“Right. Player extraordinaire. Flings-R-Us. Chance DiMarco is not compatible with commitment or caring. I get it. I’ve been there, gotten hurt by that.”
Not to mention that if she were ever tempted to forget, Anda could watch Man of Her Dreams and see him lie to her face about how much he cared, how special she was…right before ousting her.
“I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I didn’t make sure that you’re clear on it.”
Fat chance that Anda would forget. She was the one with the broken, barely-healing heart, compliments of Chance. “I’m just saying, if I’m going to have calculated revenge sex, I might as well have amazing, earth-shaking, mind-blowing revenge sex. That part will make me happy. And in the end? It’ll make me whole again.”
“When is this going to go down?”
“We have another date tonight. He wanted to give me time to do my own thing.”
His not glomming onto her was so thoughtful. Chance insisted that he still wanted Anda to have time to chill and veg out by the pool so that she got the relaxation desired. Because that’s the excuse she gave him for her trip. Not perusing the man-candy buffet for a healing hookup. No, she’d alluded to the need to relax and clear her head about the job choices, and that she’d fill him in on those tonight.
Squinting suspiciously, Jenny asked, “Or is that code for him getting together with a different woman here at the resort?”
“No. It couldn’t be.” The response popped out automatically. Because Chance had been so solicitous, so engaged, so darned into her. Jenny angled her a long, searching look. “Fine. Perhaps it could be, given his history. It doesn’t matter. He’s taking me to tour a distillery in town and then we’re coming back here for dinner.”
“You think you can get him to drop his fake moral stance and get into bed with you?”
“I mentioned the distillery, didn’t I? We’re Ubering. I’ll be sure that he tastes everything. That should be enough to get him in the mood and completely ready for seduction.”
“So, you get your wild ride, or three, out of him, hopefully get him to beg you to come back, and then tomorrow you cut him loose and cut him down?”
“Tomorrow…or the next day. I’ve got until we leave. The more into me he gets, the more painful it’ll be for him.” Ouch. That sounded so calculating. Anda knew Chance deserved to have his bad behavior turned back on him. It was just hard to contemplate being the one to actually do it. More to soothe herself, she said, “Besides, it won’t be a cruel, public humiliation like what he did to me on the show. Only the three of us will ever know.”
“You’re doing this for every woman who ever got treated like a disposable napkin by a man.”
“Yes. I am taking a stand for all of womankind with my impending, knee-melting night of orgasms.” There. Anda was back in the proper mindset. “Thanks, Jenny.”
***
“Chance? Why did Spago call to ask what time I’d like dinner delivered?”
Chance grinned at the FaceTime app showing his sister pacing her kitchen. “Because you said you didn’t want to go out and leave Brielle alone. So dinner is coming to you tonight.”
“That’s exactly what I gleaned from the nice man who called and told me you’d arranged it.” She shoved her fingers through her hair; a much longer version of Chance’s dark curls. “The question is, why?”
“When I took you there before you got pregnant, you said it was the best meal you ever had. It felt like the right way to thank you.”
“Don’t get me wrong. You can thank me like this until I’m forced to go up a pant size from all the smoked salmon and caviar pizza.” Chelsea set her iPad on the granite-topped island to wave both hands at it. “Wait. I take it back. Keep doing it until I go up two pant sizes. I just want to know what I did so that I can make sure to do it for you at least once a year. Preferably near my birthday or Christmas. Or right after I’ve perused the Tiffany’s lookbook for the season.”
“You told me to go down to the bar the other night, instead of drinking in my room.” He waved a hand to indicate the living room to his suite.
It was why he’d upped their call to video. Last time Chelsea had said she wanted to experience the resort vicariously. So, Chance planned to show her everything from the shower with eight heads to the fleece-lined silk robe and the butler button out on the deck.
“Wow. That’s barely even good advice. Way too easy to replicate to deserve a thank you this big every time. What life-changing event occurred to you in the bar of a Las Vegas resort?” Chelsea snatched up the iPad and brought it to within an inch of her face. “OMG. Are there slot machines in it? Did you win a sick amount of money?”
“No. Something better.” Chance sucked in a deep breath. “I got a do-over with Anda.”
“The woman who broke your heart? She’s there? Hey, do I need to worry about you turning into a stalker?”
He filled a tumbler with ice and poured in a lime seltzer. “We’re both using the gift certificates we got from doing the show. They expire soon. It’s simply a coincidence.”
The best one ever.
“And what…she let you buy her a drink? She took one look at you and realized she’d made the biggest mistake in her life walking out on you?”
Chance shrugged, unable to contain his triumphant grin. “Hopefully.”
“Whoa.” His sister slammed down the iPad on the top of her couch. Good thing it was a squishy one. “Are you sure you want to give her a second chance? This woman hurt you once already. What makes you think she won’t walk away again?”
Nope. He wouldn’t consider that possibility. Chance wouldn’t let that happen again. They were too good together.
He’d be more open, more honest. He’d laugh at cat videos, if that’s what it took. But he was mostly banking on it working better this time around because there wasn’t the pressure of a camera crew and all of freaking America watching them get to know each other.
