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Kim looked at Alessandra and Beau. “Sorry, looks like I’m the unlucky one tonight, and I’m going to stop.” She turned and looked at her husband. “Honey, I’m going to go sit in the lounge and relax. Alessandra, want to come with me?”
Not wanting to leave Beau, but wanting to find out more about this couple, Alessandra turned to him. “I’ll be back in a few minutes; I’m going to just join her for a drink.”
Beau nodded. Alessandra knew he understood what she was doing. These were high-rollers and she needed to find out who they were. “Be back soon. You’re my lucky charm,” he said.
Kim and Alessandra were sitting on the expensive leather couches in the high-limit room. “Your husband and mine are both getting really lucky tonight!” Kim said.
Alessandra looked at Kim in surprise. “Beau? Oh, he’s not my husband.”
“Sorry.” Kim winced. “Boyfriend? Fiancé?”
“None of the above.” Alessandra laughed.
“There’s something going on between the two of you. I could feel the electricity oozing out of your pores even at my end of the table! But you don’t have to tell me; I’m just being nosy. Besides, it’s Vegas, right? Don’t they say, ‘What happens here, stays here’?”
“Oh no, it’s not that!” Alessandra protested. “It’s just business, and I guess you could say we’re old friends. We only recently reconnected, as friends, that’s all. How did you and Jon meet?” Alessandra was anxious to get the conversation back on Kim, even as Beau looked in their direction with that sexy smile of his.
“We worked together. Which, by the way, might be how it happens for you and Beau, the way the two of you keep looking at each other.”
“I doubt that. He’s not really my type…”
“That’s what I thought when I first met Jon, but it turns out we had more in common than I thought.”
“Like what?”
“Well, he owned a small tech startup. I was a sales rep at a company that sold payroll software. His company was growing, and he bought my product. A few days later, he asked me out on a date. I turned him down because I had been burned on the tech-company-risk-taker-entrepreneur type before. But he convinced me he wasn’t like that, and after just six months, we decided to get married. He’d sold his company and wanted to settle down a little, take some time off from the business. The sale made it so we were able to retire a bit early.”
“That’s so fortunate. I’m happy for you!” In the back of her brain, Alessandra doubted that risk takers could ever really settle down, but maybe entrepreneurs were a different type. “Have you been enjoying your retirement, then?”
Kim made a face and shrugged. “Sure, we are. At first, we traveled a lot; we’ve been all over the world. But then that got a bit old. These days, Jon gets his risk-loving fix by gambling. He plays poker a lot, but he doesn’t really have the patience to play well. And we both love craps, so that’s what we play mostly. And thank God we’re winning tonight. The last two days we’ve been losing our asses over at the Chadwick.”
Alessandra’s brain went into full business mode. At the same time, she noted Kim had confirmed, once again, that risk-takers never changed. “Is that where you’re staying? At the Chadwick?”
“Yes, we do love it there. But our normal executive host just left the company, and the new one assigned to us seems to have too many customers. He’s not around much. I haven’t ever felt comfortable asking for things to be comped—and our old one always just knew what we wanted.”
Alessandra figured she had to try. “As it turns out, I’m the CEO here at The Benson.” After Kim’s surprised look, she explained, “Sorry, I don’t usually tell people that. Sometimes it makes them uncomfortable. But I would love to host you and Jon here for the weekend, if you’re interested. We have a gorgeous suite available in our Estates tower, and you’ll have a view of the lake and the Strip. And Sailor Ferraro is truly the best executive host in town; I’d love for you to meet her.”
Kim looked over at the craps table where Jon and Beau were playing. “I think that would be great! This was our first visit to The Benson, and we’ve loved it so far. And frankly, Jon was becoming less and less a fan of the Chadwick’s management. Last night he was angry because it took them too long to do a withdrawal from his bank. He got the cash eventually, but it seems like there is more and more red tape these days!”
Kim walked over to Jon as Beau was taking his chips from the table. Alessandra watched him take the stacks to the cage and put them in his private safe—a perk enjoyed by high-rollers like Beau. He wanted easy access to use them in the casino, but it was a safety issue to carry them around himself.
Kim waved Alessandra over after talking with Jon. Jon kept playing while Kim said, “We’d love to be here for the rest of our stay in Vegas. How about we move tomorrow, after we check out of the Chadwick?”
“Just get your bags packed, and we’ll send over our limo to pick you up whenever you’re ready. The driver will get your bags to the car, so don’t worry about that.”
Alessandra was happy. She called Sailor to check up on her, and Alessandra couldn’t wait to share the information about these new wealthy customers she had just lured to The Benson.
Sailor’s voice on the phone was still raspy. “You don’t sound like you’re much better,” Alessandra observed.
“I do feel better, a little,” Sailor said, coughing. Alessandra told Sailor about Jon and Kim Gartner. Sailor was, as expected, thrilled to have new customers. “Hopefully, I’ll feel well enough to come back to work tomorrow. Then I can focus my attention on them, and you can focus yours on Beau.”
“Wait,” Alessandra said. “Maybe I should take them, and you can take Beau.”
“Nope, that doesn’t make sense. You’ve already spent time together. You know each other. You should continue to use that relationship. I’ll handle Jon and Kim. Is Beau still gambling?”
“Not at the craps table. I’m going to see if he wants to play something else, because he’s already won a lot. Too much, actually. Way too much.”
“The only way we hit the revenue target is if he loses. Keep him gambling, boss.”
