Funny, sexy, sweet, mysterious Connor Reeves. A man who had a billion dollars in his personal bank account, but who wanted his business to succeed on its own merits.
A man who trusted the daughter of his enemy despite the fact that she’d lied to him.
A man who bought a failing magazine partly because he liked the work, but also because he liked the people who worked there.
She laughed with him when he told her how, because they weren’t sure how it would taste, he and Jase convinced Gage when he was ten to drink their father’s favorite whiskey; he’d thrown up most of the night, but got revenge by spiking their eggs a few days later with syrup of ipecac.
While Connor paid the bill, Miranda went to the ladies room to wash her hands. On the way back to the table, she paused to watch him from across the room.
They had the rules in place to protect both of them. Every time she touched him it was as if a jolt of electricity poured through her body.
This was a first date, but it wasn’t as if she’d just met him on a blind date. She knew Connor Reeves. She liked Connor Reeves.
Did she have the courage to sleep with him, too?
Chapter Eight
“Why don’t you gamble?”
“Kind of a loaded question for a first date, isn’t it?” Connor and Miranda were walking along the crowded sidewalk in front of the Bellagio. The next water show would start in a few minutes, and tourists were beginning to crowd along the railings. “You want to watch?”
Miranda shook her head. “The best vantage points are already taken. We should walk.”
He wasn’t sure how comfortable she would be walking in those skyscraper heels, but figured she knew what her feet could take.
“So, you don’t gamble?”
“I don’t not gamble. I just don’t make a habit of it,” he said after a moment, hoping she would drop the subject. Gage gambled a little. Table games mostly, and for some unknown reason he liked the slots at the airport. Didn’t matter how often Jase reminded him slots had the worst payouts, if there was an empty machine, Gage would throw a few dollars at it.
“But you were raised in Vegas.”
“Exactly. Tourists gamble. Residents know the house always wins.”
It was nice walking with her. The crowd had thinned thanks to the waterworks at the Bellagio. Neon from the casinos and clubs lining Las Vegas Boulevard lit up the night, and he could hear happy screams from the roller coaster at New York New York.
“You’ve never been tempted by a hand of blackjack or a roll of the dice at the craps table?”
Not a single time. Not after watching how strung out his mother would get after a few days away from the tables.
“My mother was a gambling addict,” he said and immediately wished the words back. A first date was so not the time to bring up that part of his past.
“I didn’t know that. I’m sorry.”
It was too late to turn back now, and it wasn’t like Helena’s addiction was a secret. He was surprised no one at the office had mentioned it to Miranda. “She loved poker, always thought she could draw to a royal flush, and usually got knocked out with only a low pair in her hands. Her name was Helena. When the three of us were little, she heard the stock boys in the back of the grocery store playing poker. She left us in the cart while she lost all the cash in her purse to bluff on a pair of eights.”
“How old were you?”
“Seven. Jase was nine. Gage had just turned five.”
“No wonder you don’t gamble.” Her soft voice held an ocean’s worth of sympathy. Connor didn’t need her sympathy. His past was his past. It didn’t affect him now.
“It isn’t because of her.” At least, not completely. Connor just didn’t see the point in gambling on a roll of the dice or a deal of the cards. “I’ve never had the luck.” Then there was the addiction factor. Gage gambled from time to time, but had no problem passing by a casino. Jase’s life was gambling, but it didn’t control him, either. There was a piece of Connor that worried he would be the one predisposed to have Helena’s gambling gene. What if he started out throwing dice as a lark but couldn’t stop?
He didn’t ever want to be that person crazily pacing the living room, desperate to place a bet.
“Have you found your game yet? Almost everyone in Vegas has one. Callie likes baccarat. Jase has poker. Gage is an idiot for slots. What’s your pleasure?”
“I like roulette.”
“Those are some of the worst odds in the casino.”
Miranda shrugged, and the motion put her shoulder in contact with his, shooting warm sparks through his muscle. “I split the greens, and I win more than I lose.”
“No one splits the greens. The odds are better on reds and blacks.”
“I like the greens. Zero and double zero. It’s kind of like betting on bubbles.”
She bet on bubbles. He was on a date with a woman who bet on bubbles. Connor blinked. “There is something really wrong with you.”
Giggling, Miranda said, “What do you care? You don’t gamble at all.”
“Touché. But if I did bet, I’d bet on something with a chance.”
“Check all the angles, come up with a plan, and execute said plan?” she asked.
“Something like that.”
“Where’s the fun in that kind of risk?”
Fun wasn’t the point. Winning was the point. Holding things together was the point. Fun wasn’t even in the picture. But he didn’t tell Miranda that. Let her have her bubble-betting illusions.
They reached the first escalator and began the ride to the walkway that crossed Las Vegas Boulevard.
“Up or around?” Connor asked.
“Up, of course. The view is better up there.”
“Says the woman who bets on zeros.”
“Trust me,” she said, and stepped onto the moving stairs. Connor followed, putting his hand at the small of her back. Miranda reached back, took his hand in hers, and didn’t let go. They exited the escalator a moment later and started across the skywalk. In the middle she paused. “And now we watch.”