“We’re taking it slow. Going on dates. Talking. Talking a lot. It’s been amazing.”
Chelsea hooted, hands on her cheeks like she was channeling that brat from Home Alone. “The talking has been amazing? Did that accident turn you into a eunuch? Is that why Maven Studios gave you so much money in your payout?”
If she kept up like this, he’d cancel the Spago order. “Hell. I don’t want to talk to my sister about…everything works, okay? And if things go according to plan, after tonight’s date, Anda will be able to vouch for it.”
“Whew. You had me worried there for a second.”
Chelsea could tease all she wanted. As long as she understood that what was going down this week with Anda was…huge. Momentous. On another level.
“You don’t get it. I used to be in it for the fun, for the sex. With Anda, though, it’s different. I feel like I want everything with her. Hell, I even want to her to meet you.”
“Huh.” Tapping her finger on her chin and pursing her lips, she said, “I’ve never met your flavor of the week.”
“Very funny.” If he’d called them that, Chelsea would’ve taken off his head. And called him a pig. “There’s nothing wrong with casual sex. Nobody ever got hurt. I never hid my lack of interest in relationships.”
“You really want me to meet her?” His sister looked as skeptical as when he’d announced he was going to jump off the roof of their ranch house on his bike. To be fair, he’d hedged the truth in the announcement. The plan had always been to aim his descent to land in the family pool, injury-free.
It had worked.
So would his do-over with Anda.
It had to.
“If Anda and I get through the week here at the resort? If we come out the other side still crazy about each other? Yeah. I’d want her to meet you as soon as possible. Because you both matter to me so damned much.”
“Interesting…”
Okay. She’d require a little more of a push. Chance could swallow his pride, if that’s what it took. “I know I’m going to lose po
ints by admitting this, but it was Anda’s idea for us to have brunch every week. She made me see that I’d let my priorities get skewed. That family should come before everything else.”
“Reaaaaally?” Chelsea drew out the word until it became its own sentence. “Then I guess I do need to meet her. Thank her. Because you getting more involved with me and Brielle has meant everything.”
“Okay. Great.” In theory, anyway.
He’d been riding on the high of finding Anda again, and being so sure that this do-over would work. Now Chelsea had put it in his head that maybe it wouldn’t. That maybe he wasn’t entirely sure what Anda wanted out of this week with him.
Shit.
“Now show me everything,” Chelsea demanded. “Especially the bath products. I adore fancy tiny soaps.”
That triggered a memory of the bathtub he’d shared with Anda in Colorado. Would he be able to get her all wet again? Tonight? And why did their looming date, winning her back, feel like the riskiest stunt he’d ever attempted?
Why hadn’t he worried about her motivation? She’d ghosted on him very publicly six months ago. Why was she so willing to pick right back up?
Suddenly, Chance wondered if the thank you dinner he’d given his sister would be the only good thing happening tonight…
CHAPTER 9
What made a perfect date? That felt like an article from a women’s magazine. No, a quiz. Anda might very well have taken it during a trip to the salon—the only time anyone over the age of twenty did those ridiculous quizzes.
Except that now she knew. Yes, her solo dates in Colorado with Chance had felt perfect, aside from knowing they were being taped and watched and judged every single second. Tonight, though? With the two of them in perfect sync, laughing and drinking and sharing and kissing and holding hands and flirting?
It had been utter perfection.
Which kind of pissed her off.
Everything was going so well between them. Just like it had before. So why on earth had Chance cut her from the show? Dumped her without a word?
Anda couldn’t figure it out. Couldn’t figure him out.
And she hated how hard it was to remember that this was all for show. That he couldn’t actually care for her, and she didn’t dare enjoy his attention.
At least, not too much. Or, okay, she could enjoy herself, as long as she made sure not to believe any of it was real. Sort of like a ride at Disneyland. Fun. Totally submerged you in an evocative, wonderful moment.
But absolutely not real.
Chance slammed the door of their Uber. “How about we catch the tail end of the sunset? Walk off some of those ten tastings you poured down me?”
Now he wanted to share a romantic sunset with her? Was this man for real? “I’d love a stroll. And we tasted seven drinks.”
“They gave us seven tastes,” he corrected. “I helped you with yours. You gave up on all three vodkas.”
If by “gave up” he meant that she strategically pushed her shot glass in front of him? Sure. Chance was the one who decided to toss them back. After all, they’d been tiny pours. Not full shots. Anda didn’t want to make him sick. She merely wanted to lower his inhibitions.
Maybe it was all the pain killers he must’ve tossed back after his career-ending accident, but the man appeared to have one heck of a tolerance.
Which was a good thing in that it helped assuage her guilty conscience. The plan to get Chance drunk felt squicky from the start. Anda had regretted it…but she also hadn’t come up with anything better.
Thanks goodness her dumb-potentially-hurtful plan hadn’t worked. She swung her oval turquoise pendant ringed with silver back and forth on its chain. “I told you. One bad experience in college turned me off vodka shots. Give me a well-blended cocktail with vodka in it and I’m fine, though.”
Chance pointed at the fork in the path. One side led to the canopied entrance to the resort. The other wended its way through a gate bordered with tall saguaro cacti and down to the massive swimming pool complex. “Your call, beautiful.”
