Alexios watched Sydney Hughes walk away, stunned by what had just transpired. Had she actually refused his job offer? His very lucrative job offer?
He narrowed his eyes on her retreating back, noted peripherally how that gilded ponytail swayed in time with the motion of her hips. How enticing that simple black vest looked over her curves. And dragged his mind back to the irrefutable proof that she’d just shrugged off his business proposal like it had been for minimum wage.
“Her bottom line does a lot for mine, that’s for sure,” Orrin said in reference to Sydney’s parting comment.
Irritated that his brother’s words reflected his own lascivious observations, he rounded on Orrin and snapped, “Stop being a perv. What if she actually worked for us?”
“Then you wouldn’t be in danger of losing your job, would you?” His brother smoothly replied.
Alexios resisted the urge to flip the bird at his brother. Maintained his composure while wondering how Orrin managed to bring out the worst in him. Figured it had something to do with childhood sibling rivalry and the fact that for the moment, Orrin was the favored son. And that rankled, because it hadn’t happened often in their pasts.
While they’d been sparring, Sydney Hughes had disappeared behind the bar. Curling his lip, Alexios tossed back the rest of his scotch. Welcomed the burn while glaring at his brother.
“You’re right, you prick.”
Orrin leaned back with a grin. “Of course I am. That happens more often than you and Dad give me credit.
“So, what are you going to do next?”
“Damned if I know,” Alexios sighed. “She would have been perfect for our re-launch.”
“Or at least your launch.”
“Not everything’s about sex, Orrie.” Though his brother was right. Sydney Hughes was drop-dead gorgeous, and fairly ignorant of that fact. Which was even more appealing to Alexios. He’d been surrounding himself with Daddy’s little rich girls for as long as he could remember. Was a little surprised he could still recognize innocence in the face of Sydney Hughes.
She exuded a girl-next-door beauty that was refreshing, especially here in Vegas, where plastic didn’t just mean credit cards. She seemed content with her own body, and with her own circumstances. She hadn’t even blinked when he’d mentioned his hotel. The only time she’d shown any reaction was when she’d seen his proposed offer. And even then she’d recovered quickly and turned him down.
And that irritated him. Irritated him as the soon-to-be-deposed CEO of The Midas Touch lounge, and irritated him as a man. Especially as a man. He was used to women falling at his feet. Had grown accustomed to them fawning over him. Knew his dark looks were appealing to them, even if he also knew his competition was his wallet.
Therefore, her uninterested response to him and his job offer had Alexios taking it as a challenge. Now that she’d turned him down, he had to have her. Working for him, of course, he reminded himself. No way would anyone pass up the opportunity he’d handed to her tonight. Not unless they were afraid of something.
The question was, what about his offer frightened Sydney Hughes? Was it the staggering salary? Hardly. Was it the chance to crawl out of this familiar little dive and join the big leagues on the Strip? Most likely. She didn’t seem like the type who cruised the major hotel bars on a regular basis. Maybe she didn’t want to be judged out of her element. The big fish, little pond theory.
Alexios sat up in his chair. Glanced over at the bar, where he could just make out the top of her head through her throng of admirers. And slowly smiled.
Or, was she afraid of him? Did she take his offer personally, think he was interested in her as a woman as well as a bartender? Was that the real reason why she turned him—his proposition—down? That could very well be.
“Don’t kid yourself, Alex. Everything boils down to sex. Just like right now. You’re taking her refusal personally. You think she turned you down, not just your offer.”
Alexios narrowed his eyes on his brother. For a party-boy, Orrin could be very perceptive at times. And that was disconcerting, especially now, when he’d hit the nail directly on the head. So he fell back on his usual response when his brother’s barbs came too close to the truth.
“Shut up, Orrin.”
Naturally his brother didn’t take offense. Simply sat back and clasped his hands over his stomach. And watched the couples on the dance floor. Without looking away, he asked Alexios, “So, I repeat, what’s the game plan?”
