The Hook Read online

  Reserved for celebrities seeking discretion and for the riskiest of high rollers, the casino’s Titanium Club was a top-floor sinners’ playground. Rarely was the owner accessible outside the Club. Guests weren’t allowed beyond the gold-plated doors without invitation.

  Anger was Milo’s invitation to invade the Club. Godfather to both Milo and his younger brother, Jeremiah, Antony owed them answers. He called himself old-fashioned, a man of simple expectations. He defined family as a bond of loyalty, protection, respect—meaning if you didn’t give him all three, you weren’t his family.

  In the wake of his father’s disappearance, Milo had come to him numerous times for answers. But Antony offered silence. It was a betrayal Milo couldn’t allow.

  Because Luca wasn’t operating on all cylinders. To fade into nothingness while under media and federal scrutiny, he’d required the services of a trusted expert.

  Antony Grimaldi—Italian billionaire, certified genius, celebrated hedonist, worldwide playboy—possessed the cunning mind, international connections, and dark influence to make it happen.

  Bribery and a few cold threats didn’t get Milo into the Club, but the hassle brought his godfather to the corridor.

  Dark-suited, silver-haired and grim-faced, Antony contrasted against the brilliant luxury around him.

  So, this was hell, Milo thought wryly. It was bright, glittering and expensive. And the devil had had a hand in raising him.

  “Farsi da parte. Il ragazzo è la famiglia.”

  Antony’s command parted the barricade of security guarding the entrance. The personable, “Relax—I’m on your side” smile Milo had never trusted. Antony smiled that smile before he knifed associates, friends, lovers, and even blood family in their backs. It was the smile he wore for cameras and investigators in his portrayal of a cooperative suspect.

  “You want in? Dai,” the man said, regarding his godson with solemn suspicion before walking into the Titanium Club. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “Always expect family.” A-list guests no longer crowded the gemstone-pebbled carpet. Eager gamblers no longer competed for space at the polished table games. The bar had too many vacant seats. The air was too fragrant—no, too clean—for the peak of night.

  Where were the smokers, the snorters, drinkers, the hard-partying risk-takers?

  Avoiding connection to a place that any day might see its doors closed if Antony was more than suspected of facilitating illegal sports wagering—that’s where.

  “A slow night,” Antony said, unconcerned. “Luck’s on your side. You can have your pick of tables.” He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket, removed a slim titanium case. “A cigar for your trouble at the door.”

  “No.”

  “They’re King of Denmarks.”

  “I don’t want to smoke. Or take over a table.”

  “Well.” Antony put the case away. “This ain’t the destination for you.”

  “Where’d you send my father?”

  At the blunt question, Antony flicked an irritated glance at the smattering of guests in their vicinity then clasped Milo’s shoulder. His next words were low, tense. “It was a bright day when Luca and Anne—bless her soul—asked me to be your godfather. I was honored to accept and I take my duty seriously. So I’ll guide you and look out for you, mi figlio, but I won’t tolerate disrespect.”

  Milo shrugged off Antony’s hand. “Neither will I. How deep underground is he?”

  “I’m not Luca’s keeper.”

  “I don’t believe that.” Antony hadn’t been formally convicted, but Milo believed he was guilty. “What do you know about Izzie Phillips?”

  “She’s a risk,” Antony said automatically, as though he’d considered this before, “and Luca’s better off to be done with her.”

  “Dad’s weak. He’s close to breaking. If he breaks, he talks. Without his confession on the table, you have a stronger defense.”

  “Enough—”

  “But sending him away doesn’t guarantee a free pass for you, Antony.”

  “Che cazzo?” Antony poked his index finger square in the center of Milo’s forehead. “A man doesn’t believe rumors over his family’s word. He doesn’t accuse, convict, and sentence his godfather—and his father, for that matter—without asking for the truth.”

  Milo knocked Antony’s hand away and was tempted to let his aggression fly unrestrained. He was that weary and reckless. “A man doesn’t pay someone to make sure his son rides out of a game on a cart.”

