I shrug. Admitting this makes me feel guilty. “It was easy and I hadn’t had ‘easy’ for a long time before that. Then, something changed, he changed. I couldn’t go through that again.”
When I look up, Denham’s face is set in hard lines, his lips tight and a deep line creased his forehead. “I told you, you wouldn’t want to hear it…”
“Arianna…” He sighs. “I’m sorry, I never thought—”
“You never thought that would be my story? No, there was a time when I didn’t think so either.”
“What about your ex fiancé? He never tried to find you?”
“Oh, he tried, but I didn’t leave a trace, I just vanished. Even my mom didn’t know where I was. I haven’t seen her since I left. The first time she had heard from me in almost two years was last week.”
“Do you know where he is now? If you give me a name, I could find out. I have contacts.”
“His name is Jonny Ellison. I think it’s been long enough now that he just stopped looking. But—”
“I’ll have my guys ask around discreetly,” he reassures me.
“Is that how you found out so much about me?” I look at him quizzically.
“I didn’t find out as much as I wanted,” he says with a sly grin. “I could only find out that you previously went by another name. Lottie was tight lipped about how she knew you, and I knew there was something she wasn’t telling me. When you slammed into me at the elevator, I knew I needed to know more about you. I still do.” He shrugs his shoulders and looks a little bashful.
“All you have to do is ask. I’d rather tell you what you want to know, than have you dig things up that might not be true.” I pause. “So…can I ask you something?” I say, looking up at him.
“Sure, anything you like,” Denham replies honestly.
“Why was Aaron running from you last night?”
He sighs and takes a steady breath. I can see him thinking carefully about his answer before he finally speaks. “He ripped me off, Arianna. You want to know the whole story?”
I don’t really want to know anything else that could fill my head with more fog than is already there, but I need to know in order to try and piece together this puzzle, so I nod and he continues.
“He came here about fourteen weeks ago, first of all with a group of friends.”
“His bachelor party.” I say more to myself than Denham. I’m nervous about where this is going.
“Yes, they were loud, rowdy, but nothing we haven’t seen before. Do you know how long the bachelor party went on for?”
“A week,” I answer. “He was gone for a week.”
“He might have been gone for a week, Ari, but the large group was only here for two days. After that, he was on his own…”
“But…” my mind races to catch up with the bigger picture but I can’t make sense of it all.
“He found a chink in our armor and a partner in crime with one of our croupiers. They exchanged $175,000 of counterfeitmoney for chips, played, won and walked away with over half a mil in genuine cash. I’ve been trying to find him and piece it all together, but he’s proven to be very elusive. Then he turned up last week, and you know the rest.”
“I don’t understand…” I murmur.
“What’s not to understand? He’s a con man.”
“No, I don’t understand why he did it. He’s very wealthy. He has hundreds of thousands in the bank…”
“I don’t have an answer for that, Arianna. I’m sorry.”
I nod and let the thoughts running through my mind try and find some sort of order, but without knowing all the facts, it’s impossible.
“When we were…in my office last night, Jack spotted him on the CCTV and came to get me straight away. That’s why I had to leave so urgently.”
“Oh, I had no idea about any of that…”
