A Royal Surprise: ( BWWM Romance )

by Tiana Cole

  He’d put his mistrust of coincidence out of his head last night, but this morning was different. Why had Alan called to have breakfast? If he’d had a wild night, he should have been getting room service.

  He knew that his desire to talk to Alan was because they’d shared history, come up together and had that in common even if they’d never been really close. But he didn’t have anyone else around to talk to. Kieran couldn’t be objective. Deja was wrong. It wasn’t his tone of voice irritating Kieran. He was big on family and resented that James had dumped his sister, even though it had been a mutual decision.

  Now he saw Alan was waiting for him to talk. “The girl I was dancing with wasn’t a hooker.” Suddenly he wondered if she might be. He’d assumed she wasn’t, but he didn’t know anything about her. As Kieran said, he needed to talk to her. “I wish she had been.”

  Alan rubbed his chin. “She was playing the innocent girl?”

  “Not innocent exactly. A girl looking for fun.”

  “I bet you screwed her. That’s just the type of sweet little brown piece you adore. I remember you falling in lust with a brown soul singer in that club in New Orleans. ‘That’s my dream girl,’ you said at the time. Not that you did shit about it.”

  He nodded, remembering, and surprised that Alan brought that up. The girl hadn’t been exactly his dream girl, but she was attractive. Was that why Alan pointed her out and suggested he ask her to dance? Not that he needed to. “I suppose she is something like that girl. That was a long time ago.”

  “What happened?”

  “The usual thing. After you left with your girl, we had a few more drinks, danced some more. Later we went…well, I don’t know where the fuck we went.” He paused. “After that, I guess things weren’t quite so usual.”

  “What then?”

  “The details are vague, but we wound up married.”

  Alan sat up straight. “Married?”

  “Seems so. That’s how it went, as best I can puzzle it out. I was drunk out of my head.”

  “Where is the girl now?”

  “In my room. In my bed, having breakfast.”

  “What happens now?”

  “I’m not quite sure. It’s been a rough morning and I’m just starting to get the use of my brain back.”

  “If you were drunk, does the marriage count? Is it legal?”

  “It’s legal, but we’ll see if it sticks.”

  “You need to talk to a lawyer.”

  “I did.”

  “Your brain is working better than you let on. What’d he say?”

  “He’s checking. He’s a California lawyer and has to check Nevada law, but he thinks I can get it annulled. I’d have to prove to a judge that I was too drunk to know what I was doing.”

  “I can testify to your drinking, although you were getting around pretty well.”

  “How much I drank isn’t an issue. I have to prove I was drunk when I signed the papers.”

  “Is there a rush?”

  “For what?”

  “I heard that you have ten days to get an annulment.”

  “Apparently, I have all the time I need.”

  Alan’s look of disappointment surprised him. “Oh. That’s interesting. Do you think this is some kind of a con?”

  In his gut, he did, but what kind eluded him at the moment and he wasn’t going to share his uncertainty with Alan, who seemed to be doing more probing than offering advice. “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe she knows that, about how you can get an annulment if you were drunk. Maybe she married you thinking that you’d need her to sign something saying you were plastered at the time. She could hold you up and ask for money to agree to an annulment.”

  “You mean that she married me so she could demand cash to go along with it being annulled? I suppose that’s possible. So far she hasn’t suggested anything.” He laughed. “I almost get the impression she is happy being married, that she’s in no rush to do anything.”

  Alan sipped his drink and raised a hand to summon the waitress. “All this thinking worked up my appetite.” James ordered toast and coffee. His stomach was still churning. The ebullient Alan ordered biscuits and gravy. “And lots of black coffee.” Then he sat back. “If it is the kind of con I’m thinking of, it assumes she knew who you were and that you had money. How would she know that?”

  “Before I asked her to dance? I don’t know. I barely remember dancing.”

  “So maybe she had her sights set on you.”

  “Or she recognized me later on and, seeing the condition I was in, decided to see where she could take that.” He smirked. “It isn’t that I’m vain, Alan, but I know I don’t have a low profile. So there are many possibilities.”

  “Either way, the way it goes down is that when you and I walk in, there she is, shaking that booty. You get hot and aren’t thinking too clear so you let her take the lead. That would sound right.”

  “I remember that you pointed her out to me when we went in. You even suggested I ask her to dance.”

  The observation made Alan shift uncomfortably in his seat. “Just because I know the kind woman you like, and she sure looked right. You needed to blow off some steam.”

  “I guess I managed that okay.”

  “So you wander over and, like you said, maybe she recognizes you and can tell you’ve drifted a couple of meters onto the uninhibited side of things. She sees she’s exciting you, and makes a point of rubbing up against you when you dance with her. That’s what my little hooker did. Not that I’m complaining. The girls do it because it works. Hell, after just a little of that she can let your physiology do the hard work for her. We guys are easy marks once a woman turns on the charm. They get us hard and then lead us around by our pricks.”

  “And what about the girl you went off with?”

  He laughed. “That one definitely led me around by my prick, and used it to pry open my wallet. The lady knows her stuff. Why? Do you want her number?”

