Love's Gamble. Theodora Taylor

       Chapter 1

      Tracking down Max Benton would involve walking straight into a den of temptation. Of course it would.

      Pru could practically feel the bass from the nightclub’s music entering her body through her feet and rocking its way up to her hips. The music came courtesy of Mike Benz, an up-and-coming half Dutch, half Cameroonian DJ who was enjoying his first stateside residency at Sin, one of New Orleans’s premier nightclubs. His beats were fantastically good. So good, they awakened a long-dormant urge within Pru to get out on the crowded dance floor.

      Back in the day it hadn’t taken more than a glass of champagne and the right song to get Pru on the floor. And she’d often stayed there all night, enjoying bottle service courtesy of her latest boyfriend or admirer, dancing with her fellow showgirls until she couldn’t dance anymore. Back in the day, her number-one goal in life had been to squeeze as much fun as she possibly could into her twenties, and to prove to everyone she came in contact with that Prudence Washington was the exact opposite of her boring name.

      She was no longer a showgirl or hell-bent on proving that there was nothing prudent about her. Nonetheless, she was currently dressed to party well, in a little gold minidress pulled the day before from her mother’s vintage collection of seventies-era cocktail attire. She considered it a uniform, the uniform she needed to get her job done. Her current job being Max Benton. And she was all about her job, which was why instead of hopping on the dance floor, she headed straight for VIP.

      The hulking security guard standing at the bottom of the roped-off stairs that led up to the VIP area gave her an approving once-over as she approached. She must have had a little of the old Pru magic leftover, she thought.

      She’d made the right choice. In the background, she heard the DJ announce that he was taking a break but would be back on the turntables before the night was through. Then his excellent beats were replaced by canned Top 40 music playing at even higher decibels.

      “You on the list, baby?” the security guard asked, lifting up his clipboard.

      She threw him a flirty look. “Not quite,” she admitted. “The guy I’m here to see is trying to stay under the radar these days, but if you tell Max Benton that Prudence Washington is down here looking for him, I’m sure he’ll appreciate you letting him know. Really appreciate it.”

      The security guard didn’t respond quite as hoped to her insinuation that there would be a nice tip involved if he passed along her message to Maxwell Benton, the younger, not nearly as responsible, Benton hotels heir. Not only did his face harden, he moved to stand between her and the black velvet rope.

      “No Maxwell Benton here,” he said, his voice completely monotone.

      “Are you sure about that?” she asked. “Because I know he’ll be upset if he hears I was asking for him and you didn’t let me up.”

      She hoped.

      The truth was, she was banking an awful lot on the fact that Max Benton had stepped to her twice. The first time had been at his brother Cole’s wedding to her best friend, Sunny Johnson, about a year ago. The second time had been a couple of months ago, right before Pru’s retirement from the Benton Revue, at Cole and Sunny’s baby shower.

      Shortly after the shower, Cole had cut his younger brother off, refusing to keep issuing checks for the brand-ambassador job he’d been assigned. Back when the Benton had been one luxury hotel, having an international playboy as the brand ambassador had been a good idea. Max had been all too happy to gallivant around the world, living the kind of life that perfectly encapsulated the particular decadent brand of luxury the Benton was trying to sell to its affluent guests and gamblers.

      But then their grandfather had died, and Cole had taken over the Benton Group. He’d expanded the Benton from one hotel into a nationwide outfit of luxury casino resorts, which served to draw even more attention to Max’s international escapades. Which wouldn’t have been a problem, except then Cole started making plans for the Benton Inns, a new chain of midrange hotels that would cater to nongambling clientele whose pockets weren’t deep enough to afford a stay at one of the Benton Group’s luxury properties. This new market expansion meant that Max’s infamous reputation was no longer compatible with the Benton brand.

      According to Cole, Max had stormed out of Vegas soon after Cole gave him the news about being fired. He sold all his stock in the Benton Group to some investment-fund manager before Cole could buy him out and then disappeared from the public eye. The only contact he’d had from Max since his departure from Vegas was a CC: on a short email, sent to their family’s lawyers, informing them that he would like his trust paid out in full on his thirty-fifth birthday.

      After receiving Max’s email, Cole had hired a number of private investigators to track him down. To his surprise, they’d failed, finding neither hide nor hair of the playboy who’d apparently decided to step out of the spotlight as soon as he was fired. The weeks until Max’s birthday were ticking down now, which was why Cole had decided to let Pru, who was currently studying to take the private-investigator exam in the fall, have a shot at it. A long shot on his part, but a possibly huge opportunity for Pru. One she was taking seriously, since it was just the kind of case she needed to kick off her post-showgirl career.

      After a week of trying to track down Max Benton from the one-bedroom apartment she shared with her brother, she’d decided to use her own limited funds to follow a hunch. Max, who had often been photographed with DJ Mike Benz in European nightclubs, would surely put in an appearance at his friend’s very first stateside gig.

      However, showing up here had been only a hunch, and she knew that there was a good chance the security guard wasn’t lying about Max not being up in the VIP area. But then again, why would the guy have gone so cold on her if Max Benton weren’t up there?

      No, she thought, she’d definitely come to the right place. She could feel it in her gut. But how was she going to convince the mountain standing in front of her to let her through?

      The mountain, who was currently saying, “Time for you to move along, ma’am.”

      Wow. Now he was calling her “ma’am”? That was past cold.

      “Look,” she said, leveling with him, “I know you have your orders, but—”

      “Hallo, who are you?” someone interrupted before she could finish.

      Mike Benz appeared beside her in a ratty purple hoodie and a T-shirt with a panda on it. His clothes, paired with his tall, thin frame, made him look even younger than Jakey, her eighteen-year-old brother. But Pru knew from her research that despite his youthful appearance, he was the same age as her, twenty-nine.

      So at least she didn’t feel like a