"Bennett, Cherie - Sunset Island 011 - Sunset Paradise" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bennett Cherie)

"Emma? Hi, it's Dad."
"Hi," Emma said. "We're all readyЧand we look great, I might add," she said gaily.
"Listen, sweetheart, would you mind very much if I postponed our dinner? I've got a hell of a headache all of a sudden."
"Are you all right?" Emma asked, sitting
down. Her father was not a man who ever gave in to any kind of physical illness,
"Sure, sure," Mr. Cresswell said. "You know me, nothing keeps me down."
But there was a weariness in his voice that Emma had never heard before. What if he was really sick? "Dad?" Emma asked. "Want me to come to your roomЧor send the hotel doctor?"
"No, no, I just need a nap," her father assured her. "You girls run along and have fun. I'll see you sometime tomorrowЧthat's a promise."
Emma hung up and turned to her friends. "The big dinner's off. My father isn't feeling well."
"Is he okay?" Carrie asked.
"He says it's just a headache," Emma said, creases of tension appearing between her eyes. "I don't know, though. That just isn't like him."
"Well, maybe he's depressed because he broke up with Minnie Mouse," Sam suggested.
"You don't understand," Emma said. "My father is never, and I mean never, sick."
"Do you want to go check on him?" Carrie queried.
Emma stared at the phone, as if she could see through it and into her father's room.
"No,: sne finally said. "I'm probably overreacting." She got up and picked up her purse. "Let's go down to one of the restaurantsЧwe look too good to stay up here."
"And then let's go gamble with the rich, famous, and snotty," Sam said. "I've still got my five hundred dollars in chips to parlay into a small fortune!"
After a fabulous seafood dinner in a restaurant called Fruits de la Mer, the three girls walked into the casino.
Sam's heart immediately started to beat faster. "I really love it here!" she said with excitement as they walked through the front section, where the slot machines were. "Listen, I really want to try playing roulette. It's over this way."
They stopped in front of a glass-encased wheel, on which numbers appeared surrounded by either black or red. In addition, there were two green spotsЧzero and double zero. To the side of that was a betting board, with squares showing each number represented on the wheel and various other spots for side bets.
"Could I please turn this in for five-dollar chips?" Sam asked the middle-aged woman behind the roulette table, handing her a one-hundred-dollar chip.
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The ball went around again, and finally droppedЧinto number thirteen!
"You won!" Emma yelled.
"I did!" Sam said, a huge grin on her face.
The men had lost all their bets. They walked away from the table without a backwards glance.
"Amazing," Carrie said, watching them leave. "They just lost more in ten seconds than I earn working part-time for an entire semester at college."
"Girlfriends, I think I have found my calling in life," Sam said as the croupier pushed two large piles of pink chips over to her. "Why don't you guys play, too?"
Emma and Carrie both exchanged twenty-dollar bills for chips.
"Place your bets," the woman called.
"I'm going for low return, higher probability," Carrie decided, placing three chips so each covered four numbers.
Emma placed two conservative bets and another on a single number.
"I'm feeling luck-luck-lucky!" Sam said, placing four bets, three of them on single numbers.
The girls watched as the metal ball rattled around the wheel one more time, then landed on number seven.
"Number seven," the croupier said. "One winner."
"Whoa, baby!" Sam cried. "I won again!"
An hour later, Emma and Carrie had each gone through their original twenty dollars' worth of chips. Sam, however, was up four hundred dollars.
"Between the four hundred left from winning at the slot machine and all of this, you're up eight hundred dollars!" Emma remarked.
"I suggest you quit while you're ahead," Carrie said.
"Are you kidding?" Sam cried. "I'm on a winning streak here!"
"Statistically, there's no such thing as a winning streak," Carrie said.
"Don't talk to me about statistics," Sam scoffed. "I mean, look at this!" She gestured to her huge pile of chips.
"Well, losing twenty dollars is my limit for the night," Carrie said. "I'm going up to bed."
"Bed?" Sam spluttered. She looked at her watch. "It's only midnight!"
"But I'd like to go snorkeling early in the morning, and I just can't function on no sleep," Carrie told her, getting up from her chair.
"I'll come with you," Emma said. "I want
to check and see if my father called again, anyway."
"Spoilsports!" Sam huffed. "Come on, just a little while longer?"