With his curses ringing in my ears like music—it’s early but still I can consider my day complete now that I’ve ruined his day so absolutely—I let myself out of the suite.
“One hour,” I remind him before closing the door behind me. Somehow I don’t think it will take that long.
Chapter Three
Aria
“I’ll be over later, Lucy. I have a few errands to take care of first,” I tell my sister as I climb out of my car and start the long trek toward the Atlantis, through the hotel’s employee parking lot.
“Do you promise?” she demands. “Because Mom has gone crazy and won’t even let me get out of bed. I’m losing my mind here.”
“She’s not crazy. She’s just…overprotective. You did have major surgery less than a week ago.”
“And I survived it just fine!” Lucy harrumphs. “Just like I’ve survived all the other ones. But we all know it hasn’t fixed anything, that it’s just prolonging the inevitable. And I don’t want to spend the rest of my inevitable lying around in bed when I could be doing things!”
It’s a punch in my gut to hear her talk about her own death so flippantly. There’s a part of me that knows it’s good that she isn’t in denial, that she’s fighting this damn disease with everything she’s got. That she’s as healthy as anyone with a severe case of brittle bone disease can be. But there’s another part—the part that keeps me in Vegas even when I want to be far, far away—that gets ripped open just a little more every time she talks about it. Every time I have to face the fact that my little sister won’t be around forever. That she might not even be around for ten more years.
“I know, I know,” I soothe, glancing at my watch as I all but speed-walk across the parking lot. It’s almost two, damn it, which means if I want to get over to the house to see Lucy before my father gets home, I need to hustle. I should have come first thing to pick up my damn paycheck, but I spent the morning online, looking at want ads and trying to find another job.
Unfortunately, it’s summer and most of the jobs I’m qualified for—even if I wasn’t keeping my Vassar degree in philosophy under wraps along with my real last name—have already been taken by college students wanting to spend their summer vacations partying in Vegas.
All of which means I’m pretty much screwed, at least if I don’t want to go running back to Daddy for help. Which I absolutely refuse to do.
I have a little money saved, not much, but enough to last six weeks without getting paid. Two months if I cut out my weekly therapy sessions—which I really don’t want to do. But considering the alternative—going home with my tail tucked between my legs—a few weeks without seeing Dr. Collins is a small price to pay.
It’s one hundred and twelve today and I’m sweating by the time I reach the casino/hotel and I pause for a moment, right inside the doors, to soak up the air-conditioning and say good-bye to my sister.
Then I wind my way through the casino with its blinking lights and ringing slot machine bells, heading for accounting to pick up my check. By my calculations, it should be about forty-eight hours’ worth—a full week before my five days off—and then a full day yesterday. Which sounds like it should be a decent amount, but really isn’t when you think about how long this paycheck has to last me since there won’t be any more tips until I find another job.
I figure it will be a relatively quick procedure—I’ve been fired, after all. It’s not like that requires an exit interview. But when I get to accounting, they send me over to human resources and when I get to HR, they send me upstairs to Mr. Caine’s office.
Which totally pisses me off. I mean, come on. Yes, I hit a high roller but the jerk totally had it coming. Plus, I’ve already been fired—what the hell else does the old man want to do to me?
I’m tempted to duck out, to say to hell with the whole thing. But I need that paycheck—it’s the only thing standing between me and asking my father for money—and I’d rather hook on the Strip than ask him for a cent. Not because he wouldn’t give it to me, but because he would. The only problem is it would come with about a million strings attached to it and I am so done with that. It took me twenty-four years to cut those damn strings and gain control over my own life and when I did, it was messy as hell. No way am I voluntarily tying myself back up in them.
My stomach is roiling a little by the time I get to Mr. Caine’s office on the thirtieth floor. Not because I’m nervous about meeting with the big boss—I don’t get nervous like that anymore—but because I’m afraid of what he’s going to say. This is Vegas and these guys have all the power. If he doesn’t want to pay me because the high roller has suddenly decided to sue or something, there’s nothing I’m going to be able to do about it. Not without an attorney that I can’t afford anyway. And not when I’m the one who’s so clearly in the wrong.
Not that I’m about to admit that to him or anyone else. No, I need that damn paycheck and I’m not walking out of here without it.
When I get to his office, I check in with his secretary—an older woman with short hair and a sour expression that reminds me of the nuns at Our Lady of Lourdes, the all-girls Catholic school I attended all the way through my senior year in high school. She tells me to take a seat, but I ignore her. Instead, I wander over to the window and look out at the Strip far below me. From here it looks almost magical—the dirt and porn pamphlets and desperation are a million miles away.
I can’t help remembering a time when they were always a million miles away, a time when the glitter and the glam was all I knew of Las Vegas.
But that was a long time ago and there’s no use looking backward. Or at least, that’s my philosophy and I’m sticking to it. As soon as I can get this damn paycheck and be on my way.
I brace myself for a long wait—I can’t believe a fired cocktail waitress is exactly high priority to Richard Caine—but barely a couple minutes pass before the nun in civilian clothing tells me to go in.
