by Jasmin Quinn
“Why?” She was still giggling, thinking she had it under control and then another little laugh would slip out between her lips.
Hugo’s eyes stayed steady on her, his face serious, not finding the humour in his proposal or her response to it. He brought a hand to her face, outlined her cheek with his fingers, ran his thumb over her lips, stopping at the edge of her mouth, then dropping it down to her jawline, tracing the curve of it, stopping under her chin, tilting her face up. She thought he was going to kiss her and her stomach did a happy little cartwheel.
But then he said, “I don’t know.”
Olivia jerked back. He didn’t know? What the fuck kind of an answer was that? “We’re not getting married, Hugo. I’m not marrying you. I’ve known you less than 24 hours and besides, if Tony’s still alive, then I’m probably technically still married to him.”
“Right,” Hugo said, a quick nod of his head as he stepped back from her and sat down again. “Forgot about that asshole.”
Olivia returned to her seat as well. Sat forward with her hands tucked between her knees, staring into the soft light. The sun was starting to come up in Vegas, which meant nothing but another hot day. Hugo hadn’t been to bed yet. Probably needed to sleep. She glanced over at him. His hand was on the table, his fingers tapping, looking like he was thinking, or at least trying to think.
Finally he said, “I was meeting with Jack Creed. After I left here, I went to see him.” So softly that she wasn’t sure she heard him right.
But that was just her denial. She almost moaned her despair, suddenly wished he was out fucking the redhead instead. “And what?” She wasn’t looking at him, just keeping her eyes forward as if that would make the next words easier to deal with.
She caught his glance toward her from the corner of her eye, turned to look at him more fully, but he looked away, stared straight ahead. “I don’t know, Olivia.” He shifted like he was uncomfortable about something. Wanted to say but didn’t want to say.
She watched his face as he gazed steadily ahead, not at her, but at the hotel room door. Tapped his fingers on the table. She got caught up in him, craggy, strong, not conventionally handsome but she understood why he so easily attracted women. There was a quality about him that came through loud and clear in the way he presented himself. He could be trusted, he was loyal. If you weren’t the target then you were safe around him, and even better, if you were lucky enough to catch his eye, you got to sleep with him.
She felt the want for this man sear through her. A want she hadn’t felt in a long-time, maybe never. Even before Tony’s disappearance, her desire for her husband had slipped, was replaced by anger. The two of them were so badly suited, but they seemed to cling together. Destructive as it was, they seemed to need each other. Tony and Hugo were completely different men. Tony was closed, secretive. Hugo was genuine and open.
She had this sudden urge to tackle him, like the redhead did last night. Pull his clothes from his body, jump his bones. She wanted to marry him, regretted that she hadn’t said yes. It would be good for a while. Until it fell apart. It’s all good until it isn’t anymore. Another one of Gwen’s golden missives. And true. Because it was always good or bad in the beginning, but for Olivia, either way, it always got worse. Would be nice, just once to have good go to great, or great go to un-fucking-believable.
“What’re we going to do?” she finally asked Hugo.
Hugo shifted his gaze, looked across the table at her. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll take you up on your offer.”
“What?” Olivia was off-balance, confused.
“I’ll take my payment in fucks.” He looked at her. Smiled at something, it lighting up his face. “Breakfast and coffee first. Then we smoke out the guy I need to get and deliver him. Then we find your husband. Somewhere along the line, we’ll stop and you can make a down payment.”
Wow! WOW! Okay. Now what? A second ago, she was thinking about doing it with him, getting all steamy in the nether-regions and then the fuck says that? She wanted to cry, punch him, leave. Knew it was her own fucking fault.
Why do all men have to be such assholes?
Why couldn’t she just find one good guy? How hard could it be? Then she thought of Gwen, thought of what she would say. She wouldn’t feel an ounce of compassion for Olivia, that’s for sure. If you’re gonna put yourself out there, be prepared for the consequences. Probably something like that. What hurt, what really kind of stabbed at her heart, was how she was feeling about Hugo. Kind of an insta-love thing. Like they’d known each other in a previous life. Like it was fate. She wanted him to be noble, she wanted him to want her for no other reason than she was worth wanting.
