The Wager

Torn between his own desire to reclaim the Princess and the anxiety he heard in Olivia’s voice, Josh opted to be honest with her. “You know I want the Princess. My helping you bring this Laura Harte here to run it would be like cutting my own throat. You’d only end up turning it over to her. The smart thing for me to do is not to help you and let the place continue to bleed money. Eventually you’ll have to cut your losses. And when you do, I’ll buy the hotel.”

“But that’s where you’re wrong,” she informed him. “I told you, I’m not interested in selling the Princess. And I assure you, I am not going to change my mind.”

Frustrated, Josh said, “Then I guess we’re both wasting our time.”

“Oh, sit down,” she ordered when he started to rise. “I said I wouldn’t sell you the Princess. But if you’ll help me, convince my granddaughter to come home to run the hotel, then I’ll give you a chance to win it.”

Josh narrowed his eyes. “Win the Princess? How?”

“The same way that I won her from your grandfather.”

“I’m listening,” Josh told her, intrigued even though he tried not to be.

“If my granddaughter turns out to be the woman I believe she is, I’ll turn over management of the hotel to the two of you. You’ll have six months to turn the operation around. At the end of that time if the hotel shows a profit, no matter how small, I’ll sign over ownership to Laura and—”

“Forget it. I’m not interested in working for you, Duchess. And I’m not interested in a partnership with your long-lost granddaughter,” Josh countered, sure he knew where Olivia was heading. “I’ll buy the Princess from you right now. Name your price.”

“You’re just as pigheaded as your grandfather was,” Olivia accused, her mouth tightening. “For Simon it had to be all or nothing, too. That’s why he insisted on that foolish wager with my father. If Simon won, I would break my engagement to Henry Jardine and marry him. If I won, Simon would sign over the Princess Hotel to me and get out of my life forever.”

“And you won.”

“Yes, I won,” Olivia said. Wheeling over to a secretary situated in a corner of the room, she opened a drawer and retrieved a small package before returning to where Josh waited. She placed a deck of cards bound with a faded gold ribbon in the center of the table, then lifted her gaze to Josh’s. “I’m offering you a similar wager, Joshua. I’ll give you a chance to win back Simon’s Princess. Convince Laura to come to New Or-leans, to work with you and turn the hotel around. If you’re successful, at the end of the six months, the two of you will draw cards just as your grandfather and I did fifty-six years ago.”

“And the stakes?” Josh asked, unable to believe what she was offering him.

“The deed to the Princess.” She loosened the ribbon from around the cards, placed the deck in front of him and met his gaze once more. “One game. High-card draw. Winner takes all.”

“It sounds almost too good to be true.”

“I asked if you were a risk-taker. You assured me you were—if the stakes were right.”

The stakes were more than right. They were downright incredible. He shoved a hand through his hair.

“Joshua?”

“Six months isn’t much time to turn a hotel operation around,” he argued as he began to analyze the pitfalls in the crazy scheme. “What if we can’t pull the hotel out of the red that quickly?”

“Then all bets are off. I keep the Princess.”

“And there’s always the chance that even if we succeed in pulling the hotel out of the red, that Laura will win the card game.”

“True. But I can’t help thinking you might have better luck convincing Laura to sell you the hotel than you’ll have with me.”

Of course, she was right. Still, it was too easy, Josh thought. The way she had laid out the plan, the worst thing that could happen is he’d be right where he was now—without the Princess. On the other hand, he could win and end up owning the Princess for nothing more than a little of his time and effort. Or he could find himself negotiating with Olivia’s granddaughter to buy the place. He thought of the woman in the photograph again, remembered the unshakable confidence in those blue eyes, that stubborn take-your-best-shot tilt of her chin.

“I must admit, I expected more eagerness on your part at a chance to win back the Princess.”

She was playing with him, Josh realized as he rubbed at his chin. “Unlike my grandfather, I try to look before I leap.”

“Then why don’t I see if I can help you make up your mind?” she replied calmly. Her lips curved slightly, and he knew she was about to put him between a rock and a hard place. “Either you go along with things as I’ve laid them out, or you’ll have to wait until I’m dead before you get another chance to bring the Princess under the Logan Hotels banner.”

When he still hesitated, she said, “Just so you know, I had my annual physical last week. Despite whatever rumors you may have heard and the fact that I might use this chair occasionally, my doctor claims I’m in excellent health and could live another twenty years. And if you think that I won’t be able to sustain the losses at the Princess, you’d better think again. The other Jardine properties and investments are even healthier than I am.”

“You’re a hell of a poker player yourself, Duchess.”

“So I’ve been told,” she replied.

Josh thought of his grandfather again, remembered the way the older man’s face had lit up whenever he’d spoken about the Princess, the way his eyes had glowed with pride as he’d talked about building the hotel. And he remembered the promise he’d made to him all those years ago.

“What’s it going to be?” Olivia asked.

He was crazy to even consider this, Josh told himself. His grandfather had been dead for more than five years. Did it really matter if he kept his promise now that he was gone?

It mattered, Josh admitted. He’d made a promise, and his grandfather had taught him that a man always lived up to his promises. He stared across the table at Olivia, and couldn’t help but feel that he was about to make a bargain with the devil, a bargain he would come to regret.

“Do we have a deal?”

“Yes, Duchess. We have a deal.”

And as he tapped his glass against Olivia’s to seal the bargain they’d made, Josh’s gaze fell to the open folder on the desk where Laura Harte’s picture stared up at him. There it was again—that slam-in-the-gut punch of attraction. And he couldn’t help wondering if he had inherited Simon Logan’s impulsive streak after all.

Three

“You had no right to contact her, Uncle Paul,” Laura said, still reeling from the call she’d received from Olivia Jardine three days earlier. She stared down at the Caesar salad she’d ordered in the hotel’s café and recalled how the older woman had practically ordered Laura to come to New Orleans.

“I’m sorry. I never meant to upset you like this.”

At the expression on her uncle’s face, Laura immediately regretted her sharp tone. “I know you meant well. But you shouldn’t have contacted her.”

“I was worried about you,” her uncle explained. “I’m still worried about you. Look at you. You’ve lost weight. There are shadows under your eyes. I hate seeing you like this.”

“I’m fine,” Laura insisted, even though she knew that in the two months since the accident, her injuries may have healed, but the pain of her mother’s deception and the shock of learning the truth about her father had taken its toll.

“Then how come the only time you leave your apartment these days is to go to work? And why can’t I even remember the last time I saw you smile?”

“Maybe because losing my mother and then finding out everything I believed about myself was a lie hasn’t exactly left me in a mood to party or smile lately.”

Her uncle visibly flinched.

“I’m sorry, Uncle Paul. That was uncalled for,” she said, and reached for his hand, shamed that she’d hurt him with harsh words. “I shouldn’t be taking my frustrations out on you.”

“It’s okay.” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “I know this hasn’t been an easy time for you.”

No, it hadn’t been easy. It had been a nightmare. And even though she’d told herself a hundred times that nothing had changed, that she was still the same person now that she’d been before learning the truth, she didn’t feel the same. She felt different, as though she’d been stripped of her identity, of who and what she was.

“You’ve been dealt several blows at once. That’s why I contacted Olivia Jardine. I thought that perhaps…maybe if you were to meet your family and—”

“They are not my family,” Laura informed him, snatching her hand free. “My name is Laura Harte—not Jardine.” She reached for the glass of tea with unsteady fingers. She refused to think of Andrew Jardine as her father or any of his relatives as her family.