Stormy Vows - Iris Johansen [108]
She faded away from the table and pushed her way through to the sidelines to decide where to go next. She spotted a dice table in the corner of the room and decided to start there. For the next thirty minutes she visited several tables, with gradually dwindling interest. It was with some relief and pleasure that she finally spotted Dominic at a table across the room.
Jane started forward eagerly, only to stop abruptly after a few paces. The game Jake Dominic was playing was not confined to the cards in front of him. The ravishing Mexican dealer was leaning toward him with an unmistakable glint of invitation in her dark eyes as she murmured something to him that brought a cynical smile to his lips and a look of appraisal to his eyes. His eyes wandered leisurely over the woman's generous curves, lingering for a long moment on the cleavage that was blatantly displayed in the low-cut gown, before he gave the woman an answer that made her smile with sultry contentment.
Jane felt a stab of pain so intense that it took her breath away. For a moment she stood there, her emotions raw and confused, before her mind clamped a protective shield over the hurt and started to provide her with a rationalization for that revealing moment of agony.
Of course she had felt something when she'd seen Jake with that woman, she told herself. They had grown so close in the companionable evenings alone together that she knew a certain sense of possession. It was natural that she would feel a trifle bereft when Dominic showed the unmistakable signs of desire for another, even though the relationship he was contemplating with the sexy woman was far different from the casual friendship he had with Jane. She should have known that a virile man of Jake Dominic's reputation would immediately seek out a woman willing to satisfy his desires when the opportunity presented itself. It had been surprise, not pain, that had shaken her in that first moment, she told herself firmly.
She turned away, carefully avoiding looking at the intimacy of the couple at the blackjack table. Jake would not welcome a third party at this stage, she thought unhappily. Abruptly all pleasure was drained from the evening, and the scene that had been fascinating a few minutes before was now merely sordid.
She drifted over to the sidelines again, and leaned against the wall to watch the action in the smoky room with only casual interest. She was conscious now of the heat of the room. Her sweater and the loose coat that enveloped her were stifling, and she could feel a bead of perspiration form at the nape of her neck.
Her gaze ran casually around the room and then stopped abruptly. There was a small, nearly hidden door at the far end of the long, mirrored bar, which she had overlooked in her first glance around the room. It obviously led outside to the rear of the building, and as she looked, a steady stream of gamblers wandered through the door. None ever returned, though she watched carefully for another ten minutes. Her curiosity was irresistibly piqued.
She straightened slowly and moved forward, her gaze fixed in fascination on that mysterious door.
Jake Dominic looked indifferently at the card the Mexican woman had just dealt him, before lifting his eyes to gaze with slightly more appreciation at the generous cleavage revealed by the dealer's low-cut gown. Then his forehead creased in a puzzled frown when his glance passed from those pleasant pastures to drift restlessly about the room. The crowd had thinned now, and he could see Benjamin, still at the roulette table. But where the devil was Jane?
Suddenly there was a loud commotion at the far end of the bar as a short, stocky Mexican came bursting through the door shouting something to the bartender and waving his arms wildly. The bartender grabbed a baseball bat from under the bar and ran out the door, followed closely by the man who had summoned him.
Jake hurriedly threw his cards on the table and crossed the room to the roulette table in seconds.
He grabbed Marc Benjamin