Hugo stood, seared her with a heated look, then headed to the door. “Let’s go, Blondie. I got things to do.”
CHAPTER 10
Hugo narrowed his eyes as Olivia stirred brown sugar into her second bowl of oatmeal. He wondered why she would be eating oatmeal in Las Vegas… or chicken soup for that matter. It was August, so hot even the devil was sweating, and she seemed to gravitate toward weird shit. But he kept his thoughts to himself as he stuffed an entire pork sausage into his mouth and chomped down on it. Olivia was quiet, seemed a little nervous, but angry too. He didn’t need to guess why.
Hugo was pretty sure that her façade, the sexy, sultry siren wasn’t something she could sustain in the long run. And he was right. He’d rattled her by telling her she could pay him by sleeping with him. He knew she was hurt to the core, thought she might actually cry, but she managed to hold it together somehow. He was okay with her thinking he was a prick. She needed to be taught a lesson about playing little girl games around men. She needed to understand that Hugo was not some pretty boy she could wrap around her finger.
The other thing that was troubling him was why he did it. He could have just carried on home to Vancouver, found the idiot dead husband and reconciled them, but the truth was that he wanted her. Bad. Couldn’t for the life of him figure that out. He was the first to admit that women were his weakness. He loved them all but hadn’t yet met one he couldn’t resist. Until now. Until Olivia - she was so fucking tempting to him that it made his fingers itch. Maybe because she was vulnerable, maybe because she was playing games. Or maybe because he just downright liked her. That was what he was mostly afraid of, that he’d get used to having her around and want to keep her.
Hadn’t he just asked her to marry him?
His chest tightened as she slid another spoonful of oatmeal between her lips. Fuck, what he wouldn’t give to be that spoon right about now. She dabbed the napkin to her lips all dainty-like, as if she were out on a first-date. He grinned, remembered how she drank her beer and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. His cock grinned too, smiled like a fucking buck-toothed jackass. He looked away. Shit, he wasn’t going to get her out of his head until he had a little taste… or a big gulp.
He wished he didn’t have to finish the current job. Wished he could just get the fuck out of Vegas and get back home to Vancouver. Take a load off, maybe take his boat, Gypsy Girl, out for a run up the coast. He had a million things he wanted to do and finding a fucking Mexican cartel member gone rogue was the last thing he cared about.
He glanced at Olivia again and she caught him looking, threw him a half-smile, then dropped her eyes, took a sip of coffee. He wondered if he should confess all to her. Tell her what he’d done last night, what was going on. His marriage proposal this morning popped right out of his mouth. He’d done it before, sometimes after sex, but in jest. Marry me, baby. Girls liked that, giggled. Wished he was serious, knew he was not.
But with Olivia, he was serious, which was what was so fucked up about it. It was a way out of this mess. If she were married to him, if word got out, maybe the asshole with the 20 mil would back off. Especially if word got out that she was married to Hugo. He had a reputation in circles. The loner, yes, but backed by a number of powerful men – more untouchable than most.
And if they got married, then he cou
ld sidestep the whole ownership thing. It would be natural for a husband to pay off his wife’s debt. Even if they’d known each other less than 24 hours. If things fell apart then they fell apart. But he didn’t think they would.
The waitress, someone he didn’t know, brought by another bowl of oatmeal and set it in front of Olivia, then topped up their coffees. As Olivia dipped her spoon into the oatmeal, he said, “Blondie, I don’t care if your fucking husband is dead or alive. On paper, he’s dead. You want my help, we get married.”
The spoon clattered, Olivia looked up, her baby blues stroking him like feathers on a duster. “Why?” she asked again, then added, “Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly gone all noble on me. Want to wait for the wedding night.”
Hugo narrowed her eyes. “I don’t fucking know the definition of noble, Blondie.” He didn’t say what he should have said. That it might be the only thing that ensured her safety. She didn’t need to know that, not right now anyway. Why ruin a perfectly good bowl of oatmeal?
“If we’re married, Hugo, then you would be taking on my debt. There’d be no reason to track down Tony.”
