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Chapter Three
AlessandraandBeauwereeating dinner at the best table at June’s Steakhouse. Alessandra was perplexed by her intense physical reaction to Beau—something she hoped would have dissipated by now. When he made suggestive comments, she wanted to make them back. When he came close to her, she wanted him even closer.
She kept reminding herself the risk was too big even for the most insignificant sexual affair. He was still a gambler, just like her father. It was guaranteed he would take whatever he could get from a relationship. The way Alessandra’s dad had used her mom’s money. The way Beau had done to her twenty years ago.
She’d be professional, even friendly. She’d flirt with him. She’d make polite conversation. Maybe even keep him guessing by kissing him again, but that would be it.
“Remind me. It was your father who taught you how to gamble, right?” she asked him.
“Sort of,” Beau replied. “When he was home, I would beg him to show me what he did. He gave me the basics of each game, how to decide if a sports team would win or lose, how to read people. But my mom never approved. She wanted me to have a normal job, especially after the whole edge-sorting incident. Even with all her family being gamblers, she still thought it was better for me to take a more traditional path.”
“Why?” It was strange. They’d never had this type of discussion before.We were so young, she thought. “As I recall, your father made plenty of money gambling.”
“He did, for sure. But the downside of that was that he was away a lot, chasing the money—wherever he could find a high-stakes poker game, he was likely to win. He was very smart, fairly conservative. But there were also big swings in the money—he could win a lot one month and then lose twice that the next. Yes, overall, he won, but it was Mom’s trust fund that got us through the times he was losing.”
“That had to be reassuring—knowing that even if he lost, it’s not like you’d lose your house or something.”
“True, but I watched what he did. Over the years, I became even smarter at avoiding big losses. Sometimes that means I’ll give up the possibility of a big win, especially when it comes to betting on sports. But it also means I don’t see the same drastic swings as my dad did.”
Alessandra used the comment as an opportunity. She wanted to find out more about why he didn’t play at any of Magnum’s casinos. “Then how come you’re not playing in Magnum’s tournament? With them adding so much money to the tournament prize pool, seems like that would be a low risk to win some big money. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to have you here at The Benson, but I did wonder about that.”
Beau’s eyebrows knitted together, creating a brief frown. “Magnum’s management and I had a disagreement, no need to get into more.” At her questioning look, he added, “No, before you ask, it wasn’t anything like what happened at the Desert Star. Still, because of it, I don’t have any intention of giving them my business. Besides, I’d rather come for the side games and make bets outside of the actual tournament.”
Alessandra knew there was something Beau wasn’t saying. It was clear from his tone that even the thought of Magnum made him angry. And the last thing she wanted was to upset him—not when she still needed him gambling at The Benson.
“You used to love poker and blackjack. What do you like to gamble on the most now? I know you can play all the games,” she asked, smoothly changing the subject.
“I think I used to love the risks more when I was younger. Now, my preferred bets are the ones I can analyze the most—sports and poker. I use my background in mathematics every time I bet on a game or play a hand to calculate the odds of winning.”
“Well, you’re not going to make The Benson any money at all doing that,” she joked. It wasn’t actually that funny. She did need him to lose.
“Don’t worry at all. I know the real reason casinos love me is because of my passion, though some would say addiction, “ he laughed, “to the craps table. They know if I make a few million on poker or sports, I’ll celebrate by playing craps. It’s not my preferred method of gambling, but it is certainly my preferred method of having fun.”
“Then let’s be sure you win your sports bets, and we find you some rich poker players to take money from. And then, we’ll take you to the craps table.”
“Yes, please do that.” Beau smiled. “Poker and sports are more of a job to me, and on this trip, I want to focus on fun. I’m up overall for the year, so I have some extra money to play with. That’s why when Sailor had called with the offer to be hosted—and sweetening the offer by sending The Benson’s private jet to pick me up—I jumped at the chance.”
“Weren’t you spending Christmas with your dad? He’s retired now, right? What about your brother, Aaron was it?”
“My dad’s in Florida, didn’t want to come back to Montana’s cold is what he said. But I know he has a daily poker game down there he plays, and wins. Aaron was supposed to come to the ranch for Christmas, but he was invited to a very lucrative private poker game in Barcelona. He decided to go. I was happy to leave my very nice, but cavernous, ranch estate in Montana.”
Alessandra noted a different tone to his voice. She couldn’t decipher if it was sadness or anger. “Neither one would come home, even for Christmas?”
“Listen, Dad didn’t even come home right away when my mom was in the hospital, dying after a serious car accident,” he said, his tone openly bitter. “He’s not going to give up his daily game to come home for Christmas in Montana. As for Aaron, it’s his career, so I don’t blame him. He had to go where the money is.”
“Does it bother you? That they wouldn’t come? Because it sounds like it does,” Alessandra observed.
Beau paused and looked at her, apparently considering what she’d said. “This year? No, it didn’t bother me much at all, it’s just the way my family works. Back then, when Mom was dying…? I suppose it did bother me a lot, at the time. There wasn’t much Dad could do—he couldn’t get home in time before she died, anyway. Except, I was a young twenty-three-year-old, alone at the hospital as she died. I had to handle getting her body to the funeral home, notifying the relatives, begin planning for her memorial service. And this was all before Dad was able to get home.”
Something dawned on Alessandra. “Wait, if you were twenty-three, then that happened right after…”
Beau nodded. “It did. But that was no excuse for not calling you, Alessandra, for not checking to see how you were doing. I’m sorry for that now.”
His sincerity was clear.It was a strange time. They both made bad choices. “Thank you for that. I’m sorry, too. I could have called. I remember hearing that she’d died, but it was later. I should have called then.”
“Let’s consider it water under the bridge, shall we? We’ve all made choices we regret. As for my dad, now that I’m a professional gambler myself, I understand his choices better. It was a job to him; it was how he made money. It just so happens that it’s a job wholly non-compatible with having a regular family life. It’s not only about needing to be at the casino when a rich guy with more money than brains wants to play poker, though. It’s about the excitement of the win. No matter how much you analyze, it’s a game of odds. They aren’t always going to be in your favor… and that’s fun.”
“Did your dad ever have a normal job?”
