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probably the only one who’s called him that in forty years. It was one of his nicknames back when he was boxing.” There was a big old poster back at Bullet’s house, his only souvenir from when he’d thought he’d be the next world champion. Daisy smiled at the memory.
    “And you two are close.” It wasn’t a question. Ryan looked pissed. Again. She was beginning to think that was how he looked most of the time.
    Too damn bad. They weren’t dating. They weren’t friends. They’d only met this morning and—even if he was sexy as hell—he had no right to dictate whom Daisy could associate with.
    Her lips pressed together in a thin line. Her head ached.
    Ryan’s eyes had narrowed. His brow furrowed, like he was trying to work something out in his head. “Tell me about it, honey.”
    There it was again…the commanding tone that had fried her common sense in the bathroom. Daisy licked her lips. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. She’d had it all planned out in her mind. After the game, they’d come back to her room, talk, and Ryan would tell her what the hell the FBI was doing at the Hendrix.
    Instead, she was the one who wanted to spill her deepest, darkest secrets.
    “That something they teach in FBI school?” she asked. “Interrogation techniques?”
    “Is this an interrogation?” Ryan’s head straightened slightly. “Want me to get out the whips and chains?”
    “Twisted.”
    “Like a corkscrew, babe.” He winked at her. “Just like you.”
    “I’m not twisted. I’m a professor.”
    “You can’t be both?”
    “Not to my knowledge.”
    He nodded. “Too bad. You’d look kick-ass in leather.”
    “Want to tell me why the FBI has an undercover agent at a poker tournament?”
    “Nope. Want to tell me why the general manager has a college professor posing as a poker player?”
    “I am a poker player,” Daisy snapped. “I may not be a gambler, but I’m one hell of a poker player.”
    “Counting cards—doing math—isn’t the same thing as playing poker.”
    Daisy rolled her eyes. What did he know?
    She’d only written her first PhD thesis on game theory and poker. The same thesis she’d turned into—an admittedly poorly received—player’s guide.
    She’d only walked into the Rollio and taken the house for two million dollars. She’d been fourteen years old, playing with her older sister’s ID, and only Bullet’s kind nature had kept her from getting turned over to the cops. He’d been manager of the Rollio at the time. When they’d figured out she wasn’t legal to play, he’d dragged her into his back room and put the fear of God into her.
    But the next morning, he’d been waiting outside her mother’s trailer in his long gray sedan. He’d given her a ride to school. “Just want to make sure you get there, doll.”
    And the morning after that, he’d been back with a pair of coffees and a donut from the Rollio’s breakfast buffet.
    Bullet had given her a ride to school every morning without fail, and during the summer, he’d given her a job at the Rollio, sitting pretty in the security booth scoping out card counters and cheaters. He’d taken an interest when no one else had. He’d convinced her to apply to Harvard and flown out to cheer at each of her graduations.
    It wasn’t just Daisy he’d helped, either. He’d gotten her sister a job at the Rollio. Lily may be a showgirl like their mother, but she’d worked at the same place for nine years, making her way up through the ranks. She had a career because of Bullet.
    Lily was alive because of Bullet.
    There was no way Daisy could let him down now.
    She forced herself to take a deep breath. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours?”
    “Yes, please.”
    She rolled her eyes at Casanova. “Tit for tat. I ask a question, you answer. You ask a question, I answer. Sound fair?”
    “I ask the first question.” Ryan leaned forward and his shirt clung to that muscular chest. Downstairs, the smell of