I sort out a stack of one hundred chips and return them to my fiancé’s kitty just as he rejoins us. He barely looks at the hand before I collect the cards and jostle them together.
“What?” I ask as the table frowns at me. “Isn’t it my turn to deal?” With the deck in order, I split it one-handed, then repeat the gesture twice more before shuffling. “Five-card draw, deuces wild.”
“Your missus is hustling us,” Baxter complains.
“Looks like it.” Micah pulls on his own poker face as he shrugs. “Told you not to be arseholes.”
“Come on,” I say, dealing out the hand. “So, you lost ten grand. It’s hardly the end of the world.”
“Ten million,” Baxter corrects me. “The chips are a hundredthousandapiece.”
The figure startles me so much I almost misdeal a card. When I recover, I elbow Micah in the side, grinning broadly. “Look honey. You made me a millionaire.”
“That’s no credit to me,” Micah says. Although still focused on consuming his drink his mood appears distinctly elevated from before. “You managed that all by yourself.”
Everyone at the table gets two more deals before the guys call it a night. Adding up my chips, I count nearly seven million on top of what I returned to Micah. It’s so much money, I can’t grasp it. The most I’ve ever held in my hands before is a few twenties to go out for lunch or hang out after school.
“I’m cashing you out,” Stefan says at the end of the night. “Now I’ve rediscovered why it took so long to allow women to gamble in the back rooms.”
I pout but accept his decision. Once was fun, especially since I didn’t know what we were playing for. Another night, I’d be too filled with anxiety to do myself justice.
“What’s your account number?”
I snort at the concept. Like my father would let me have my own money. “I don’t have a bank account. You’ll need to give it to my fiancé to handle.”
“You already paid me back your stake,” Micah says, hooking an arm around my waist. Then to Stefan, “Hold it. Once she opens an account, I’ll get you the number so you can make the transfer.”
“You’re not serious.”
He stares at me with a frown. “Why not? You won it fair and square.”
“But…” I don’t know what to say.
“No buts. Do you fancy a nightcap, or should we head home?”
Baxter glances at his watch. “I’m heading back to Christchurch, so I’ll call it a night.”
“You’re welcome to stay over,” Micah offers, but the man shakes his head.
“I skipped putting my girls to bed to be here, the last thing I want is to miss waking them in the morning.”
“Oh,” I say, somehow delighted with the thought this large gruff man has tiny female versions of him running around back home. “You have daughters?”
“I haveadaughter.”
My chest fills with warmth as I connect the plurality to another meaning.
“You can all go home,” Stefan answers for the rest of us. “My staff are dragging, and I want to close.”
The decision made, we wander back out through the restaurant. Micah’s car times it perfectly, pulling alongside the curb the moment we exit.
As we pull into the flow of nighttime traffic, I try to sort through my confusion. My fiancé dictated our marriage with no consultation but thinks it’s funny that I hustled his friends out of millions of dollars.
He selected my outfit and overrode my lipstick choices, but he gave me a phone with no restrictions. Let me talk to his head of security—let meask questions—and has no problem with me going to university or taking a job.
In the backseat, Micah pulls me against him with the same casual touches that he’s used from the moment we met. Not even necessarily sexual, just constant contact like I don’t exist unless his hands are somewhere on my body.
My thoughts are full of him. Trying to puzzle out the intricacies of his personality. I love knowing that he enjoys people but has to be away from them to recharge. I love seeing the different sides he shows to people. Love how his desire wars with his patience when we’re alone, somehow resulting in us both getting a win.