Shooting one more glance toward the bar and then back at Orrin he said slowly, “The game plan? It’s simple, really.” Here he paused, tossed the idea around in his head one more time before saying, “I find out why she said no. And then I take that obstacle out of her way. Because she’s the best person for the job. Guaranteed.”
His brother flicked a look in the bar’s direction before meeting his gaze again. And smiled, nodding.
With the decision made not to take No for an answer, Alexios set out to put his plan into motion the very next morning. He’d stayed up late the night before surfing the internet for information on the Hughes family, but had come up with very little in the way of usable material.
Ms. Hughes had graduated from UNLV with a Bachelor’s in Hospitality Management, a fact that surprised him and set the cogs in his brain to working overtime. He could use that knowledge at a later date. But what interested him even more than that tidbit was the fact that she didn’t own Jimmy’s Bar at all. Her father did. Her living father. Which fact opened up a whole new set of possibilities, some shadier than others.
Although the Vergas were realizing the American Dream of starting a family business and making it successful, you couldn’t live in Las Vegas and not be aware of its Mob history and connections. And though he would never do anything illegal, since his father would skin him alive and feed him to the white tigers at the Mirage if he did so, Alexios wasn’t above using underhanded methods to get what he wanted. Or rather, whom. And that was Sydney Hughes.
Once he’d seen what she could do for business behind the bar, his mind had been blown with the possibility that she could do the same for the Midas lounge. And then when he’d met her last night and she’d unequivocally turned his offer down, his mind had been blown in a completely different direction. No woman turned down a Verga brother. Ever. And she didn’t turn down a lucrative, one-of-a-kind offer, either.
After spending a restless night, where images of his packed lounge segued into visions of tanned arms and honey-blonde hair twined about him, Alexios woke unrefreshed but with new determination. Ms. Sydney Hughes would be working for him by the end of the day. No doubt about it.
Intent on his objective, he strode through the Midas’ nearly empty lobby, straightening his black tie and sliding on sunglasses as he headed out the revolving front door, where one of the valets had already brought his black, BMW 650i coupe around after his call. The morning heat, though not as excruciating as it would be later, still body-slammed him as he exited the hotel.
“Morning, Tim,” he greeted the youth who held open the driver’s door. He could already feel the blast of cold air gushing from the car’s vents, and welcomed it.
“Good morning, sir,” Tim replied, accepting the ten Alexios handed him with a nod and a smile.
Once the car door shut and he was settled, Alexios took the curved driveway faster than was safe, enjoying the handling of the luxury vehicle. Sports cars had always been his weakness. Well, those and leggy blondes. And brunettes and redheads. Grinning while merging onto Las Vegas Boulevard, it became a frown when he thought of the latest blonde who’d caught his interest. Sydney Hughes. The reason for this morning field trip.
Now that he knew she did not control the reins of Jimmy’s Bar, he was simply going to bypass the recalcitrant blonde and go straight to the top. Her father.
James Hughes had married Sydney’s mother later in his life. Once Sydney had come along, he and his wife had started the bar that bore his name. He’d made it a success, and borrowed against it to secure his only child’s education. But before Sydney could go out and secure that career in hotel management, her mother, Yvonne Hughes, got pancreatic cancer. The rest was history. And medical bills.
Stopping at one of the many lights along the Strip, Alexios wrinkled his nose at what he was about to do to this man drowning in debt. He was about to throw him a life preserver composed of bribery. And with the right amount of money, he knew he would succeed. That knowledge left a bitter taste in his mouth, yet his heartbeat sped up at the thought of Hughes’ sassy daughter working for him. The silver lining to his extortion attempt.
Within minutes he pulled into the cracked and lumpy parking lot of Jimmy’s, his BMW looking incongruous next to the twenty-year-old blue, Chevy truck with its chipped paint job. Stepping out of the coupe, bracing for the heat, he hoped to God Jimmy’s didn’t skimp on forced air during the day. The T-shirt under his white shirt and jacket was already sticking to him.
