Nine Lives - Danielle Steel Page 0,34

and everyone was out.

She stopped at the roulette table for a while, which was fun but never seemed as exciting to her as blackjack or poker. She and Brad had gone to Las Vegas for some of his conventions. Neither of them were big gamblers, but it had been a lot of fun just playing the slot machines and watching the people intent at the blackjack tables.

Monte Carlo was infinitely more elegant and far more glamorous. The way people were dressed, who was there. Their whole demeanor, and the international mix among the crowd. She felt underdressed in her simple black dress, with her hair down. She noticed that all the women surrounding the tables and strolling through the casino were covered in expensive jewels. All she had was her gold wedding band and a small gold watch Brad had given her. She didn’t feel as though she was competing with the women in the casino. They were all standing close to the men they had come with, who were gambling, and a few of the women were gambling too. Maggie felt like an invisible observer whom no one would notice, and was surprised to see several men staring at her. She was beautiful and didn’t know it, and didn’t really care. One of them invited her for a drink, and she politely declined. He had a heavy Spanish accent and was very handsome, but she was content to watch the gaming tables and didn’t want to get tangled up with any man. She wasn’t there for that. Just to have fun and see the life of the casino.

She noticed at one table they were playing blackjack with important-looking men in every seat. The stakes were high, and there was a huge amount of chips on the table. She wasn’t sure how much it added up to, but she guessed at several hundred thousand euros, an almost equal amount of dollars. None of the players were speaking, the atmosphere was intense, and a few minutes after she began to watch, a youngish-looking man with silver-gray hair and a broad grin won. The croupier pushed an astounding amount of chips toward him, which he put in neat piles in front of him, and then started the betting again, as the men he had beaten groaned. He was handsome and looked much younger than the gray hair suggested. He appeared about Maggie’s age, and had a youthful air. He looked vaguely familiar but she didn’t know him. She heard him speak and he sounded American. He won the next hand too, much to everyone’s dismay, but he lost a lot of money on the round after. It didn’t seem to bother him, he remained good humored, and put a stack of chips in again. He looked up to where Maggie was standing and smiled at her. He had noticed her for a while and suddenly he called across to her with a look of surprise.

“Maggie Kelly? Is that you?” She was startled to hear her maiden name and nodded as he laughed. Suddenly she realized who it was, as her eyes grew wide in disbelief. It was Paul Gilmore, her high school love who had gone off to race motorcycles and later cars. She hadn’t seen him in thirty years, he had disappeared into the mists of another life. She remembered how dangerous and wild her mother had thought him, and her dire predictions about him, and now here he was, winning and losing a fortune at the high-stakes table in Monte Carlo. She remembered how poor he was when they were in school and the shabby cottage he lived in with his mother. It was obvious he had done well. She remembered his saying he would be rich one day, and apparently he was. She vaguely recalled hearing that he was a famous Formula One driver, but his life was light-years from hers by then, and she was happily married to Brad. He wasn’t interested in car races and Paul Gilmore was off her radar, and now suddenly he was smiling at her as though he had never left.

He had the aura of a rich man, and had the same dazzling smile as when he flew past her on his skateboard at seventeen. He beckoned to her as he picked up a hand, and she made her way quietly around the table to stand behind him. Then the chair next to him became vacant, and he whispered to