AllFreeNovel
Share Us
3
Heart of Gold
Evangeline
The elevator doors open to a spacious penthouse suite overlooking the Vegas Strip. The view is beautiful, but the room is trashed. The couch is dismantled, there’s a huge rip in the felt of the pool table, and half-empty glasses sit on almost every surface like apocalyptic markers of a once-roaring party. But now it looks sad.
We stopped at a corner liquor store on the way to his hotel, where he bought a bottle of whiskey which is now about a third of the way empty. Quite a feat, since his hotel wasn’t that far away.
I set my purse down on the top of the bar. Walking over to the wall to ceiling windows, my heels click on the wood flooring loudly, waking up the quiet space. The only other sound is his breathing and the rustling of his coat as he shucks it off.
I’m aware of his eyes upon me, cool hazel, but they’re nothing like Senator Langley’s—predatory, and assuming that everything, including me, was his. No. He doesn’t look at me like that, but I’ve seen this look before, and it causes a flutter to rise in my stomach like a tiny butterfly.
He steps closer, and I lean against the cool glass. His dark hair is ruffled, framing his youthful face like a halo. He’s young, handsome, educated, but most of all—a playboy. A playboy with too much money, and who is far too pretty for his own good. I can see little pieces of his father in him, those complicated hazel eyes and dark wavy hair.
“What’s your name?” he asks, the head of the whiskey bottle dangling precariously between his fingers.
I recognize pain when I see it and it’s etched all over his face, even though he tries to hide it with a charming smile. The indents on either side of his lips make him look vulnerable, heartbreak hidden behind that smile. We are both heartbroken.
Perhaps that’s why I came up here with him.
No matter the reason, I have a lot to lose by being here. I’m not allowed to take dates without going through the agency. There’s a strict non-compete clause in my contract, and breaking it would be detrimental – yet I risked it out of morbid curiosity.
“You don’t need to romance me. I’m a sure thing.”
He laughs, giving me a crooked grin, his incisors a tad too long, making his smile look admirably wolfish. He really is a charming drunk.
“I just want to know your name,” he says.
I swallow. He’s not a senator or a client. He’s just a rich kid with too much time and money on his hands who just lost both of his parents.
I’m about to say my real name when someone steps out from the shadowy hallway. His blonde hair is messy and he stares at us with sleepy eyes, and I can’t help but notice he’s only wearing his boxers, although he doesn’t seem to care.
“Dare, where the fuck have you…” He pads across the room and finally notices me, and a wide smile spreads on his face. “Oh,” he says, and Dare shakes his head as if to warn him off, like he’ll say something he doesn’t want me to know. “I didn’t know you had a,” he pauses, looking me over, staring at my breasts and working his way down—“friend,” he finishes, and darts his eye back to Dare for confirmation.
“Alistair,” he says darkly as he sets the whiskey bottle on the nearby pool table.
Alistair slides his eyes back to me and I cross one ankle over the other while leaning against the glass. “I’ve never seen you before.”
“Holly,” the name rolls off my tongue like second nature, no second thoughts this time.
“Hello, Holly.” Alistair says my name with an exaggerated tone and a sleepy smile that no doubt makes other girls fall to their knees. He then grabs Dare and pulls him to the side. I turn around and look out the window, giving them privacy although I can still hear them.
“Jesus, how drunk are you?” Alistair asks.
I hear Dare laugh darkly. “Not nearly drunk enough.”
“Rausch has been calling me non-fucking-stop,” I hear Alistair say.
“Not now.”
I turn to see him shake Alistair off.
“You need to…” Alistair starts to say something but gets cut off.
“I need to take a piss,” Dare announces unceremoniously and leaves the room. Alistair turns toward me, a grin spreading on his face, still in his boxers unabashedly. Why would he be embarrassed? Alistair is a good-looking man, with blonde hair, brown eyes, and the physique of a young man who probably plays lacrosse or polo – or whatever rich boys play.
Instead of taking in the view of the Strip, he’s taking in the view of me.
