Callie rolled her eyes. “You’re not that big of a catch.”
Gage shrugged. “Depends on the day.” He lounged against the counter. “So are we done for the day, boss? Want to grab a slice of pizza or maybe a sandwich?”
She looked around the room and the few remaining boxes that were labeled for specific rooms. “Yeah, we’re done for the day. Although, I’m not sure I’m worthy of dinner, Mr. Bachelor of the Month.” Callie picked up her bag and dug her keys from its depths.
“I could buy you a burger downtown, celebrate your first day in the new location.” Gage followed her into the hot Las Vegas afternoon. He should just go. Check in at the ranch, maybe, to avoid the inevitable messages waiting at his condo or office. But he didn’t want to go anywhere without Callie. Not just yet.
He wanted to have another dinner and this time not talk about his business plans or hers. He wanted to know what her school was like back East. Why she’d graduated, gotten married, and then divorced in the span of a few years. He wanted to tell her about going to Miami because it promised sandy beaches but realizing the sand of the Atlantic was so different from the sands of the Mojave.
That was a bad idea, though. That would crush the friendship they were building like a ten-car pileup on Las Vegas Boulevard, leaving a messy, complicated string of wrecked vehicles to untangle.
Callie unlocked her car and tossed her bag onto the passenger seat. She turned in the space between the open door and the driver’s seat, shaking her head. “I don’t think so. Busy day tomorrow. Mandy and I are finishing the setup and decor. I should get a new ad campaign figured out. And you must have work to do, after spending the whole day unpacking my boxes.” She waited a beat. “Thank you, by the way. I didn’t mean to be short with you earlier. I do appreciate your help.”
Gage spun his key ring around his finger. “No problem.” He tipped an imaginary hat on his head and slipped his Wayfarers over his eyes. “I’ll see you, Cal.”
She got into her car, and he watched as she drove through the parking lot and into Boulevard traffic. It was better this way. Better not to have another dinner.
Chapter Seven
“I can’t believe you dragged me to the Strip. I thought you said playing tourist downtown was so much better?”
After an afternoon spent unpacking boxes, all Callie wanted was a hot bath and a glass of wine. But ten minutes into the bath-and-wine routine she’d been fantasizing about Gage joining her in said bath, so she called Mandy for distraction. Callie looked around the glittering, swirling, crowded club nestled in the middle of one of the biggest casinos on Las Vegas Boulevard. Plenty of distraction here, she thought.
Crowded dance floor, customers standing four-deep at the bar, waitresses in little more than G-strings and bustiers. Not her kind of place at all.
Although, a little part of her was thrilled to have gotten in without waiting in the long line at the front door. Mandy had crooked her index finger at the tattooed bouncer, and the man immediately let them in. She’d never gotten VIP treatment like that before, not even with Eddie.
Of course Eddie’s version of a crazy night on the town had been a beer joint where they actually mopped the floor every night. And why was she thinking about her ex, anyway? She gave the jerk nearly five years of her life; that was more than enough.
“We’re celebrating, and celebrating in Vegas means Strip, not Fremont!” Mandy yelled in Callie’s ear as the DJ pushed the volume meter higher on his equipment. A waitress passed, dropping off two drinks that looked incredibly pink and innocuous but that would probably knock Callie on her ass if she had more than one.
“Celebrating? We’ve barely unpacked.”
“Next week we’ll be gearing up for a grand opening and too busy to celebrate the fact that you signed the new lease, so we celebrate tonight.” Mandy picked up her drink. “To the only person I’d ever follow to the Vast Hole Center.” She clinked her glass against Callie’s and drank.
“To the only partner I’d want to be stranded with at the Vast Hole Center,” Callie said and nearly sighed when the burst of strawberry passed her lips. Strawberries and … wow. She blinked as the room took a hard spin to the right. “What’s in this?”
“You don’t want to know, and you don’t want to drink more than one.” But Mandy downed the rest of hers and signaled the waitress for another.