  “Don’t infect my casino with some vendetta. Go home, rest. Come back when you’re ready to gamble and we can forget this happened.” Antony studied him for a quiet moment. “If Luca had told me about the bounty, I would’ve canceled it. You’d still be on Arizona’s roster and you’d still have what’s-her-name in your bed.”

  “Tabitha.”

  But Antony already knew that.

  “Sì. Tabitha. Funny. Magnificent body. You miss that cunt, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” Except it was more complicated than wanting Tabitha back. He didn’t. Sex and good times aside, it was hard to miss a football slut.

  He missed the person he’d been when he loved her—because the dreams and lies had felt so fucking incredible.

  “At least ten Tabithas are in the Mahogany Lounge right now, waiting to be picked like ripe fruit off a tree,” Antony offered. “There’s a rough aura about you, but you’ve got your reasons. Let your money and good sense do the grunt work. Go downstairs, take your pick, and fuck her. Let her keep you occupied.”

  “Occupied? So I don’t show up here asking questions?”

  “Next time I won’t be such a pleasant guy about it, mi figlio.”

  The parting words—and the line of Titanium Club security guards advancing on him—signaled it was his cue to walk.

  A rage-fueled confrontation was a dumbass mistake Milo couldn’t make again. Because Izzie Phillips’s cooperation wouldn’t be won through anger. She wasn’t responsible for his pain, and he didn’t want to add to hers. He’d confront her with composure, would influence her coolly, would coax her softly, if he was capable of it.

  And he’d get her back to Las Vegas fast, because stranded on some island where the only familiar face was one he hadn’t been able to bar from his dirtiest, most honest and fucked-up dreams, there’d be no one to save him from himself.

  Chapter Two

  No one knew her here.

  Anonymity and every indulgence she could request on a pristine speck of Seychelles paradise might not be enough to make Izzie Phillips completely forget the shitstorm she’d made of her life in the States, but she couldn’t deny it came close.

  A Mahé island hideaway? Sparkling white-sand beaches that unrolled into radiant crystal waters? Hot, vibrant days and warm, teasing evening breezes? A secluded ten-thousand-euro-a-night coastline estate?

  Cora Island might be considered a Silhouette wannabe—geographically smaller with appealing attractions mimicking that of the larger island—and its nightlife left something to be desired, but it was four square kilometers of preserved beauty and creole architecture.

  And strangers who didn’t know who she was and what she’d done.

  Packing her bags and jetting off for a vacation was a glorious dream. Reality found her subletting a showgirl’s apartment and living off the sale of her Lamborghini and what she earned hawking gossip to tabloids in Las Vegas.

  She’d come here to claim what belonged to her: a sense of direction. She didn’t mind that people wondered why her coveted rental estate was adorned in romantic Valentine’s Day glamour, yet she was traveling solo.

  Aside from souvenirs, selfies, and a sense of peace she hadn’t been able to find in Las Vegas, she intended to take no part of her island experience home to the US with her.

  If not for an email reminder from the Mahé-to-Cora helicopter service, she might’ve forgotten about the vacation and Valentine’s Day
altogether.

  Plan the trip, Izzie. It’s yours. My gift to you. By Valentine’s Day, you’ll be my wife.

  Her ex-fiancé and his dead promises. Those promises plus a handcrafted engagement ring had reeled her into Luca Tarantino’s world, and she’d let herself drown in illusions of marriage and the kind of stability only money and status could secure.

  Then he’d lied, cheated, and dropped her ass. At least she hadn’t fucked him. There was that.

  “To holding out,” Izzie muttered into her champagne flute. Withholding sex ended a war in Lysistrata but couldn’t earn her a prenup-free marriage. The Krug Clos d’Ambonnay sparkled silently and she drank.

  Delegating her hostess duties to a perky server, she deserted her front-door post. Greeting “Bienvenue! Entrez!” and passing out lock necklaces to vaginas and key necklaces to penises weren’t rocket science, but got old fast.

  Izzie hadn’t wanted to waste Valentine’s dwelling on how she’d let yet another man con and abuse her. Determined to spend every euro in the discretionary allowance account Luca had arranged for her, she’d told people at the hotel and the island’s bar to save the date for a lock-and-key party at her estate, Villa Soleil.

