“I have to go.” He threw a twenty onto the bar.
Geraldo laid a finger on his sleeve. “Don’t play her game, Dane. She’ll win at any cost.”
“Not if she thinks she’s already won.”
He took the elevator up to the suite, flipping on the voice recorder as he opened the door. He stood in the threshold for a moment, already regretting the loss of paradise. It had been a nice dream.
As he entered the hotel room, he strangely wondered if this was how Val had felt that New Year’s Day.
Val’s morning had been punctuated with boredom. She’d waited for some kind of reaction from Geraldo, but he’d disappointed her entirely. He might have at least written Selena to make her come home.
The weekend ahead would be dreary with nobody to play with. If Geraldo hadn’t taken her bait, Dane wouldn’t be home until tomorrow. She hated not knowing. Had her email caught in Geraldo’s spam filter?
Dane’s public displays of affection could jeopardize everything, and time was running out.
She paced the floor, contemplating what moves she had left to make.
She could have emailed the photo of Dane with Selena directly to Noelle herself, but while that would have likely driven Noelle to leave Dane, Dane’s ego would demand he waste precious time fighting to win her back. After the way things ended before, Dane wouldn’t stand to be rejected a second time. He’d return unmanned and humiliated, even more hell-bent on vengeance, and this game would never end.
True, Geraldo might have gone straight to the hotel and shown that picture to Noelle to destroy Dane’s budding romance. But she didn’t think Geraldo would waste ammunition. That wasn’t his style. He might be angry at Dane for touching his daughter, but he would still calculate his best move.
She was counting on Geraldo to see the photo as leverage. Surely he would prefer to threaten to expose Dane to Noelle if he wouldn’t stay away from Selena. There was no benefit to Geraldo wrecking Dane’s relationship with Noelle. Hewouldbe motivated to scare Dane away from his daughter.
Geraldo would never expect Dane to take a bullet rather than give him the pleasure of blackmailing him. A threatened Dane was an angry Dane. And an angry Dane made mistakes. Dane’s knee-jerk reaction would be to neutralize Geraldo’s threat at any cost. To do that, Dane would see no choice but to confess his tryst with Selena to Noelle himself, and that would bring his affair to a dramatic and messy conclusion.
And then his only remaining move would be to snatch victory from the ashes and return to Val, claiming to have chosen the moves she’d forced, claiming to have won the wager.
If Geraldo did as she intended . . .
She tapped her fingernails on her desk, imagining a perfect scenario.
She needed Dane to make his final play and lay an accusation of harassment at Noelle’s feet, ruining any hope he might have of winning her back once the dust settled. Hopefully, he’d done as she’d asked and recorded some incriminating statement. The evidence they’d collected would support the initial claim. Eyewitnesses would corroborate her odd behavior. And the spectacle of Noelle chasing Dane to New York after the board had expressly forbidden it would seal the deal. As soon as Dane set the wheels in motion, Noelle would be forced to resign.
The company wouldn’t put up with CEO misconduct. Not after Ted Rasmussen. Noelle would be gone by Monday.
She shivered at the image of Dane’s triumphant return. She could almost taste his lips.
What in the hell was going on in New York?
Around three, just as she was beginning to lose hope, she heard the banging on her front door.
When she opened the door and Dane walked in, she relaxed into a smug smile.
“Dane.”
He kicked the door closed. “It’s done.” He grasped her wrist. “I’ve come for my reward.”
Val yanked her hand free. “Reward for what?”
“Noelle came to me in New York. It’s over now.” He reached up and unfastened the top button on her shirt. “And you owe me. Shall we do this right here, or should we go upstairs?” He reached the second button before she drew back.
“You know that wasn’t the deal.”
Dane pulled out his phone and waved it at her. “I’ve got what you want.”
“Are you prepared to follow through? Do you have enough to take it to the board?”
He stepped close again and dug his fingers into her hair. “I do.”
