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  A fire lit in me that Thursday morning, in my kitchen and in my pajamas.

  It started in my toes and traveled up. By the time it reached my head, it was a wonder House didn’t have something to say about it. (ADJUSTING THERMOSTAT! ADJUSTING THERMOSTAT! ADJUSTING THERMOSTAT!)

  Me: Baylor turned in his two-week notice.

  Her: Then you have two weeks.

  Five

  Richard and Bianca Sanders were gone.

  Poof.

  Having moved to Biloxi from Las Vegas when the Bellissimo opened, the Sanderses packed up and moved back to Vegas in anticipation of it closing. The way I saw it, Mr. Sanders had three choices: He could have faced Blitz head-on and fought like hell. He could have ridden it out until the new wore off across the Bay. Or he could have thrown in the towel.

  He threw in the towel.

  Or, rather, he threw the towel at Bradley. Mr. Sanders ducked out, giving my husband the choice of taking the easy early exit with him or seeing it through, Mr. Sanders was quite certain, to the inevitable end. Bradley chose to stay. Probably more for my sake than any other reason, because when Mr. Sanders decided the Bellissimo was no longer worth his time or trouble, we were still counting Bexley and Quinn’s ages in weeks, and I was barely moving from my life sofa. I doubted Bradley wanted to tell me I had to move from my home. His decision to stay was most likely based on the fact that he didn’t think I could handle leaving. And based on how I took the news of the Sanderses departure, he was probably right.

  At first, I didn’t believe it.

  When it happened, it felt like the end of the world, and if not the end of the world, certainly the end of the Bellissimo. I honestly couldn’t believe he was really dropping it all in my husband’s lap and walking away, giving himself the out, so the bitter end of the Bellissimo would go down on the records as having happened on Bradley’s watch.

  Mr. Sanders told me himself five minutes after he told Bradley. I didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to know, but I didn’t have much choice. The caller ID on my cell phone said R. SANDERS on a Tuesday morning in October. We’d just celebrated Bex and Quinny’s thirteen-week birthday. I was beginning to have flashes of feeling like myself again, and I was almost ready to accept our uncertain future and deal with it. Mr. Sanders asked when I might be available for a chat. I knew whatever he wanted to chat about was something I didn’t, so I told him I was booked until May. 2020. He said he’d see me in an hour.

  I put the girls down for a nap and people clothes on, told House to brew fresh coffee, and we sat at the breakfast table in my kitchen. He was the first person I’d seen or talked to in a week who I hadn’t given birth to, wasn’t married to, or who didn’t push a room service cart.

  Mr. Sanders and I went way back. He’d hired me four years earlier, and not only could we write a book about our adventures keeping the Bellissimo free of the criminal element, I’d been his wife’s celebrity double for the past four years too. Bianca and I looked eerily alike. I could, four years in, a lot like Superman, step into my Bianca closet and step out ten minutes later looking so much like her, only our husbands didn’t have to look twice. I’d been her stand-in for everything she didn’t want to do, and she very much didn’t want to mix and mingle with the unwashed, who, by her definition, was anyone who didn’t have a fixed spot on the Bloomberg Billionaire Index. Which had me spending a lot of quality time with her husband as he spent time with lowly millionaires. And it wasn’t always work related. The cap and gown pictures of their son Thomas’s graduation from the Brewster-Exeter Academy for Boys in Haverhill, New Hampshire? Me. It’s me glowing with (heatstroke) parental pride in the portraits, because at the time, Bianca was seven pounds overweight and refused to “taint Thomas’s high school memories with less-than-flattering images of his mother.” So I sat in the hot afternoon sun for three solid hours listening to speech after speech while pretending to be her, and that night I told her she’d have lost the seven pounds if she’d been the one out there cooking. My point was this: The Sanders family was a big part of my life. Bianca, for all her narcissism and outrageousness, was part of me. There was another side of her, and I knew it. And for her part, she was flat-out addicted to having me to do her dirty work. I couldn’t, for the life of me, imagine how she intended to live her life in Vegas without me there to live it for her. The day they left, I couldn’t bear to say goodbye, and Bradley, my hero, said it for me. Bianca sent a note and a necklace.