  “No. I was wondering if they were together when we met them.”

  Alan frowned thoughtfully. “Oh, like a conspiracy of some kind. Not as far as I know. Matter of fact, I remember that mine showed up while you were dancing with…what’s her name?”

  “Deja.”

  “Deja, wow. I wonder if that’s a real name. Now I see where you are going with this, you think maybe it’s a tag team—they divide and conquer. Maybe yours has the same intention of making a straight appeal to the wallet, but then she recognizes you and decides that being your hot wife for life might be a real upgrade from being your girlfriend for the night.”

  “I don’t know. That’s more thought out than where I was going.”

  “Maybe. Or it could be two independent operators and the same result. You and this Deja were already dancing when mine showed up. I was sitting at the table, staring at the hot girls when she came slithering up to me and pointing out that I shouldn’t be sitting alone watching you two.

  We had a drink and then joined you two on the dance floor. She gave me the same magic treatment but then suggested we head for my room via the ATM machine. That was sounding pretty damn good to me at the time, so we said good night.” He grinned. “Mine didn’t even mention a marriage option.”

  James watched Alan’s face closely. His words were sympathetic but his voice betrayed something else. “I get the feeling you are enjoying my predicament. You look like you are gloating.”

  Alan picked up a biscuit and buttered it slowly. “Well, whatever went down, I’ll confess that there is a bit of me that’s happy I got the better deal for a change. I had a good time, and the affair was neat and clean and over in the morning. Apparently you had a night with pleasures that keeps on giving.”

  Alan was losing control of his expression, and it was clear that the man was almost beside himself with some sort of glee at James’s predicament. “Well, I’ll sort it out.”

  Alan popped the biscuit in his mouth. “You do that, buddy. Best done quickly.�
��

  “Why? I told you there isn’t any deadline for filing paperwork.”

  “Well, a man in your position doesn’t want it to get out that he parties late into the night, drinks until he’s blown out of his head, and then stumbles into marriage. I don’t think it would make for good public relations. And, as you said, you don’t exactly have a low profile. People will know your name as well as your face. If they see you with her, if they figure out what happened, it might affect whatever pitch you are making while you’re in town.”

  It struck him that Alan was too close to the truth. He had to know something—much more than he was telling. It was true that time wasn’t his friend. Liang would be back in Vegas tomorrow and he needed to be ready if the man found out about his very liberal evening on the town.

  He tried to imagine what was on that video, and it made him ill. How could he have been such an ass? He’d created two distinct problems for himself: the threat that Shen Liang might learn how he’d behaved in public, and the legal problem that came from marrying someone he didn’t know, a woman who might have some agenda that could cause him additional problems. Whether she had married him for some purpose of her own or just because he’d asked her to, ultimately didn’t matter. That didn’t change the need to resolve their status.

  From what Kieran said, the deal was really the pressing matter. He had time to resolve things with Deja, and it wasn’t likely that how he handled that would have any effect on the deal. It just had to be handled.

  But that video! If someone brought the debacle to Liang’s attention, he would be disappointed and it would make him wonder if James was what he seemed to be. There wasn’t anything he could say or do that would change that. And apparently there was no way he could suppress the video. It was already out there. All he could do was hope the man didn’t hear about it.

  Looking at Alan wash his biscuit down with coffee, he wished he knew why he’d come to Las Vegas. Part of him was afraid he knew exactly why Alan was there, why he’d wanted to go out drinking, and why his friendly smile and chatter seemed to have a knife edge hidden in it.

  * * * *

  Alan ate his breakfast slowly. He took his time because of the pleasure he was getting from watching James, enjoying how much the events had him off his game. It was fun to needle the pompous bastard, watch him squirm. He wasn’t going to pass up the chance. Last night he’d been so smug, so sure he had the deal with Shen Liang in the bag. And he had been close to closing it. James had the credentials, the reputation. Until now. Until the fucking morning after hit him with both barrels. And the best part was that apparently James still didn’t know he’d been had. It would be lovely when he found out, and letting him discover it was far better than telling him.

  Payback is going to be a motherfucker, James.

  When James gave up on eating and went back up to his room, back to his new wife and his troubles, Alan felt better than he had in a long time. He didn’t understand James at all, not the way he avoided becoming some celebrity.

  Fame made people want to do business with you, hoping your cachet would make anything you touched successful, and them rich. It made women want you. If he had the money James did, he’d be damned if he’d settle for a girl like the one he’d pointed James to. But to each his own. If he liked chocolate pussy, more power to him. She might be a nice roll in the sack, but for his part, Alan preferred sleek, pale blondes. The one he’d had last night was perfect and there were more just like her available with a simple phone call.

  Just like he’d told James, Alan never understood why he’d want to buy when he could rent. A girl who was being paid to please him did exactly that, with no fuss, no bother.

  When he closed this deal, well, he’d leverage it into a lot more. Shen Liang had a lot of business in the States. Properly managed, they’d make Alan richer than he’d ever managed, and by properly managed, he meant milked dry.