I head to the door leading to the office’s inner sanctum, but before I can so much as touch the knob, it swings open. And reveals a tall, well-built man with the broadest shoulders I’ve ever seen. A man who is very definitely not seventy-year-old Mr. Caine is standing there.
Our eyes meet as I cross the threshold, our bodies brushing in the narrow doorway. And for long seconds I can’t think, can’t breathe. Can’t do anything but stare as my carefully constructed don’t-give-a-shit attitude comes crashing down around my ears.
I don’t want him to see it, can’t let him see it, so I look him in the face, straight in the eyes, just like my mother taught me. But this time, it doesn’t work. This time all it does is make me shakier. Not because he’s a letch like that Russian bastard from last night, but because he isn’t.
I blink, try to focus, but all I can see are his green eyes. Lush, verdant and filled with a darkness that seems to echo the one inside of me. It’s a darkness I’ve worked hard to ignore, a darkness I’ve spent so much time trying to pretend isn’t there.
The fact that I can so readily see it reflected in him is terrifying. I should be looking away, pulling away. Running away. But instead I just stand there for several long, quiet seconds. Spellbound. Captivated. Enthralled.
I don’t move. I don’t blink. Hell, I’m not sure I even breathe. It’s only the wild galloping of my heart that proves to me I’m still alive.
There’s a small part of my brain—the only part that’s still functioning, it seems—that is horrified by my fascination with this man. It’s the same part that is screaming at me to walk away, to get out now while I still have a modicum of control and to hell with the forty-eight hours of pay that they owe me.
And still I don’t move. Still I stand there in that doorway, my breasts only an inch or two from his chest, my face much too close to his for comfort. And I watch him as he watches me.
But then something shifts in those gorgeous green eyes of his, something opens, and for a moment—just a moment—I can see as deeply into him as I suddenl
y fear he can see into me.
It’s the scariest thing about this whole damn encounter, the idea that he can see with a glance what I’ve worked so hard to cover up. Just the idea of it snaps me out of the weird fugue state I’m inhabiting and straight back into my fucked up present.
“Excuse me,” I say, bowing my back and pressing my spine against the doorway to ensure that I don’t touch him again. “I’m here to see Mr. Caine.”
“I am Mr. Caine.”
The blatant lie helps me get myself a little more under control. Narrowing my eyes at him, I inch my way back out of the doorway, sliding into the reception area. “I’ve seen Mr. Caine and you look nothing like him. Not to mention, you’re about fifty years too young to pass for the guy who runs this place.”
He smiles then, and just that easily he goes from dark and good-looking to absolutely gorgeous, so gorgeous that if I hadn’t felt the heat of his body against my own, I wouldn’t believe that he was real. Wouldn’t believe that he was anything but a god of Atlantis stepping out of one of the paintings in the art gallery located twenty stories below us.
But he is real, and that smile makes the most of his sharp cheekbones and full lips and suddenly my fingers itch to tangle themselves in the wild black hair that frames his fallen angel face. It’s not a feeling I normally have—not a reaction I normally have—and it makes me nervous in a way few things ever do.
“People say I look like my mother. And I’m actually forty years younger than my father, but thanks for the compliment.”
“You’re Richard Caine’s son.” I have a hard time believing that considering I haven’t heard anything about him being back. It seems like an awfully big secret to keep, and a totally unnecessary one.
“I am. Sebastian Caine. My father’s been ill, so I came in last week to take over some of his duties,” he explains, answering the question I didn’t ask.
But that explains why I didn’t know he was back—I was off all last week, hanging with Lucy in the hospital when the gossip would have been at its most rampant.
“Please,” he says, stepping out of the doorway and gesturing toward his desk. “Come into my office.”
Says the spider to the fly. Except that had something to do with a parlor, didn’t it? Still as he waits patiently, watching me with those laser green eyes of his, I can’t help but see the parallels. There’s a part of me—that part in charge of self-preservation—that wants to run as far and as fast as I can from this man, this office, this moment. But I’ve already run once. I promised myself then that I wouldn’t do it again and I don’t plan on breaking that promise. Especially not over something as ridiculous as a little sexual attraction.
And so I do the only thing I can do—I step into his office. And pray I’m not letting pride get in the way of common sense.
But I’ve barely made it past the threshold when my heel catches in the thick shag carpet and I pitch forward, my balance completely gone. Figuring I’m done for, I stick my hands out in front of me, brace myself for the fall. But it never comes. Instead, a strong arm winds itself around my waist, pulls me back sharply.
Just that easily I’m upright again, but I’m also right back where I started—pressed against Sebastian Caine’s long, lithe, lethal body. Only this time it’s not a little brush of chest to chest, hand to hand. No, it’s full-on body contact—my back to his front—and I’m not sure if I’m startled or aroused by how good he feels.
Maybe both.
At least that’s the excuse I’m giving myself about why I don’t immediately leap away. Why I stay there, pressed against him—sheltered by him—for far longer than I should.
Not that he seems in any hurry to let me go. No, his hand is curved around my hip, his thumb stroking my waist. My nerve endings spark at his touch, heat sizzling through me with every back and forth brush of his thumb.