  David.

  (It’s Davis.)

  In spite of all you’ve put me through, I’ve recently come to terms with the fact that I’ve developed a certain fondness for you. For reasons I can’t explain, I’m having frightening thoughts about not being in close proximity to you. Dr. Mattei says I’m experiencing separation anxiety, compounded by a fear of your inability to cope without me. It saddens me to leave you to your own devices, but leave you I must, as my hands are hopelessly tied. Richard is positively giddy in anticipation of our leaving—I barely recognize the man—and my family is elated that I will be returning to Nevada. I, however, have a certain amount of trepidation. You might not realize it, David, but change is difficult for me. Dr. Mattei and I are working on my transition skillset. Please take the utmost care of this gift.

  Best, Bianca.

  The necklace was her most prized possession, a Tiffany yellow and white diamond Enchanted Bloom key pendant. She hadn’t taken it off since the day her son David was born, almost a year earlier, and I haven’t taken it off since the day she gave it to me.

  Losing the Sanderses devastated me, far past the fundamental reason behind the move.

  “Davis.” A smiling and relaxed Richard Sanders sat across from me at the kitchen table the day he broke the news. I almost didn’t recognize him either. His hair was dyed shoe-polish black, something had happened to his teeth, they were Ben Affleck’s teeth, and he was dressed head to toe in dazzling tennis whites. I guess to match his teeth. To my knowledge, Mr. Sanders didn’t even play tennis. He was a golfer.

  He said, “I understand you haven’t been feeling well.”

  (I felt fine.) “I’m fine, Mr. Sanders.”

  He was the one who wasn’t feeling well. Since the day their new baby was born, Mr. Sanders hadn’t been himself. Bianca shocked us all by embracing new motherhood with everything she had, making up for the time she lost letting nannies and boarding schools raise their older son, Thomas. (“The Family Bed controversy is simply ludicrous. For the first time in my life I’m delighted to wake before noon, because my first sight is that of my precious son.”) He shocked us more, by spending money like there was no tomorrow. (“I can’t take it with me.”) (“I can, however, invest in my legacy.”) Globetrotting. (“Who better for David to see an igloo village with than his father?”) (Baby David was three months old at the time.) And drinking from the Fountain of Youth. (Ferrari 488 Spider.) (Cherry red.)

  Plus the teeth.

  He showed them to me when he said, “I’d like it, Davis, if you’d call me Richard, since you no longer work for me.”

  I appreciated the reminder.

  “What I meant to say was there’s no need for the formality since I’m leaving.”

  Got it.

  “Now that you’re a full-time mother.”

  It was all so very uncomfortable.

  He said, “Let’s start over.”

  Let’s.

  “Bianca and I are leaving Biloxi, Davis. I’m leaving the Bellissimo.”

  And there it was.

  He had a speech prepared. “This isn’t an ending, Davis, it’s a beginning. These things happen. Is it unfortunate? Yes. Am I going to mope around about it? No. I didn’t get where I am by not knowing when to switch gears. My attempts to breathe new life into the Bellissimo have been futile, and Brad has agreed to take a turn. I need to move in a different direction. I need to diversify and I
can’t do it from here. I’m ready to explore other gaming markets from gaming’s nucleus, Davis. And that’s not Mississippi.”

  He smiled, dazzlingly, through it all.

  I did not.

  He went a little further down the glass-half-full path, how great life was going to be for everyone, this fresh start, these new opportunities, and it sounded to me like he didn’t think Bradley had a hope of saving the Bellissimo and he had no intention of helping him. After a long uncomfortable stretch during which we did nothing but listen to our coffee cool, he said, “I don’t mean to imply or to leave you with the impression that I don’t regret leaving the Bellissimo on terms other than mine. I’m truly sorry it’s come to this. It isn’t what any of us wanted.” He was quick to add, “And no one is to blame.”

  It was the elephant that followed me from room to room.

  “Davis? Do you understand what I just said?”

