Troublemaker: Rascals: Book Five Read online

  “I didn’t like him,” Emerson said.

  “Good thing you’re not dating him,” I pointed out.

  I said goodbye to everyone and it wasn’t until I was already out the door that I realized that at some point, Dante had disappeared without a word.

  An hour later, smoothing down the skirt of my chic black cocktail dress, I waited in the lobby of the Royleston, one of the nicest hotels in Chicago. Mike had wanted to meet here but hadn’t told me why. “It’s a surprise,” he’d said on the phone.

  Had he booked a room for us tonight? We had definitely been dating long enough to take that next step, but I didn’t know if I wanted to sleep with him. Mike was nice and he was a decent kisser but beyond that, I didn’t really feel fireworks.

  Or, you know, even a flickering spark.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone in black walking past with a familiar gait. I turned just as they entered the elevator, so I missed getting a clear shot of them, but I could have sworn it was Dante.

  That was stupid, of course. What would Dante be doing in a place like this?

  I didn’t have much time to ruminate on it, because the hotel doors slid open and Mike came walking towards me, a rose in one hand and smile on his face. My stomach got tight. Had I been right about him getting a hotel room? And why did the thought make me want to feign exhaustion and go home?

  “You look beautiful,” Mike commented as he pressed a kiss to my temple.

  “Thank you.” I managed a smile. Knowing I was meeting him someplace classy, I dressed the part. My hair was pulled back in a perfect knot at the base of my neck, my makeup was minimal and tasteful, and my designer dress fit without being snug or revealing. Sure, it was kind of boring, but I figured Mike was the kind of guy who liked playing it safe.

  But maybe I was wrong, because Mike took my hand, looking excited.

  “So, I have a bit of a surprise for tonight,” he said. “Do you trust me?”

  I opened my mouth, but before I could even respond, Mike was leading me across the lobby.“I think the others are already upstairs,” he said before I could object.

  “The others?” I asked, relieved. “Are we going to a party?”

  He ushered me into the elevator and hit the button for the penthouse. “It’s the hottest poker game in town. High stakes and high rollers only.”

  I relaxed. A poker game. I could definitely handle that. My brother and his friends played poker almost every weekend. I didn’t find it particularly entertaining but I was too relieved that we weren’t going to a private room, so I didn’t object.

  The door slid open when we reached the penthouse, and we headed inside. “VIPs only,” Mike told me proudly, leading me in. “I had to bug a buddy of mine for weeks to get the info.”

  I looked around curiously. The main living area had been set up with a poker table and full bar, and the crowd looked plenty wealthy: lots of men in expensive suits and gorgeous cocktail waitresses in tiny dresses.

  “Rumor has it, the guy who runs this is part of the mob. Or a tech billionaire. Nobody can get the full story,” Mike continued. He looked eagerly around. “He’s here somewhere, I can’t wait to get an introduction. Shit, there he is.”

  The crowd parted, and I saw the man Mike was pointing to. The one in the middle of the action, looking like he owned the place.

  Dante.

  2

  Hayley

  I was pretty sure I was imagining things. That I had somehow conjured Dante out of thin air and was now seeing him sitting—in an expensive, designer suit—at the poker table, dealing out cards.

  “Isn’t this great?” Mike said in my ear, his body pressing close to mine. “The guys at work are going to be so jealous.”

  I barely heard him, my eyes focused on Dante. He hadn’t seen me yet, his attention focused on the cards and the players. I didn’t know much about poker, but I knew that Dante was very, very good at it. The guys talked about his abilities like he was a god. Probably helped that he had the world’s best poker face. It was impossible to know what he was thinking.

  Until he glanced up and saw me.

  Then, for the first time since I’d known him, I knew exactly what Dante was thinking. And that was: “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  I lifted my chin slightly, indicating that he could glare at me as much as he wanted but I wasn’t going anywhere. Then his eyes shifted to Mike, who was standing next to me, his gaze narrowing, but only for a second.

  Then, his focus returned to the cards, ignoring me as if I wasn’t there.

  Fine.

  “Let’s get you a drink,” Mike said, his hand on my elbow.

  I nodded wordlessly, following as he found his friends—fellow Ivy League buddies, of course—and ordered all of us a bottle of the best scotch available.

  “How’d you hear about this place?” I asked, paying attention now. How was it that Dante ran this game, but I’d never heard about it? I’m pretty sure my brother and his friends were equally clueless.

  Mike’s attention was divided as he watched the table, obviously waiting for the game to end so he could join in.

  “It’s hush-hush, but a guy at work let slip,” he said, eyes focused on the players. “Like I said, I had to front some serious bar tabs before he let on where and when.”

  I watched as the game ended and the table rearranged itself, some players departing, some staying. Mike and his friends took a seat at Dante’s table, laughing and joking, clearly amped up for the main event.

  But Dante got to his feet.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, his eyes focused on mine.

  He didn’t have to say anything—I knew he wanted me to follow him. I glanced at Mike, wondering what he’d say, but he was focused on the table and counting his chips nervously. He did not have a good poker face.