Callie settled back against the cushy, overstuffed chair to watch the surging crowd. She didn’t spot any celebrities, but that didn’t mean a few weren’t hiding on the upper floor, which was mostly hidden behind red velvet drapes and guarded by a twin of the bouncer at the door.
“What do we do now?” Did they go to the dance floor? Sit here and watch tourists all night? Callie felt ridiculous. She had to be the only twenty-eight-year-old in Vegas who didn’t know what to do at one of the hottest clubs in town.
“Hit on guys, dance until our feet are ready to fall off … what do you say?”
Callie would rather poke her eye out with the stem of her cocktail glass than try to pick up a random tourist in a bar on the Vegas Strip. She knew her dancing skills were nowhere near the level of the caged table dancers working in the club, but it didn’t look like the people on the dance floor were doing much more than jumping around and waving their arms. She supposed she could do that.
“Dance,” she decided.
This move was about changing her life. Making plans and meeting her goals. Most of them were work related, but look where that had gotten her: the only twenty-eight-year-old in Vegas who had no clue what to do in a club filled with other twenty-somethings. She could work at having a life at the same time she worked to get her business off the ground.
Two songs and at least five different dancing partners—including one incredibly waxed man who tried to climb up her leg—later, Callie was sweaty and breathing hard and didn’t care if she looked more like a So You Think You Can Dance reject than contestant. The endorphins swimming around in her bloodstream insisted Mandy was right—celebrating the signing of the lease was the best decision she’d made since … going to Gage’s office as a last-ditch effort to save Holliday Spas.
She tapped Mandy’s shoulder and pointed back to their table. Mandy waved her off but stayed behind with a guy who looked like he might be in an ad for lumberjacks.
Callie froze at the edge of the dance floor. Two sections over from the table she’d vacated a half hour before was Gage, cuddled up to a blonde wearing a sparkly silver dress that had to be straight off a catwalk. He, of course, wore another suit; this one looked black but might have been blue. His crisp white shirt was open at the collar, and one arm rested along the booth back. He looked casual. Comfortable. As if clubbing in Vegas was a common event. For all she knew, it was. He wasn’t like her, Callie reminded herself. While she’d been killing herself taking notes and studying for finals, he’d been scoring touchdowns and dating cheerleaders, showing up late for class and still pulling in high scores. No matter how much he insisted he’d changed from their teenage years, the Gage sitting across the crowded club was the same Gage who’d sat across the table from her in a quiet library, using her notes to study for a trig final.
The same Gage she’d taken home for dinner after his father’s funeral instead of …
She stopped herself. Instead of what, seducing him by the side of a dusty lake at his property line? The blonde model twisted in her seat, talking to someone walking by, and the dress twinkled in the low light. Callie looked at her own dress—red halter, swishy around her knees—and knew she looked good. But not catwalk good.
Definitely not dating-Gage-Reeves good. Which was ridiculous, because she wasn’t dating Gage Reeves—didn’t want to date him. She was going into business with him and didn’t need the kind of distraction being attracted to him would bring. Her hand clenched around the edge of the gold clutch she carried. She definitely, definitely didn’t need that kind of distraction.
Someone bumped her from behind, shaking Calli
e out of whatever trance she’d been in. Mouth suddenly dry, she signaled the waitress for another drink, hurried to the table, scootched into the far corner where no one was likely to see her, and ordered herself not to look for Gage down the row of tables.
But the couple next to her table left for the dance floor, giving her a clear view. The blonde picked that moment to lean back, offering a peal of laughter to the ceiling and pushing her breasts practically into Gage’s mouth. Callie imagined she could hear the cackling sound—the other woman had to have a fault, and at that moment, witch-like laughter seemed a perfect option—over the din inside the club. Gage’s expression flinched, but he didn’t move away from his date. What was it he’d said that first day? That he was more than the football star dating the homecoming queen? He might have the job and the car and the amazingly tailored suits, but from Callie’s perspective, Gage wasn’t so far removed from football star. Although the woman looked more like a plastic surgery addict than a homecoming queen.
