it was no wonder she’d been lacking in male companionship lately. Her mother had passed away in July after a brutal battle with pancreatic cancer, followed by the discovery of a half sister given up for adoption that she, Brooke and Katie hadn’t known existed. Only last month they’d been delivered another shock when they’d learned Brooke, her older sister, was only her half sister biologically. Not that Brooke’s parentage made a lick of difference to her or Katie, but they’d still been stunned by the news, especially Brooke. The Winfields, her mother in particular, apparently had more skeletons lurking behind their closet doors than a centuries-old mausoleum had tucked behind its marble walls.
She shuddered to think what might fall out next.
“I don’t think it’s mine,” she finally said. She had a few folded twenties still tucked into the front pocket of her jeans, her AmEx card in her hip pocket just in case and her cell phone hidden in the inside pocket of her suede bomber-style jacket along with her keys. Her smile returned. “But nice try.”
His smile deepened, crinkling the corners of those drown-in-me-forever brown eyes. “Too bad it didn’t work.”
“Maybe you should’ve made it a hundred,” she replied sassily, then headed back to the bar with his laughter ringing in her ears. He had a nice laugh, she thought as she slid back onto the bar stool. Open. Free. Like he used it often.
God, was there anything sexier?
She signaled to Mitch for a refill. A stab of disappointment pierced her when the money-wielding stud didn’t follow her to make another attempt to pick her up. Probably for the best. Her plan to blow off steam didn’t include sex with an anonymous stranger, no matter how good-looking or intriguing. That reckless, she wasn’t.
Or was she?
Using the long mirror behind the bar, she searched for Hunky Warbucks. She finally found him, seated in the rear of the bar near the pool tables. A slow smile tugged her lips again. Lordy, but he was nice. Nice and hot.
Mitch arrived with her fresh drink and she downed half of the fiery liquid in one gulp. “Let me have some quarters for the pool table,” she said, tugging another twenty from her pocket.
Mitch obliged, albeit from the look of warning in his eyes, begrudgingly. “No trouble tonight, Joey.”
“What trouble?”
His unibrow hiked skyward again over a disbelieving expression. “Yeah, right. The last time you came in here and shot pool you caused a fight.”
“Oh, like it was my fault those two goons thought I was the prize?” she scoffed. “Just give me the quarters, Mitch.”
“Do me a favor and be specific this time if you want to make it interesting, okay?” His hazel eyes narrowed. “No hustling the customers or I’ll eighty-six you from the place.”
“I never hustle,” she said in her best blue-blooded tone as she hopped off the bar stool. She picked up her drink, tucked the cigarettes and a book of matches into her jacket pocket and winked at Mitch. “I just play to win, is all.”
2
HER ASS WAS the sweetest thing he’d seen in ages. After having lived for several years in Miami, Sebastian Stanhope considered himself an expert on the subject.
The blonde bent over the pool table and attempted to line up a difficult shot. Curvy, he thought, eyeing that luscious behind. And firm. He’d bet a month’s salary that her sweet and curvy and firm ass would fit his hands to perfection.
Sebastian tipped back the beer he’d been nursing for the better part of the night in an attempt to cool his climbing temperature. It proved to be an exercise in futility the minute the sassy blonde bent forward again to take aim and make the winning shot. Damn if she didn’t sink the eight ball into the corner pocket like a pro, and look mighty fine doing it, too.
“That’s another fifty you owe me, Bose,” she said to a rough-looking biker.
All night Sebastian had been watching her hustle anyone foolish enough to accept the challenge. The woman didn’t know how to lose. He liked that.
“Damn, Joey,” the big man complained good-naturedly. He slipped two twenties and a ten from the wallet chained to his dirty jeans. “How’d a babe like you get so good at pool?”
“I played a lot in college,” she said, pocketing her winnings. “But hey, don’t worry—” she chalked the tip of her cue stick “—I’ll give you a chance to win your money back.”
Bose shook his head and laid his cue over the table. “Nah,” he said, “you’re too rich for my blood.”
A concept Sebastian understood all too well. He might have the Stanhope name, but the family fortune never had been, and never would be, his. What money he’d accumulated, he’d done so the old-fashioned way. He’d worked his tail off, putting in twice the billable hours as most of the other associates in the Miami law firm he’d joined right out of law school, and had hired a damn good broker to build up his portfolio. He wasn’t rich by old money, Bostonian standards, but he no longer had to hustle pool games to survive, either.
He finished off his beer and stood. Sauntering over to the pool table, he laid a buck’s worth of quarters down on the polished edge of the table.
Bose inclined his head in Sebastian’s direction. “Looks like you’ve got a new pigeon waiting to be plucked.”
The blonde looked over her shoulder at him, no doubt to size up the competition. Her blue eyes sparkled with excitement as a slow, easy smile spread across her pretty face.
“You play?” she asked.
He was no pigeon, which she’d find out soon enough. “A little.” Not exactly a lie, but hardly the truth. He just hadn’t played much lately, in part because it hadn’t been necessary to his survival. There’d been a time, not all that long ago, when a wager at the tables had been the difference between sleeping in his car or making the rent.
A definite gleam entered her gaze. “Care to make it interesting?”
He’d expected no less. The woman was a shark at the tables and had to be a good two to three hundred bucks richer in the time he’d watched her play. Not that he suspected she needed the cash. The woman smelled like money, from the expensive cut of her hair down to a pair of high-quality, albeit scruffy, boots. And he’d spent enough time with his nose pressed to the glass to know the difference.
“What did you have in mind?” he asked her.
She reached into her hip pocket and peeled off five twenties. “Interesting enough for you?” She tossed the bills onto the black circled mark on the green felt of the pool table.
He picked up the cue her previous challenger had left behind and tested the weight in his hand. “Not exactly what I had in mind.” He circled the table to her side.
She slipped a hank of honey-blond hair behind her ear. “I don’t know you well enough for that kind of wager.”
He set the base of the cue on the floor between his feet. With his hands wrapped around the stick, he leaned slightly forward, breathing in her scent. Amid the acrid odors of spilled beer and stale smoke that
