CHAPTER THREE
It had been drizzling rain for hours. Streams coursed down the windowsill beside my desk where I overlooked one of the many courtyards on campus. The dorms were quiet as most of the students had already left for the term, so I decided to catch up on work. I was checking the traffic statistics on Clozpin when a new mail alert popped up on my screen from a name I didn’t recognize. The subject line read, “TechLabs Conference Panelist.” A thrill of excitement coursed through me. It was a request to fill in for a last minute cancellation at TechLabs, the biggest tech conference of the year.
“Alli...”
She grumbled something from under her blanket where she had been napping.
“Do you want to go to Vegas?”
“I thought you were hung over.”
“I am, but I just got invited to speak at the TechLabs Conference this weekend.”
Alli threw the cover off and sat up. “Are you serious?”
“Very. They had someone cancel on their social network CEO panel, and they want me to fill in.”
“We should do it, no question. This could be an amazing marketing opportunity.” She clapped her hands excitedly.
The trip would be expensive, but how could I pass up an opportunity to potentially launch us into the spotlight? What the hell. I couldn’t justify going half way at this point.
“Let’s do it,” I said, immediately giddy at the thought. Sure, networking could be great, but the idea of going to Vegas was pretty exciting all by itself. If I stayed away from the casinos, we’d be fine.
“Awesome, we need to start packing now,” Alli said.
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“Erica Hathaway, you’re the CEO of a fashion social network, representing your company in Las Vegas, the capital of glitz and glamour. We have serious work to do.”
I rolled my eyes as Alli snapped into action, losing herself in our miniscule closet, throwing what looked to be every mini dress she owned onto the bed.
“I’m going for the CEO look, not the call girl look, okay, Alli?”
“You’ve never been to Vegas, sweetie. Trust me.”
We spent the next few hours negotiating outfits while I booked flights and prepped material for the conference. In a little more than twenty-four hours, we would be in Vegas.
* * *
By contrast, Friday was warm and sunny, an invigorating promise of summer which, in New England, could make its appearance anytime between May and July. One more reason to go to Vegas, I thought.
Just past noon, I started across campus to meet with Sid. It was about time for his wake up call.
Not surprisingly, Sid and I met online first. I had the concept, the designs, and a small investment for start up costs, so after mulling over my original idea for a few weeks, I put out the call to the student body for a programmer to help build the site. Sid had been the first to reply. After a couple meetings, we decided to partner on the project, allowing me to put the money I had saved toward marketing instead, which had been critical for our early growth.
I banged on his door for a few minutes before he finally opened it. Sid was tall, well over six feet, and literally the skinniest human being I had ever known. With his dark skin and big brown puppy dog eyes, he was adorable in his own special way, but he’d been painfully single ever since I’d met him. I wasn’t the only one who needed to get out more.
This morning his eyes were bloodshot and tired, and I silently wondered if a new video game had come out. That usually had an effect on his already erratic sleep schedule.
“Here, I brought breakfast.” I tossed him an energy drink, and he grumbled a response before heading back into the cave—a messy suite he shared with a handful of other hermits. I followed him in and sat down on the couch.
“What’s up?” He cracked open the can and settled in at his desk covered in empty cans and pop tart wrappers. I resisted the urge to start cleaning.
“I’m going to Vegas to speak at the TechLabs conference, so I wanted to touch base with you before I left tonight. We might get a spike in traffic from the exposure. I just want to make sure we’re prepared for that.”
“How big of a spike?”
“I have no idea, but there are forty-five thousand people attending the conference. Alli is coming, so she’ll be doing PR too.”
“Okay, I’ll monitor the stats and have some load bearing servers set up for overflow.” He scribbled something into his notebook and booted up his machine.
“Do we have those already, or do we need to buy more?” I asked, hoping that we could avoid downtime with minimal funds.
“We can always use more. Is it in the budget?”
“Uh, not really. This trip is going to be a stretch.”
“How long until this money with Angelcom comes through?”
“If it does at all, I have no idea. I’m hoping to get a better sense of that when I meet with Max in a couple weeks. I think it usually takes a few months, but I have a feeling he might be able to get it pushed through more quickly if he’s really interested.”
“Okay, we’ll figure it out, I guess. I have a few old machines around here I can put together in a pinch. Let’s just hope the college network doesn’t go down.”
“Work your magic.”
I only understood about twenty percent of what Sid actually said, but I had no doubt he was a genius in his own right, so I trusted he would figure it out. He couldn’t wake up before noon, ever, but the man could build a computer out of ram chips and motherboards in a few hours. Plus, Clozpin had become his baby too, and like me, he worked on little else these days. I was thankful for his dedication, even if it meant working around his quirks.
“How’s the job hunt?” I asked, hoping he was as uninspired as I was to enter the real world.
“Uneventful. I haven’t been devoting much time to it.”
Silently relieved, I left it at that and got up to start cleaning.
“Erica, you don’t have to do that. I’ll clean today, I promise.”
“Don’t worry about it. Make sure we don’t go offline in the next forty-eight hours, and we’ll call it even.”
“Deal.”
* * *
As soon as we entered the Wynn, I knew Alli was right. It was barely past ten o’clock on a Friday night, and the casino was crawling with sexy women wearing the tiniest dresses I had ever seen. I looked like a nun by comparison, so Alli dolled me up back at the room before we headed out to explore the hotel. I settled on a tight black panel dress with nude pumps, and I let my hair go a little wild and curly.
“Girls here probably go to church in this dress, Alli.”
“No kidding. Hike it up a bit.” She coaxed some cleavage out of her tiny neon dress.