Not that it mattered, Callie reminded herself. Gage investing in her business didn’t equate to Gage not dating women who looked as if they might have sprung from the pages of a fashion magazine.
“Almost didn’t see you,” Mandy said, sliding into the booth beside Callie.
“I was … ” Not hiding from Gage Reeves. She turned to face Mandy, putting her back to Gage. The better not to salivate over him in another suit. “Taking a break from Metrosexual Mike over there.” She pointed to the guy who’d tried to climb her leg earlier.
“Local, trying too hard to pick up Touristy Tammies. Probably recently dumped and hoping to build up his confidence by putting a few more notches on his bedpost.” Mandy offered her an eye roll and then seemed to focus on something behind Callie.
Or someone. Callie’s stomach sank.
“Ladies, nice to see you both.” Gage’s voice was loud behind Callie and sent a shiver down her spine. She pasted a smile on her face and turned to face him.
“We decided it was time to celebrate,” she said, willing Mandy to be subtle, “before the grand-opening planning begins.”
“Today, we left the Vast Hole. Tomorrow, we start fresh at the Oasis,” Mandy chimed in, seeming to read Callie’s mind. Callie wanted to close her eyes or pump her fists in victory. In all the time she’d known Mandy, it was the first time the girl hadn’t blurted out the first thing that came to her mind—and that first thing could have been anything from Callie’s unfamiliarity with alcohol-based fruit drinks to her amazingly bad dancing skills. Callie tried to tell Mandy thank you with her eyes, but Mandy read the signal wrong. “I’ll just … go find our waitress,” she said and started toward the bar. Callie flexed her hands to keep from grabbing at Mandy’s retreating back.
She didn’t want to be alone with Gage here. Not now. Not when the woman he was here with looked like a Victoria’s Secret model.
“A big few weeks coming up,” Gage agreed. “I never pictured you celebrating here.”
“Really? Where did you picture it?”
Gage wrinkled his brow. “I’m not sure I did. You’ve been so serious since that first meeting, I didn’t really think about it.”
Silver Dress made her way through the crowded club to Gage’s side.
“Well, now you can,” Callie said, annoyed. No, she didn’t make a habit of hitting up the clubs on the Strip, but that didn’t mean she was somehow clinically incapable of acting her age. Or getting excited.
Silver Dress latched on to Gage’s arm and pouted prettily. “I can’t believe no one is here tonight. Can we go someplace else?”
Callie looked around the space incredulously. No one here? It looked like half the tourist population was here tonight. The other woman kept her hands wrapped around Gage’s biceps and didn’t acknowledge Callie. The slight rankled. Callie stuck her hand out. “I’m Callie Holliday.”
Silver Dress looked at her hand as if it had seven fingers.
“We work together,” Gage said.
“Oh.” The woman reluctantly held out her hand, and Callie pumped it up and down with all the enthusiasm she could muster.
“What do you do?”
Silver Dress blinked. “Do?”
“You know, when you aren’t”—she motioned with her hands—“doing what people do at clubs.”
“I do whatever I want,” she said, as if that made any sense at all, and turned her blue eyes back to Gage. “We should try the MGM or SLS. This club is so over.”
“Sure.” For the first time since he’d walked up to the table, Gage looked uncomfortable. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asked Callie as Silver Dress pulled on his arm like an annoyed five-year-old.
Callie waved her hand. “Sure, go, have fun.”
The crowd swallowed Gage and his date in a heartbeat, leaving Callie alone at the table. She stared around the room for a long moment, wondering what to do. The magic of the evening was gone. The lights were too bright, the music too loud. Her overly waxed dance partner made his way across the room, but Callie couldn’t face another dance with him. Not now.
She shouldn’t want Gage, she just shouldn’t. He was her business partner. He hadn’t changed a bit. In the past year, she’d been married and divorced and was now starting a new business in a city overrun with tourists and service-industry establishments.
