LITMIR.BIZ

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if it he was only asking her questions to figure out how to get her on the plane with him.

      She took a shower, fixed her hair and slid into a slinky black dress she’d bought at one of the many shops in Midnight Sins. She wasn’t here to have fun, but she didn’t intend to sit in her room and mope, either. She’d spent her entire life semisheltered. She’d had a path at university. She’d had a path with Charles. And her dad had had too big of a hand in creating those paths. For the next twelve days, she did not want a path. She just wanted to live. Breathe. And eventually figure out an explanation for running that would appease the man who’d spent his life first fighting in wars and then preventing them.

      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?”

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