Pocketing his sunglasses as he stepped into the blessedly cool building, Alexios paused a moment to allow his eyes time to adjust. A silent soccer game played on the TV behind the bar, and a couple of thirsty patrons belly-upped to the counter. A few other construction types played darts in the back of the place. He didn’t recognize the bartender, who raised his brows at Alexios in a silent question while he continued polishing glasses.
Pulling a business card from his inner jacket pocket, Alexios handed it to the bearded man.
“I’m here to see Mr. Hughes.”
The guy shrugged, setting down the glass he was buffing to take the card that announced who Alexios was. Then he looked up again. “Got an appointment?”
“Not really. But I already talked to Ms. Hughes last night.” Technically he had, though certainly not about this subject. Chalk up one more lie in his obsessive quest to get Sydney Hughes working under—for—him.
Apparently a casino owner in this neighborhood was the golden ticket, for the barkeep jerked his head toward the door halfway back along the wood-paneled wall. “Go through that door, then knock on the glass door behind it.” He handed back Alexios’ card.
Doing as he was told, Alexios found the owner’s office and knocked. Immediately he was told to enter. It was a cramped cubbyhole. A gray-haired man in an equally gray shirt looked up from an old-fashioned adding machine to squint at him over a pair of cheaters. An unlit cigarette dangled from his mouth.
“Who are you?” He asked abruptly, pulling out the smoke and setting it on the edge of an empty ashtray. His desk, a garden variety metal type with a Formica top, was littered with papers. Bills. The kinds Alexios was about to deliver him from. The thought did nothing to assuage the guilt he felt at blackmailing a man already at the end of his rope.
Taking time to quietly shut the door behind him, Alexios extended his business card one more time while saying, “I’m Alexios Verga, co-CEO of The Midas Touch Hotel and Casino. May I sit?”
##
Swinging her ancient Saturn into the parking lot of Jimmy’s an hour later, Sydney slammed the car into park but left the engine, and the air, running. Sitting for a moment, she thought about last night’s preposterous offer from that Greek god, Alexios Verga. The offer that had kept her sleepless for most of the night. Well, that and the fact that she’d Googled him and found that he was just as rich as she’d thought, and bound to get richer with the family he had behind him.
Hadn’t he been about the most gorgeous male specimen she’d ever met? Tall and lean the way she liked, he’d worn that slim-fit suit like a model. And then that face. Those dark, long-lashed eyes that looked right through her till her stomach somersaulted and her whole body tingled. Those full, pouty lips that she bet could kiss a woman into saying yes to anything.
But she hadn’t said yes, had she? Not that he’d kissed her, though just the thought of those lips on hers made her body shimmer in indecent places. But she didn’t need that, not when she’d also found out the man was a player, with a different bombshell on his arm in every paparazzi picture taken of him.
Sydney squirmed in the cracked leather driver’s seat as she dragged her thoughts back to her knee-jerk rejection of Verga’s ludicrously high job offer. Who was he kidding? Just because money seemed to be his god, he shouldn’t have expected it to be hers. Yet the opportunity had been tempting for just one moment.
With the type of salary Verga had offered, she could have paid off her dad’s medical debts at the end of six months and still kept a nice little nest egg for herself. If that had been all that was at stake, she could have entertained the idea. But it was the fact that her dad would have had to take her place behind the bar four nights of every week, plus manage and order for six months, which guided her refusal.
He was sixty-two. An old sixty-two, aged by the lingering death of his wife, her mother. He should be winding down his career by now, not adding to it. Plus, she hadn’t liked her gut reaction to Alexios, the smooth operator. The way her body had reminded her she hadn’t been with a man in forever. No, he and his absurd proposal deserved her rejection.
Turning off the car, she got out and noticed for the first time the sleek Beamer sitting in her usual parking spot. It was one, fine piece of German engineering, that was for sure. She probably could have leased one on Verga’s salary—Stop it, she admonished herself. She was needed here, so her dad could rest easy every night.
Trailing her fingers along the car’s hot, black paint job, Sydney shouldered her purse and entered the bar. Said hi to Joe, the day bartender, before turning to the rear door to visit her dad.
