What happens in Vegas might not stay in Vegas…
Alyssa Miller is tired of waiting for her next-door neighbor to see her as more than just his best friend. Ready to let off some steam, she heads to Las Vegas for a romance book convention where, if she’s lucky, she’ll get down and dirty with one of the sexy cover models.
Dillon Alexander doesn’t do commitment—especially not where his best friend is concerned. She deserves a man who can give her the world, not damaged goods. But when he realizes Alyssa intends to have a one-night stand on her vacation, he hauls ass after her to make sure he’s the one to scratch her itch.
Neither of them expects their explosive chemistry to burn hotter than the lights on the strip, but with a little help from Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, a flamboyant matchmaker, and TSA, what happens in Vegas might not stay in Vegas…
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Gina L. Maxwell’s NYT bestselling Fighting for Love series Seducing Cinderella
Rules of Entanglement
Fighting for Irish
Find love in unexpected places with these satisfying Lovestruck reads… Sleeping with the Boss
Tell Me Something Good
Fiancée for Hire
Meeting His Match
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Gina L. Maxwell. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Entangled Publishing, LLC
2614 South Timberline Road
Suite 109
Fort Collins, CO 80525
Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.
Lovestruck is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.
Edited by Liz Pelletier
Cover design by Heather Howland
ISBN 978-1-63375-029-6
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition August 2014
For Liz Pelletier
You are the wind in my sails in these uncharted waters I call Following My Dreams.
Thank you for saying yes when the rest of the world said no.
Chapter One
If Alyssa Miller closed her eyes, she could almost imagine herself fulfilling her dream of dining alfresco at an upscale café in Paris. Cobblestone streets, soft music mixing with soft conversations, and the magnificence of the Eiffel Tower lit up like a giant Christmas tree against the night sky.
A handsome stranger, who looked suspiciously like her best friend Dillon Alexander, would approach her as she sat alone. She’d lower her book and raise her eyes. His mouth would promise her wickedly sexy adventures with only a lopsided quirk of his lips. Holding out his hand, he’d say, “Bonsoir, mademoibuzzzzzzzzzzzzz…”
The egg timer jolted Alyssa from one of her frequent daydreams of France and plunked her squarely back in Longmont, Colorado. More specifically, the kitchen of her tidy town house where she was busy making an incredible dinner of coq au vin for her and Dillon, a.k.a. the guy she fantasized about more often than an OCD germaphobe washes their hands in a day.
She’d met Dillon when she was six years old and he was eight. He was the only kid in class who’d talked to her after she was pulled out of first grade halfway through the year and placed with the third graders. They’d been a pair ever since, but it wasn’t until after she’d returned from college a couple years ago and rented out the other half of his town house that she started longing to be more than just best friends.
Lord knew she’d dropped enough hints to leave him permanently concussed, but if he’d ever noticed, he never let on. Instead, she’d had to watch him rotate through an arsenal of women to rival the Playboy mansion. His half of the town house would do better with a revolving door. Then she wouldn’t have to hear the obnoxious bang of the current door every time one of his “dates” left in the middle of the night. Thankfully, he considered his bedroom a private sanctuary and never invited them any farther than the living room. Their bedrooms shared a wall and the last thing she wanted was to hear his nocturnal activities on top of knowing about them.
Her glasses sat on her nose slightly askew from her abrupt return to reality. She readjusted them with a nudge of her finger, then retrieved the Dutch oven from her American oven. As soon as she lifted the lid, the aromatic steam made her mouth water. The chicken pieces glistened a golden brown, complemented by the ring of bright carrots and translucent onions. Success.
With a smile of satisfaction, Alyssa took a sip of her Beaujolais Cru, letting the fruity notes of the wine swirl around her tongue before swallowing.
She loved cooking. The process relaxed her and gave her brain a much-needed break after a long day of pouring over statistics and market research. And if she cooked for herself, there wasn’t any reason not to make enough for Dillon, since he lived in the town house next to hers and didn’t have her joy for cooking. She’d seen what he ate when left to his own devices, and it wasn’t pretty. Sometimes they ate together, and other times she simply walked next door and left his dinner on the counter for when he got home.
Normally, she didn’t cook anything quite so fancy, but tonight was the eve of her long-awaited weekend trip and she was in the mood to celebrate. Besides, they said the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. She figured if kickass food had that much influence over the heart, then she should have no problems targeting his sense of adventure.
Tomorrow she would finally arrive at the Masquerade Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas for the eighteenth annual Romance Lovers Convention. Three whole days of planned spontaneity and throwing caution to the wind in a moderately controlled environment. And with any luck, she’d convince Dillon to come along and then they could extend the trip through next week. The longer she had with him there, the better her chances of getting out of the damn friend zone and returning to Colorado as his girlfriend.