Her dance partner started to say something, but Callie cut him off. “Would you tell my friend I had to leave? And that I’ll talk to her tomorrow?” she asked and hurried away before the man could answer. In the more brightly lit hall that led to the casino floor Callie ducked into a kiosk and texted Mandy that she had to leave, then warned her about Metrosexual Mike and the errand she’d sent him on. Callie put her phone back in her bag and walked quickly to the front of the hotel. She flagged down a cab and gave him her address.
What she needed now was concentration. Focus. On her business, not on Gage Reeves. She blew out a breath and sat back against the seat. Starting right now, she would not think about Gage as anything more than a business partner. No more talk about the coyote, no trips down memory lane past roadside ice cream stands, and definitely, definitely, no daydreaming about what the man might be hiding under those two-thousand-dollar suits.
• • •
Gage surreptitiously checked his watch. Natalia—or was her name Natasha—prattled on about some Hollywood star across from them in the darkened club at the MGM. Damn Connor for adding a date auction to the Bachelor of the Month feature.
Damn Gage himself for getting sucked into another of Connor’s plans. Not that Connor had forced him to go out with this woman, but after their showdown in the office and three days of ignoring voice mail, email, and every other mail that came to his attention, he’d decided to take the bull by the proverbial horns. He wasn’t interested in Natalia/Natasha, but he was interested in getting his life back. If that meant playing along with Connor’s Bachelor of the Month articles, he’d do it. At least long enough for Con to find some other headline to intrigue Vegas residents.
He checked his watch again. Five more minutes and the hands on his watch would pass ten o’clock. A bit early to end a date, but it was take the girl home or lose his mind.
He liked his mind.
Funny, though, how the time before he’d seen Callie hadn’t seemed to drag quite as much as it did once he’d seen her breasts in that red dress. Now all he could think about was what the rest of her might look like. He imagined her wearing the dress instead of a suit in one of the empty rooms at the spa.
“What is your favorite thing about being Bachelor of the Month?” Natalia/Natasha asked.
“Nothing, it’s a pain in my ass.”
Her eyes rounded to the size of quarters. “Why?”
“It’s, ah … ” He didn’t want to hurt her feelings, assuming she had feelings. “It’s just not my thing. I’m kind of over the whole Vegas clubbing angle.”
“Why?”
An image of Callie in the red dress popped into his mind. Why
was he over clubbing, indeed? Somehow he didn’t think he would mind the neon and pulsing music and crowded rooms as much if she were with him. That was definitely not the answer to give the girl he was currently on a date with, however.
Gage shrugged. “I’ve been coming to these clubs since I had to use fake IDs,” he said instead.
“Well, then why don’t we go somewhere less … familiar?” the blonde asked, crossing her legs over his.
“Early morning tomorrow, maybe another time,” he said and removed her legs from his. Gage checked his watch. Five minutes past ten. Hallelujah, he could call it a night. “Speaking of, I should take you home.”
“But we just got here.” Natalia/Natasha crossed her arms under her breasts, pushing them higher.
Gage tossed a couple of twenties on the table to cover the drinks they’d ordered that still hadn’t been delivered. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”
“You should’ve been named Bore of the Month, not Bachelor,” she said, her voice taking on a whining tone and making his eye twitch again.
“So you don’t want me to take you home?” Gage asked.
“Come on, baby, let’s go dance,” she said, running her hands up Gage’s thighs. Gage pushed away from her and tossed another twenty on the table.
“Take a cab,” he said and turned on his heel.
Twenty minutes later, Gage sat on the balcony of his penthouse condo in the heart of the Strip. He’d traded the suit for running shorts and an old T-shirt and held a beer in one hand, with his cell phone in the other. His fingers itched to text Callie, but he couldn’t. Shouldn’t. She’d been having fun, and from what Gage could tell, fun was something Callie had had too little of lately.
Moving her store, planning a new grand opening, it would take up all her time. He should leave her alone. Let her relax and celebrate with her friends for the night.
What the Bachelor Gets Page 10
