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“What are we doing here?” I asked Cash as he rounded the car and joined me on the sidewalk.
After fight night, Drake had been in and out of the office working and taking meetings. This morning he mentioned that Cash was going to drive me down to the strip to meet with someone, though he didn’t say who or why, so I was completely in the dark.
Cash passed the keys off to the valet before hitting me with a grin. “Come on… time’s a ticking.”
I fell into step with Cash as we walked into a hotel. It wasn’t far from the casino we’d been in on the weekend but a little more upscale and modern. I walked with Cash past the front desk. It was made of dark black marble and more than twenty feet long, matching the rest of the clean and sleek but seriously expensive and overly dramatic atmosphere. I tried not to feel out of place, but the girls who worked behind the desk narrowed their eyes and whispered to each other as we slipped by, one even picking up a phone and punching in some numbers
“Uh, Cash?”
He didn’t even blink twice though, continuing to where there was a wall of elevators and hitting the button for the second floor.
When the doors dinged open, he stepped inside, but I paused for a second, raising my eyebrow.
He rolled his eyes, sticking his hand out to stop the doors from closing again. “Come on, it’ll make sense upstairs.”
I gave in, stepping inside and taking it to the next floor, where the doors opened revealing a couple of security guards. “Oh yeah, this makes sense.”
“You both need to come with us, please,” one ordered, grabbing hold of Cash’s arm and dragging him out into the hall. The other reached for me, but I slapped his hand away and exited the elevator on my own. “You aren’t staying here, so we’re going to help you find the exit.”
“No, you won’t,” another voice announced loudly. “They’re guests of mine.”
Security didn’t look impressed with this new set of orders, their already stern expressions becoming even darker as they stepped back. I glanced past them to see Reed standing at the other end of the hall.
He waved us toward him. “Come on.”
I stepped around the security guard, though he didn’t make it easy, obviously not happy they’d been wrong.
“Hey,” I greeted with a smile as I approached Drake’s friend. It was hard to mistake Reed given the illuminati-style seeing eye decorating his throat with wings on either side. It was an intense but also surprisingly beautiful piece that I was eager to know the meaning of—if it had one.
“Thanks for coming,” he answered, letting out a heavy sigh.
“I’d say you’re welcome, but I actually have no idea why I’m here…” My voice floated off as I caught the flash of color in Reed’s tattooed hand and focused in on the bunch of flowers he was holding. “They’re pretty,” I commented, the handful of red roses tied with a gold bow, which wasn’t strange but not how I’d have dressed them. “For a girlfriend?”
“These?” He held them up and laughed, stepping back a couple of steps before sweeping his arm out for me to enter a couple of double doors. Cash hung back, making himself comfortable against the wall outside while I followed Reed through the doorway. “No, I’m actually having a small event here tomorrow night. I’m trying to choose final decorations, which is something my assistant would usually do or the party planner who works at the hotel, but one had an emergency and had to fly back to Boston, and the other is sick.”
“What kind of event is it?” I asked curiously as I took in the beautiful ballroom. The floors were shiny and wooden. It wasn’t huge but large enough for a couple of hundred people to have dinner at the large spread of tables.
There was a stage off to the left, a group of men setting up lights over it while the tables were still undecorated, with the exception of one which housed piles of different cloths and colored ribbons and another holding vases of every flower imaginable.
“It’s a charity dinner and auction for childhood cancer,” he explained, though he seemed distracted, his eyes wandering. “This is the third year I’ve done it, and the making-it-look-pretty part is usually something I let other people take care of. And now it will probably look like shit because I have no idea what the hell I’m doing.”
His fists were clenched at his sides. He wanted this place to look great, and it was clear the frustration building was because he felt like it was going to disappoint. Finally, he returned his gaze to me with a heavy sigh. “Drake mentioned you’re great with flowers.”
I let out a light laugh. “Okay, well, if I can say one thing…” I offered, walking over to the overflowing flower table, “… maybe don’t put roses on the table. Roses are more for romance.”
“All right.” He placed the bunch in his hand to the side. “Got any suggestions?”
I scanned the array, smiling when I spotted the ones I wanted. “Peonies,” I said, stepping to the other side of the table and plucking them out. They were a coral color more than the common pink shades, which I actually kind of loved. “Back in the day, peonies were believed to have a lot of healing qualities, parts of them used to cure sicknesses. There’s also a story about the Greek god…” I held the beautiful bunch of peonies to my nose but paused when I caught Reed smirking. “Sorry, I like flowers.”
“Like I said, I’ve heard.” He chuckled. “Don’t suppose you’re also good with decorations and could maybe stick around and help me out? I promised yourfiancéI wouldn’t steal too much of your time.”
Settling the flowers aside, I couldn’t stop the smile that took over my face.
Drake seemed to have that effect on me.
“I never got to say thanks for letting us stay at your place while I was recovering those few days,” I told him.
“Anytime. Honestly, I’ve been trying to convince Drake to move to Boston for a while now, and it seems like in a couple of weeks, you might have done what I couldn’t do in a few months,” he mused, leaning back against the edge of a table and folding his arms across his chest.