Or maybe even…wife? She gnawed on her lower lip and started slicing mushrooms as that crazy thought took root in the back of her brain.
Was it all that crazy? When she truly thought about it, they were practically married already, sex being the only thing missing, much to her dismay. And it was Vegas, Land of the Spontaneous Weddings, so it wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility…was it? Alyssa pressed a hand to her belly, which suddenly felt like an industrial leaf blower was stirring things into a frenzied cyclone and making one hell of a mess in there.
Stop overthinking, Alyssa. All you have to do is stick to the plan.
The plan was simple: ply him with an amazing dinner and his favorite dessert, then play upon his sympathy, convincing him she was too nervous to go to Vegas unless he went with her. And if that didn’t work, she wasn’t above manipulating him with a healthy dose of passive-aggressive guilt. No sweat.
She just needed to get him out of their element, away from their everyday routine, to a place they could stretch the boundaries of their relationship. And what better place to do that th
an the best city on earth known for people taking chances and risks they wouldn’t normally consider?
She’d thought everything through, even taking the day off work to shop for a sexier wardrobe. Everything she owned before today fell under one of three C’s. Conservative, Casual, or Comfortable. But if she had to dress Nightclub Barbie for a few days to get Dillon to see her as a woman and not some asexual being, then that was what she’d do. Anything to ensure success for Operation: Damn, Aly’s Hot and I Totally Want to Do Her.
Her hand clapped over her mouth, and she barely prevented the fermented grapes from shooting out her nose. That name definitely needed some work. Something to think about later.
Smoothing her sleek ponytail with one hand, she drank some more wine and reveled in the warmth as it slid down her throat. She’d already decided to forego her usual one-glass rule tonight. It’s not like she had to go to work the next day. Plus, she needed the liquid courage to play this whole thing off as an impulsive idea and not her long-ago-hatched plan to date her best friend of eighteen years.
Dillon’s Dodge Ram rumbled as he drove up their street. His aftermarket exhaust reliably alerted her of his arrival a good three blocks before he pulled in. Not for the first time, she ran to check her appearance in the mirror on the foyer wall.
Dillon worked as a foreman at his father’s Denver construction company. After wrapping things up and his commute home from the city, he arrived at their adjoined town houses around the same time every day. And if he ever ran late or changed his plans for the evening, she could count on receiving a text. His reliability was one of her favorite things about him. The fact that it stemmed from an understanding of her need for such things made him even more endearing.
Over the course of their lifelong friendship, he’d witnessed her deal with more than her fair share of instability. Her grandmother called it the Miller Curse. Alyssa was the fourth generation of Miller women who were highly intelligent, only children of single mothers whose lovers never stuck around to love and cherish, much less raise their daughters.
Alyssa’s dad had actually been around the most out of the bunch, but it was sporadic at best and extremely damaging to her mother’s psyche at worst. Alyssa had watched the strong woman become a shell of her former self. And all because she loved a man who couldn’t or wouldn’t love her back.
Alyssa refused to end up like her mom. Dillon and she were perfect together and they’d already been in each other’s lives for almost two decades. She would be the first Miller to have a loving, caring man, and tonight she’d drive the first nail in that curse’s coffin.
The sound of his truck door banging shut made her heart leap. A second car door slamming and a woman’s high-pitched voice had Alyssa peeking through her curtains. Dillon faced the dark-haired beauty he’d been seeing off and on over the last couple of months as she stalked over to the side of his truck. She was definitely not happy about something.
Alyssa’s stomach twisted, and she wrapped her arms around her waist for comfort at the sight of Dillon with another woman he’d been intimate with. Earlier in the week he’d told Alyssa this woman had found someone else she was more interested in, implying she’d been the one to walk away and not him. But watching the two of them now, the brunette reaching out to him and Dillon holding her at arm’s length with a hand on her shoulder as he talked to her, it was obvious that he’d been the one to cut and run.
Just like always.
Eventually, he walked her over to her car and helped her into the driver’s seat. She swiped at her face, stared at him for a moment, and then drove off. He watched her car disappear before he turned and strode up to their porch. Alyssa jumped back from the curtains before he noticed she’d seen the entire episode and dashed into the kitchen.
Her hand shook as she picked up her knife and made even slices through an onion. As moisture pricked the backs of her eyes, she told herself it was the result of the potent onion and nothing more. Even if, hypothetically speaking, she was upset, she certainly wouldn’t have any reason to be. After all, him being single could only help her cause. But something was nagging at her about the situation…
Alyssa shook her head and took a deep breath. It was probably just because he’d obviously bent the truth about how the relationship had ended. She wasn’t used to him being dishonest with her about anything so until she found out why, she knew it would bother her.
“Honey, I’m home,” Dillon sang jokingly from the hall.