  I cleared my throat.

  I smiled a shaky smile.

  “The Bellissimo’s had a great run, but I believe it’s time for me to step out of the way and let someone else write the next chapter. My future is in online gaming, not land-based Mississippi casinos. I can’t build a global gaming network from here.”

  Yes, he could.

  He told me he and Bianca were ready for a change of scenery, they were excited about the house they’d found in Summerlin, wedged against Red Rock Canyon, and he wanted me to promise we’d visit. (Fourteen acres, twelve bedroom suites, five swimming pools, thirty million.) (Bianca told me.)

  He asked if, with my new stay-at-home mom duties, part of me wasn’t relieved at the unexpected turn of events.

  That was one way to look at it.

  Tick. Tock.

  He asked if I had any questions.

  I did. Would he like more coffee?

  No.

  He crossed his tennis legs the other way. He studied his empty coffee cup. He fiddled with the clock strapped to his wrist. (I’d never seen a watch that big in my life.) “Well.” He and his clock stood. “I’m glad we had this talk.” He pushed his chair in. “There’s not a doubt in my mind you and Brad will land on your feet. He’s had ten great offers already, and I know, firsthand, whoever hires him is getting a gold mine.” (I hadn’t heard a word about even one offer. Much less ten.) “And personally, Davis? Bianca and I hope you’ll take one of the Vegas offers.”

  We wouldn’t be raising our daughters in Las Vegas.

  At the front door, he opened his mouth to (make me cry) say goodbye when I was saved by House. “BEXLEY ANNE AWAKE! BEXLEY ANNE AWAKE! BEXLEY ANNE AWAKE! CAROLINE QUINN AWAKE! CAROLINE QUINN AWAKE! CAROLINE QUINN AWAKE!”

  “Chin up, Davis!” He pulled me into a quick bear hug. “A year from now, we’ll be saying this was the best thing that ever happened.”

  Lemons. Lemonade. All that.

  Then No Hair.

  Mr. Sanders walked off and left two Mississippi casinos, the Bellissimo in Biloxi and Jolie in Tunica. No Hair left the Bellissimo to take a position at Jolie the week after the Sanders moved back to Vegas. My heart, already torn in a thousand pieces, tore into a thousand more.

  The Sanderses left on a Sunday and first thing Monday morning, Bradley circled the wagons. He trimmed the fat, cut the corners, and reached out to the community. And by reached out to the community, I meant he lowered the price at the all-you-can-eat buffet, Plethora, from $12.99 to $7.99. He sent what was left of Marketing (a short round man with a goatee and a tall skinny woman who looked just like David Letterman, both named Lynn) to Las Vegas, telling them don’t come back until you find something Blitz doesn’t have. The Lynns returned with the exclusive gambling rights to video game technology. No Hair, in his fifties, he and his wife Grace childless, having never heard of Super Mario, Grand Theft Auto, or Diablo III, told the Lynns there were reasons Blitz had no interest in the patent for a video-game-slash-slot-machine and one of them had to do with underage gambling, the other with the average age of the average slot player hovering around extinction. He fired the Lynns on the spot. (All tempers were taut.) Which was about when word of Mr. Sanders leaving made its way to Jolie and the executive offices in Tunica cleared out. The profits from Jolie were the only thing keeping the doors open at the Bellissimo, so No Hair traded his head of security position on the gorgeous Gulf Coast for the general manager position in the dusty cornfields in the northwest corner of the state. And his last official act on the Bellissimo clock was to fire my partner, Fantasy Erb.

  In one fell swoop the Sanderses, No Hair, and my best friend in the world.

  It was a setback for me. To say the very least.

  Fantasy and I didn’t have résumés that would suggest we’d ever cross paths, much less be besties. I was five-foot-barely-two inches, Fantasy was six feet. She was raised by wealthy bluebloods on the Bayou, and on special occasions she still wore her grandmother’s pearls. I was raised in Pine Apple, Alabama, a town of four hundred in the middle of nowhere, where barefoot was the rule, not the exception. If Fantasy and I were toast, I’d pop up between settings numbers one and two while she’d pop up somewhere between five and six. My hair was long and cinnamon red, hers was short and dark. My eyes were the same color as my hair, a caramel color, and hers were navy blue. The celebrity she was most often compared to was Tyra Banks. The celebrity I was most often compared to was Jessica Rabbit.

