“I can’t.” I shrug dramatically with outstretched hands, which earns me a smirk from him.
“All right. Then forfeit.” The tone is casual with an undercurrent of derision.
Clenching my teeth, I draw in a shuddering breath through my nose. “I need a minute to think.”
“Take a minute,” he says, his tone amused. He extends his hand, and I start to reach for it until he says, “If you’re nervous, you can hold my hand.”
Bastard.My spine stiffens, and I jerk my hand back. Balling my fists, I nod. “I’ll be back in there in a minute.”
Trick winks and turns, walking away silently.
He’s a bastard, but a brilliant one. It takes less than a minute for me to follow him.
For the next few hands, I don’t play badly, but I don’t play brilliantly. He wins three consecutive hands, including one he shouldn’t.
My fingertips rub my forehead. “I’m tired. Can we go to bed and pick up in the morning?”
“Come on now,” C says, deeply skeptical of my motives and rightly so.
Trick looks at his watch and stands. “Yeah.”
C cocks a brow. “Exhausted at ten o’clock? Really?”
“Special circumstances,” Trick says.
C smirks. “She’s playing you, and you know it.”
“She’s pregnant, so she gets to call a game if she’s tired. And if she’s not tired, then she’s lying, which has consequences. Either way, it’s time to stop for the night.”
“Hmm. What time we gonna start in the morning?”
“When we’re all up.” Trick catches my hand to lead me from the room.
“Wait,” Anvil says. “How hard do you punish her when she lies?”
The blush feels like it consumes my whole body. My eyes jerk to Trick’s face, imploring him not to respond.
Trick’s gaze flicks to the table for an instant. “Point taken.”
I don’t look at either of the other men as we leave. We’re barely out of the room, when I whisper, “I don’t understand.”
“He meant that if you’re too sore to sit in a chair, it’ll disrupt the game, and you’ll be playing with a serious disadvantage because you’ll be in pain, which is a distraction.”
“How would he know what you meant by consequences? Did you tell them—?”
“No, you did.”
“Me?” My head jerks to look at him.
“He drove us from Boston to Coynston when you said you couldn’t sit down.”
Grimacing, I close my eyes. “I was worried about it that day, but so much happened I forgot about it. So does Rachel know too then?”
“I’m sure.”
Jerking my arm out of his grasp, I shake my head. “I never should have let them drive me that day. I should’ve gotten someone to pick me up. So C knows too, and Zoe? I’m so humiliated.”
“I can’t say what C or Zoe knows.”
