“What time will you finish your shift today?”
“Six.”
“I’ll meet you outside then. We’re going to Buffalo Bill’s.”
Her mouth went dry. The hotel was twenty-five miles outside of Vegas in Primm, Nevada. “Trent, I’ll have to go home and change first.”
“We’ll stop by your place on the way.”
“What about my car? I can’t leave it here. I’ll need it to get to work tomorrow.”
“I’ll follow you.”
The idea of him in her apartment or even waiting outside made her want to hyperventilate. “But—”
“See you tonight, Paige.” A click followed by dead air told her he’d already disconnected.
The pink slip crumpled in her hand. This was not good. She needed to be dressed for her seductress role to bolster her confidence. There was so much more at stake. Last year she hadn’t had nearly the same reaction to his kiss and his lack of interest or ability had devastated her. As strongly as she felt the attraction this time around, she hated to think how bad another rebuff would feel.
But it was a risk she had to take to wipe the slate clean and start fresh.
Getting into Paige’s home was the best way to discover her weakness, Trent had decided some time during his restless night, and he’d planned tonight’s outing around getting access.
Judging by the way she fidgeted uncomfortably beside him in her living room with her white teeth pinching her bottom lip and her fingers fussing with the handle of her purse, he suspected Brent hadn’t been here.
“Paige, we’re short on time. Get changed.”
“Right. I’ll just…go do that.” Her reluctance to leave him alone in her space couldn’t have been more obvious. She must not bring men home often. She slowly backed away, then pivoted and hurried down the short hall.
Beyond her shoulders he spotted a wide swatch of dark purple satin. Paige’s bed. His abdominal muscles tightened. He abruptly averted his gaze. Where and how Paige slept was none of his business. But he wouldn’t have pegged her for the satin bedding type. And he’d prefer not to have the image of her blond hair spread across the purple pillowcase in his head or think about being sandwiched between her cool sheets and her hot skin.
He pushed aside the prohibited thought. Taking advantage of her absence, he scanned her space, hoping to discover more about her than the neutral decor and standard apartment layout revealed. Framed photographs dotted nearly every flat surface. There had to be at least thirty scattered about.
He stepped closer to the cluster on Paige’s dining-room sideboard. An older couple standing in front of a shop labeled McCauley’s Hardware, Bait and Tackle smiled from the largest frame. Her parents, he guessed. Paige had inherited her father’s blond hair and brown eyes and her mother’s curvy build.
In another Paige stood on the beach in the center of five women. She wore leg-revealing shorts and a bikini top. Great body. Tanned skin. She wasn’t tanned now.
The other women’s shapes, hair and eye colors varied, but their features were similar enough to imply a familial relationship. Probably her sisters. Paige wasn’t the prettiest, the shortest or the tallest, but there was something about her smile, the glint in her eyes and the challenging tilt of her chin that made her easily the most interesting of the bunch.
All of the photos were candid shots primarily of the same people in different groupings and locations, but each gave a clue to the subject’s personality unlike the stiff, formal poses his family preferred. His family didn’t do casual photos. Only studio portraits or oil paintings graced the walls of the Hightower home. This unpretentious collection made Paige—and her family—seem very real and made his deception that much more untenable. He turned away.
A pile of cards on her coffee table caught his eye and pulled him across the living area. The top one had a firefighter on the cover and the words, “Hope your birthday’s a hot one.”
Trent glanced down the hall and on seeing no sign of Paige flicked open the card. He blinked in surprise at the stripped-down, oiled-up version of the fireman inside holding a cake to conceal his groin.
He skipped to the hand-written inscription.
Happy 28th. We miss you. Hope your latest beau shows you a hot time. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do—but of course that leaves the field wide open, doesn’t it? Love you, Jessie.Your latest? If Trent were a betting man—and he wasn’t—he’d put money on Paige not having a lover currently. Not with the way she kissed. Sweetly. Tenderly. Tentativ—
For pity’s sake. Forget it already.
There were no men in the photographs other than her father, so if she had a significant other, she didn’t have a picture of him around. Unless it was on her bedside table. That whipped his thoughts back to those purple satin sheets. Not good.
He checked the second card. It featured similar beefcake on the cover of the first card.
“What are you doing?” Paige said behind him.
Caught red-handed. No point in denying it. He dropped the card and faced her. She’d changed from her black dress into jeans again, this time topped by a snug, red, low-cut pullover sweater that accentuated her br**sts and narrow waist almost as well as the black number had. He tamped down his appreciation and focused on his fact-finding mission.
“When was your birthday?”
She blushed and rushed forward to scoop up the cards and shove them in a drawer. “Last week.”