“Here?” he asked.
She nodded happily. “Now.”
Connor watched the fast moving traffic below them, listened to the conversations of people passing them. A couple of frat boys were plotting their strategy for the slot machines and wondering if they could get into the clubs at the MGM wearing their shorts and sneakers. They wouldn’t make it past the door, Connor knew.
Miranda elbowed him and pointed covertly at a young couple standing a few feet down the walkway. The guy put his hand to the small of the woman’s back, and together they tilted their heads to look up at the Eiffel Tower at the Paris.
“It’s as pretty as the real thing, don’t you know?” the woman asked, her voice heavy with a Southern accent.
“Almost as pretty as you,” her boyfriend said, and Connor rolled his eyes.
It was a pretty replica, but the Paris hotel had nothing on the actual city. It had no Arc de Triomphe, no Seine, and the real Eiffel Tower would dwarf the one in Las Vegas. Not that this one wasn’t nice to look at, he admitted, especially on a clear night when you could see all the way to the mountains.
Miranda whispered in his ear, “We’re getting looks from the tourists. They want their turn at an unobstructed view of the Strip.”
“Unobstructed? We’re standing behind the equivalent of a chain-link fence—”
“And we’re thirty feet above one of the busiest streets in the western United States,” she interrupted, “with neon signs painting the sky. We’re basically center stage. We should get moving.”
Connor shrugged but crossed the skywalk with her, took the other escalator back down to the sidewalk, and then they continued their stroll along the Boulevard. They walked to the Venetian, with Miranda pointing out a middle-aged couple wearing matching cowboy hats and Hawaiian shirts, and a family taking pictures of everything, including a few of the laminated call girl cards the street snapper
s had left behind. There was the young couple having gelato at the stand outside Caesars, and a bride-to-be and her entourage wearing hot pink feather boas and Kiss Me, I’m Getting Married T-shirts.
Connor had never taken the time to watch what happened on the Strip, although he’d been down here thousands of times in his life. He was always going somewhere, meeting someone. It was nice to meander along the sidewalks and up the escalators.
It was nice, holding Miranda’s hand.
“Lord, this was a bad idea,” she said beside him. Their walk had slowed to a stroll, and Connor realized Miranda was limping.
“Wrong shoes for a night of people watching?”
“Wrong shoes for anything other than a day spent at my desk coming up with ad campaigns.”
An older couple vacated a bench, and Connor pulled Miranda into his arms to carry her to it. “I’ll be right back.”
He ducked into a tourist shop filled with replicas of the Las Vegas sign, T-shirts, and snow globes. In the back he saw a rack filled with hats and sunglasses. On the bottom shelf were the ugliest flip-flops Connor thought he had ever seen. The soles were a horrible neon pink rubber, and orange feathers adorned the straps. He bent the shoes in his hand. The rubber was definitely thick enough to protect Miranda’s feet, and they only needed to work to get her back to his car at the Bellagio. He bought the shoes and returned to the sidewalk.
Miranda had taken off her shoes and was examining a blister on her little toe. The digit was small and curled under, as if it were hiding from the rest of her toes. He thought it was the cutest toe he’d ever seen.
“I bought you these.”
She shook her head. “I’m not wearing those.”
Connor picked up the heels she had already discarded. “You’d rather put these back on? Or take your chances walking barefoot along Las Vegas Boulevard?”
Miranda considered her options. She eyed the dirty concrete for a long moment, then picked up her shoes and began to put them back on her feet. She winced and held out her hands.
“They didn’t have a solid color?”
“Be grateful I chose the pink combo. The other option was puke green.”
Miranda slid the flip-flops onto her feet, stood, and sighed. “Thank you.”
“Back to the car?”
She nodded. Miranda wiggled her toes and then stood on her tiptoes as if testing out the hideous sandals. “As least I’m on the color trend, right?” If she said so. She did look cute with neon orange feathers spread over her narrow feet. And she’d changed the color of her toenails from the orange he’d seen at Thanksgiving to an icy blue with silver sparkles. It was as if her toes were adorned in snow and diamonds. Not a bad look at all.
And then her pretty little mouth said seven words that tilted his world on its axis.
“But, Connor? You don’t have to take me home.”
Connor watched her carefully. “You’re sure?”
She smiled at him, and nodded. “I’m sure.”
“Because we can take this as slowly as you’d like.”
“I think waiting nearly a month between our first kiss and our first date is time enough.”
“Most people do the date first and then the kiss.”
“We aren’t most people.”
Heat coursed through him as she spoke. “We could walk to my place.” The complex Gage had developed was closer than the parking garage at the casino. She took his hand in hers, picked up her heels with her other hand, and they began walking as the fountains at the Bellagio danced to life again.
“You have a ranch in the desert and a condo on the Strip?”
“Technically, it’s one of three penthouses. Gage and Jase each have one, too.”
“I thought Gage and Callie lived at the ranch?”
“Callie has a condo in Henderson, which Gage is trying to convince her to sell because she’s basically living with him now. They’re spending most of their time at the ranch during the Reno at the Heck project. He hasn’t said anything about what comes next.”