  Guests drank liquor, sampled offerings from an aphrodisiac-themed buffet, indulged in the creamy white and rich dark streams of chocolate pouring from the golden fountain, flirted as keys twisted into locks.

  Carefully snaking through the crush, Izzie felt the delicate lock pendant bounce against her cleavage in a quiet rhythm. No key had breached her lock, but perhaps the moment had come to change that.

  Was she ready for this?

  She had to be. Why else had she hotfooted it to Victoria for a mani-pedi and new clothes?

  The mani-pedi had relaxed her. As for the clothes …

  The short black lace cocktail dress, with its long sleeves and deep V in the back, was the sexiest she’d wiggled into since her ex had ended their engagement. He’d had his demands—her dressing provocatively being one of them. After he broke up with her, she broke out, wearing jeans and sweats and flats and anything else that made her feel okay with herself.

  With her skin strategically exposed, freshly dark-dyed hair gathered high and her burgundy fingernails gleaming under the estate’s shimmering splendor, she silently repeated “Whatever Izzie wants, Izzie gets” as she zeroed in on him.

  The girl-power pep talk had always proven itself as wrong as two left stilettos, but it had also always given her guts. Bravery. Bravado.

  As Senator Roscoe Rayburn Phillips’s daughter, she’d needed that.

  Unlock me, stranger. Men in leather, Afros, and piercings weren’t her usual fare. Maybe it was exactly that, the differentness of him, which drew her in. Maybe she’d like him. Maybe this would be the start of something pure, and he’d introduce her to a relationship that was based on romance or heat, not business negotiations.

  Wouldn’t that be the ultimate way to kiss goodbye all the lies and power plays that had conceived her hoax of an engagement?

  Wouldn’t that help her believe that she was changing her ways and ending the self-destructive patterns that had only hurt her in the past?

  Oh, he had his eye on her. Even as he tried to turn his key in another woman’s lock, and doused her with the seduction of his rich creole voice, he kept Izzie in his sights.

  Name? She didn’t know. Net worth? She didn’t care. Married? Oh, God, she hoped not. She would never be that woman again.

  A bit of internet snooping could answer her questions. In her days of drifting from one society king to the next, she’d made sure to do her homework first—comparing risks to benefits. Emotions hadn’t factored, until she’d lent her sympathy and trust to a Las Vegas widower in spite of the reasons she shouldn’t.

  Now that she’d taken herself out of the gold-digging game, she wanted a man to show her something else.

  She had another week on the Seychelles, an island full of people she wouldn’t mind getting to know, and a life in Las Vegas that she was desperate to change for the better.

  What happened on the island would stay on the island. On Cora she pretended to be carefree, disgustingly wealthy, confident beyond measure. Pretended she wasn’t anxious, struggling, and ashamed that she’d let herself hit the bottom again.

  But, somehow, her spirit remained intact.

  So. At least she hadn’t fucked Luca Tarantino or let him crush her spirit.

  “Cheers to that.” Finishing the champagne and resolving to drink a whiskey sour next, she strode through her dream-world party to the man who watched her.

  ***

  Milo was watching her.

  When he’d arrived at Villa Soleil, Cora Island’s prized private coastline estate, he had been waylaid on the tea-light candlelit veranda and blasted with the noise of voices competing against crunk music. A woman in a red-smocked costume had handed him a silver necklace with a key pendant, divulged that tonight’s game was all about connections, and urged him to try as many locks as possible.

  Screw connections. He hadn’t taken off for the middle of the Indian Ocean for that. What he wanted was Izzie Phillips, alone and in the mood to help him out. If she had a part in his father’s disappearance, and decided to give Milo her loyalty, together they could draw out the man.

  As for keys and locks and whatever other plans she had to squander a demented aging man’s money? Screw that, too.

  But then she had cut into his line of vision, breasts jiggling delicately as she wound temptingly through the crowds, and he’d forgotten his motives and everything else but the demanding sensation jolting through him. A dark-haired stranger in a lace dress that barely concealed her …

  Holy. Shit.