  I followed Dante to the door, where he pulled me into the hallway.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded, his hand hot on my arm.

  “I’m on a date,” I told him, not in the mood for him to play at being a protective big brother, especially when he was definitely not my brother.

  “You need to go,” he demanded.

  I stared at him. “Excuse me?”

  “You don’t belong here,” he said, scowling.

  I pulled my arm free of his grasp. “Whether or not I belong here isn’t the point,” I said. “I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”

  Dante closed his eyes as if my very presence was causing him pain.

  “This is not the place for you,” he tried again.

  “Stop it.” I held up a hand. “I don’t need to be protected, so you can just lay off on the whole ‘this is for your own good’ schtick.”

  “That’s not—” he started, but I wasn’t done.

  “Just pretend I’m not here,” I told him. “You’re good at that.”

  It was mean, but I didn’t care.

  “Besides,” I gave him a smile. “I don’t think you want me to make a scene.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t.”

  I shrugged. “Are you sure about that?”

  He stared at me for a moment before turning on his heels and stalking back into the penthouse. Point: me.

  I headed back in and made my way to Mike’s side. Dante settled in the dealer’s seat and started shuffling the cards. It was then that I noticed there were quite a few watches on the table. All of them Rolexes.

  The whole thing was very proper and posh. And completely illegal.

  Even though I played with the guys at Rascals—it had become more fun now that their girlfriends had been allowed to join the game—I didn’t know that much about the game. We never really made big bets, so it was all just fun for me and I never took it that seriously.

  This was pretty clearly a game that was being taken seriously.

  They went around the table, calling for new cards, holding, and placing their bets. Mike had rolled up his shirt sleeves and was glari
ng at his cards with such intensity that it was pretty clear to anyone within a five-mile radius that he had a bad hand. Or that he was bluffing. Except I could see his cards and knew that he definitely wasn’t bluffing.

  I thought about letting him know that he was being pretty obvious, but then he leaned towards me.

  “The dealer is a cheat,” he muttered, annoyed.

  I recoiled as if he was speaking about me. Dante? Cheat? He was a lot of things—a sullen asshole most of the time, but a cheat?

  Never.

  Mike was just being a poor sport, but luckily, when it came time to throw in the towel with his crappy hand, he lost gracefully.

  “It’s fine,” he said loudly as his Rolex was swept away with the rest of the bartered watches. “I’ve got five more at home.”

  His friends laughed and slapped him on the shoulder.

  Mike lost a lot that night. And I just sat next to him, watching him play bad hand after bad hand, doing everything I could to avoid looking at Dante. Still, I could feel his dark gaze boring into me. He didn’t want me there, that much had been made obvious, but I could also practically hear the wheels turning in his head as he tried to figure out a way to make me leave.

  Eventually, I glanced up at him and caught his eye. His gaze was intense, and a shiver went through me. A good kind of shiver. The kind of shiver I was supposed to be feeling with Mike.

  I wanted to look away, but instead I stared right back at him.

  I wasn’t going anywhere.

  Several hours later, the poker game had come to an end. Mike had lost—a lot—but seemed in good spirits about it. After all, he could afford to lose a few thousand dollars. I shivered a little as his debt was tallied and he paid, thinking of how many Toys for Tots that money could have bought, or how it could have been used to help Habitat for Humanity, two of the many charities I donated to.

  I said nothing, though, allowing Mike to help me into my jacket and lead me to the elevator. We crowded in with several of his friends, and I caught a brief glimpse of Dante just before the doors closed. He was standing at the poker table, his eyes boring holes into me.

  “What a game!” Mike said as we headed to the lobby, his arm heavy around my shoulders.

  “When’s the next one?” his friend Ted asked.

  Mike shrugged. “Not sure. It’s all very mysterious. The invites go out by text from an anonymous number.”

  “Smart,” the other guy said. “No names, all cash. Way to keep it under the radar.”

  Mike and his friends stumbled out of the elevator when it reached the lobby, but I stayed inside.

  I couldn’t forget the way Dante had been looking at me.

  “I forgot my bag upstairs,” I lied, holding my purse behind my back. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  Mike just waved a hand at me as he and his friends headed to the bar. I pushed the button to the penthouse and headed back up, my heart racing. When I got there, the penthouse was mostly empty except for a few remaining servers who were cleaning up.

  And Dante.

  He was counting money and putting it into envelopes. When he noticed me, he quickly finished what he was doing and gestured to the three servers that were still there.

  “Get out of here,” he told them, handing them envelopes. “I’ll do the rest.”

  They nodded and hurried out of there, giving me small nods as they passed by. I waited until I heard the elevator doors close before I said anything. My heart was pounding now, but I didn’t know why.

  We were alone.

  “So.” I cleared my throat. “An illegal poker game.”

  “Don’t start,” Dante said, his gaze focused on the notebook in front of him. “It’s none of your business.”

  “Does Emerson know?”

  He didn’t reply.

  He was so infuriating, I wanted to throw something just to see if I could break through his hard, placid expression—the one he always wore. When was the last time I’d seen him smile? I knew that it had happened before—but it seemed like such a long time ago. I looked closer and I could see what he was trying to hide. Exhaustion. It was evident in the circles under his eyes and the dark creases at the corner of his mouth.

