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Ten years in America and I’d never set foot in Nevada. Sure, I’d seen it in movies, read about the place, but driving into Sin City in the back of a pimped-out limousine was something entirely different to experience. The place was alive and dying all at once – the towering hotels, the decaying storefronts, the shells of high-rise buildings long since abandoned and waiting for their date with the demolition crew.
It was a place of extremes, more so than Los Angeles could ever be. It made me realise how out of my comfort zone I felt in this foreign city. It was only a five-hour drive, even with the traffic we’d hit on the highway, but it was another universe. The sun had risen while we were driving, or rather, while we were being driven. Dornan spent the majority of the drive on the phone to various club members. Viper called about a shipment of weapons, then Chad called his father to let him know about a deal going down with another club. I caught snippets of each conversation but tried to ignore it for the most part, thankful for the distraction that business afforded Dornan.
And then there was John. He called a few times before Dornan answered. Their conversation was brief and to the point; from the sounds of it, they were going to deal with things like adults and pretend nothing had ever happened. Fucking males and their inability to figure shit out. Not that I particularly cared. After the sex I’d just experienced underneath Dornan’s greedy hands, I was feeling exposed. Vulnerable. Memories of the good times had started flooding back to me. I’d never forgive him for the things he did, for the death and destruction he’d brought upon us, but I was starting to feel an aching void inside me that was the space he used to occupy. The darkest recess inside my treacherous heart muscle called out for Dornan Ross to put me back together again, to hold me close, to cradle me safely in his strong arms.
He hadn’t been that man in a long time, but then, I hadn’t been that girl in years, either.
Driving down the main street in Vegas was . . . interesting. I wondered why Dornan had chosen this place, of all places. When I asked him, he shrugged, a hint of something in his eyes. Don’t ruin the surprise, he kept telling me, and I just prayed that the surprise wasn’t my own violent death in a Vegas motel room at eight in the morning.
If I died here, I’d be so fucking pissed, I’d haunt Dornan and his father until their last breath. I made that vow, just as we pulled up in front of a swanky building, its gold mirrored windows reflecting the desert and surrounding buildings with a brilliant sheen.
I found myself marvelling at the change in Dornan; the rough biker carried himself like a businessman going to a high-powered meeting where he would call the shots. He was dressed up more than normal, even though he was still sporting his uniform. But the leather jacket bore no insignia, his hair was neat instead of mussed up by the wind and his helmet, and his black T-shirt looked like it came from an expensive store, hugging his broad chest in all the right places. His dark denim jeans were a slimmer cut than usual, his boots were new, and goddamn it, my lover looked like he’d just entered the WITSEC program for former bikers and drug cartel members. He looked like sex on a stick, his stubble neatly trimmed and sculpted around his chin, his dark eyes flanked by thick eyelashes that most females would be envious of, and the salt-and-pepper at his temples softened his dark brown mop of hair. The one tell-tale sign that he was a criminal was the slight bulge at the spot where the waistband of his jeans gripped his lower back, a gun neatly stashed against his skin, should we encounter any trouble. Oh, and the fact that he had two black eyes and a broken nose. Thanks, John.
We didn’t need to check in, a private butler whisking us straight from the limo to our room. It was a penthouse suite overlooking Vegas. The city was a mess of contradictions – who the fuck thought it was a good idea to put a city in the middle of a desert, anyway? So many buildings. So many billboards, each screaming about a two-for-one seafood buffet, or a shooting range, when they weren’t loudly advertising their respective casino floors. It was overwhelming, suddenly being thrust into the artifice of it all. I hadn’t had any time to prep. I didn’t even know what the hell I’d packed in my bag, though I suspected it was mostly summer dresses and flip-flops. This was something entirely different. This was about Dornan and Mariana and nobody else.
And yet, when I locked myself in the bathroom to freshen up, I stared at the edge of the basin and remembered John.
This was my first time in Vegas, and it was likely also my last, because I was either about to be killed, or, if I survived this ‘surprise trip’ and John and I managed to get away, we’d be going a little further afield than the next state over.
When I was done, the image of that Denny’s bathroom still visceral and unrelenting in my mind, I headed back out to the suite. It was bigger than my apartment, and looked like something out of a Vogue Living magazine. Dornan was standing at the window, his hands folded across his chest as he watched the city stir into action below. For a city that was switched on twenty-four seven, it sure seemed sluggish on a Monday morning. Probably everyone was hungover, or broke, or both.
‘What are we really doing here?’ I asked, joining him at the full-length window.
He turned to me, his face impossible to read. ‘Brunch. You should wear the white dress.’
Oh.
Shit.
How fucking stupid was I? I caught my reaction before my face conveyed it, tamped it down quickly and trapped it.
The white dress.
The trip to Vegas.
The last-minute plans.
‘Why are we here?’ I repeated, my chest a carved-out hollow because I already knew the answer. Dornan didn’t answer. He opened my overnight bag and pulled out the white dress, handing it to me with an air of finality.
The dress in one hand, I stared down at Las Vegas Boulevard and wondered, if I ran at the glass hard enough, would it break and let me fall to my bloody death fifty floors below? I handed it back. Dornan laid the dress out on the bed instead, smoothing out the creases.
‘Your father would never allow this,’ I said, staring at the dress Dornan had arranged. I didn’t have my burner phone with me. I couldn’t call John. Fuck! I needed to call John.
Right.
Now.
Dornan smirked, standing before me and tugging the hem of my dress. I resisted, holding on to that hem with everything I had. Dornan raised his eyebrows and took hold of my wrists, squeezing them just enough to show his strength.
‘Allow what?’
I rolled my eyes, trying to shake his grip off, but he was having none of it. He tightened his fingers around my wrists, and they throbbed in protest.
‘A trip to Vegas. A white dress. Look at what you’re wearing!’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe we’re going to have a nice dinner.’
‘It’s the middle of the morning,’ I shot back. My wrists were on fire. There’d be marks on them tonight.