Sticking to the script—and every cell in her body that wanted to soak up more time with him—Anda said in a flirty tone, “I don’t think there’s a woman on this planet who’d turn down a sunset stroll with you, Mr. DiMarco.”
“I don’t care about any of them. Only you.”
He kept saying things like that. Meaningful, tender, wonderful things.
How could he?
Chance used his key to swipe them through the gate. He made a point of holding it for her, and then lacing his fingers with hers as they followed the flagstone path. The whole night had been like that.
Gentlemanly touches in the way he pulled out the stool at the bar for her, and offered her sips of everything from his own glass. The time he shoved back the wooden plank holding the shot glasses to plant his elbows, lean forward and grab her hands across the table. The solicitous way he’d pushed back her hair from her cheek after the cool wind mussed it into her face.
Because Chance was a dream date. Kind. Tender. Funny. Sexy. And best of all, the way he’d stared at her, with unwavering focus, in the distillery full of women cruising for a date. Everyone in there had perfectly flat-ironed hair, sexy-verging-on-slutty outfits and wore desperation as if it had been layered on in a triple combination of body wash/lotion/perfume.
He’d only had eyes for her. Anda.
God, it had been heady and wonderful.
Desert chaparral and bright yellow flowers poked up from the borders. The desert flourished in January. Anda loved the stark contrast between the brown dirt and mountains and the flourishes of color that reminded you beauty always found a way.
The pool, three hot tubs, bar, patio and cabanas were spread out, gated on three sides against coyotes and tumbleweeds. Despite the stunning streaks of pink and purple painting the sky, Chance and Anda were alone out here.
They walked to the furthest fence, hanging onto the wrought iron bars in silence as bluish-purple darkness spread across the valley. It was stunning.
And stunningly romantic.
Darn it, his motives—real or ulterior—didn’t, couldn’t, matter at this moment. What was that Thoreau quote about sucking the marrow out of life? Anda would use Chance as her sounding board, here and now. Enjoy the hell out of his support, here and now. Relish the way he listened to her and made her laugh.
Sucking the marrow out of life meant doing all of that, here and now, while not giving a single moment’s thought or concern to walking away from him in two days.
“This makes me reconsider my job opportunities,” she admitted with a low laugh.
“The sunset? That’s a new one.” Chance lifted her hand to drop a soft kiss on the back of it. “I’m doing something wrong if staring at the sunset with me makes you think about your career.”
He wasn’t doing anything wrong. The ease they shared was what made it possible for Anda to open up to him about her concerns. “Not just the sunset. The soft air, the quiet, the openness.” Anda turned sideways to look at Chance. “I haven’t gone into the details, but one of my interviews was for a huge department store chain based on the East Coast.”
One thick, dark eyebrow shot up. “Sounds like the big time.”
“It would be. Big time, big money, big chance for advancement.”
“But?”
It hadn’t felt safe to admit this to anyone else. Yet somehow Anda knew that it was safe to open up to Chance. “But it would mean leaving the West, my home behind.”
“I’ll bet you’d find things to love about the East Coast. Snow comes to mind…”
“Yes. Snow would be awesome.”
“But?” he prompted again. Chance wrapped his arm around her waist, as if he could tell that she needed physical support to spill her feelings.
God, he made it so easy!
Anda leaned her head against his shoulder. “But I like driving to the ocean on a whim. I like surprise weather like this in winter when you get sunshine and warm
th for just enough days to tide you over through the next batch of fog and clammy cold. I like the sharp jut of the mountains always guiding me when I get on the freeway. The wide sprawl and open spaces. All the interesting neighborhoods and the melting pot of it all. Being close to everyone I’ve ever known. I love where I live.”
Whoops. Guess her need to vent had meant blurting out every single word pent up in her brain.
At once.
How embarrassing.
But Chance didn’t seem annoyed at her babbling. He dropped a reassuring kiss on the top of her head. “There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s probably recommended.”
“It feels… shallow to want to stay put.” Like picking a football team for the color of their jersey. Or watching a really crappy TV show to ogle the hot actor who somehow manages to get shirtless every episode.
Not that Anda did that. Not anymore, at least.
“You think it’s shallow to love your state? To love everything you know that makes up your world? Sweetness, that’s not shallow.”
Although it was gratifying to have Chance reassure her that she wasn’t being an idiot about her career, Anda wasn’t convinced.
“Are you sure? Maybe it’s that I’m not driven enough?”
Deep laughter rumbled through his chest. “You told me that you worked at your parents’ boutique in high school and all through college. Not to mention your seventy--hour workweeks after that. You’re not lacking drive, Anda.”
“But shouldn’t I be more committed to my profession? I’m holding my career hostage with where I want to live.” She wrapped her right arm around his waist, hooking her fingers into the waist of his pants. Leaning against his strength was such a luxury. “I’ve been scared to admit this to anyone.”
“Being grateful for what you have? Truly appreciating it? People travel all over the world, take classes and read stacks of books to try and capture a piece of what you’ve got. Life is about more than your career.”
Blackout: A Romance Anthology Page 20
