire family. And I know her well enough to be certain she would withdraw from the contest and give up Fontaine Ciel. And if that happened it would be my fault.”
“What if her dream isn’t running Fontaine Hotels?”
Scarlett couldn’t imagine such a thing. “It’s what she’s spent her whole life training for.”
“Just because you think your life is going to go a certain way doesn’t always mean that it’s the best thing for you.”
What was Logan trying to tell her? She’d invited him up here for advice. Was he being impartial, trying to get her to look at both sides, or was he couching his opinion as questions?
“Do you think I should tell her?”
“What do you want to do?”
“Give the problem to someone else.” She arched her eyebrows. “Feel like being the bearer of bad news?”
“I’m not going to get involved. Tiberius left the files to you.”
“And I asked you to help me make a decision.”
“You asked for my advice,” he corrected.
“Same thing.”
“Not really, but since you asked so nicely, I’ll tell you that I think being honest with Harper is the way to go. Give her the file, don’t tell her what’s in it and let her make up her own mind about what she finds.”
His advice didn’t make the weight slide off her shoulders. “I don’t want to keep anything important from Harper. And I could be jumping to conclusions. It’s completely possible that Harper is Ross’s daughter.” But deep in her heart she believed she was right and that telling her sister what she suspected would do more harm than good. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.” She set her hand on his. “Thank you.”
For a few seconds he went still beneath her touch. Before she had time to register the way his mouth tightened, he was on his feet.
“I’ve got a bunch of work waiting for me back at the office,” he said. “Thanks for the tea.”
“You didn’t drink any of it.” He’d almost reached her front door by the time she’d regained her wits and chased after him. “Logan.” She didn’t reach him in time to stop him from walking out the door, but her breathless voice made him pause. “Would you have dinner with me tomorrow night?”
His refusal came through loud and clear before the words left his lips. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
She was ready for his rebuff. “Oh, not like that.” She plastered on a lively grin and laughed. “You certainly have a high opinion of yourself, don’t you?” To her relief, he looked surprised by her reaction. Conceited man. He really expected her to take his rejection hard. “I thought we could discuss what to do for Madison’s birthday party. She’s only going to turn eighteen once and without her parents here to celebrate with her, I thought we should do something special to mark the occasion.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“Have dinner with me tomorrow and I’ll lay it all out for you.”
“Can’t you tell me now?”
“I don’t have my notes and I need to get ready for a conference call in half an hour. How about eight o’clock tomorrow? I’ll get us a table at Chez Roberto.”
“Eight.”
He nodded curtly, but when she expected him to walk away, he didn’t. She stopped breathing while she waited for him to move or speak. His intense gaze trailed over her features before locking on her mouth.
A thousand times this past week she’d relived his kisses. Like some silly teenager she’d tried to guess how he felt about her when logic counseled it was nothing but simple lust. Hadn’t his absence this week demonstrated his lack of interest? When men wanted her, she received flowers, offers of dinner or, at the very least, phone calls. From Logan: nothing.
And it was driving her crazy.
Which is why she’d concocted the excuse for tomorrow’s dinner. She was perfectly capable of arranging a fabulous birthday party for Madison by herself. In fact, everything was already handled. She just wanted to spend more time with Logan. And she’d take him any way she could get him.
To her surprise, he cupped her head in his palm and dragged his thumb across her cheek. Mesmerized by the contact, she grabbed the door frame to steady herself as he leaned down and captured her lips in a demanding kiss. Before her shock faded, he lifted his mouth from hers.
“Eight,” he repeated, voice and expression impassive. A heartbeat later he strode off down the hall, leaving a weak-kneed, much-bemused Scarlett in his wake.
* * *
He’d done it again. Logan strode into his house and threw his car keys on the counter. He was utterly incapable of a clean getaway. He’d nearly made it out of Scarlett’s suite when she’d stopped him. He should have given her some excuse and gotten out of there. Instead he’d lingered and agreed to have dinner with her again. And why? So they could discuss plans for Madison’s birthday party. He suspected she had the whole thing planned already. This was just an excuse to torment him over another rich chocolate dessert.
