Teresa Hill - Runaway Vegas Bride / Vegas Two-Step - Runaway Vegas Bride / Vegas Two-Step

She was a complete idiot.

She looked to Lainie, mouthing, Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me alone with him. Please!

“Sorry.” Lainie laughed and got up from the couch. “I’m sure I have…something to do at my desk.”

Jane hung her head down and stayed there, sat back on her heels on the love seat, thinking if she never had to turn around and look at him, she might live through this day with just a shred of her dignity intact.

She heard Lainie introduce herself and Wyatt’s gloriously deep, beautiful voice saying, “Wyatt Gray. So nice to meet you.”

And then Lainie disappeared, closing the door behind her.

Jane stayed where she was and said, “If I paid you…like a million dollars, would you turn around and go away? So that we never had to talk about this?”

He laughed. Beautifully. The sound like a current zinging through her body.

And then he walked over and sat down beside her. She still perched there on her knees, not wanting to shove any part of herself into his face, either accidentally or on purpose.

He looked like a man who couldn’t be more pleased with himself or his life at this moment. Wearing a gorgeously expensive suit that wrapped faithfully around his altogether impressive body, he sat there, slightly blackened eye and all, looking completely at ease and holding a huge bouquet of exotic-looking flowers in his hand.

“Jane, I’m seldom wrong about these things, but with you. Well, I suppose it’s a possibility. I just haven’t had a lot of dealings with women like you. You don’t…like women, do you?”

“What? Of course, I like women. Women are great, women are—”

“Sexually,” he clarified.

“Oh. You mean. me and Lainie? Me and. women? That way?”

He nodded.

“No! I. No! Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But, I like men.” She got all flustered then, and kept talking, which she tended to do when flustered. Fill the silence and try to move on. “Granted, not a lot of men. But I do…like…men. I mean, I have to admit I like them more in theory than reality, but. Well. Oh, my God!”

She buried her head in her hands and gave up.

Too much information, Jane.

Way too much information.

“Well, I’m happy to hear that,” Wyatt responded. “That you like men. And that you find at least a few of us…acceptable and interesting.”

The flowers, looking lush, exotic and expensive, came into her field of view, even with her head hanging low so she didn’t have to look at him.

“These are for you,” he continued, still sounding amused. “A small token of apology, nothing else. No reason for you to worry.”

“But I hit you,” she said, taking the flowers and feeling completely inadequate at the moment as a girl. This whole girl-stuff thing had just never come naturally to her. Or maybe she just hadn’t tried hard enough or cared enough. But she’d always felt a little awkward in this area.

Even more than usual with Wyatt.

“I know, but I embarrassed you yesterday in my apartment, and it certainly wasn’t my intention.”

“No. It was me. I was. I’m so sorry—”

“Jane,” he interrupted. “Take the flowers and say thank you. Then forget about the whole thing. It’s as easy as that.”

Easy for him, maybe.

“Jane?” He touched his fingers gently to her chin and urged her to raise her head and look him in the eye.

His poor, bruised eye. It was a faded black shade. She’d really hit a man.

“I’m telling everyone a hulking two-hundred-fifty-pound man did this to me, and that I got it defending a lady’s honor. My female clients are impressed and the men are intimidated.”

She was sure the women were impressed.

“Take the flowers and say ‘thank you,’” he reminded her.

She took them and mumbled, “Thank you.”

He sat there looking as relaxed and gorgeous as could be, despite the black eye. “Now, what are we going to do about Leo and your sweet grandmother and great aunt?”

Two days later, Jane was in the middle of a youth-regenerating apricot-mint facial and pedicure—thinking it would give her some alone time with Gladdy to explain what a rat Leo really was—when she got the call.

Ms. Steele, the Remington Park administrator, insisted on seeing her immediately.

That had never happened before.

Jane promised to be there within the hour because Gladdy insisted that no meeting was worth cutting short a facial and pedicure.

As she sat in the waiting area outside Ms. Steele’s office, Jane had a sinking feeling she knew what this was about. That Ms. Steele had heard about Jane attempting to slug Leo Gray on the grounds of Remington Park.

How humiliating!

She remembered it seemed like tons of eyes were staring at her when that freakish red haze cleared—when she stopped trying to kick Wyatt in the shins and pull out his hair, thinking she was under attack and all her self-defense training she’d never had to use before was kicking in. So it wasn’t that surprising Ms. Steele would have heard about it. From what Jane had seen in the time Gram and Gladdy had been here, Ms. Steele kept a very close eye on the goingson at Remington Park. As a business owner, Jane could only applaud that kind of devotion and attention to detail.

But at the moment, she was horribly embarrassed.

She sat there getting more and more nervous, wondering how in the world she might explain herself, when Wyatt, blackened eye and all, strolled in.

Her face fell. “You’ve been summoned, too?”

He nodded, taking the seat beside her, looking much more at ease here than she did.

“I feel like I’ve been called into the principal’s office,” Jane fretted.

He laughed. “I’m going out on a limb here, but I bet you were a very good girl growing up, Jane. I bet you’ve never been called to the principal’s office before.”

“Only for good things. Like accepting awards and organizing school fund-raisers,” she admitted, sighing heavily. “How in the world am I going to explain getting into a fight on the grounds of my grandmother and aunt’s retirement park?”

“Denial is always a good start,” he began.

“Denial? You’re sitting here with a black eye.”

“And if denial is out of the question, I recommend, as a next step, downplaying the importance and scope of the situation.”

“You sound like a defense attorney now. Either that or someone who’s used to being in trouble.”

He shook his head. “Never been a defense attorney, but I did play one in moot court competition in law school. Won my cases every time.”

Jane wasn’t surprised about the wins and noted he hadn’t denied being in trouble himself. She shook her head and said, “I got Gladdy alone today at a salon. It was like talking to a Barbie doll. She ignored everything I said about your uncle and kept suggesting new skin care routines for me.”

“Wait…salon?” He leaned in close, his nose practically touching the rim of her ear, sniffing her hair, then the side of her face. “Is that why you smell so good? Good enough to eat?”

She closed her eyes, feeling all tingly and warm at the same time.

Because a man was sniffing her youth-regenerating apricot-mint facial?

She felt him breathing in that smell, the heat from his body so close, radiating toward hers. The tip of his nose gently brushed her cheek. Was it an accident?

“What is it? Peaches?”

“Apricots,” she admitted, not daring to move an inch.

She didn’t think she’d ever had actual sexual intercourse that felt this good. Her breasts ached and she thought she wanted to shove them into his face right now. She could spread apricot-mint facial cream over her whole body and then practice her coming-on-to-him skills and see how he liked it.