  “What’s really going on?” I asked, trying to keep the frustration and judgement out of my voice. It wasn’t easy. Something about Dante just got my hackles up. Maybe it was the way he always seemed to think I was this silly little girl who cared only about shopping and parties. Maybe it was the way he always seemed to want me to be that silly little girl.

  “It’s late,” he said. “Go home. Or did your date ditch you?”

  I narrowed my eyes at him, not sure what he was playing at.

  “He’s waiting for me,” I said, crossing my arms. “Not that it matters.”

  “He’s a lousy poker player,” Dante said, smirking now.

  “I know.”

  There was a long silence, just the two of us in the penthouse, the remnants of a party around us, staring at each other. The air seemed to crackle and I wasn’t sure why. Dante and I had been alone together before. Sure, not alone like this, but we’d been alone.

  Hadn’t we?

  Dante came towards me, his heat coming with him, surrounding me. He looked really good in that suit, though he had undone his tie and the top few buttons. I could see the indent of his throat, the movement of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed. It was extremely sexy, but for reasons I didn’t understand. It was a neck, for God’s sakes. I’d seen men’s necks before. Why was this one getting me all hot and bothered?

  “You should go home,” Dante said again, his eyes dark on mine. “You really don’t belong here.”

  “I want answers.” I stood my ground as he came closer. “What’s your deal? I want to know everything.”

  “You want a lot of things,” Dante said, his voice quiet.

  This time, I was the one swallowing. Hard.

  “Just answers,” I told him. “I can keep a secret.”

  He tilted his head, regarding me. His gaze traced over my body, and I shivered. “Can you?”

  I nodded, my mouth dry. “You can trust me,” I whispered.

  “No, I can’t,” he said, and turned away. “Go home, Hayley.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I finally exploded. “You’re not going to explain this at all? This is a big deal, Dante. It’s illegal as hell, and if the cops found out—”

  But I barely got the last sentence out before Dante spun around. Without warning, he swept me up into his arms and kissed me with a force that could only be described as animalistic. Possessive.

  Intense.

  His mouth dominated mine, his lips hot and firm against me, his tongue thrusting into my mouth. It was shocking and unexpected and so, so hot. I melted against him, unable to do anything else as he teased me with his tongue and teeth, the warmth of his body seeping into my bones, his hands firm and hot on my hips as he held me against his hard chest. He kissed me like he was devouring me, and I was helpless to resist.

  And I didn’t want to.

  But before I could really kiss him back, he had released me. He took me by the shoulders, walked me back, and without another word slammed the door in my face, leaving me standing in the hall, my lips swollen and my heart racing from the most epic, sexy, explosive kiss in my life.

  3

  Dante

  I was a moron. A moron and an asshole. That was the only way to explain why I had let Hayley get under my skin the other night. The only way to explain why I had kissed her.

  And now I couldn’t get it out of my head. The feel of her unbearably soft lips against mine, the way her body had molded itself against me, the sweet gasp that I had captured when I took her in my arms. I had kissed plenty of women in my life, but none of them could hold a candle to the brief, hot kiss I had shared with Hayley.

  It was fucked up.

  The one person I needed to stay away from was now the one person I couldn’t stop thinking about.

 
I braced myself as I headed into Rascals. Not just because I knew that signs of Hayley would be all around me—from the Christmas tree she had purchased for us, to the aggressive decoration of the rest of the bar, to the sign-up sheet for her goddamn Secret Santa thing that was hanging in Emerson’s office. There was no escaping her.

  And then there was Emerson. If he knew that I’d had my hands—and mouth, and tongue—all over his baby sister, I was as good as dead. Because while I could definitely defend myself in a fight—especially one against Emerson—I knew I was in the wrong. It wasn’t a fight I deserved to win.

  Because I had broken the code. The bro code that was pretty simple and to the point: thou shalt not covet thy friend’s sister.

  And thou should certainly not play tonsil hockey with said sister.

  “You’re a troublemaker, Dante.”

  That’s what my foster parents used to say. All of them. Because even when I was a kid, even when I tried to behave, I couldn’t keep that innate troublemaking impulse under control. For a while I thought I had been doing better—that as an adult, I was starting to get my shit together. But the other night, when I had thrown caution and good sense to the wind and kissed Hayley, just continued to prove everyone right. I was a troublemaker, through and through.

  I stepped into Rascals, sucking in a deep breath as I came face to face with everything that Hayley had done in the past few days.

  It was like stepping into Santa’s motherfucking workshop.

  “Is that a train?” I asked Chase, who was standing behind the bar.

  “Yep,” he said with a smile as I tried to take all of it in.

  Somehow, Hayley had managed to get a train set circling the top shelf that went around the length of the bar where we usually stacked old, leather-bound books. You know, décor that actually went with the theme of Rascals. That theme being old-school cool—like the kind Sinatra and Dean Martin had.

  Our theme was decidedly not Happy Times at the Christmas Village.