to get her emotions under control. Hayden was counting on her to make sure that Max stayed in the hotel and gambled. And she didn’t want to let her friend down. “Sorry, Max. Let’s hit the tables.”
“Not yet,” he said, cupping his hand under her elbow and leading her out of the hotel and into the lushly landscaped gardens. There was a box-hedge maze that was illuminated by the light of the moon and subtle horticulture lighting.
“Where are we going?” she asked. She hung on to her illusion of happy Vegas girl by a thread.
“Somewhere quiet.”
“Why?” she asked, closing her eyes as she inhaled the aromatic scent of his cigar mingled with the scent of jasmine. For a moment she felt as if she were somewhere else. Someone else. But who?
He stopped and trailed his fingers up her bare arm, leaving gooseflesh in their path. She shivered, opening her eyes and looking into his clear gray gaze.
He was watching her with an intensity that made her hyperaware of herself. Of her femininity and his masculinity. Of the elemental differences between the two of them. She put her hand on his biceps and felt the solid strength in him.
This was a man who could handle everything life threw at him. She wondered if she could learn how he did it. If she could figure out what made him tick and use that knowledge to help herself. Yeah, right, she thought. The main reason she wanted to know what made him tick was that she wanted to know him.
Wanted to lean up and kiss him. To see if the fire in his eyes would be matched in his embrace. To taste his kiss and see if it would be as exciting as she knew it would be. But he was still a stranger, and she was wary of letting any man too close too quickly.
He ran his finger down the line of her cheek and traced it over her lower lip. “We are out here because I want us to be. And you are supposed to cater to my every need.”
His every need. “I’m not sure what you’re insinuating. But I’ve never been that type of girl.”
“I know that. I’m not insinuating anything. I don’t want you to be my hostess, Roxy.”
She swallowed. “Okay.”
“I want to be free to spend my time with you. To take you out of the hotel and away from the gaming room.”
She didn’t know what to say. She only knew that this job had lasted only one day, and she had no desire to go back to dealing. She was going to be out on the streets. She’d have to sell her car.
“I want us to get to know each other,” Max said.
She shook her head. She’d have to find another job. “I’m not ready to date.”
“Yes, you are,” he said. His breath brushed against her face and she leaned into his body, wanting to kiss him. Wanting to feel his lips on hers and see if it would be the intense experience she sensed it would be. She realized that she was falling for the Vegas fantasy. Rich man, beautiful woman, whirlwind romance.
She pulled back, turning away from him and walking toward a bench a few feet away. “You’re too bossy.”
He didn’t follow her, just stood in the middle of the path, taking a draw on his cigar and watching her with enigmatic eyes that saw too much. “I’m used to being in charge.”
“This isn’t your boardroom and I’m not one of your employees.”
“No, you’re not. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to take control.”
Max was pushing and he knew it so he backed off. He really did want Roxy by his side, and not just here in Vegas. She was the right woman at the right time. He needed a fiancée and, well, she fit the bill.
Even as the words echoed in his mind, he knew he was walking on thin ice. She wasn’t just an accessory he could pick up in Vegas and return with to Vancouver.
“Come with me to the casino. You can be my lucky charm, and then I’ll take you to breakfast and we can discuss this further.”
“I’ve never been anyone’s lucky charm,” she said.
“Maybe you just didn’t realize it,” he said, steering them through the crowded casino floor toward the high-stakes poker area in the back. Now he hardly noticed her slight limp.
“I think I’d know if I was lucky.”
“Maybe your luck is with things you take for granted,” he said, knowing that his luck came from making things happen. From never sitting and waiting but getting up and taking action.
She stopped walking. “I think you might be right. I mean, I wanted to win the lottery but didn’t. I wanted to keep on dancing and can’t.”
“I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”
She shook her head, shaking her honey-colored hair against her shoulders. Her hair looked like silk in the casino lighting, and he knew he should be concentrating on her words but instead just wanted to bury his hands in her hair and hold her head still for a soul-deep kiss.
“I just realized that I am lucky in a million little ways,” she said.
He took a deep breath and reached for the concentration that he was known for. Then he took her by the wrist and led her away from the noise and the crowds to an alcove tucked away in the corridor. “What are those things?”
She bit her lower lip and his concentration almost flew out the window. What would her mouth taste like?
“It will sound silly,” she said.
“I just called you my lucky charm, I think we’re already into silly.”
“Did you mean it?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She smiled at him then and her expression was so…tender that his heart almost broke. “That wasn’t silly, Max. It was very sweet.”
“Ah, hell, God save me from being sweet. You’re supposed to look at me and think, What a sexy guy. Not a sweet man.” But he liked that she thought of him that way. No one had ever seen him in that light before. They’d called him ruthless, determined and successful, but never sweet.
“Can’t you be both?”
“I don’t know, can I?” he counted.
He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer to him. Her words—that she wasn’t ready to date—echoed in his mind as he held her. Hell, neither was he, but holding her soothed that bit of loneliness that had been echoing through his soul.
“I’m not sure this is on the approved list of acceptable activities between a VIP and his hostess.”
“Your boss is one of my best friends, so I think I know how to make this right.”
“For you?”
He realized again that he was moving too fast. Her comment still ticked him off because he’d always been the kind of man