And he’d agreed. As if he hadn’t guessed what she was up to. Worse, he’d then succumbed to the urge to kiss her again. Demonstrating once more that she’d completely mesmerized him. She no longer had to stir him up with her sharp wit and sexy smiles. Now he just took any excuse to seize her delectable lips for his own.
Madison was seated on the couch in the family room as Logan walked past. Beside her was the boy she’d been seeing a great deal of, Trent something, the son of one of Scarlett’s restaurant managers. She’d been instrumental in introducing the teenagers, which had naturally made Logan suspicious of the boy. But a phone call to one of his employees had provided the sort of information on Trent that kept Logan from getting overprotective.
Currently they were joined at the hip and shoulder, both peering at the laptop balanced on the boy’s lap. Madison’s happy smile was the first he’d seen in this house. It lifted his spirits.
“Hi, Uncle Logan.”
“Hello, Madison. Trent.” Logan gave the boy a friendly nod. “Madison, are you planning on sticking around for dinner?”
“Yes. Is it okay if Trent joins us?”
“The more the merrier.”
Logan left them and headed to the master bedroom. As badly as he wanted to know what they were looking at on the computer, he left his question unasked. The boy was a good kid. Spending time with him improved Madison’s attitude.
And all the credit belonged to Scarlett. Instead of lecturing the eighteen-year-old about what would be the best thing for her to do, Scarlett had talked with her. Let Madison express her dreams and ambitions and found a way to broach the topic of college in a positive fashion. By introducing her to kids her own age who were college-bound and excited about it, Madison had started talking about college again. Granted, with little enthusiasm, but he shouldn’t expect miracles.
If Scarlett actually pulled this off, he would owe her a favor. The thought of it made him shudder. What would she ask in return? Something difficult for him to deliver, no doubt.
After a half hour of energetic laps in the pool, he showered and headed back toward the kitchen. To his amusement, Madison had chosen to host her new friend in the dining room. She’d had his housekeeper, Mrs. Sanchez, set the table with all the crystal and fine china. Usually, Logan grabbed a plate and headed into his study to work on whatever he’d left hanging throughout the day. When Madison was home, he made an effort to give her a stable family experience and ate in the kitchen. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d used his dining room.
Logan sat down at the head of the table and waited only until the teenagers had joined him before launching into his interrogation.
“Madison tells me you are going to be a sophomore next fall,” he said to Trent, determined to get his money’s worth out of his housekeeper’s roast beef with garlic mashed potatoes and steamed asparagus. “What college do you attend?”
“I’m at Duke.”
Logan turned to Madison. “Didn’t your mother tell me you’d gotten into Duke?” Maybe she liked this boy well enough to follow him to college in North Carolina. Her parents would be thrilled.
“Yes.” She leveled a warning stare at him. “I also got into Brown University, Cornell and Mother’s alma mater, Amherst.” All prestigious East Coast schools.
“Wow.” Trent gaped at her in astonishment. Apparently she hadn’t shared her academic triumphs with him. “That’s impressive.”
“I guess.” She was so obviously glum about it that for the first time Logan felt sorry for her.
“You guess?” Trent asked. “I applied to Brown and Cornell and couldn’t get in.”
She had the grace to look a little ashamed of her attitude. “All I mean is that none of those were schools I wanted to get into. I didn’t get into my top choice.”
This was the first he’d heard of a college she hadn’t been able to get into. Was that why she’d been acting out all spring? Paula and Ran had pushed hard to get her to apply to schools they considered suitable. Madison’s two older brothers were at Harvard and Yale, respectively. Could she have felt too much pressure?
“What school could possibly have turned you down?”
Logan held very still, hoping that Madison would forget he was sitting across from her and keep talking. He might be able to get her back on track if he understood why she derailed.
Madison waved one slender hand. Her expression had gone mulish again. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t get in and I have no interest in going to any school my parents badgered me into applying to.”
Trent was smart enough to realize he’d hit a nerve and rather than continue to pursue what was obviously a touchy subject, he stuffed a forkful of Mrs. Sanchez’s excellent food into his mouth and chewed with relish. Madison pushed beef around her plate and seemed preoccupied with her thoughts.
