Chapter 10
City of Sin
Nana Malone
To everyone who ever needs to let go a little.
Your fun is waiting.
Many thanks to my terrific editor, Glenda Howard,
and my fabulous agent, Natalie Lakosil, for bringing me into the Harlequin Kimani Press family.
You know that saying, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”? What if it doesn’t? What if what happens in Vegas is love? Mortal business enemies Synthia and Tristan duke it out for their hearts and a job in one of my favorite cities. I loved writing this story because Syn is a woman close to my own heart, sometimes a little too serious. But when she lets go, the world is her oyster. The two of them are fun, snappy and unpredictable. I can’t wait for you to meet them.
Always remember to Romance the Sass.
Nana
If you don’t want to miss a single Nana Malone romance, make sure you join my reader group here: eepurl.com/blicGL.
Tristan Dawson. Every woman’s dream man in the looks department. Smart, sexy and oozing with charm. Too bad he was the enemy. And currently trying to charm his way into a project that was rightfully hers.
She was going to kill him. The single thing stopping Synthia Michaels from lining up her alibi was the whole prison thing. She was way too cute for an orange jumpsuit. As she glared at her nemesis, she plotted all the possible ways she could engineer his demise.
The jerk was flirting with the client. Okay, maybe flirting was a strong word, but he was certainly working his Tristan Dawson make-them-panties-drop smile. And with that smile, Syn felt her chances of landing this assignment slipping away.
From the moment Tristan started working at Stellar Reach as a market analyst, they’d been at odds, butting heads over client decisions and methodology. She loathed everything he stood for. She worked her butt off with painstaking attention to detail and serious work ethic. She couldn’t deny it, his work was always done and it was difficult to find fault with the output. But his charisma and good looks gave him an unfair advantage. He’d poached some of her best clients with his effortless appeal. And God help the female clients. Syn turned her attention to Bella Bliss, Vice President of Marketing and Operations of Bliss Hotel Group, and almost felt sorry for the poor woman. Bella was a smart businesswoman, but here she was, salivating and stuttering over Tristan.
Not that Syn could entirely blame her. He was gorgeous. Tall and leanly muscled, he had a way of walking that made women stop and stare, imagining how good he’d be in bed. Couple the sheer sex appeal with his tanned skin and chiseled jaw, and most women around the office were goners.
On a regular day Tristan Dawson was hard to ignore, but in moments like this with him turning the full power of his allure on a client, the world was his. Syn was in no mood. She wanted this client.
She slid a glance over Tristan’s heart-stoppingly handsome face and studied the way he smiled at Bella, as if she were the only one in the room. When he spoke, he was professional, but there was something about the way he talked and that rasp infused into his voice. It made Synthia’s pulse race. Bella’s too apparently, because the petite hotel magnate was staring at him as if he were the second coming of battery-operated boyfriends.
Bella Bliss leaned forward, her cropped double-breasted jacket giving the whole room an excellent view of her cleavage. Their boss, Bryan James, pretended not to notice. And if Syn was being fair, she’d have to give Tristan a medal for effort. As far as she could tell, he’d kept his gaze on Bella’s eyes or at least in the general vicinity of her head.
Synthia also did her level best to ignore the blatant come-hither signals the hotel magnate was sending Tristan’s way, but it was hard.
This was her client, and she wasn’t about to roll over and let Tristan have it. No matter that the client was obvious about wanting him on the job. Bliss Hotel Group had been a long-standing client of Stellar Reach. It was standard practice to select the teams once the contract had been signed. It helped keep perspective fresh.
