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watching, she was a woman flirting with the more-than-handsome man next to her. With the way Ross Cooper filled out a suit, no one would think her crazy. She tilted her head up, stared at his lips a second and, well, maybe she wasn’t pretending to flirt because—wow—her body had gone on a full tingly alert. Ross cocked his head, clearly enjoying the show. She smiled and inched closer.
    “There’s a man at mini-bac. Green shirt. Call Don and ask him to check that tight zoom of yours. I think Green Shirt just capped his bet after the dealer showed the winning cards.”
    Wouldn’t this be something? Her first day at Fortuna and she catches someone trying to slide an extra chip on his bet while the dealer was distracted paying the other players.
    Ross grabbed his phone. No questions. No comments. No skepticism. Just immediate action.
    He stepped away from passing patrons, spent all of fifteen seconds on the phone with Don, then walked back to Kate. “He’s having surveillance check it. Give me a second to talk to the pit.” He squeezed her arm. “Wait here.”
    He strode into the pit area, smiling at the diamond-draped women, slapping the backs of a couple of the male players. A master glad-hander at work. No wonder the gaming industry loved him. Young, ambitious and handsome, Ross Cooper was gaming’s thirty-four-year-old George Clooney.
    And she might have a mad crush on him. Which didn’t bode well for her no-fraternization rule. Certain things she wouldn’t do. Getting personally involved with a client or a co-worker ranked right up at the top. For a woman bent on a career, the fallout could be too costly.
    She’d worked too hard to lose her professional reputation over a simple crush. Over sexual attraction.
    After talking with the pit boss, Ross came back to her. “You called it. Surveillance checked the video. He moved the bet. The dealer will warn him. He’s a new player. Supposedly. We’ll keep an eye on him. Nice catch, Ms. Daniels.”
    “Thank you, Mr . Cooper. Now, can I see your surveillance room?”
    He slapped his hand against his chest. “A little forward, don’t you think? I mean, really, I’m not that kind of guy.”
    Kate rolled her eyes. If ever a man deserved a slap, it was Ross Cooper. “Please. You are definitely that kind of guy.”

Chapter Three

    Just shy of Ross dropkicking his good sense and making a move on Kate Daniels, his phone buzzed. Ignore it. He’d like to. There’s a departure. For him anyway. Call it exhaustion, call it a lack of female company since Fortuna’s opening, call it being horny, but he suddenly wanted to ditch his job.
    Can’t . The phone buzzed again and he ripped it from his belt. Marcia. “Hey.”
    “Problem,” Marcia said. “Mrs. Miller fell at table thirteen.”
    Ah, shit . When a high roller—a whale among whales—brought his eighty-year-old mother to the casino, there’d be no delay in checking on her. Plus, her wicked humor reminded him of his grandmother and he’d developed an affection for her. “How bad is it?”
    “I’m not sure. We called an ambulance just in case. Figured you’d want to know.”
    “You figured right. Thanks.”
    Before Fortuna opened, Mrs. Miller had accompanied her son on gambling trips to Dominion. In the time he’d been at Dominion, Ross had grown to enjoy her unabashed love of bawdy behavior. Pretty much, he enjoyed her . She made him laugh and not take life too seriously, and that could never be underrated. In fact, Ross suspected if she were younger, she’d make a pass at him.
    Hell, she made passes at him anyway.
    He shoved the phone into his belt holder, grabbed Kate by the elbow and dragged her along as he hustled to table thirteen. “FYI, I was about to convince you to have a drink with me, but the mother of one of my whales was injured in a fall.”
    “Is she okay?”
    No reaction on the warning shot about the drink. Interesting. He loved a woman who made him work for it.
    Ross went left around