by Susan Meier
Right now, living meant getting a salad, maybe having a gin and tonic and going to a show.
She grabbed her small beaded evening bag and left her room. Though she’d never been to Vegas before, she’d happily discovered that once she checked in to a hotel, she didn’t need to leave for anything. She could sleep there, gamble there, eat there, buy a bathing suit in a shop and sunbathe at the hotel pool. She would be right under Handsome Spanish Guy’s nose and he would never find her because he’d have to check hundreds of hotels. And then he’d have to find someone willing to tell him she was a guest.
The odds were absolutely in her favor.
Happy, she took the regular elevator to the first floor then a designated elevator to the rooftop restaurant, where she had a reservation.
The maître d’ greeted her effusively and led her to the private table in the corner. With its walls of windows, the restaurant provided a view of Las Vegas that astounded her. She sat, smiled at the maître d’ and took her menu. A minute later she gave her drink order to a friendly waiter and he left her alone to decide what she wanted to eat. She should have at least glanced at her food choices, but the view from forty stories up was too captivating. Lights and color twinkled silently below. Beyond the city, the desert was so dark she swore the world ended at the city limits.
The blackness in the window was interrupted by a strip of white. Something shiny winked. She saw the reflection of a hand.
She spun around and there was Handsome Spanish Guy. The man who wanted to take her home.
“Who are you anyway?”
“Riccardo Ochoa.” He pointed at the seat across from her. “May I join you?”
She tossed her hands in despair. “No! What part of ‘I’m trying to get some peace and quiet’ do you not understand?”
“Well, most of it—since I come to Vegas to meet people and have fun.”
“I came here to rest my brain. I know I have to go home and face all of this but I just want a breather.”
He sighed, pulled out the chair opposite her and sat. “You are not going to make this easy for me, are you?”
“Why do you care?” She sighed. “Look. Whatever my dad is paying you, I’ll double it.”
“He’s not paying me. He’s a client of my cousin’s firm.” He made a quick signal to summon the waiter and ordered a Scotch.
When the waiter left, she said, “And my dad threatened to walk if you didn’t bring me home.”
“Something like that.”
“Well, I hate to disappoint you but if you’re counting on taking me home to keep him as a client you’re going to lose him.”
“Well, I hate to disappoint you, but I’ve never failed on a mission. Never. When I promised to return you to Lake Justice, you were as good as home.”
She shook her head. “So arrogant.”
He laughed but the humor didn’t reach his eyes. “Sweetheart, I’m Spanish. We invented arrogant.”
“It must have really hurt your pride that I lost you.” She frowned. “How did you find me so quickly?”
His Scotch came with the drink she had ordered. He took a long swallow. “Your credit card.”
“My credit card?”
“Your dad got you that card when you were at university, right?”
“Yes, but I took it over. I pay the bill.”
“He still has the number and his name is on the account. Yesterday, he realized he could log in online. Now, every time you use it, he sees where you are.”
She slapped her evening bag on the white linen tablecloth. “Damn it.” She’d been so stressed out, she’d completely forgotten that.
“You’re not getting away from me.” He smiled. “Unless you have another card.”
“I don’t.” She sighed. “Well, I do, but my dad’s staff got me that one, too.” She drank her gin and tonic in one long gulp, thinking through her options, which, right at this moment, stunk.
“Sort of a little too attached to Daddy, maybe?”
She rose. “That’s actually the point.”
No matter what hotel she checked in to, her dad would know her location from the charge record. No matter where she flew, same deal. She could rent a car, but that would be on a card, too, and even if she drove a hundred miles away, every time she stopped for gas her dad would know where she was.
She started toward the restaurant door.
Riccardo jumped up. “Really? We’re going to play this game?”
He pulled a few bills from his pocket and tossed them on the table. When he caught up to her at the elevator, he said, “There’s nowhere for you to go. You’re trapped.”
Oh, she knew that better than anybody else.
She cast him a sideways glance. As long as her dad knew where she was, there would be someone coming after her. If this guy failed, her father would just send somebody else.
She’d already fooled Riccardo Ochoa once. She liked her odds with fooling him again. And she had a plan. She and her mom had spent many a week in Chicago shopping. She could think things through there just as well as in Vegas. She’d never get Riccardo to fly her to Chicago. But after a bit of time together, she might be able to convince him to drive her there. And she had just the way to do it.
“Do you have a rental?”
“Yes. But I’ll be getting rid of it at the airport.”
She turned, facing him. His gaze rippled from her bare shoulders, past the shimmery sequins of the bodice of her dress to the hem where her skirt stopped midthigh.
The quick look was as intimate as a caress. A light flickered in his dark eyes. She would bet if this guy was interested in her romantically, there wouldn’t be a dull moment. Their summer vacation wouldn’t be a trip to Europe to meet with clients. He’d take her somewhere hot and steamy—
She stepped back, away from him. The last thing she wanted was a man attracted to her when she hadn’t properly dealt with Charles. But she also needed this guy. She had to keep their relationship platonic.
