Page 84 of Fake Dark Vows
I need water. Instead, I tip a small shot of brandy into a crystal glass and knock it back, the liquid doing nothing to ease the scratchiness in the back of my throat.
“Good morning, sir,” comes the efficient voice on the other end of the phone. “There is someone in the lobby to see you.”
“To see me?” I rub my hands through my hair. Peer down at my creased pants, bare feet, and untucked shirt. “Who is it?”
“I’m not at liberty to say, sir.”
“Did they—” There’s a click, and the low hum of an ended call.
I wander into the bathroom and splash my face with cold water—it does nothing to alter the fact that I clearly didn’t sleep last night. I guess the concierges in Vegas are used to their visitors arriving looking refreshed and leaving with puffy pouches under their eyes and tired skin.
Five minutes later, I exit the elevator on the ground level wearing a jersey sweater, clean pants, and shoes, and with my hair combed, wishing I’d taken the time to drink a glass of water first. What if Rose is waiting for me? She’ll be even more reluctant to hear out my version of events while I’m in this state.
My smile fades as I approach the sleek front desk and Rose isn’t there.
“How can I help you, sir?” The concierge’s smile is fixed in place; he has a faint accent I never noticed before.
“Someone is waiting to see me?”
His eyes narrow briefly—he covers it up by casting his gaze onto the computer screen, scanning recent correspondence. “No, sir. I’ve no record of any guests requesting to see you.”
“You called my suite about—” I check my wristwatch “—ten minutes ago.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I didn’t call you. Perhaps it was my assistant. Are you happy to wait here while I ask--?”
I don’t wait around. I head outside to the teardrop driveway outside the entrance. New arrivals are climbing out of cabs while the bellhops wait with tall gold trolleys to collect their luggage. There’s no sign of Rose.
I was clutching at straws. Rose would’ve taken the elevator straight up to our suite—she wouldn’t leave an anonymous message with the concierge asking me to come down to the lobby. Would she? Unless that’s exactly what she wanted—me out of the room so that she could collect her stuff without us coming face to face.
Pulse racing, I head back inside. I need to speak to her, even if this is the last opportunity I ever have, I want to tell her that the wager was a huge mistake, something I should never have gone along with, and that I’m sorry.
The first thing I hear when I let myself back into the room is the sound of running water. I dash straight into the bathroom and find Rose in the shower.
My heart somersaults. She came back.
I don’t even consider that she might not be staying. She came back. She has given me the opportunity to tell her how I feel, and I’m not going to waste it.
She turns to look at me, water dripping down her naked body. She scrapes wet hair away from her face. Her eyes are huge with tears, and I toe off my shoes and join her in the shower, pulling her into my arms.
“Hey, it’s all right, Rose,” I murmur to the top of her head as she sobs against my chest. “Everything is going to be alright, I promise.”
Her body judders with emotions that she obviously can’t contain, and I hold her, stroking her hair, and whispering, over and over, that she’s going to be alright because I’m there.
“I’ve got you, Rose. I’ve got you.”
Finally, when she’s calm, I release her and pull away so that I can see her face. She sucks on her bottom lip and peers at me from beneath wet eyelashes. “You’re wet.”
I smile. “So are you.”
She nods and reaches for the hem of my sweater.
I grab her hands and stop her. “Rose, do you want to talk about it?”
“Later.”
She tugs my sweater over my head and tosses it onto the marble-tiled bathroom floor, and this time I don’t stop her. My pants follow. I cup her face in my hands and kiss every part of it, starting with her eyelids and making my way down to her earlobes, the base of her throat, her erect nipples.
She watches me trace a line with my tongue down between her breasts to her abdomen and stopping between her legs. Water cascades over both of us, collecting on her eyelashes like tiny diamonds. My gaze instinctively drifts to her hand, and my hard-on grows even more erect when I spot the engagement ring.