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“What?” asked Kristy.
Luminitsa glanced from one to the other, a sly smile forming on her face. “Congratulations.”
Jack and Kristy’s gazes met.
Kristy mouthed the word twins, and Jack rolled his eyes.
He turned back to Luminitsa. “Congratulations on what?”
“On your wedding,” she said.
Jack’s entire body went still. Was there something in his eyes? Something about his posture?
“Wedding?” asked Kristy.
“Today’s your wedding day.”
“Which one of us?” asked Kristy.
“Both.” She waggled her wrinkled finger back and forth between them.
Kristy’s mouth dropped open. “To each other?”
Luminitsa nodded.
Jack grabbed Kristy by the hand. “That’s it,” he announced decisively, tugging her out of her chair and turning her to the exit.
The bells jangled again as they left.
“That was weird,” said Kristy.
“We’re in Vegas,” he responded. “How many just-been-married or about-to-be-married couples do you suppose she sees every day?”
“I guess,” said Kristy. “But that was weird.”
For Jack, it wasn’t so much weird as it was damned annoying. Luminitsa had just thrown a wrench in his carefully laid plans.
KRISTY SWAYED to the music of Yellow Silk, the jazz band playing in the Windward Lounge, as she rested her head against Jack’s broad chest. She was trying to pretend that she didn’t care that these were their last few hours together. Simon had promised the plane would be ready by ten, and they’d be in L.A. an hour after that. She was wearing the lacy black party dress Jack had secretly purchased at Addias Comte, along with the diamond necklace and earring set, and she couldn’t help feeling like Cinderella.
Too bad the clock was about to strike midnight.
She knew she should be happy. Tomorrow morning she’d meet with Cleveland and the Sierra Sanchez buying team, and career-wise, she might just live happily ever after. Because if everything went her way, her life would turn on a dime. What she had dreamed of for years was suddenly within her grasp.
But melancholy overtook the joy in her heart. This was the end of such a beautiful fantasy.
The tempo slowed, and Jack gathered her close. She could feel the beat of his heart thudding rhythmically against her chest. His scent had become familiar. At some point, she’d started associating it with peace and safety, and she certainly felt that way now.
The fabric of the lacy black dress whispered against her legs. It clung to her breasts, nipped in at her waist, then flowed gently to midthigh. A Jacynthe Norman, from the winter collection in Paris, she knew it had to have cost Jack a fortune.
She’d have to leave it with him, along with the diamonds.
She wondered briefly if she’d ever see him again. If she was a supplier to the Osland Corporation, maybe they’d have a chance—
Then she stopped that thought in its tracks.
They’d spent a stolen weekend together. It was never going to be anything more than that. Their real lives were about as far apart as two people could get. He lived with the ultrarich in L.A. She lived with the struggling class in New York. Even if she did make a sale to Sierra Sanchez, they’d hardly be moving in the same social circles.
“You’re so quiet,” he murmured into her ear, his breath tickling her skin in a way that made her long for his lips to brush up against her. She itched for it. She ached for it.
“Just thinking,” she said, splaying her hand over the taut muscles of his back.
“About?”
She tipped her head to look up at him. “Tomorrow.”
He paused. “Really? I’m thinking about tonight.”
“You worried about the plane?”
He shook his head, his eyes turning the color of thick smoke, as his hand slid up her ribcage, brushing purposefully against the side of her breast. “I’m not thinking quite that far in the future.”
Her heart thudded in response to his caress. Her skin prickled with anticipation. And her body convulsed with longing.
She swallowed, hardly able to form the words. “We still have the suite.”
He stared at her, but didn’t say a word. Then his arm tightened firmly around her waist, and he turned them both toward the nightclub door.
Outside, the air was sultry warm, thunderclouds had gathered above the skyscrapers, holding the daytime heat. Their forked lightning strikes sparked like lasers in the haze, faint thunder echoing after. Halfway down the block, the first raindrops splattered on the warm concrete, and Kristy and Jack joined the other tourists who scattered for shelter.
Damp and laughing, they made it to the Bellagio lobby.
Jack turned to look at her, taking in the rain-spattered dress, smoothing her damp hair back from her face. “You are so beautiful.”
Kristy inhaled. “So are you.”
He glanced at his watch. “We’ve only got a couple of hours.” Then he looked into her eyes again, voice bedroom-husky. “I can’t believe we put this off so long.”
“What were we thinking?”
He took her hand and started across the lobby. “I don’t know.”