“Belated happy birthday.” The bed down the hall snared his attention again dammit, but he dragged his gaze back to her and gestured to the closest group shot. “Your family?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll bet you’re looking forward to seeing them over Christmas.”
She broke eye contact and straightened a frame. “I’m not going home for Christmas.”
His family might not be the closest or the most traditional, but they always celebrated Christmas together somewhere around the globe. He made a mental note to find out where his mother planned to gather this year and to make sure his sister found him a pilot who didn’t mind working the holidays for a little extra pay.
But the idea of Paige being alone bothered him for some reason. “You’re spending the holidays alone in Vegas?”
“I’m planning to do some of that sightseeing I’ve been neglecting.” She’d infused her voice with false eagerness, but the shadows in her eyes and the quiver of her lips before she mashed them tightly together told the truth.
Afraid he’d provoke waterworks if he continued that line of conversation, he pointed to the picture of five women. “Your sisters?”
“Yes.”
“Who’s who?”
“I thought you said we were in a hurry.”
“Talk fast.”
She choked out a laugh and headed for the door. “We have a ways to go and your chauffeur is waiting.”
He’d hired a driver and town car because he wanted to focus on his goal of decoding Paige tonight. He hadn’t expected to find the solution so quickly. “He’s paid to wait.”
She rolled her eyes. “The Desperado is supposed to be the best coaster in the area. I don’t want to wait. Come on.”
He shrugged and followed. Her sisters’ names didn’t really matter. He’d found what he’d come for. Paige’s family was her Achilles’ heel and the perfect way to get her out of the hotel before Brent and Luanne arrived. If he could get the women here, they’d get Paige out of the hotel and monopolize her time.
Now all he had to do was put his plan into motion.
Five
“I thought you said you liked roller coasters,” Paige said as she and Trent made their way through Buffalo Bill’s Casino toward the arcade to board Desperado for the third time. Her heart still raced from the excitement of the steep drops and double helixes, but Trent’s restraint dampened her enthusiasm.He transferred his attention from the two-hundred-plus-foot-high first hill of the track rising above them to shoot straight through the roof of the casino to her. “I do.”
“You have a funny way of showing it. You don’t look scared. You look…tense. You were a lot more relaxed the first time we met. Honestly, you almost seem like a different person.”
He inhaled sharply and paused. “It’s a good coaster. One of the best I’ve ridden. The designer made good use of the space by going through the casino, under the lobby and over the parking lot. Anyone gambling, checking into the hotel or even driving by outside will be lured into shelling out the price of a ticket.”
There he went again, deflecting the conversation away from his feelings to a less personal area. She’d never figure out how his mind worked if he kept that up. And call her crazy, but she needed to know someone before she slept with him—even if she planned on this only being a short-term encounter.
“Leave it to a CEO to make this about money.”
“In business, every decision is about money, Paige.”
“True. But why are you fighting so hard not to enjoy this?”
His eyebrows dipped. “What makes you think I’m fighting?”
“You could gamble with that face, you know? No expression. If I wasn’t so practiced at pulling details out of my sisters, you’d probably get away with it. But the blank look doesn’t work on me. I can see in your eyes that you’re holding back tonight.”
“You have an active imagination.”
She sighed. “I’m not the creative McCauley. Tell you what. I’m starving. I missed lunch. You can elaborate over dinner. Tony Roma’s looks good.”
“Does your bossiness work on your sisters?” His amused tone combined with a half smile made her toes tingle and curl. He guided her toward the restaurant without touching her, but he didn’t need to. His proximity was enough to spike her pulse rate—not that it had slowed much since she’d met him outside the hotel after work.
Having the big black car follow her home had been eerily like something out of a mob movie—and this was Vegas, a town once owned by the mob. “My sisters claim I’m a lot like a river. Over time I can wear down even the rocks.”
That earned her a wide smile and a deep, rumbling chuckle. Her belly swooped in response. He really was something else when he turned on the full wattage of that smile. Whatever hormones or pheromones the man possessed were certainly effective on her. It didn’t hurt that he looked absolutely yummy in his black cashmere sweater and jeans. He had a confident “I’m rich, I’m gorgeous and I don’t care” swagger going on that made her mouth water.
She waited until they were seated to start chipping away again. “I’d like to try the log flume ride before we go and maybe even the Turbo Drop. But only if you’re up to it.”
“I am. We should have time and still get you home by your self-imposed deadline.”
“I can’t do too many late nights or I’ll drown in my coffee mug.” She could only think of one cause for the distance in his behavior today. “Is this about the kiss?”