  An ass like that didn’t need lace. If she were his, if she said yes, he’d strip it. Squeeze it. Slap it. Open her so his mouth could taste, bite, and eat.

  Legs like hers didn’t need the accentuation of dagger heels—not when he’d rather have those taut, slender limbs propped on his shoulders or folded around his hips.

  A redhead in a strapless abstract print dress appeared in front of him, grinning in a way that made her eyes all but crinkle shut behind her black-rimmed glasses. “Swear, this feels like spring break in Cabo all over again. Um … here goes. If Sadie Hawkins can choose her guy, then I can choose the guy who puts his key in my lock.” She gasped, her fingers frozen on her necklace. “That sounded perverted.”

  Milo might’ve laughed as he brought his key toward her lock, but his awareness had swung directly back to the brunette as she and a few other women were drawn into a huddle of men.

  What the hell was he doing? He’d come to the Seychelles to have a face-to-face with Izzie, not to stick his key into one woman’s lock while tracking another who was hotter than hell.

  A click penetrated his thoughts, and he glanced down to see the lock now open. “We’re a fit.”

  “We’re not,” the redhead retorted above the music, glancing over her shoulder then at him again. She snapped the lock shut, retreating. “Obviously your attention’s on lingerie girl over there.”

  “Sorry,” he said. But that didn’t slow her angry steps or make him feel any less like a dick.

  Or persuade him to resume his search for his father’s ex-fiancée. His gaze returned to that lace-covered ass, dropped to trace the quirky bow of her hyperextended legs.

  Hyperextended? Double-jointed legs weren’t exactly uncommon, but his heart panicked anyway.

  Because the only woman he knew who possessed a pair of long, double-jointed pins had worn his father’s ring.

  Blending into the cluster circling the buffet, Milo signaled for a waiter carting around a carnal-red platter.

  “Des huîtres, monsieur?” the waiter offered, presenting the platter. “Oysters?”

  “No.”

  “Pomegranate? Strawberry?”

  “Question.”

  Lowering the platter, the waiter replie
d, “Si ce n’est pas sur les entrées, je ne peux pas vous aider. I must refer you to the hostess.” Peering around, he indicated the woman he wanted to strip to bare tits, ass, and pussy.

  The hair must’ve thrown him. When he’d known her, she’d had blonde hair.

  And he’d never stared at her ass the way he had tonight.

  Get past that. She’s here. Now get to her.

  Milo began to say something more, but a pair of women assailed him. Disappointed when neither lock opened, they helped themselves to oysters and suggested he find them at Cora Island’s hotel for cocaine and a threesome.

  Frowning thoughtfully, the waiter said, “I’ve always been skeptical of edible aphrodisiacs, but …”

  He wished he could blame his reaction to Izzie Phillips on aphrodisiacs. He’d been taken down by his need for a woman he’d mistaken as a stranger. Making a dedicated effort to correct himself, he fixed his gaze above her waist—which quit being a smart decision the second she twirled around and rewarded him a perfect view of her more-than-perfect rack.

  Getting out of this house, taking the next helicopter to Mahé and returning when he could trade lust for logic was what he wanted. Problem was, he couldn’t afford that kind of delay.

  The longer it took to get inside Izzie’s head, the shittier his chances were of establishing an alliance. He hoped he could turn her, get her on his side. He could better protect her that way.

  After reading the contents of the envelope he’d taken from Remy—a man whom he’d learned after some swift, discreet digging of his own was a military specialist last known as Archangel and whose traceable record ended several years ago—he’d determined that Izzie’s life had taken a one-eighty.

  The lifestyle she presented for the guests roaming the villa was false. She lived in one of the more dangerous spots in Las Vegas, had no verifiable income source. She’d been his father’s toy. Aiding him to evade his demons would downgrade her from toy to expendable pawn.

  Milo refused to see that happen to her.

  Still, what kind of asshole would he be if he didn’t regret being the one to show up here and prick her luxurious bubble?