He resumed using the progressive ten thousand bet system and made sure he only gained slowly. Still, no one seemed concerned with his winning! By the time he decided to break for dinner, he was up another eighty thousand without any apparent concern being shown by the casino staff. A quick visit to the cashier where he sent another fifty thousand home, paid more tax and went to dinner.

He was feeling pretty tired by now. Playing for such stakes was stressful! And while the push spell wasn’t that draining for him these days, although using it so frequently and carefully over long periods of time was wearing him out! He also found he had a couple of followers. Two young women attached themselves to him at the bar when he returned to the casino, and he found it hard to resist the friendly chit-chat the two very attractive girls used to try and become friendly with him. Hmm. Were they plants? Gold diggers or just high-end hookers? With expensive food and expensive women, now he was really starting to feel like Mr. Bond!

He spent the next several hours winning and losing, deliberately not getting more than fifty thousand up before losing that fifty back to the house plus a bit more, then winning his losses back and so on. He finished up a mere twenty thousand up for the session and debated with himself about what to do with his two newfound friends. They were older than the early twenties they looked, he decided. Probably both in their late twenties. They had very nice bodies shown off well by their tight-fitting but classy looking dresses. It was tempting, but in the end, he decided he wasn’t that desperate for company that would no doubt turn out to cost him a considerable part of his winnings. The somewhat predatory smiles the two showed may have had something to do with that decision. They’d enjoyed an evening of drinks on him, so that would have to do!

He dodged them by simply heading out the front, asking where they were staying, having a taxi called while he stood and chatted with them, opened the door to let the two slide into the back. He opened the front passenger door, told the driver which hotel to take them to before shutting the door with him still on the sidewalk. The taxi pulled out and started up the road, and by the time the girls got the driver to stop, he had slipped down the street and found another taxi to take him back to his hotel. The next afternoon he returned to the casino to cash in his chips from the previous evening and sent ten thousand more home. That meant he had transferred two hundred thousand to his bank account, and even after paying the local taxes, he had nearly thirty thousand in cash remaining despite the new clothes and expensive dinners. The two hundred thousand euros became a bit over two hundred and twenty thousand dollars after currency exchange and bank fees, and he felt very well served by his time in Monte Carlo.

He stayed away from the casino that night, finding a restaurant with a nice view over the bay while he ate a relaxed dinner. He called Katerina finally, and she was surprisingly friendly after the semi-cold shoulder she had shown him after the dig. Hmm. Women. She was going to be back in Newcastle in three days, and after she stressed that she really wanted to concentrate on her Masters, she agreed to have dinner on Friday night. Great! He stayed at the restaurant till nearly ten before heading back to his hotel for an early night.