  It happened so fast. Fantasy’s husband, Reggie, who’d been a freelance sports writer his entire career, was offered a full-time position at Blitz as athletic director. Why did Blitz need an athletic director? Because Blitz built a football field—oh, the irony—for kids. On the west end of the property as far from the casino as could be, past the waterpark and botanical gardens, the youth football field was adjacent to four youth baseball fields. Every single bit of it—equipment, uniforms, fees, coaches—was free to Harrison County residents courtesy of Blitz. And they hired Fantasy’s husband to run the program. The parents, lined up for miles with birth certificates and physical waivers to register and receive the eight-by-ten framed picture of their little athlete with the one and only Heisman Hyatt Johnson, a signing bonus, couldn’t stop asking each other if this wasn’t the best thing that’d ever happened or what?

  No Hair saw Reggie’s new position with Blitz as a conflict of interest for his wife at the Bellissimo. He told her to talk him out of it. If Reggie wanted a casino job that bad, we’d put him to work. She said forget it. She told No Hair she’d give up her job before she asked Reggie to pass on the offer. Fantasy and Reggie hadn’t had the easiest of marriages, and I understood her not wanting to rock the boat. I wasn’t there, no doubt I was breastfeeding when it went down, but according to No Hair, who knocked on my front door and told me himself, ten minutes before she knocked on my door to tell me herself, it got ugly. No Hair told Fantasy to take two unpaid weeks and think about it. She said she’d take forever to think about it and cleaned out her desk that day. With her departure, aside from the fact that it almost killed me, my Super Secret Spy team’s roster was down to one: Baylor. And now, according to the piece of paper I held in my hand, he was leaving too.

  Over my dead body.

  I poured a second cup of coffee at eight fifteen as the girls slept on and the offices below me woke up. I plugged in the house phone. I called the Bellissimo operator and asked for the Specialty Host office. The Holiday Host, July Jackson, who was being laid off on Friday, answered on the third ring.

  “Hi, July. It’s Davis.”

  Nothing.

  “Davis Cole.”

  More nothing.

  “July?”

  “Sorry sorry.”

  No doubt she was trying to figure out why she was getting an early-morning call from me. “Do you have a minute?” I asked. “I was wondering if you could come up to the twenty-ninth floor.”

  “Okay?” she said. “Right now?”
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br />   We agreed on ten o’clock. Which gave me time to get dressed, then get Bexy and Quinn ready. To meet their new nanny. Because their mother was going back to work and they were going with her, which meant, like Bradley had been saying all along, we needed a nanny.

  I couldn’t push a double stroller and save a casino at the same time.

  Six

  I knew July Jackson long before she knew me. She was hired at a job fair in New Orleans three years ago, and her first job was behind the VIP front desk. When the high rollers checked in, hers was the first Bellissimo face they saw, so it went without saying that July was a very pretty girl. Sharp too, and it wasn’t long before marketing snatched her up to work in the casino host office as an executive assistant, another stepping stone she didn’t spend much time on. July was cute, sweet, smart, and after six months as an assistant, she was offered a specialty host spot, organizing and facilitating high-roller holiday events. She crossed my path for the first time when I’d been here less than a year. Her personnel file hit my desk for security clearance to the higher position. I signed off on it quickly; July was squeaky clean, without so much as a speeding ticket on her record. But she worked in a casino, so controversy came her way soon enough. She popped up on my radar when $10,000 went missing from one of her events. She blew up Baylor’s radar when he met her last fall. And she had a pink slip coming her way on Friday.

  I found out about July and Baylor when he called to tell me he was dying.

  “Of what, Baylor?” At the time, I was trying my hardest to coax two three-month-old angels into taking a much needed nap, House had been screaming at me all morning, and I might have been a little short with him.