Card Sharks by Liz Maverick Page A

want to strip for these boys. I really don’t.”
    â€œI promise you. I’m good at cards. It’s all math, probabilities. That’s my thing. If I swear to you that you will not end up naked in front of these boys, will you stay in?”
    Bijoux looked at her friend. Marianne was good. And it would be such a sweet victory. “Only if we split the combined profits.”
    â€œDeal,” Marianne said. She stuck out her hand. Bijoux took it and said, “Let’s get in there and rob those horny bastards blind.” They shook on it. Marianne pushed open the bathroom door and the girls returned to their seats, innocent smiles all around.
    â€œSo where were we?” Marianne asked. “Oh, I lost. I have to take something off.” She removed her shoe, dangling it by its silvery strap off her pinkie finger before tossing it over her shoulder. The boys hooted and hollered. Marianne looked over at Bijoux and smiled.
    Donny picked up the deck and dealt out two fresh cards to each person. When he stopped, Marianne leaned over and picked up the deck. “Don’t put that away. We’ll be playing with five cards, stud. With betting. Let’s get those wallets out and some money on the table.”
    The guys looked around at one another. Bijoux studied Peter’s face. He didn’t know Donny before this. He couldn’t have known it would be strip poker. But unfortunately for him, he was male and he’d have to pay. “Best hand takes the money,” Bijoux said. “Worst hand takes something off.”
    An excited murmur made its way around the table. Bijoux looked at Marianne, who bit down on her lower lip to keep from laughing as they examined their hands.
    Bijoux stared at her cards. Let’s see, a pair is the lowest. Then two pairs. Three of a kind is better than either of those. . . . What about a full house and four of a kind? And there’s a flush and a straight, and I have absolutely no memory of what’s better, and there’s no way I’m asking these guys. Though it should be based on odds, right? So if Marianne can access the part of her brain that was actually listening during Statistics 101, this will probably be very simple for her. . . .
    She looked up at Marianne, who was frowning at her cards.
    â€œMare? You going to make a decision anytime soon?” Donny asked.
    Marianne looked up at Donny and smiled sweetly. Bijoux watched as his expression changed after that; if the twitch in his right eye was any indication, he’d just correctly read her smile as suspicious behavior.
    The boys went around the table and bet, and then it came back around to Marianne. “Fifty-two cards in a deck, four suits,” she muttered. “It’s a five-card game . . . okay . . . uh-huh, so, 2,598,960 possible hand combinations . . . okay, so, based on probabilities, it’s harder to get all cards in the same suit than to get the cards in sequence . . . a flush is better than a straight, and a—”
    â€œMare?”
    â€œOh, sorry.” She put her cards down on the table, raised thecurrent bet by an outrageous amount, and then folded her hands together again, once more the picture of innocence.
    Bijoux looked up at her, and Marianne gave her an invisible girls-only signal not to bet, which she didn’t.
    Peter looked at Marianne, then Bijoux, a curious expression on his face. Then he suddenly reached into his pocket and pulled out a notepad and pen. He’d been watching her all evening with a sort of fascination that began to annoy Bijoux. The truth was that although she’d already established that Peter was not quarry, she felt sort of like he was hers. In the same way that, first and foremost, Donny was Marianne’s. But Peter didn’t seem to understand that. And he just kept leaning and flirting and leaning and flirting and . . . now Marianne had just