But instead of heading for the main elevator block which provided the more direct line to their room, he took a circuitous route past the shops. She wondered if they needed something from a store. Condoms, maybe? It wasn’t the height of romance, but she supposed practical was practical.
But they carried on past the Essentials store, around the courtyard pool area.
“Did you rent us a cabana?” she asked. The suite was fine. The suite was wonderful. And, really, the clock was ticking.
Jack shook his head. He slowed, turning to look at her as they passed the grand balcony. “I don’t want this to end.”
“The walk to our room?”
His mouth curved in an ironic grin. He squeezed her hand while shaking his head. “You and me.”
She peered at his expression. “I don’t understand.”
He nodded to a spot in front of them, and she followed his gaze. The East Chapel.
“Marry me, Kristy.”
She stopped dead. “Huh?”
He held her gaze with his own. “Did something ever seem completely right to you?”
“What?” Had he lost his mind? Yeah, they were having a fantastic weekend. And yeah, she couldn’t wait to get back to the suite and tear off his clothes. But this wasn’t 1952. They could make love without getting married.
“This feels right,” he repeated. “I know it’s right.”
She took a step toward him. “Jack. The fortune-teller was a fraud.”
“This has nothing to do with the fortune-teller.”
“Then what does it have to do with?”
“You and me.”
“You and me are about to make love.”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “Over and over again if I have my way.”
Kristy glanced at her own watch. “Not unless you’re a whole lot faster at it than I’ve fantasized.”
He drew back. “You’ve fantasized?”
“Yeah,” she admitted. “Haven’t you?”
“Oh, yeah.” His eyes went softer still. He blinked. “Marry me, Kristy.”
“No.”
A group of partiers rounded the corner, their drunken shouts and laughter intruding on the moment.
Jack whisked Kristy to a glass door, opening it to steer her onto a pillared patio overlooking the pools. He closed the door behind them.
“Listen to me,” he said.
“Jack,” she sighed, fighting hard to hold her emotional ground.
Truth was, making love to Jack over and over again for the rest of her life sounded really good right now. And there was a deceptive intimacy to huddling in the sheltered darkness while the storm rumbled and flashed in the sky. Raindrops battered the waxy leaves of the potted tropical plants, while a film of steam rose from the pool decks and fountains, obscuring the pot lights, giving the entire garden an eerie glow.
He moved in close, his whisper tortured and husky. “I can’t lose this chance. I can’t let you go.”
She squinted. Was he serious? Did he really want to see her again? Romantically?
She’d hardly dared hope.
No. Scratch that. She wouldn’t dare hope.
His fingertips brushed her cheek. “This is something, Kristy.”
Her chest contracted. She had to agree with him there. This was definitely something.
“Have you ever—” he breathed. Then he closed his eyes for a second, as if gathering his thoughts. “Have you ever, in your entire life, ever felt this way?”
She slowly shook her head. There were no words to describe how she felt about Jack—the passion, the admiration, the deep-down soul connection.
“We can’t let it go,” he said.
“We don’t have to let it go.” They could see each other again. He could come to New York. Heck, he had an office there, and his own jet plane. He could drop by and see her whenever he was in town.
He ran his hands up and down her arms. “How many people do you suppose say that?”
“Say they’ll get together again?”
He nodded. “Hundreds, maybe thousands. And how many of them ever do?”
She shrugged. Not many, she’d suspect, and that gave her a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach.
“We leave this hotel, Kristy, and you know as well as I do that’ll be it.”
Would it? Would they really walk away from a connection this strong?
“You’ll go back to New York. I’ll go to L.A. We’ll e-mail, maybe call. But pretty soon, our memories will fade. We’ll decide it couldn’t have been as great as we thought. We’ll write each other off as a weekend fling.”
She found her voice. “We are a weekend fling.”
“We don’t have to be.” His hands met her upper arms, his voice going earnest. “We can be better than that. Let me make it so we … So I have to be better than that.”
She knew he was talking crazy. People didn’t get married to guarantee a second date. She opened her mouth to tell him so, but he put an index finger across her lips.
His gaze bore directly into hers. “I think I’m falling in love with you, Kristy.”
Her entire body convulsed with a wash of emotions and hormones. Love? Could this possibly be love?
“Don’t let me walk away from you, Kristy. Don’t let me be the man I know I’ll be.”
She wanted to say yes. In every fiber of her being, she longed to complete the fantasy.
Love.