“The three of you are pretty tight, hmm?”
They reached the entrance of his building, and Connor used his keycard to unlock the doors. An elevator waited across the hall, and he pushed the button for the penthouses. As the car climbed the fifteen stories to the top of the building, Connor watched Miranda watching the people out the window. She’d left her red hair in loose waves around her pale shoulders. She had a few freckles on her skin, and he wasn’t sure how he’d missed that before.
“We’re a unit. After our dad died, we worked hard to keep his legacy alive and still build our own.”
“You’ve done a stellar job with that,” she said as she ran her hand over the pane of glass separating the elevator car from the outside world. “A penthouse on the Las Vegas Strip, a ranch outside town. Gaming and property development, a publishing company that is going to go national in another year or so—”
“If all goes well.”
She glanced at him. “I have a feeling you’ll ensure it goes well. You and your brothers were built to succeed.”
“I’ve had a little help along the way.” The elevator dinged, signaling their arrival at his floor. Connor kept his grip solid on her hand as they walked down the marbled hall leading to his door. It was thick mahogany, and he unlocked it using another key card.
“You don’t even use typical locks.”
“Most of the residents come in for a week or two and then leave. Gage set the place up like a high-end hotel. Daily cleaning and laundry service, workout facilities, and even breakfast and dinner for those who don’t want to cook.”
He opened the door, and it was as if Las Vegas entered his home. This was Connor’s favorite room in the penthouse, with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the Strip. The Paris was just down the street, the Strat at the other end of Las Vegas Boulevard, and if he craned his neck, he could even catch a glimpse of the columns and statuary outside Caesars.
“Wow.” Miranda crossed to the windows. “Can they see in here?”
“We’re fifteen stories up, but even if we were on the ground floor, it’s a one-way glass. All anyone on the street can see is the reflection of the neon. Can I get you something to drink?”
She shook her head but didn’t move away from the windows.
“Something to eat?”
“No, I’m fine.”
Connor considered turning on some music, but this wasn’t a seduction scene. Miranda had suggested they come here. He didn’t need to romance her.
“I dated a sports reporter,” she said, one creamy shoulder leaning against the window as she looked down on the street below. “He worked for my father and saw me as a way to climb the corporate ladder. I missed the signs.”
Connor was quiet for a moment. “You loved him?”
“I liked him.” She nodded. “I was infatuated more than anything. I didn’t date in high school and barely dated in college. I thought maybe if I had a serious boyfriend, my father would see I could be serious about other things.”
“He used you.”
Again, she nodded. “He’s a sports editor in Colorado Springs now.”
“Your father fired him?”
“Nope, he gave him a raise.”
“Ouch.”
“We didn’t work together, but I think I know how you can read the signs wrong, you know? I don’t know what happened between you and the reporter, but if it matters, you’ve never made me feel anything but in control.”
Connor’s mouth went dry. It was silly, he knew, but there was a piece of him that had wondered why Miranda came out with him tonight. Was it because she felt pressured? Alyssa insisted that he had controlled everything about their relationship. “Thank you for that.”
“It’s the truth.”
There was nothing wrong with a little romance, Connor decided. Especially where Miranda Clayton was concerned. He hit a button on the remote, and Cole Porter poured through his sound system. He crossed to th
e window, put his arms around Miranda’s waist, and pulled her back to his chest. They swayed a little to the sound of Porter’s piano.
“You listen to old jazz,” she said and turned in his arms.
“You expected something different?”
She shook her head, and the gold flecks in her brown eyes seemed to dance in the dim light. “I kind of expected Keith Urban or Dierks Bentley. You being a cross between a corporate shark and a cowboy.” Her arms slid around his neck, and Ella Fitzgerald began singing “Let’s Do It.” “Or Elvis. He’s the quintessential Las Vegas singer, isn’t he?”
“Keith and Dierks and Elvis all have their positive aspects, but for pure musicality, those old acts are hard to replace.” He played his fingers along her ribs as he imagined Porter did to the piano keys. Miranda laid her head on his shoulder. Her dress was silky against his palms. He didn’t want to feel fabric, he wanted to feel her, but this night was firmly on her side of the relationship court.
“Connor?”
“Yeah?” He hadn’t turned on any lights in the penthouse, so the flashing neon from the Strip painted the living room in a rainbow of colors. His hands came into contact with the zip at the back of her dress. It would be so easy to pull it down, let the silk fall to the floor, and take this night to a whole other place.
He held the power in the office, and even if it killed him, she would have the power in his apartment.
At least for tonight.
She lifted her head, and her chocolate brown gaze met his. Those golden flecks almost seemed to glow, and her nostrils flared just a little. “What are you waiting for?”
“You.”
“You’re sure that glass is one-way?” she asked, and her small hands played with the collar of his shirt.
His mouth went a little dry. “Positive.”
She stepped away from him, and put her hands behind her back. He heard the zipper lower and watched as the thin, navy straps at her shoulders loosened, but the dress didn’t fall from her body. He tossed his sport coat toward a chair in the conversation area.
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