the sky.
It wasn’t in the cards for him—it never had been—and he knew better than most that wanting something so desperately was as good as handing over the most effective tool to hurt him to an enemy. His father was a genius when it came to applying just the right amount of hurt to a pressure point to get his children to do what he wanted without ever raising his hand. All he had to do was make an offhand comment about his wayward son’s apartment in the city—paid for with O’Malley money—or the night classes he’d been slowly wading through over the years, and Teague folded. As bad as it was being under his father’s thumb, it would be a million times worse if he lost his own space.
And losing the normalcy of being able to sit in class and know he was working toward an MBA. He couldn’t let it go.
He blinked, coming back to himself to find Callie watching him with curiosity. She’d asked a question, hadn’t she? He sat back. “I play poker.”
“Just not with James Halloran anymore.”
“No, not with James anymore.” He missed that big bastard, but there had been no fighting the pressure from everyone around them. O’Malleys did not associate with Hallorans unless there was business to be done—and they sure as fuck didn’t become friends. God forbid. Worse, he couldn’t shake the feeling that if James still numbered as one of his friends, there might have been some way to avoid the current situation.
It was too late to worry about it now, though.
“Are you any good?” She moved closer, her perfume teasing him, something light and feminine that he couldn’t place.
He shrugged. “I win more than I lose.” Though he hadn’t touched cards in months. The thrill of playing, of manipulating the other people at the table until he walked away with everything they had, had dulled. Hell, everything around him had dulled. He was living a half-life and he damn well knew it. Even the classes he’d fought so hard to be able to take weren’t enough to have him more than going through the motions. Last night was the first time in far too long that he’d been awake.
And the woman next to him was at least partially responsible.
“Do you play?”
Her smile widened, becoming something less politely interested and more real. “On occasion.”
He tried to picture it, and the image came to him all too easily. He’d seen Callie play the part of mob princess at the dinner, even though he knew for a fact she was as displeased about the whole three-ring circus as he was. It wasn’t too far a leap to see her at a table, wearing something like the red number she had on now, smiling sweetly and taking the men around her for everything they had. “I bet they don’t even know what hit them.”
She laughed softly. “Well, I do win more than I lose.”
“We should play sometime.” The words were out before he had a chance to reconsider them. “Though not for anything as mundane as money.”
Her blue eyes lit with interest that had nothing to do with cards. Christ, did she know the effect she had? It was everything he could do not to reach for her, to see if her skin was as soft as he remembered, if her mouth was as yielding.
If he could get her to make another of those sweet whimpers.
He looked away, trying to get control of himself. “Any other untoward habits I should know about in my future wife?” Future wife. Fuck if he didn’t love the sound of that, especially when it meant that four short weeks from now, Callie would be his. It was a savage thought, but he couldn’t shake it. Or deny exactly how much he wanted it.
“I love old movies.” That brought his attention back around to her, a moth to her flame. She twisted a lock of her blond hair around her finger. “If it has Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell, or Audrey Hepburn in it, then I own it and have watched it entirely too many times to admit in public.”
He could see that. There was something about Callie that brought to mind the glamour and grace of actresses from that time period. He took a drink of his whiskey, enjoying the ease of their conversation. It didn’t matter that he’d convinced her to come out tonight in order to stop a war he was beginning to get the feeling there