She had a good point. But he didn’t want to be blissfully married and then have the asshole knocking on his door at Christmas time, looking for Olivia and a turkey dinner. “Yeah, there would be. I’m marrying you a widow, I want to make sure you stay that way.”
“I don’t want to marry you like this,” Olivia said softly, her eyes bright. It irritated him. Usually women cried when he told them he was moving on, not when he was offering to stay.
“You’ll grow to love me. Everyone does eventually.” He grinned his best disarming grin. “Besides I come with good references. After all, if Jack Creed says I’m your go-to guy, who’s gonna argue with him?”
Olivia snorted, her tears forgotten. “I don’t think Jack Creed’s the one you want to be using as a character reference.”
The waitress brought the check. He added a generous tip, scrawled his signature and room number across it and got up. “Let’s go.”
“Now?” Olivia stared up at him, then back to her half-full bowl of oatmeal. “I’m not done eating.”
“Liv, once we’re married you can have all the fucking oatmeal and chicken soup you want. We’re gonna check out, go find a chapel, get married, then go get my guy. Then we go to Vancouver. I know a guy who knows a guy. Creed said it’s a good place to start and I got a feeling he’s right.”
It didn’t exactly happen that way. He checked out, threw his bags in his Jeep. They found a chapel, but Olivia refused to get out of the vehicle. “I can’t get married like this again, to someone I don’t know for reasons that are beyond my control. You can have me, I’ll fuck you unconscious if that’s what you want. But I can’t marry you.”
Hugo relented because she was right but for the wrong reasons. She thought she needed to marry for love the second time around, not for convenience. She was guarding her heart, but she didn’t have to guard it from him. He’d honour her, stand by her, look after her even if things fell apart in the future. That’s who he was. Yep, he did know the definition of noble. Which is also why he let her have her way. If he married her today, she’d be going into it without all the information. If she found out he already paid her debt, essentially buying her from Creed to save her from a bigger asshole, it would drive a wedge between them. He needed to tell her the truth before they tied the knot.
But he was going to have her before this week was out, maybe before the day was out. Even if he had to seduce her in the back seat of his jeep. “Okay Olivia. You win this time. Just keep in mind, it’s easier to get married in Vegas than it is in Canada. If we’re in Canada when you change your mind, there’ll be a lot more time for me to get cold feet before we get hitched.”
“So the proposal’s still on the table?” Olivia sounded surprised and maybe even a little bit hopeful.
Hugo thought about it. “Yeah, Blondie. It’s still on the table.”
Olivia seemed pleased by his answer but didn’t say so. Instead, as he pulled away from the Graceland Wedding Chapel, she said, “Do you mind if we stop at the bus station so I can pick up my bag?”
“Don’t want to go home to pack?”
Olivia looked out the side window, didn’t look at Hugo as she shook her head. “No. Everything I need is in the locker at the bus station.
“Everything you need or everything you have?”
“Yes.” A stubborn jut to her chin told him to mind his own fucking business.
Of course, she was his business now. He’d remind her of that later. “Including your passport?”
“Yes.”
He pulled into the Las Vegas morning traffic heading north, thinking about all the possibilities. Creed had told him there was a good chance Tony West was in Vancouver, which suited Hugo fine. It was time to go home, time to take a break, take his boat out, get away for a while. He glanced over at Olivia as he pulled up to the bus station. Get the dead husband business over with, then he and Olivia and Gypsy Girl could maybe head north for a month or two.
He steered the jeep into a parking space and watched Olivia’s sexy ass as she walked towards the entrance of the bus station. God must’ve been reading Hugo’s mind when he built her, he thought as he pulled his phone from his jacket and tapped in some numbers.
“We’re getting married, Jack,” Hugo said when the mob boss answered. Not quite a lie, because he still intended to marry the blonde. Just had to tell her about her current status, had to convince her it was the right thing to do. A few more days was all he needed, he figured. He could be pretty fucking convincing when he wanted to be.
Jack laughed long and loud when he heard the news. Kind of like Olivia did when he first proposed.
