Claimed Hard by My Best Friend novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: The Gilt

"Stay in the car," I told Malachi.

He had driven us to the Gilt in silence.

Both his hands were on the wheel, and he drove too fast.

"The text says alone."

"Then come in two minutes after me."

His jaw tightened. "Kate."

"He took my dad. I'm not letting him see me walk in behind you."

Malachi looked at me for a long moment.

"Two minutes," he said.

The Gilt was the biggest casino on the boardwalk.

It had gold chandeliers and a thousand slot machines chiming at midnight.

I walked through it in my bar clothes.

Nobody stopped me. The pit bosses looked at me, then at one another, and then they looked away.

The high-limit room was at the back, behind a glass wall.

Dane sat at the baccarat table in a fresh jacket with his hair dry.

My father sat in a leather chair beside him.

A man with a flat face stood behind it, with one hand inside his jacket.

"Dad," I said.

"Katie, I'm fine." My father's voice was thin. "They gave me a ginger ale. Go home."

"Nobody is going home." Dane smiled. "Sit, Kate."

He patted his knee.

There were maybe forty people in the room, players and dealers and women in sequins.

Every one of them had stopped to watch.

"There's the note," Dane said, and held up a folded paper. "Three hundred eighty thousand. Sit down on my lap, and I'll tear it up right here. One summer after that, and we're even."

"That's your offer."

"It's a good one."

"You called me a joke on a phone," I said. "Now you want me on your knee in front of an audience."

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