Logan applied himself to his own dinner and pondered what he’d learned tonight. Madison wasn’t opposed to going to college, she just didn’t want to go to any of the ones her parents had encouraged her to apply for. And she’d been disappointed after putting all her hopes in one basket and losing out.
Perhaps if Paula and Ran could let Madison make her own choice about where she went, she could be college-bound in the fall. He would call Paula and talk it over with her in the morning.
* * *
Scarlett sat on the overstuffed chair in her bedroom, her feet tucked beneath her, and stared out the window. While Harper and Violet had chosen to occupy suites that overlooked the Strip, Scarlett preferred a view of the mountains that circled Las Vegas. During the cooler months, she enjoyed hiking the trails in nearby Red Rock Park. The peace and quiet was a nice change from the constant activity around the hotel.
It was an hour before she was supposed to meet Logan for dinner, and she still needed to jump in the shower and get ready. She’d finished her day at six so she could get back to her suite and have plenty of time to prepare, but she’d spent the past hour sitting and daydreaming.
No. That wasn’t true. She was waiting. Waiting for Logan to call and cancel their date.
She glanced at the clock on her nightstand and frowned. Surely he wasn’t the sort of man to stand a girl up at the last minute. He was far too honorable for that. Her stomach gave a queer lurch. Was it possible he wasn’t going to cancel on her? Scarlett jumped to her feet. She only had an hour to get ready. What had she been thinking to wait so long?
Her cell rang as she reached the bathroom door. If she didn’t answer Logan’s call, was their date officially canceled? She shuffled back to the dresser she’d passed and scooped up the phone. To her relief, it wasn’t Logan.
“Bobby,” she exclaimed. She hadn’t spoken with the television producer in over six months. “What a lovely surprise.”
“Scarlett, L.A. misses you.” Over the phone Bobby McDermott came across as staccato and abrupt, but in person, he was a warmhearted teddy bear. “You must come home.”
Her heart twisted in fond melancholy, but she kept her voice light. “Las Vegas is home these days.”
“Bah. You’re an actress, not a hotel manager.”
“I used to be an actress.” She thought back over yesterday’s conversation with Logan. “At least when I got work, which wasn’t often.”
“You are a wonderful actress. You just weren’t getting offered the right parts.”
She couldn’t argue with him there. What she wouldn’t have given for a role with some meat. Something that scared her a little and forced her to stretch. She’d never been a fame hound, although with her sex appeal and early success, she was well-known to the gossip magazines and paparazzi.
“That’s why I’m calling,” Bobby continued. “I have something you’d be perfect for.”
Scarlett sighed. She’d heard that before. Bobby had brought her numerous opportunities, but his opinion of her talent always seemed to clash with those of his directors. Still, it was nice having someone of his stature in her corner even if she never did get the part.
“I’m really happy here, Bobby.”
“Nonsense. You’re an actress. You need to act.” The producer switched tacks. “At least come to L.A. and take a meeting.”
“There’s no point. I’m committed to staying here and managing the hotel.” She didn’t explain about her grandfather’s contest or the pride she felt for all she’d accomplished in the past five years. “You’re a darling for thinking of me, though.”
“I’m going to send you the script,” Bobby continued, ignoring her refusal. When he had his mind set on something, it took an act of God for him to change direction. “Don’t make any decisions until you’ve read it through.”
Knowing it was dangerous to open the door even a crack, she nevertheless heard herself say, “I’d be happy to give it a read. But I can’t promise anything.”
“You will once you’ve finished. Gotta run. Love you.”
She barely had a chance to say goodbye before Bobby hung up. Stewing in a disorderly mash of dread and excitement, Scarlett quickly showered and dressed. At seven forty-five, a knock sounded on her door. Her hair was still up in hot rollers and she hadn’t finished applying her makeup. Cursing Logan’s early arrival, Scarlett quickly stripped out the rollers and shook out her hair. A second knock sounded on her door, this one more insistent, and she raced to answer it.
“You’re early,” she declared as she threw open the door. But instead of Logan, a man in a ski mask stood at her door. “Who—?”
Before she could finish, his fist connected with her jaw. She saw stars. Then darkness.