“I don’t want to fly. I don’t want to be in Lake Justice any sooner than I have to be. Drive me—” She felt a prick of conscience, but desperation overwhelmed it. She was twenty-five. Twenty-five. And her dad was theoretically kidnapping her. This was her only move. “Instead of forcing me to fly, and I’ll have a few days to think things through, while my dad calms down.” She caught the gaze of his very suspicious black eyes and smiled prettily, innocently. “I just want a couple of days of peace and quiet. A car ride will give me that as well as give you something to tell my dad about why it’s taking you so long to get me back.”
Those dark eyes studied her. “You won’t run?”
“No.”
“You won’t sneak out of a hotel room in the middle of the night?”
“You’ll have the only keys to the car.”
He still deliberated.
She stood quietly, but confidently. She didn’t intend to sneak out, steal the car, or ditch him. True, she wanted him to take her to Chicago to extend their trip for an additional few days, but she’d cross that bridge when they came to it.
“Okay.”
“Good. Just let me get my bags.”
He laughed heartily. “Right. This time I’m coming with you.”
CHAPTER THREE
THEY STEPPED OVER the threshold of her hotel room and Morgan immediately ducked into the bathroom. Riccardo ambled into the small room, but not far. He wasn’t letting her get much more than an arm’s distance away from him until they were at her daddy’s vineyard.
His conscience grumbled a protest. When he’d accepted this assignment, he’d done it out of desperation, to protect everything he and Mitch had built. He hadn’t thought much about the situation beyond the fact that Morgan had dumped her fiancé and she needed to come home and explain herself. Then she’d told him a bit about her f
iancé and he’d felt sorry for her.
Then she’d duped him and now he was super suspicious of her.
But he couldn’t stop thinking about her ex’s ten-point plan and the sadness he’d heard in her voice. If he were to guess, he’d say she genuinely believed her fiancé hadn’t loved her.
She stepped out of the bathroom wearing jeans, a tank top and the gray canvas tennis shoes. The curls had been combed out of her long blond hair and she’d pulled it into a ponytail. Her glasses were gone and he suspected she’d put in contacts. She looked innocently beautiful. So beautiful that he could probably disabuse her of the notion that her fiancé hadn’t loved her. There wasn’t a man on the planet who wouldn’t fall for that face.
“You may not like my clothing choices but they are going to come in handy driving across the country.”
He couldn’t argue that. Or the fact that she was beginning to look really cute in jeans. Not quite hot. More like sweet and cuddly.
Thank goodness. Sweet he could resist. Hot? The way she’d looked in that form-fitting black dress? That was his wheelhouse. Instinct had almost taken over and he’d wanted to touch her, to smooth his hands along the lovely curve of her waist. But he hadn’t because he was smart. And now she was dressed like a good girl, not the kind of woman a man played with. She was perfectly safe.
So was he.
In the hall outside her room, he took the handle of the cheap black suitcase that she’d probably bought at the worst shop she could find in the airport on her way here.
“I’ll get this.”
She smiled sweetly. “Thanks.”
He wanted to trust that she really was this compliant, that the promise of several days on the road to calm her nerves had satisfied her. But his pride still stung from the way she’d ditched him at Midnight Sins.
They rode down the elevator and she used her credit card to check out. Then she motioned for him to follow her to an ATM. She withdrew cash three times, getting as much money as she could before the bank shut her off.
“Planning your escape?”
“No. Paying for my own food and hotel.”
“You could use the credit card for that. Your dad’s going to know where you are. Might as well just roll with it.”
She said nothing, simply walked out the front door, her head high, as if it took great effort to preserve her pride, and his damn conscience nudged him again.
He scrambled after her. “It’s not like I’m kidnapping you.”
“If you were, I could at least call the police. As it is, with my dad behind your taking me away, you’re more like a jailer.”
“I’m not a jailer.”
“Sure you are. You’re keeping me from going where I want to go.”
They strode the short distance back to Midnight Sins and he tossed his car keys to the valet, who rolled his eyes as he raced away to get Riccardo’s rental.
“I don’t know what he has to complain about. He gets a tip every time he takes or brings back my car.”
She laughed.
His spirits rose a little. If she could laugh, then he shouldn’t feel too bad. Because she was right. With the way all this was going down, he was her jailer. Or her guard. Which meant she probably felt like a prisoner.
The valet returned and handed the keys to Riccardo, who gave him a tip way beyond what he deserved.
He stowed Morgan’s suitcase in the trunk before getting behind the wheel. “I just realized that I don’t have anything to wear for five days on the road,” he said. “I’d planned on flying to Vegas and back to Lake Justice in the same day.”
“I’m sure we’ll pass a discount store along the way.”
“Discount store?” He glanced over at her as he started the car. He didn’t like being judgmental, but he was just about positive she’d never seen the inside of a big-box store.
