Rich Man's Revenge: Dealing Her Final Card / Seducing His Opposition / A Reputation For Revenge

But Josie hadn’t moved from the end of the bed. She looked up, her face pale.

“A hundred thousand, Bree,” she whispered. “I owe Mr. Hudson a hundred thousand dollars.”

For a second, Bree couldn’t understand the words. Lingering tears of relief burned her eyes like acid as she stared at her sister.

A hundred thousand dollars.

Turning away, Bree started to pace, compulsively twisting a long tendril of blond hair into a tight ringlet around her finger as she struggled to make sense of all her worst fears coming true. She tried to control her shaking hands. Tried desperately to think of a way out.

“But I told you, you don’t have to worry!” Josie blurted out. “I have a plan.”

Bree stopped abruptly. “What is it?”

“I’m going to sell the land.”

Her eyes went wide as she stared at her sister.

“There’s no choice now. Even you must see that,” Josie argued, blinking fast as she clasped her hands tightly in her lap. “We’ll sell it, pay off the debt, and then pay off those men who are after us. You’ll finally be free—”

“That land is in trust.” Bree’s voice was hard. “You don’t get possession until you’re twenty-five or married. So put it out of your mind.”

Josie shook her head desperately. “But I know how I could—”

“You can’t,” she said coldly. “And even if you could, I wouldn’t let you. Dad put that land into an unbreakable trust for a reason.”

“Because he thought I was helpless to take care of myself.”

“Because from the day you were born, you’ve had a knack for trusting people and believing the best of them.”

“You mean I’m stupid and naive.”

Controlling herself, Bree clenched her hands at her sides.

“It’s a good quality, Josie,” she said quietly. “I wish I had more of it.”

And it was true. Josie had always put concern for others over her own safety and well-being. As a chubby girl of five, she’d once wandered out of their Alaskan cabin into the snow, hoping to find their neighbor’s cat, which had disappeared the day before. Eleven-year-old Bree had searched their rural street with their panicked father and half a dozen neighbors for hours, until they’d finally found her, lost in the forest, dazed and half-frozen.

Josie had nearly died that day, for the sake of a cat that was found later, snug and warm in a nearby barn.

Bree took a deep breath. Her little sister’s heart was as big as the world. It was why she needed someone not nearly so kind or innocent to protect her. “Are they still playing?”

“Yes,” Josie said in a small voice.

“Who’s at the table?”

“Mr. Hudson and a few owners. Texas Big-Hat, Silicon Valley, Belgian Bob,” she said, using the housekeeping staff’s nicknames for the villa owners. Her eyes narrowed. “And one more man I didn’t recognize. Handsome. Arrogant. He kicked me out of the game.” She scowled. “The others would’ve let me stay longer—”

“You would have just lost more,” Bree said coldly. Turning away, she went behind her closet door and yanked off her oversized sleep shirt, pulling on a bra and then a snug black T-shirt. “We’d owe a million dollars now, instead of just a hundred thousand.”

“It might as well be a million, for all our chance of paying,” Josie grumbled. “For all the good it will do them if I don’t sell that land. They can’t get blood out of a stone!”

Bree pulled on her skinny dark jeans over her slim legs. “And what do you think will happen when you don’t pay?”

“Mr. Hudson will make me scrub his floors for free?” she replied weakly.

Coming around the closet door, Bree stared at her in disbelief. “Scrub his floors?”

“What else can he do?”

Bree turned away, muttering to herself. Josie didn’t understand the situation she was dealing with. How could she? Bree had made it her mission in life to protect her from knowing.

She’d hoped they would find peace in Hawaii, three thousand miles away from the ice and snow of Alaska. She’d prayed she would find her own peace, and finally stop dreaming of the blue-eyed, dark-haired man she’d once loved. But it hadn’t worked. Every night, she still felt Vladimir’s arms around her, still heard his low, sensual voice. I love you, Breanna. She still saw the brightness of his eyes as he held up a sparkling diamond beneath the Christmas tree. Will you marry me?

Ugh. Furiously, Bree pushed the memory away. No wonder she still hated Christmas. Let other women go home to their turkeys and children and brightly lit trees. To Bree, yesterday had been just another workday. She never let herself remember that one magical Christmas night when she was eighteen, when she’d wanted to change her life to be worthy of Vladimir’s love. The night she’d promised herself that she would never—for any reason—gamble or cheat or lie again. Even though he’d left her, she’d kept that promise.

Until now. She reached into the back of her closet, pulling out her black boots with the sharp stiletto heels.

“Bree?” Josie said anxiously.

Not answering, Bree sat down heavily on the bed. Putting her feet into her boots, she zipped up the backs. It was the first time she’d worn these stiletto boots since she was a rebellious teenager with a flexible conscience and a greedy heart. It took Bree back to the woman she’d never thought she would be again. The woman she’d have to be tonight to save her sister. She glanced at the illuminated red letters of the clock. Three in the morning. A perfect time to start.

“Please, you don’t have to do this,” her sister whimpered. Her voice choked as she whispered helplessly, “I have a plan.”

Ignoring the guilt and anguish in her sister’s voice, Bree rose to her feet. “Stay here.” Squaring her shoulders, she severed the connection between her brain and her pounding heart. Emotion would only be a liability from here on out. “I’ll take care of it.”

“No! It’s my fault, Bree, and I can fix it. Listen. On Christmas Eve, I met a man who told me how …”

But Bree didn’t wait to hear whatever cockamamy sob story someone might have fed her softhearted sister this time. She grabbed her black leather motorcycle jacket and headed for the door.

“Bree, wait!”

She didn’t look back. She walked out of the tiny apartment and went down the open-air hallway to the moss-covered, crumbling concrete steps of the aging building where all the Hale Ka’nani Resort’s staff lived.

It’s just like riding a bike, Bree told herself fiercely as she raced down the steps. Even after ten years away from the game, she could win at poker. She could.

Warm trade winds blew against her cold skin. Pulling on her black leather jacket, she went down the illuminated paths of the five-star resort toward the beautiful, brand-new buildings used by wealthy tourists and the even wealthier villa owners, clustered around the edge of a private, white-sand beach.

My heart is cold, she repeated to herself. I feel nothing.

The moon was full over the Pacific, leaving a ghostly trail across the black water. Palm trees swayed in the warmth of the Hawaiian breeze. She heard the distant call of night birds, smelled the exotic scent of fruit and spice mingling with the salt of the sea.

Above her, dark silhouettes of tall, slender palm trees swayed in a violet sky twinkling with stars. Even with the bright full moon, the night seemed black to her, wide and endless as the sea. She followed the illuminated path around the deserted pool between the beach and the main lobby. As she grew closer to the beach, she heard the sound of the surf build to a roar.

The open-air bar was nearly empty beneath its long thatched roof. Hanging lights swayed in the breeze over a few drunk tourists and cuddling honeymooners. Bree nodded at the tired-eyed bartender, then went past the bar into a connecting hall that led to the private rooms reserved for the villa owners and their guests. Where rich men brought their cheap mistresses and played private, illegal games.

Opening the door, Bree stumbled in her stiletto boots.

Clenching her hands at her sides, she took a deep breath and told her heart to be a lump of ice. Cold. Cold. Cold. She had no feelings of any kind. Poker was easy. By the time she was fourteen, she’d been fleecing tourists in Alaskan ports. And she’d learned the best way not to show emotion was not to feel it in the first place.