Vegas, Baby - Theodora Taylor

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crazy and a bit harsh, Cole. But this...” She gestured around his highrise office. “All this work and no play. It’s not good for you, luv. It’s made you hard. Too hard. You need something other than this business in your life.”

      What Nora didn’t seem to understand was that this business was his life, the only thing that made his heart beat faster, the only thing that had ever given him a true return on his investment.

      And he wouldn’t abide anyone—even his own grandmother—threatening to compromise all the work he’d put into it.

      “I’ve got to prepare for my two o’clock now. I’ll take your request under advisement.”

      Nora jutted her chin into the air. “Max is coming in for the Businessman of the Year dinner on Sunday. Should I let him know he should stick around this time, and prepare to take his place as chairman of our board?”

      Cole resumed typing. His grandmother may have had his grandfather wrapped around her thin finger, but Cole refused to take her bait.

      And Nora seemed to understand that she was being dismissed.

      She went to the door and put her hand on its chrome latch. “Understand, I’m not doing to this to hurt you or The Benton Group. I’m doing this because I care about you more than I care about this company.”

      Whatever it takes for her to sleep at night, Cole thought with bitter resentment. But he refused to let Nora see that she’d actually upset him. He did as he always did, focused on his work.

      After Nora left, Cole finished putting in his notes for his two o’clock meeting. But as soon as he hit the last keystroke, he picked up the phone to talk to his assistant, Agnes.

      “Yes, Mr. Benton,” Agnes said when he buzzed her office line.

      “Put in a call to Taylor Stratherford.”

      “Junior or Senior, sir?” she asked. Taylor Stratherford Jr. was Cole’s personal lawyer, just as Stratherford Sr. had served as his grandfather’s personal lawyer. However, it was Taylor Sr., who also now served as the Non-Executive Director of The Benton Group’s board.

      “Senior. Set up an in-person at his office as soon as possible. Actually I want to set up one-on-ones with every member of the board except my grandmother and brother.”

      “Right away, Mr. Benton,” Agnes answered. She was too professional to outright ask why he was asking for these meetings, but he could hear the curiosity in her voice when she asked, “Anything else?”

      Cole thought about it. “Yes, get the manager of The Benton Girls Revue on the line, and inform him of the following...”

      Sunny came rushing into the backstage area of The Nora Benton Theater, still dressed in the yoga pants and tank top she’d worn to bed. And still chilled by what had happened less than thirty minutes ago back at her apartment.

      She’d been so exhausted when she got home from her cocktail waitress shift on The Benton’s casino floor that she’d fallen asleep on the couch while eating a meal replacement bar. She lived alone—or so she thought. That morning, she’d discovered she had a roommate, when she woke up to the sound of the alarm on her phone going off and the feel of something pulling on her hand. She’d opened her eyes to find a rat staring back at her, its beady black eyes filled with determination as its mouth tugged on the bar in her hand.

      Sunny let him have it, letting the bar go with a scream. And an hour later, she could still see the ridges on its long tail as it ran away with its treasure. She’d never be able to unsee it, and she had no idea how she was going to manage to get to sleep when she returned to her apartment after today’s rehearsal, knowing that it was still there, probably lurking somewhere inside one of her walls.

      With a shudder, Sunny brought her thoughts back to her present situation. How to get to the backstage dressing room without being seen by Rick.

      It was exactly eleven a.m., which was their call time for their monthly rehearsal in full makeup and costumes. But Rick Rizzo was old school. Being exactly on time was the equivalent of being late in his book. He wanted all his dancers backstage at least fifteen minutes early, and if he saw her skulking through the shadows, she’d likely hear about it.

      She also didn’t want him to see the dark circles under her eyes. She’d never quite gotten around to telling the Benton Girls manager that she’d taken a second job as a cocktail waitress in the main casino. Technically, it was none of his business, but Rick was half stage dad, half control freak, and the show paid pretty well by Vegas standards with a salary, 401(K) and vacation benefits. If he saw how tired she looked without tons of concealer slathered underneath her eyes, he’d badger her until she confessed that she was planning to leave the show in late August in order to attend graduate school at New York Arts University.

      They’d given her a generous scholarship, but it wasn’t enough to cover any of the extras, like food and books, or rent, which was no joke. The school was located in Manhattan and didn’t provide housing for grad students, but even a place in the outer boroughs of New York would set her back. So her plan was to work two jobs and save as much money as she could over the next three months.

      But there was no need to tell Rick any of that yet. She knew how he’d respond: What! You’re leaving us? I gave you your first job. Bobby and I had you over for Thanksgiving Dinner every year after your grandma died, and this is how you repay me?

      Sunny knew Rick had come to count on her, not only as one of his best dancers, but also as his “work wife”—a combination of gossip buddy, friend and backstage administrator whenever Rick went on vacation. And she knew he deserved better than her just handing him a two-week notice out of the blue, but she hadn’t worked up the courage to tell him.

      Luckily, he was on the phone as she snuck past him backstage, telling whoever was on the other side of the line off good.

      “How could you do this to me? Do you know who I am? Rick Rizzo! I made The Benton Girls Revue. And you think you can screw me over like this? I don’t think so!”

      Sunny rushed toward the dressing room, happy she’d escaped Rick’s notice, but sorry for whoever was on the other side of that phone.

      “Ooh, twin, you’re lucky Rick didn’t see you!” her friend Prudence said when Sunny dropped into her usual seat in the long line of makeup mirrors, after changing into her Benton Girls costume. Sunny’s and Pru’s costumes weren’t topless, but they didn’t leave much to the imagination, either, basically string bikinis, dripping in fake jewels. However, they did match, and since she and Pru were the only two black Benton Girls, with similar builds and the same big bouncy curl extensions, they often called each other “twin” when they were in costume.

      “I know, right!” Sunny answered, slathering concealer onto the dark circles under her eyes. “The only reason I got away with it was because he was already yelling at somebody else on the phone when I walked in. I’m guessing it’s one of the newer dancers.”

      The poor girl had probably called Rick to bow out of rehearsal, not realizing that Rick morphed from a loving dance dad into your worst tyrant nightmare when you broke one of his rules—like not skipping out on rehearsal without at least forty-eight hours’ notice and/or a doctor’s note for a fatal disease.

      “Poor thing. But they’ve got to learn some way. I know we did.” Pru said. She nudged Sunny with her elbow. “One more thing you’re not going to miss about this place when you’re gone, right?”

      Sunny gave her friend a grateful smile. Pru was one of the few people she’d told about her plan to study dance pedagogy at New York Arts University, and she’d been nothing but supportive. They’d both started out in the chorus line at the age of twenty-two, and were both now twenty-seven. A half decade was a long time to shake your can-can for tourists, many of which were only there to see the topless girls. Pru didn’t blame her

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