right,” she agreed, stretching out, ready to once again be a part of this man’s dessert. “As long as I can do the same to you.”
Six
The next morning Chase got up even earlier than usual, slipping out of the bedroom while Elena was still asleep. He closed the connecting doors so nothing he said would be overheard, then set about rescheduling his appointments for the day. It wasn’t an easy task, considering most of the meetings had been set up weeks in advance and it was earlier than most of his associates’ offices opened.
But by the time Elena made an appearance—once again wearing the short, sexy green nightie and matching robe that accentuated the emerald of her eyes—his day was clear and he was ready to put his plan into motion.
Although he was chomping at the bit to get going, he tried his best to act normal. He sipped his coffee and read the paper. When she pressed him to eat breakfast, he grumbled, but managed to down a couple of sausage patties and half of the western omelet she transferred from her plate to his.
An hour later, he rose from the table and repeated his speech from the day before, telling her he would be busy until dinnertime and that she should go out and have fun, at his expense. He handed her the same gold card and pile of cash she’d left on the dresser yesterday.
Out in the hall, he took the elevator to the lobby, but instead of leaving the hotel the way he normally would, he found a spot behind a bank of slot machines where he could keep an eye on the entrance without being seen.
He waited longer than he’d expected, checking his watch every few minutes. It took more than an hour for Elena to finally step off the elevator and head for the revolving doors leading outside.
She wore brown chunky heels, loose linen slacks the color of sunflowers and a form-fitting top with renaissance sleeves. Dark-tinted sunglasses were perched atop her head, and she carried a good size tan tote on one shoulder.
Hopping up from his stool, Chase followed her, staying a fair distance behind so she wouldn’t spot him. She stopped on the sidewalk, pulling the sunglasses down to shade her eyes from the bright mid-morning sun as she glanced in both directions, then started walking.
It seemed to Chase that they strolled down the street for an awfully long time. The sidewalks were already crowded, tourists flooding in and out of casinos and storefronts. Perspiration beaded his brow and pooled inside his thousand-dollar designer suit.
He was no stranger to working up a sweat, having grown up on a working ranch in Texas, where it could get just as hot as Nevada. Even though he’d chosen a different path and had more money than Croesus, he still enjoyed spending the day helping his parents or brother on their connecting properties. Currying horses, shucking hay, fixing fences … He just didn’t usually do any of those things in a fine Italian suit that cost more than his brother’s favorite saddle.
If Elena didn’t get to where she was going soon, he was going to give up and flag down a taxi to take him back to the Wynn.
Almost as soon as he thought it, she turned into a storefront. He stayed outside, trying to catch a glimpse of her through the giant plate glass windows.
So she was shopping, after all, he thought. The confusing part was that it wasn’t a fancy boutique, didn’t carry shoes or jewelry or designer clothes. It was a candy and toy store, full of fun, colorful products that would have had any child squealing with joy.
Elena strolled up and down the aisles, studying the bins of candy and chocolate, the racks of water pistols, action figures and plastic princess jewelry. When a clerk came up to her, she smiled and started pointing at certain items, nodding when the woman seemed to understand what she was interested in.
What the heck was she doing? Chase wondered. He adjusted his own sunglasses and tried to get a better look without being tagged as a stalker.
He watched as she stacked toys on the checkout counter, the other woman filling bags with assorted candies at Elena’s instruction. By the time they finished, her pile would have put Willy Wonka and his legendary Chocolate Factory to shame.
The clerk scanned everything, rang up the total and Elena handed over a credit card. But it wasn’t a gold one, so it obviously wasn’t his.
Rather than take plastic bags with the store’s logo on them, she put everything into her own tan tote, thanked the woman behind the counter with a wave and headed back toward the street.
Chase whipped around and hurried to the storefront right next door. This time, she flagged down a cab, and he suffered a moment of panic worrying he might lose her. Then, when he caught a taxi of his own, he felt like the headliner of a bad action movie, ordering the driver, “Follow that car!” The hundred-dollar bill Chase flashed kept the driver from commenting or looking at him as though he had a few screws loose.
Several minutes later, they pulled up in front of a large gray brick building surrounded by a tall chain-link fence. Chase watched from half a block away as Elena got out of her cab and slipped through the closed gate. He asked his driver to wait, then hurried along to see just what she was up to.
He didn’t have to go far. She hadn’t actually gone into the building after passing through the gate, but was seated on the bench seat of a red plastic picnic table at the edge of what looked like a school’s play yard.
Staying back, he watched kids of all ages crowding around her, and she was smiling and laughing, making a point of reaching out to touch each one on the head, the cheek, the arm.
Something lurched deep in his gut at the sight of her looking so happy. She was talking, teasing, her hands moving a mile a minute, then reaching into her bag for the things she’d bought at the store.
It took him a moment to realize the children weren’t as noisy as he would have expected, and that Elena’s animated hand motions weren’t simply a side effect of her exuberant mood.
She was speaking in sign language. The children bustling around her couldn’t hear. Chase looked around and his eyes lit on the sign on the front of the building that labeled it a school for the deaf. Yet Elena was interacting with them as easily as she would anyone else … perhaps better.
Oh, no, he didn’t want to see this. Didn’t even want to know about it.
He spun around, glancing at the taxi waiting for him at the curb, then turned back.
The kids loved her, loved the goodies she’d brought them, loved the attention.
And he hated it, because the entire situation was living, breathing proof that Elena wasn’t the same shallow, vapid girl he’d known nearly twenty years ago.
His mind in turmoil, he whirled around again and stormed to the cab, ordering the driver to take him back to the hotel. He fumed the whole way, stopping just short of ranting to himself and removing any doubt from the cabbie’s mind that he was a few quarters short of a roll.
He didn’t want to deal with any of this, didn’t want to see Elena as a sweet, thoughtful woman who knew sign language and would choose to spend her days in Las Vegas entertaining a group of differently-abled children rather than shopping and running up his credit card bill.
Had he ever met another woman who would do the same? His mother and sister-in-law, maybe, but they didn’t count.
What was he going to say