Hugo tried to keep the annoyance out of his voice. “Maybe you’d like to spread the word that she’s off the market. Not for sale. Sleeping with Hugo Marsden and soon to be the mother of his quintuplets.”
Between snorts and rumbles, Jack replied, “I’ll be sure to let the right people know.” Then he sobered. “She likes to play tough you know, but she’s not.”
“Don’t fucking talk to me about the mother of my future children.” He almost hung up, but then remembered. “I’ll be putting someone on the mom – get her off the tables. She slips her tail, starts racking up the debt, you’ll let me know?”
Jack didn’t respond to his request. Instead he said, “Now that you’re in the family-man way, maybe you should think about retiring. Go off the grid. Stay safe.”
Hugo grunted. Didn’t disagree. “Maybe.” He hung up.
Olivia was back in a flash, throwing her pack into the back seat as she slid in beside Hugo. He looked over at her and a thrill ran through him. She was his.
CHAPTER 11
Olivia pulled her sticky shirt away from her chest. Fuck it was hot! They were sitting outside a bar on the west side of Vegas, no where near the strip. JP Houghton’s, a seedy biker bar known for its lack of tolerance for idiots, tourists and anyone who even smelled like they had a second cousin who was a cop. It was dead noon, sun high in the sky but the neon sign promising strippers and palm trees stood out against the blacked-out windows. Couldn’t see in, couldn’t see out. Hugo’s beat-up black jeep fit right in with the bikes, junkers and various mish-mash of other parked vehicles. The soft top was up, because according to Hugo, it made them less like sitting ducks, but all the windows were open. Didn’t matter, it was still hotter than Rhianna in a sex video.
Olivia was sweating – her jacket and hat discarded to the back seat. She wished she had a pair of scissors so she could cut the legs off her jeans. And maybe her hair too – it was plastered to her neck, shoulders and back. She would have given anything for a fucking fan, a bucket of ice, even a week in a serial killer’s freezer. She glanced at Hugo and a different kind of heat wave hit her.
He was slumped in the driver’s seat, arms crossed over his chest, biceps erupting from the short sleeves of his T-shirt. His beat-up
western hat lay low on his forehead, shading his eyes, which were half-closed. His expression was impassive, no indication that the heat was causing him any discomfort.
He was so big, so solid, it made Olivia thrill. She couldn’t help but compare him to Tony, who was shorter, leaner. Still fit and attractive – Olivia knew she was a little shallow that way. Personality went a long ways in a man, but she saw the looks first. That was part of her problem, Gwen said, and Olivia agreed. Looks in a man only took a woman so far. After that, you needed to find one who had a good job and a little bit of money. If you were lucky you got it all. So far neither Gwen nor Olivia had much of a lucky streak when it came to men. Gwen didn’t marry Olivia’s father. Olivia never even met him. He was just a blonde-haired, blue-eyed sperm donor.
Which is exactly why Olivia married Tony when she found herself in the family way. She didn’t want to have a kid who didn’t have a father. What a joke! She didn’t have the kid at all – it was the smartest of the three of them and got the hell out of Dodge, quick-like. Tony wasn’t even there when she lost the babe almost five months into the pregnancy. She was alone when she started bleeding and cramping, alone when her womb rejected it, alone to grieve the loss.
That was typical - Tony was always gone. One thing or another, secretive, never sharing anything about his job, telling her it was too dangerous for her to know. She finally quit asking. He was away more than he was with her. Then he was gone permanently, supposedly dead in a plane crash. And now, two years later, not quite as dead as everyone first thought. Rumours about his status as a corpse floated around Vegas, enough to catch the attention of a few people including Jack Creed and the insurance company.
Jack knew more than he was telling, that’s for sure. Didn’t even mull over the possibility that the rumours were bullshit. Sent her off to the big guy sitting next to her. Told her if anyone could find Tony it’d be him. Weird kind of vibe, but like all things related to Jack Creed, you took what he offered and then thanked him profusely as you slowly backed out the door. Two weeks to find Tony and pay Jack back. Not much time and what little she had left was wasting as she sat in the sweltering heat waiting for Hugo to finish his current job so he could get to hers.
