Dealing Her Final Card

Dealing Her Final Card Read Free Page A

Book: Dealing Her Final Card Read Free
Author: Jennie Lucas
Tags: Romance, Contemporary
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Hudson purred.
    “Prince?” Bree choked out. She was unable to look away from Vladimir’s face, the face of the man she’d dreamed about unwillingly for the past ten years.
    His cruel, sensual lips curved as he leaned back in his chair.
    “Miss Dalton,” he drawled. “I didn’t know you were in Hawaii. And gambling. What a pleasant surprise.”
    His low, husky voice, so close to her, so real, caused a shiver across her skin. She stared at him in shock.
    Her one lost love. Not a ghost. Not a dream. But here, at the Hale Ka’nani Resort, not six feet away from her.
    “So what’s on offer? Your body, is it?” Vladimir’s words were cold, even sardonic. “What a charming prize that would be, though hardly exclusive. Shared by thousands, I should imagine.”
    And just like that, the ice around her heart exploded into a million glass splinters. She sucked in her breath.
    Vladimir Xendzov had made her love him with all the reckless passion of an innocent, untamed heart. He’d made her a better person—and then he’d destroyed her. Her lips parted. “Vladimir.”
    He stiffened. “ Your Highness will do.”
    She didn’t realize she’d spoken his name aloud. Glancing to the right and left, she matched his sardonic tone. “So you’re using your title now.”
    His blue eyes burned through her. “It is mine by right.”
    She knew it was true. His great-grandfather had been one of the last great princes of Russia, before he’d died fighting the Red Army in Siberia, after sending his wife and baby son to safety in Alaskan exile. As a poverty-stricken child, Vladimir had been mocked with the title at school. When he was twenty-five, he’d told her that he never intended to use the title, that it still felt like a mockery, an honor he hadn’t earned—and was worthless, anyway.
    But apparently, now, he’d found a use for it.
    “You didn’t always think so,” Bree said.
    “I am no longer the boy you once knew,” he said coldly.
    She swallowed. Ten years ago, she’d thought Vladimir was the last honest man on earth. She’d loved him enough to give up the wicked skills that made her special. When he’d held her tight on a cold Alaskan night and begged her to be his bride, it had been the happiest night of her life. Then he’d ruthlessly deserted her the next morning, before she could tell him the truth. When she needed him most, he’d stabbed her in the back. Some prince. “What are you doing here?”
    His lip curled. Without answering her, he turned away. “The table is full,” he said to the other players. “We do not want her.”
    “Speak for yourself,” one of them muttered, looking at Bree.
    Looking around, she jolted in her chair. She’d forgotten the other men were there, looking at her like hungry wolves at a raw mutton chop. The beautiful, sexily dressed women standing in a circle behind them were glaring as if they would like to tear her limb from limb. Perhaps she’d taken her act a little too far.
    Feel nothing, she ordered her shivering heart. I have ice for a heart. She looked away from the large, powerful men and sharp-taloned women. They couldn’t hurt her. The only man who’d ever been able to really hurt her was Vladimir. And what more could he do, that he hadn’t done already?
    One thing, a cold voice whispered. Ten years ago, he’d taken her heart and soul.
    But not her virginity.
    And he never would, she told herself fiercely. Bree didn’t know what Vladimir Xendzov was doing in Honolulu, but she didn’t care. He was ancient history. All that mattered now was protecting Josie.
    To save her little sister, Bree would play cards with the devil himself.
    With an intake of breath, she lifted her chin, ignoring Vladimir as she looked around the table. “It is for this first game only that I offer my body. If I lose, the winner will get me, along with all the money in the pot. But if I win—” when I win, she amended silently “—I will only bet money. Until I possess the

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