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“Beniamino. You are?” He put his hand out to shake my hand and I took his immediately. Felt obligated to with the way everybody stared at me. Women wandered over and stood near him. Was he famous?
“Marcus,” I confirmed.
“Nice to meet you.” His words were thick with an Italian accent, but his sentences weren’t broken as I’d expected.
Maybe he was American Italian. Changing my mind, it didn’t matter who in the hell he was. I just needed his money.
“Are you in?” He asked.
Something told me to stall a bit, figure it out with a clear mind and walk away. His smug demeanor and the way he seemed to command the room when he hadn’t said a thing made him both irritating and sexy as fuck. If I won, maybe I could find out if his mouth worked well on my dick. I was in for everything. The sex and his money.
“I am.”
This deal went quickly. Before I knew it, a king and ten of spades watched me. The ace, ten, and six of spades were there face up on the table giving me a flush, but what did they have?
“I’ll raise another hundred,” Duck said while pursing his lips.
I didn’t have any more cash. I glanced at my phone to help with options. Was I folding? But my ex-wife’s name was on the screen reminding me of our meeting tomorrow. We needed to sign paperwork on her club… then it clicked.
“I have a club, prime location. It’s worth more than the extra hundred thousand, but my share of the club should be more than enough.”
“Your share?” Beniamino inquired.
“Yes, I share ownership with my ex.”
Beniamino glanced over his shoulder and a man stepped forward. He pulled out his phone and asked for the address. I gave it to him and immediately, my leg bounced under the table. The longer he stared at his phone typing and doing whatever he was engaged in, the time ticked slowly but my patience waned thin.
“He’s good for it.” The man spoke finally.
“Then, let’s add two hundred thousand. Make it fair.”
“Fold.” Duck dropped his cards and kicked his chair as he stood. “Fucking fold.” He left, waddling away with his hurt feelings on his sleeve.
“What’s it going to be, Marcus?” He asked.
“Flush.” I laid down my cards and waited for him to show me his.
“It’s a full house.” He put down his cards and air was quickly vacuumed from the room.
His man disappeared somewhere into the crowd while I tried to breathe. What the fuck had I done?
Beniamino leaned forward with his arms folded. “What kind of club is it?”
“Urban nightlife,” I whispered.Why had I taken the bait?
“And this is your wife?”
He showed me the screen of Simone smiling brightly as she stood in front of the club on opening night. Her cherry red dress complimented the red undertones on her skin. She was a beautiful woman, it was sad that she could never satisfy me the way a woman should. I’d been in denial about my sexuality and she’d paid the price for it. Something I regretted even more than giving away half of her dreams.
“Yes. Can we work something out?” I cleared my throat again while shifting in my seat. “I can figure something out with the money.” I knew of a few games happening this week. If I won a few of them, this would be over before he knew it.
“We can. What did you have in mind?” He glanced up as he was handed papers by the guard that returned.
“I can get you the money in two weeks. Then we don’t have to sign the club over. I’ll give you the cash and it’ll be like it never happened.” I rubbed my hand on my bouncing leg to get rid of the moisture softening my palm.
“I deal in the here and now. If you don’t have the money, you’ll sign this contract and you can try to buy me out in two weeks. Until then, you owe me now. That means that I’ll collect now. I don’t do IOUs.”
“This isn’t an IOU.” I pressed.