“Are you all right?” His voice is low, primal, with just enough gravel in it to send shivers down my spine. It’s a strange, new feeling, one that calls to mind tangled sheets and long, sweat-drenched nights. With him.
He’s intense, powerful, and so darkly sexual that I find myself reacting physically to him. To the authority he exudes simply by breathing. My pulse speeds up, my nipples tighten, and my breath comes in short, harsh pants that I desperately try—and fail—to control.
“I—I’m okay,” I tell him finally, my voice much shakier than I’d like it to be.
I feel him nod, his chin brushing the top of my head as he uncurls his arm slowly—almost reluctantly—from around me.
“Why don’t you have a seat,” he tells me, gesturing to the two chairs in front of his desk.
It’s the reminder I need to shock my brain back into focus. Finally. Sticking my chin in the air, I make sure I sound firm—or as firm as any woman can after she’s just been caught, held and caressed by her boss’s boss’s boss’s boss. “I don’t think that will be necessary. I’m just here to pick up my paycheck.”
He lifts his brows then, a quick up and down motion that makes my belly flutter. “Sit down, Aria.” He sounds accommodating but at the same time, I know an order when I hear one. I want to object on general principle—the woman I am now doesn’t follow orders well at all, but I need that money. And a not terrible evaluation. Which is why I bend my knees and sink slowly, painfully into the chair.
He closes the door and I expect him to circle his desk, to sit in the huge, imposing chair that faces the one I’m currently sitting in. But instead, he drops down onto the chair next to me before reaching into his pocket and handing me an envelope.
“I believe this is what you came for.”
I nod without bothering to open it. Instead, I slide it into my purse and move to stand. His hand flashes out, rests gently on my arm as he applies just enough pressure to keep me in my seat.
Heat rushes through me from the contact, my nipples peaking despite my determination to keep this professional. He smiles then, a dark curving of his lips that sends shivers of electricity through me. That makes my body tremble and my breathing erratic.
I shrink back against the chair—a move that’s totally not me—and try to figure out what the hell is going on. He’s not threatening me, there’s nothing predatory or particularly sexual in the way he’s looking at me, the way he’s touching me. And yet my body is lit up like the Strip at midnight, my every cell sparking at nothing more than a casual touch from him.
I don’t get it. I don’t understand why I’m responding like this to Sebastian Caine when I’ve never responded anywhere near this quickly or strongly to another man. Oh, I’ve dated some. I was even engaged, and spent six months of that engagement trying to convince myself that I loved Carlo. And still I never responded like this, so quickly and desperately. Breasts aching, skin burning, sex growing wet.
The oddity of it is enough to keep me in my seat for long seconds, my eyes pinned to his as he stares back. But then fear sets in and I go to stand up again.
Again, he presses me gently but firmly back into the chair. He’s still smiling at me, his face schooled into perfectly pleasant lines. But his eyes are filled with a predatory interest he doesn’t even try to hide.
It worries me. Not because I think he’ll hurt me, not because I don’t think I can handle myself. But because I like it. I like the way he’s looking at me, like the way my body feels under his gaze.
Which is ridiculous—and why I come out swinging. “Look, I don’t know what you think is happening here, Mr. Caine—”
“Sebastian,” he says, interrupting my diatribe. “My name is Sebastian.”
“Good for you. I’m sure somebody probably cares about that, but I only came here for my paycheck and I have it now, so I’m leaving.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’d like you to stay for a few minutes and talk to me. See if we can get to the bottom of this mess.”
For a minute I think the mess he’s referring to is us, and the way we?
??re responding to each other. But then I realize he means the Russian whale, me being fired. And suddenly I’m afraid I’m in for a lot more than I bargained for. I was prepared to fight Richard Caine for my paycheck, was prepared for derision and annoyed condescension. I live every day of my life with it, after all, and have learned to control myself and those situations to the best of my ability.
But this. This is something different. There’s no arrogance on Sebastian’s face, no assumption that I’ll drop to my knees and blow him as a thank-you for my paycheck. No sense that he thinks he can fuck me simply because he’s got a corner office on the top floor of Las Vegas’s hottest casino.
That’s not the scary part. I can handle that. Hell, I do handle it pretty much every day of my life. But the rest…the rest gets to me. The quiet respect, the obvious interest, the darkness that mirrors my own. I don’t know how to deal with those things, don’t know how I’m supposed to respond. I’m off-kilter, confused, searching for answers when I feel like I don’t even know what questions to ask.
Maybe that’s why I stay instead of running out of here as fast as my feet can carry me.
Because I want to find out—both the questions and the answers.
Chapter Four
Sebastian
I see the moment Aria decides to stay instead of running screaming from my office. Her whole body relaxes and she settles back into the chair instead of staying perched on the edge, ready to flee at any moment.
I relax as well, or at least give a good imitation of it. It’s hard to actually relax when my dick is already semi-hard and every instinct I have is screaming at me to take her, to fuck her, to tie her up and do a million unspeakable things to her.
But she’s skittish, ready to bolt and that’s the last thing I want. Not that I blame her—she gets hassled by rich men every day. Has, in her mind, even lost her job because of it. Why should she think I’m any different? Why should she think I want anything other than to take the last bit of control she’s hanging on to?