For now, though, she would not act any differently with him than usual. Would not would not would not. Feeling fairly confident the mantra would sink in and get the message to her brain soon, she pasted a smile on her face just as he entered the kitchen in a pair of worn jeans and a faded gray Pink Floyd concert tee. His sandy-brown hair curled up a little on the ends. He preferred keeping it short, but she liked it when it got a tad overlong like this.
“Hey, Aly-gator, here you go.”
“My hero,” she said, accepting the oblong paper bag holding a baguette of French bread as he confiscated her glass of wine and finished it.
“You lucked out. I got the last fresh loaf at the bakery.”
Dillon picked a few red grapes from the bowl on the island. He popped one in his mouth, then one in hers. The juice of the grape burst on her tongue as the yeasty scent of the warm bread invaded her nose. “Mmm. Thanks for picking it up. A French meal isn’t very French without the French bread. How’s the Karlson project?”
“Miraculously on track, considering what a total pain in the ass he is,” he said. “What’d you make? It smells damn good.”
He started to lift the lid on the pot, but she slapped his hand and pushed him away. “It’s coq au vin, and your hands are to remain off until I say otherwise.”
“Okay, sorry,” he said, holding his palms out in surrender with his famous I’m-not-the-least-bit-sorry-grin. “Then put me to work. What can I do to get this on my plate faster?”
“Sauté these mushrooms and onions in that pan for me. We’ll be ready to eat just in time for last week’s recap.”
Grabbing a long serrated knife, she began slicing the bread into one-inch-thick, diagonal pieces. Dillon refilled her wineglass and returned it to her before grabbing one of the beers she kept for him in the fridge. Within minutes they were working in tandem, chatting and moving around each other seamlessly with an easy comfort.
He sautéed and stirred. She sliced and stacked.
He begged with puppy-dog eyes. She rolled hers, then shoved a piece of bread in his mouth.
He held up a spoonful of mushrooms for her to taste, then kept moving it away every time she went for it until she narrowed her eyes and hit him on the shoulder. Not that that fazed him in the least, as evidenced by his laughter. The deep, warm rumble in his chest was more contagious to her than yawning. She was helpless not to join him.
She gave the thumbs-up and set their places on the living-room coffee table.
He brought the food over and cued up their show.
On the surface, all was right in her world as they proceeded with their Thursday night ritual: dinner and horrible reality TV.
Every week they got together at her place and watched The Bachelor or The Bachelorette, whichever was running at the time. Currently, one lucky lady was on a mission to find her true love in the dozens of men carefully chosen by overpaid producers whose main concern was ratings. That and ensuring the pony they chose for next season came in as runner-up at the final elimination.
It was pathetic. It was despicable. It was tradition.
Close friends and family teased them, but they’d made peace with their guilty pleasure a long time ago.
Tucking into his chicken, he asked, “Who do you think Kelly gets rid of this time?”
“If I had to guess right now, I’d say either Jordie or Don. But it depends on how the hot-tub dates go tonight.”
“Good call.”
Over the next hour they ate, drank, laughed, and gasped
at the antics and drama on the show. Alyssa felt a tad light-headed from her current and third glass of wine, but it happened to be doing a fabulous job of slowing down her overactive brain and chasing away her nerves.
As the night had worn on, she’d become even more convinced her plan was perfect. Every shared grin and brush of his thigh against hers made her stomach clench, turning her hope into something more.
Time to give the green light to Operation: Manipulating the Man-Whor— Her subconscious gasped. Alyssa Rose Miller! Where had that come from? That name wasn’t even nice. She gave her wine the stink-eye. Apparently, two glasses had been more than plenty.
She caught his gaze and decided it was now or never. Start with a casual reminder of your trip to Vegas. “So I caught that little scene out front with the brunette earlier.” Shit! Her inebriated brain had gone completely rogue, and now she had to run with it or risk looking insane. “I thought you said she was the one who broke things off.”
“No, it was me. We’d been seeing each other for a few months. I was starting to get antsy.”
Starting to get antsy. It’s what he told her every time he broke things off with a girl and felt bad about it. Kind of like his version of “it wasn’t her, it was me.” She didn’t think he realized he did it, but she didn’t see any reason to point it out either. “Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”
Dillon ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I don’t know. I guess to change up the end of the story for once.”
“What story?”
“You know. Boy meets girl, girl and boy agree to a no-strings thing, boy and girl have fun together…” He paused and shook his head. “But then girl wants more from boy, so boy breaks things off and lives happily ever after.”
The tight look on his face didn’t match his claim for happiness. Maybe this girl had been different, but he couldn’t admit it to himself. Her stomach felt heavy with dread. She really hoped he was over this woman but something felt off. She wanted to change the subject and invite him to Vegas—hell, she could even put the let’s-celebrate-your-single-status spin on it now—but she couldn’t convince her brain to jump the tracks back to the intended conversation.