"This is as far as I can go," he explains, his tone flat and brimmed with anger.
I swallow the brick in my throat. “Okay. Thanks for the lift.”
I catch my eyeroll halfway. I met and married a man in less than twenty-four hours, yet I'm acting all modest and cordial.My mother would be so pleased.Overlooking the hammering of my heart, I lean in to press a kiss on Rico's cheek. He twists his neck, forcing my kiss to land on the edge of his mouth instead of his cheek. I stop frozen with my lips attached to his. It isn't just the shock of excitement dashing through my veins that have my movements stiffening, it's the quickest snippet of a memory flashing through my mind. . .
“I want to kiss you, Enrique,” I declare, peering into a pair of soul-capturing eyes.
My heart stops beating when the quickest flash of a smirk freezes time. “Nothing is stopping you, Blaire.”
Closing my eyes, I rest my hands on his well-formed pecs and tilt my head to the side to align our mouths better. Just as my lips brush against his soft, sensual mouth, I open my eyes. His dark, beautiful gaze is staring dotingly into mine.
“You’re supposed to close your eyes.” My minty breath bounces off his lips and filters into my nose.
“I don’t want to close my eyes,” he replies as his heavy-hooded gaze dances between mine.
A grin curls on my lips. “Why?”
“Because I don’t want to wake up and find out you were a dream.” He runs the back of his hand down my flustered cheeks, causing every hair on my body to bristle.
I smile. “If it's a dream, it’s the most beautiful dream I’ve ever had.”
“Me too,” Rico confesses, smiling a lazy grin that surges my heart into dangerous territory. . .
I pull back and peer into Rico’s eyes. He’s watching me with the same amount of intensity he bestowed on me in my memory, but his eyes are void of the tender spark that brightened his dark gaze last night. . . until I mutter, “It was the most beautiful dream.”
Not giving him the chance to react, I curl out of the car, snag my suitcase, and become lost in the heavy foot traffic on the terminal sidewalk.
In a muddled haze, I weave in and out of the bustling airport on my endeavor to reach my gate. The nicks in my heart enlarge with every step I take. My mind is scrambled, trying to recall any other events buried beneath the rubble of my drunken state, while also ignoring the insane hope my statement might force a reaction from Rico.
I need to leave Vegas as soon as possible. This place is messing with my head. I only signed annulment papers twenty minutes ago, and now I’m praying my soon-to-be ex-husband will track me down and beg me not to leave.
Vegas doesn’t just steal your morals, but your sanity too. . . and perhaps even your heart.
Chapter 5
“Come on, Care Blaire, the water is beautiful,” my best friend Lacey shouts, splashing me with the refreshing coolness of the inground swimming pool at our apartment complex. My skin is so sun-kissed, the water sizzles when it hits the skin high on my bare thigh.
Lacey cocks her brow and stares into my eyes. “What’s the deal? You’ve always been a water baby.”
I rise from the daybed I'm lazing on, fling off my sunglasses, and gaze into Lacey’s blue eyes. Lacey is right: I’ve always loved the water, but after researching ways to have a tattoo inconspicuously removed, I discovered a range of new facts a tattoo virgin is naïve about. The most compelling one: you can’t swim in chlorinated water for two to three weeks after getting a tattoo. Considering my tattoo was only inked on my skin five days ago, I’m not willing to risk getting an infection on my newly open wound even if I'm melting on a ninety-six-degree Fahrenheit afternoon.
“I’m fine here,” I lie, my tone as low as my hydration levels. “I thought I’d add a few more hours to my summer tan before school returns.”
Lacey arches her brow into her drenched hairline. “Fine, but it’s your loss.”
I screw up my nose and stick out my tongue. After returning my snicker, Lacey dives into the holy looking water. People may construe our little banter as bickering, but there's no maliciousness in our exchange. Lacey is straight to the point, and calls it how she sees it, but she doesn't have a malicious bone in her body. She’s my very dear friend and my closest confidant. That's why I find it so shocking I've managed to hide my Vegas antics from her the past five days.
Don't take my admission the wrong way; Lacey was onto me like white on rice the instant my plane landed in Ravenshoe, but since I've always been the straight-laced friend, her interrogation never went further than asking what food was served at the conference, and if there were any hot male teachers she could use to fulfil her naughty teacher/student fantasy.
Her interest in the boring life of a kindergarten teacher only lasted as long as our ten-mile trip to our apartment building. By the time we walked into our two-bedroom unit, my adventures in Vegas were a forgotten memory to Lacey. . . and, unfortunately, me too.
No matter how hard I try to unlock my memories, the only snippets I’ve unearthed the past five days are the quickest flashes of Rico’s beautiful, tormented eyes and lazy smirk. The flashbacks are short enough to keep my Vegas memories hidden, but long enough to tether my heart to a man I don’t know.
This is incredulous for me to say, but I never thought it was possible to miss a man you only knew for hours. Rico defies that logic. Most of our time together is lost in the background of my mind, but when I'm lying in bed, I miss him—the stranger I married.
I stop staring into space when Colt Rogers from Apartment 4A charges across the shimmery pool tiles and does a cannonball into the pool.
"It's Friday, baby girl!" he shouts at the top of his lungs before the pool water swamps his words.
