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However, like most men, he probably believed he knew what he wanted, and she would be “it” until he learned what she was really like. Perfection was the expectation, so much so that when she’d fallen short, her own family had pretended not to see her dangling at the precipice of a steep cliff until she got down to her last finger.
“Tonight,” she echoed.
“Yes, tonight. Here, in Vegas. Marry me.”
“Okay.”
He nearly choked on asparagus. “Okay?”
“If you win, we get married.” She blinked as if that would get rid of the stars she feared he could see in her eyes. “And if I win?”
“What do you want?” he asked.
“If I win…you contribute to my epigenetics research.”
He nodded. “Then I believe we have a deal.”
They finished their meals, opted for water instead of another round of drinks, and started up their high-stakes game. Considering the high stakes, her heart fought with her chest wall, and she played the entire hand on her knees instead of sitting on the chair.
Lucas laid his cards on the table: three sevens and two kings. “A full house, babe. Now, show me your cards.”
“There’s no way,” she said.
“Read ‘em and weep. Now,” he pointed to her hand, “let’s see if you’ll be Raina Daniels or Mrs. Saraci before the end of the night.”
She hesitated.
In her hands, she held the highest-ranking hand in poker, the rare Royal Flush, which would easily beat his Full House.
Yet, she hesitated.
“Saraci, wait.” She reached out and knocked over his glass of water, sending clear liquid onto the room’s hard floors.
“I’ll get it,” he said.
He went to the bathroom for an extra towel. While he was gone, she swapped out the cards and stuck her original hand onto the bottom of the deck, the maneuver done by the time he returned.
Once he finished wiping up the water, he rejoined her. Then, swallowing, she lowered her cards to the table—a seven, a four, a king, a three, and a ten.
Otherwise known as nothing at all.
“This is a bad idea,” he said, staring at the cards. “Rai, I need you to tell me this is a bad idea. We can’t do this. We shouldn’t. What exactly did they put in those whiskey sours that I can’t think of the glaring reason not to do this?”
Sober or not, she couldn’t back out now. Not when he called her Rai like he’d been calling her Rai for years.
“We’ll need rings,” she said.
A light flickered in his eyes. Then he grinned, and she was now confident that this man was at least fifty percent feral.
“Real rings,” he added. “I’m not about to give you a ring from a claw machine that came in a plastic bubble.”
“I want to wear a dress.”
He glanced at the time. “It’s notthatlate. We should be able to find a jeweler that’s still open and somewhere we can find a dress you like.”
“Actually, I have one I might be able to use.”
“Meet me in the lobby?”
