❝ LADY LUCK! ❞ → MARVEL

- THREE

THREE

→ ❝ the alcoholic elite! ❞

          By half past eight, the night was in full swing. Chattering, cheers, and the rumbling of gambling filled the air. Before she showed her face in the prestigious VIP lounge, Harper made an effort to speak to all of her employees on the floor, instructing them to take off their red jumpers in the uncomfortable heat.

          Upon her eventual entrance into the lounge (which had changed little since the 1940s, decked out with plush red sofas and golden lamps), she was welcomed with a light scatter of playful applause from her regular acquaintances. They were sat around a small glass table - which had been replaced the week before after Jacob had drunkenly fallen onto it and shattered the top – dispersed across four cherry red sofas and already bustling with high profile gossip and laughter.

          Though the lounge was welcome to anyone who could afford entry and the steeply priced drinks (which were significantly more expensive than what was served on the ground floor), Harper invited only the richest members of the casino to spend their time with her, becoming something similar to a club for the alcoholic elite before they went to piss their money away on the games below.

          She bowed dramatically, waving her hand like some sort of royal figure, "You've missed me, then?"

           Victoria, the second youngest member of the group and heiress to her father's watchmaking company, pouted playfully as she walked up to the redhead. At just 23, she had more money than she knew what to do with, and her eyes were filled with a sparkle that only the extremely financially secure possessed, "You weren't at pre-drinks," she recounted with a fake sadness, "We definitely missed you there, and the limo up here was a bit more quiet without you."

          Harper took a Cosmopolitan cocktail from a nearby waiter with a polite 'thank you' before she hugged Vicky with one arm, "After last night, I'm shocked I even made it out today," she laughed, nodding at the waiter as she took a sip from her drink, "Mmh, this is lovely!" she called to him with a delighted smile.

          "And yet, here you are," Matthew, a blonde man in his late thirties who owned a bank, cocked his head to the side and pointed at her drink devilishly, "You little alcoholic."

          "Hear, hear!" Harper cheered, raising her class in a toast.

          Lounging across an expensively dressed lap, Harper was immediately pulled into a chaotic tale recounted by the most animated member of the group, throwing her straight into the store being described. Multiple times, she thought Jacob (the man whose lap she comfortably lay on) was going to spill his whiskey on her deep red dress, but every time the liquid almost hit the rim of the cup, it sloshed right back in again.

          As the story met its denouement, Harper found herself finishing her third Cosmo and wiping tears from her eyes, while Jeanie (the classy, middle-aged owner of a local boutique) was clutching her sides in pain from her seemingly endless laughing.

          "So I said to him, why don't you put the cashews back, pal?" the old, white haired man in his signature tweed jacket finished the story, earning yet another raucous round of laughter from the half a dozen people seated around the table with him. It was a welcome sound in the casino, drowning out the dinging of machines and scattering of cards that travelled up the grand golden staircase from below them.

          Harper joined the laughter again, genuinely entertained by the tale (though she couldn't rule out that this wasn't due to the alcohol coursing through her veins), "You'd better be careful, Richard!" she warned jokingly, waving over a waiter with for a fresh cocktail, "They'll be giving you a ban at this rate!"

          Richard sipped his whiskey, "Not if they know what's good for them!" he raised his glass triumphantly and another round of laughter erupted around the table.

          "Excuse me, ma'am," the small, confident voice that belonged to Liv whispered into Harper's ear, "You have a visitor."

          Unsure of who exactly had the audacity to be asking for her in her prime cocktail hour, Harper nodded to her audience with a polite smile. She downed her Cosmopolitan, earning a cheer from the rich men and women at the table, and shuffled past Jacob's legs, "Please excuse me. I have urgent business to attend to," she lied easily.

          "But you'll be coming back?" the mayor's daughter, Lucy (who couldn't have been older than 21 and had the classiest engagement ring Harriet had ever seen), asked.

          "Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen," she grinned, casually flipping her hair over her shoulder, "It's all to play for tonight."

          Harper was thankful that Liv had pulled her away in that moment as the conversation transformed to be about Lucy. The redhead didn't have the patience to pretend to be interested in the blonde girl's fiancé and whatever romantic, expensive thing he had done for her this time. It wasn't that she didn't like Lucy, in fact she rather admired the spirit of the young girl; instead it was that she simply couldn't stand her fiancé, believing him to be (quite frankly) a pompous twat.

          The pair stepped out into the significantly warmer corridor and Liv led the way towards the staircase, her pace marginally faster than what Harper was used to her walking at. The tension and enigma eventually mounted up far too high for Harper's liking.

          "Who is it then? The mysterious stranger who interrupted my happy hour?" she questioned Olivia, stopping to rub her ankle where the strap of her heels was digging into her.

          Olivia stood patiently beside the redhead, "Tony Stark," she answered nonchalantly, diverting little attention from tapping away at her iPad and answering various emails and inquiries. "He's brought a friend with him as well. Tall, blonde, handsome – mm, definitely my type."

          "Oh," Harper choked a little hearing the billionaire's name, shocked that he, of all people, would make an appearance at her casino. She discreetly shook her head to bring herself back to reality and straightened her back, grinning at Liv, "And is it some sort of baseline requirement for short girls to like tall men, or is that just you?"

          "Just you wait until you see him," the girls rounded a corner and began to descend the staircase. Liv lowered her voice slightly, as if she were worried the 'tall, blonde, handsome' man would be able to hear her, and nodded as subtly as she could (Harper noted that it wasn't very inconspicuous), "Look, there they are."

          Harper relaxed her shoulders and raised her chin, smirking confidently upon seeing the very attractive man and momentarily wishing for him to crush her windpipes just so she could see him up close, "Maybe you're right," she shrugged, stopping briefly to greet another wealthy couple on their way to the VIP Lounge – they weren't part of the elites, but they contributed a lot of money to the casino and she wanted to keep it that way. Besides, she thought that making the infamous Tony Stark wait (if only for a second) was extremely fun.

          Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the two men at the bottom of the staircase, surveying them with a keen gaze. She noticed that, despite them trying to appear as novices in the gambling environment, both men had similar high levels of experience and talent. Still, with her extremely fortunate tendencies, Harper knew it wouldn't take much for her to squeeze some money out of them that night.