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“So who is this guy? What does he want? If the waitress has already been fired, I’m not sure what he’s looking for.”
“His name is Petrov Rubinov. He’s a Russian billionaire, made his money on the black market, smuggling diamonds, weapons, girls.”
My stomach turns and again I wonder what the fuck I’m doing here. I’ve spent years working with charities to help end human smuggling and the underage sex trade and now here I am, comping one of its worst offenders. Is it any wonder I feel so fucking dirty all the time?
“Have you pulled the film?” I demand, because there’s no way this creep is getting anything from me, especially if he’s the one in the wrong. I want to know exactly what happened before Todd arranges a meeting so that I can “smooth things over.” As if that’s ever going to happen.
“They were pulling it when I headed up here. It should be in your inbox by now.”
I turn to my computer, refresh my browser so I can see my most recent emails. Sure enough, there’s one from security labeled “Rubinov footage.”
I click on it, then gesture for Todd to come around the desk and watch with me.
There are two different video clips, one that’s five minutes long and one that is twenty-four minutes. I click on the five minute one first, then watch as Rubinov walks his fingers up the thigh of a pretty redhead about twenty years his junior. From the way she’s shoving at his hand and looking around for help, she doesn’t look like she’s enjoying the attention.
Angrily, I note the way she makes eye contact with the dealer—and how the dealer very deliberately looks away. “What the hell was that?” I demand.
“I don’t know.” Todd sounds as pissed off as I feel. “David and I have different styles of running things, but neither of us are okay with customers being harassed. Even by the high rollers.”
The fact that he has to qualify it that way only makes me more annoyed. I grew up in Vegas, in a casino about two blocks up the Strip and then in this one. I went to Harvard, worked in high-finance fund-raising. I know how this rarified world works. How money gives men a false sense of control, makes men think they can have anything they want.
That doesn’t mean I have to like it.
Twenty seconds later, a cocktail waitress—the cocktail waitress, I assume—comes into view. She’s dressed in the short navy skirt, crisp white blouse and fishnets that all the cocktail waitresses here wear and I can tell right away that Todd is right. The woman really is a looker.
She’s gorgeous actually, and for a minute I’m so busy staring at her that I lose track of what it is I’m supposed to be doing. Her dark hair is shoulder length and tied back in a ponytail that only emphasizes her stunning bone structure and long, delicate neck. She’s got dark eyes, plump lips, olive skin. She also has an angry flush to her cheeks that only makes her more attractive.
As does the control over herself—and her temper—that I can tell she’s exerting.
Interested now, as much in her as in the situation, I watch the way she moves, the way she holds herself. She’s tall even without the high heels she’s wearing, at least six foot with them, all long legs and curvy hips and an ass that looks like a million bucks in that skirt. And she carries herself like she knows she’s too good for this job, too good for this place.
Shit. Is it any wonder all the rich letches hassle her? For most of the guys she comes into contact with on a daily basis, self-denial isn’t exactly a concept they’re familiar with. Hell, I’m a pretty straightforward, always-be-respectful-when-it-comes-to-women kind of guy and all I can think about is testing that control, seeing how far I can take her before she loses it completely.
But even as I’m thinking it, she does lose it completely—though not in the way I’ve spent the last couple minutes imagining. Instead, she pulls back her tray and racks the guy, her long, curvy body moving with perfect precision. The unexpectedness—even with Todd’s warning—snaps me out of my momentary stupor and I start the clip over. I watch it again, this time paying attention to what’s going on instead of how much I want to test the waitress’s control.
It only takes about thirty seconds for me to figure out that she’s doing her best to get Rubinov to stop hassling the other woman. Another thirty seconds has my temper simmering and by the time she racks him, I’m furious that I hadn’t been there to do it for her.
The guy’s a bastard of the first order.
I play the footage one more time, just to make sure I’ve caught every nuance of the situation that I can. Then I play the longer video, watching as the waitress goes over to security, nodding toward Rubinov and the girl.
So she did try to report it, did try to get help. And the security guard turned her away. The knowledge makes the anger simmering in my veins burn hotter and higher. They stripped her of control, left her out there alone with no alternative but to do what she did. And then fired her for it.
No. Absolutely not. Maybe that’s how things went on my father’s watch, but he’s not in charge anymore. I am. And that’s not how things are going to go around here.
“Where is he?” I ask Todd after the video finally plays out.
“When I left him, he was in his suite, waiting for your apology. It’s room 2857.”
“My apology, huh?” More like my foot in his ass, because that’s the only thing—the last thing—this bastard is getting from me or the Atlantis. “Looks like he’s going to be disappointed.”
I push back from the desk, stand up. “I want to know the second Ms.—what’s the waitress’s name?”
“Aria. Aria Winston.”
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“I want to know the second Aria Winston comes to pick up her paycheck. Have HR send her up to me, will you, please?”