“He’s with--” Joe started to say, but she just kept going, stepping through the paneled door and into the back hallway. Where a man stepped out of her father’s office. An unmistakably familiar man.
“Thank you, Mr. Hughes. It’s been great coming to an understanding. You won’t regret this. I’ll make sure of it,” Alexios Verga said as he looked back through the open doorway toward where her father apparently was. And then he turned his head and caught sight of Sydney. He let the door close behind him.
She gaped at him while fisting her fingers so tight she thought they might break. Felt disbelief wash over her. Blankly noticed that he wore another black, slim suit over one more crisp, white shirt, along with a black tie. And he was just as devilishly handsome as he had been last night.
Of course she knew why he was here. His parting words to her father that she’d overheard, his guilty expression said it all. He stood there, his back against her father’s office door, looking victorious and expectant all at once, with one hand curled negligently around the knob. She continued staring, unable to believe he’d come here behind her back.
“What are you doing here?” She hissed, advancing down the short hall till she stood toe to toe with him. And tilted her face upwards to hold his heavy-lidded gaze, for his height topped hers by at least six inches. As soon as their eyes met, that same tingling from the night before coursed through her.
“Answer me,” she snapped, not giving him time to respond. “I told you No last night, so why are you here now? Well?”
With an overly tolerant look he leaned back against the door. Studied her face till she felt a flush crawl up her neck. And finally said in that perfectly modulated voice she’d heard even over her dad’s Oldies last night, “You didn’t tell me you weren’t the owner of Jimmy’s yesterday. Once I knew who was, I came down here to ask permission to borrow you for six months. With the same salary I showed you last night.”
She covered her face with one hand. Smoothed the loose hairs off her forehead. And paced away to gather her thoughts. She couldn’t think around him, not when he smelled so good, looked so handsome, yet angered her for his spoiled, rich-boy persistence. He’d never been told No, apparently, and wasn’t about to accept it, either.
She turned back to face him.
“You don’t get it, do you?” She asked quietly, returning to him while speaking quietly so as not to bring her father out into the hallway, too. Alexios leaned a shoulder against the door jamb, politely waiting, with no other expression on his face. Why did all rich people look so bored all the time? “You already must know our financials, since you hot-foot it down here so quickly. You know we need your kind of money desperately.” She paused, but his expression didn’t change. Irritation spiked inside her.
“But we can’t afford to hire someone to replace me. My dad will have to work in my place.--”
Verga straightened. Looked down into her face. “I offered to give him one of our bartenders for the duration. He turned me down. Told me he could hold the fort for six measly months. Said you were too protective of him. I think he’s right.”
“Of course he would,” she snapped, nearly stamping her sneakered foot. “No man wants to look bad in front of another. And of course you agree with him, because it soothes your conscience. But I don’t want to work for you.”
She glared up at him, so close she could see the gold flecks swimming in the irises of his brown eyes. Could feel the warmth from his body seeping into hers. And fought the urge to give in.
“Six months is all I ask, Ms. Hughes. At which time you can either come back here, or we can renegotiate another contract for you. It’s all up to you. Why don’t you go in and discuss it with your father?”
“What’s there to discuss?” She asked grudgingly, stepping back a pace. She couldn’t think, couldn’t remember her arguments, when he stood so close. “The two of you have decided what’s best for me without my input. Why should I give it now?”
He lifted one shoulder. “Because, even though that yes, I’m not used to being told No, as you so clearly stated, what I’ve offered your father is exactly what he wants. He’ll be debt-free when all is said and done. Isn’t that what you want, too? And you’d be the one enabling him to do so. Where is the problem with everyone getting what they want, Ms. Hughes? Your father can retire because you’ve given him the freedom to do so, and I get a highly successful bar, thanks to you. Oh, and you get a truckload of cash. Is there still a problem?”
As she continued looking up at him, Sydney watched humor seep into the backs of his eyes. Humor, and triumph. And wished she could say No again. Wished with all her heart.
At last she made up her mind.