  If the girl he’d hired did her job right, then things could happen fast. He had to assume that if she was willing to marry the guy for a fat paycheck, she was the kind to find other ways to exploit the story, make it public. That was fine. That was the free market, right? He’d even help her out, give her a lead or two, just in case she didn’t think of the press angle on her own. There was money to be made from it, and every bit of publicity would help shaft any chance James had of locking down this deal.

  Alan wanted to celebrate, but it was too soon. He had things to do, a few important calls to make. A business deal like this one wasn’t won simply by making a good presentation and having a good strategy. No, it was just as important to do everything possible to fuck over the competition, to kick them when they were down so that you seemed to be not only the best choice, but the only one.

  And now he had what he needed to knock out the only other big gun at the table.

  Best of all, James had no clue at all that they were competitors. He’d been sloppy. He hadn’t worried about anyone else, just what he could do for Shen Liang.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  James came back to the room to find Deja showered and dressed and sitting on the bed. The television was on and she was watching the local news. He glanced at the screen and saw a blonde with too much makeup and a very smooth presentation explaining about a criminal who had escaped the jail in Bullhead City by crawling through a ventilation duct.

  As he watched her sensationalize what seemed only clever, he tried to think of something he could say to Deja that would be casual and pleasant, yet not be patronizing—he failed miserably.

  How to be casual with her failed him. He felt completely without any guidelines. How could he be causal with someone he’d been intimate with, yet didn’t know?

  Part of him resented her. Actually he resented the idea that he needed her, needed her help in unraveling things. What happened next wasn’t just up to him and he was always uncomfortable when he was in that position. This morning both his business deal and his life had put him there—waiting.

  Part of him wanted to make her happy, whatever that meant. She was pretty, personable, and from what he could tell, the other passenger in a strange journey they’d taken together. They had shared a bed, and much more.

  He straddled that divide in an awkward and uncomfortable stance. While he couldn’t entirely blame her for his discomfort, she played a part in it and he had to confront that if he wanted to make small talk. He wasn’t good at small talk under any circumstances, and now it was artificial, something he was doing to put her at ease. In short, it was phony.

  She raised the remote and thankfully switched off the television. “Have a nice chat with your old pal, Alan?”

  He caught a catch in her voice that told him she was hiding some emotion. Maybe she was as confused and upset as he was, but he didn’t think so. She didn’t really seem confused. He suspected something more like anger bubbled inside her. If not anger, some other unsettling and troubling feeling. She was at odds with herself somehow. So was he.

  The good news was that as his head returned to normal he was starting to notice those sorts of things. He had trained himself to pay attention to those markers. Last night, of course, all he noticed was that she looked outstanding. He would have missed any subtle clues—he would have missed anything more subtle that a slap in the face.

  “It wasn’t really a nice chat at all. It was damn uncomfortable, actually.”

  “He didn’t help you understand whatever it is you wanted to know?”

  “Like what happened last night? No. I’m afraid he was too busy gloating about the advantages of spending the night with an upmarket hooker.”

  “You mean pay for play as opposed to the joys of marriage? I mean, I assume you gave him the news.”

  “He seemed to think it was funny. I think it tickled him.”

  “You really are in a funk.”

  He sat on the bed. “Don’t patronize me, Deja, let’s be honest with each other. I need you to tell me what happened.”

  “I ha
ve.”

  “There are things missing. I’m not used to being so unsure about what’s going on around me. I’ve been successful by being focused and staying focused. I wasn’t focused last night. I’m still not sure how the things that happened came about and so I’m thrashing about here.”

  She laughed. “I’ve told you what happened. You came up to me and asked me to dance. We did. Your friend left, we went outside—”

  “Yeah, I get the chronology. I’ve never been drunk that way.”

  “Well, I can’t tell you why you did any of what you did. When you screwed me, I assumed it was because you liked me. I could be wrong. It sure feels like that now.”

  “You weren’t as drunk as I was, were you?”

  “No. I don’t think I was, but I wasn’t exactly thinking straight.”

  “But you never suggested we get married?”

  “This is really starting to get creepy. The morning after our wedding, after a great night together, all you are interested in is doing damage control. Or are we just playing the blame game? You make me feel like a giant catastrophe fate inflicted on you.”

  “Actually, I see you as a beautiful distraction.” That much he could tell her truthfully. Even under the circumstances, he couldn’t look at her without his heart pounding a little harder. Now that he was feeling better, he knew he wanted her. If she tried to seduce him, he’d be putty in her hands. That part he hoped he could conceal from her. “I’m not sure about the situation, our situation yet. I don’t know what we should do.”

  “Still hung over?”

  “All the drinking last night isn’t the only thing that has my head spinning. There are things happening on so many levels that it’s difficult to sort out. Alan’s attitude has me worried.”

  “Your friend? His shortage of advice and abundance of gloating worries you?”

  He appreciated her insight. “Among other things.” He couldn’t help but look at her, thinking about what he should or could tell this lovely woman. He didn’t even know what he wanted from her, other than more sex, and he couldn’t let that happen. Obviously he’d been drawn to her, even drunk, and he knew that if he were to describe his dream girl, any reasonable person would point to her as being exactly what he wanted. So he was caught between a dream and a disaster.