But, of course, she wasn’t going to shop there, she was sending him there.
Because she had a low opinion of him?
Probably.
He shouldn’t care. No matter what she thought, she wasn’t a prisoner. And he was more like the accountability police than a jailer. He was taking her back to deal with the fallout from her canceled wedding so that cleaning up the mess didn’t default to her dad or her undoubtedly shell-shocked fiancé. He was doing a good thing, and on some level, she had to agree or she wouldn’t be on the seat beside his.
He pulled the gearshift into Drive and eased off the hotel property into the traffic of the Vegas strip. In the time that had passed since his arrival, they’d transitioned from afternoon to evening. Hotel fountains now spewed water through glorious colored lights. Neon signs began to glow.
Realizing he had no clue where he was going, he took his phone out of his pocket, set it on the dashboard and said, “Directions to Lake Justice, New York.”
After a few seconds, his GPS told him to turn around. He glanced at the green road sign up ahead and sighed. “We’re going the wrong way.”
Morgan didn’t reply.
The GPS took him to the first street where he could make a right. He turned around and headed out to the strip again, except in the opposite direction.
“Okay. Now, we’re on our way.”
She said nothing.
Fine. They could spend the next four or five days in total silence and he’d be happy. She’d probably be happy, too. She’d said she wanted time to think things through. Well, he would give it to her. Jailers or guards or even accountability police didn’t try to make friends with prisoners. They just got them to their destinations.
He refused to feel guilty.
Refused.
Except she’d said her fiancé didn’t listen to her. The idiot had thought she was angry, when she was hurt. Hurt enough to run out on a wedding with eight hundred guests.
Curiosity begged him to ask her about it. Especially since this was nothing like his own past. His fiancée had gone back to the love of her life. Morgan had run to nothing. No one.
The fact that she was quiet made him feel like scum. Even more than when she called him her jailer.
It didn’t take long until they were on the highway, headed northeast to pick up the roads that would take them east. When they left the lights of Las Vegas, the world became eerily dark. Time passed. Riccardo wasn’t sure how much because he’d been so concerned with getting Morgan into the car that he hadn’t checked his watch to see when they’d started out.
He shifted on his seat, uncomfortably aware that he’d awoken at six o’clock that morning in the eastern time zone. And it was now after ten at night, mountain time. Midnight in New York. No wonder his eyelids were scratchy. And he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d eaten.
“Want to stop to find someplace to stay for the night and get dinner?”
“Sure.”
Her reply wasn’t exactly perky or happy, but she didn’t sound sad anymore, either. Ten minutes later, the road signs for a town began to appear, including one that named the available hotels and restaurants. He took the exit and drove to the first hotel.
With Morgan standing beside him, he booked a room for each of them using his own credit card. When he handed her key to her, she gave him the cash to cover her room. Then she took the handle of her suitcase and headed for the elevator.
“Don’t you want dinner?”
She stopped and faced him. “I’ll eat breakfast.”
She turned toward the elevator again, got in and disappeared behind the closing door.
He almost cursed. But not quite. She might not be angry with him but upset with the situation. And the situation was her doing, her problem. Not his. It was not his fault she had no support system. He’d rescued one damsel in distress—Cicely, who had been heartbroken over losing the love of her life—and that had ended in him being humiliated. He had learned this lesson
and refused to fall into the same trap. He was a driver—he’d settled on that instead of jailer—not a knight in shining armor.
Besides, he needed something to eat. He didn’t even have a suitcase to drop off in his room. He could go now.
He walked to the sliding glass door of the popular chain hotel. It opened automatically and he turned to the right. A twenty-four-hour, diner-type restaurant was within walking distance. He strolled over, found a booth and ordered a burger and fries.
When his food arrived, his stomach danced. But when he picked up the hamburger and opened his mouth to take the first delicious bite, he remembered that Morgan had been in a restaurant, menu in front of her, when he’d barged in on her and reminded her that he’d always be able to find her because of her credit card. She’d been in that restaurant because she was hungry. No matter what she’d just said.
He sighed, put the burger back on his plate and hailed the waitress again.
“Is something wrong?”
He smiled. “Actually, it looks and smells delicious but I left my friend back at the hotel. Could I get a burger and fries to go for her?” The waitress nodded but before she turned away, he lifted his plate. “And could you put this in a to-go container, too?”
She took his plate. “I’ll be glad to.”
Twenty minutes later, he arrived back at the hotel with a bag containing two orders of fries and two burgers. Remembering her room number, he pushed the elevator button for her floor and inhaled deeply as the little car climbed. When the bell chimed, he stepped out and walked down the hall.
He hesitated at her door but only for a second. His nanna would shoot him for letting anyone go hungry, especially a woman in his custody.
He knocked twice and waited. After a few seconds, her door opened as far as the chain lock would allow.
“Checking up on me, Mr. Jailer?”