Mine easily busted out of the scoop neck of my dress. Stress hadn’t made my tits any smaller apparently. “No, thanks. I’d like to leave a few things to the imagination. You should too.”
“Whatever. It’s not like we know anyone here.” She shrugged.
I couldn’t disagree. This might be a chance to let loose a bit, but that could be dangerous too. Thanks to Blake, my skin was already crawling with an almost painful craving to be touched, everywhere. My vibrator wasn’t staving off the need he’d inspired and I was dangerously close to taking home the first Blake look-alike I could get my hands on.
Every time I recalled the pitch meeting, my thoughts drifted to different ways the morning could have played out, all ending with me flat on my back on the conference table screaming his name. Jesus Christ. I forced him from my thoughts. He was on my shit list, not my to-do list.
Alli distracted me, primping and fussing over my accessories. No one loved fashion more than Alli. At first I couldn’t understand how she could spend so much energy on her appearance, but eventually I came to realize that fashion had a lot more to do with feeling good on the inside than impressing anyone else on the outside, though it certainly helped.
It was past midnight when we stepped onto the casino floor as a throughway to our destination, a bar on the other side. The place was mobbed, and Alli grabbed my hand to navigate us through the crowd of loud and boisterous people.
“Erica!”
I slowed, certain I’d heard my name over the noise. I couldn’t be the only Erica here, but when I heard it again, I turned toward the sound and recognized a familiar face. Blake was standing at a nearby roulette table staring directly at me.
“Oh, shit. Let’s get out of here.” I looked away and took the lead with Alli trailing behind me.
“Wait, who is that?” Alli stopped me, causing a small traffic jam behind us.
“That is Blake Landon.”
“Whoa, what is he doing here?”
“I don’t care. I just want to be as far away from that man as possible.”
“He’s looking right at you, Erica. Let’s just go say hi.”
Alli waved at him and dragged me toward the table where he was playing. By some miracle, he’d become more handsome than I remembered. In a black collared shirt and all black suit, he was flawless. Intimidating. Sexy as hell. I took a deep breath and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear nervously, praying he couldn’t sense the sexual tension that was palpable at this point.
We would make this quick and be on our way.
“Erica.” He greeted me with those penetrating eyes. “What a surprise.”
I did my best to appear unaffected but found myself holding my breath as his gaze traveled the length of me. I crossed my arms, immediately regretting my wardrobe choice, but the effort to conceal my cleavage only enhanced it.
His lips parted slightly when his stare fixed there a second too long. I straightened and broke away from his stare, noticing the almost equally gorgeous man next to him. He looked like Blake’s slightly shorter twin, his hair a few shades lighter and his eyes a darker hazel, almost brown. He gave us a little wave.
“Erica, I’m Heath, Blake’s brother.”
He shot Alli a heart-stopping smile. She squeezed my hand slightly.
“Nice to meet you, Heath. This is Alli Malloy, one of my co-founders,” I said, silently hoping the introduction went absolutely nowhere.
Alli tore her gaze away from Heath to greet Blake. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Mr. Landon.” She smiled at him, and then me, raising her eyebrow a hair.
Now that she’d seen him in the flesh, she knew what I was up against, but her expression held no hint of sympathy. I could tell she was already crushing on his brother, and any chance I had of her going to bat for me had just gone out the window.
“Place your bets!” The croupier released the ball onto the wheel.
“Do you play roulette?” Blake asked.
“I do, but I’m not gambling tonight.” Gambling was off limits on this trip. Not to mention the minimum bet at this table was $1,000.
“Well, I am. What numbers do you play?”
The ball slowed down on the wheel, and I felt an unnatural sense of urgency for him to bet while he still could. “Um, nine and one.” I blurted out my birthday, numbers that had served me well in the past.
Blake placed $10,000 chips on both numbers and a few others, seconds before the ball dropped into the number nine slot. Alli and I screamed in unison. My heart beat wildly as I tried to do the math.
“Number nine!” The croupier handed Blake five colorful chips.
Blake gave one back to the man as his tip and tossed the rest into his pocket. He caught my hand and the contact shot through me. Between his touch and the recent win, my body was buzzing with pent-up energy. I pulled back defensively, startled by how much I craved his touch.
My gaze fell to the $10,000 chip that sat in my palm, amounting to more than all my historical roulette winnings combined.
“What’s this for?”
“For being my lucky charm. I wouldn’t have won without you.”
He gave me a playful smile that, combined with the thrill of having seen him win, almost made me forget how angry I still was. This might work with other girls, but I wasn’t about to be paid off.
“I can’t keep this.” I handed it back to him.
“I insist. Come on, let’s get out of here before another number drops.”
Reluctantly, I put the chip in my clutch, and we walked away without looking back.
* * *
“You look different. I barely recognized you.” Blake leaned in close so only I could hear him.
Alli and Heath were deciding what tapas to order while we waited for our tequila flights to arrive. We had wandered into a cantina with Vegas flair bordering the casino floor to celebrate, and Heath was already charming the hell out of Alli, leaving me to contend with Blake. His warm breath drifted over my neck, giving me instant chills. I tried not to imagine what his lips would feel like there instead. His proximity bordered on unacceptable, and he smelled amazing—like clean, spicy, sexy male. Someone could bottle that and make millions.
“Yeah, not exactly boardroom attire...” I consciously tugged down the hem of my dress, which barely covered the essentials now that I was sitting. If he looked me over one more time I might burst into flames right here.
“I prefer it.”
There were hundreds of beautiful women in the bar, and plenty of them were eyeing Blake. What luck, to not only run into him, but to also be trapped in his crosshairs while Alli flirted shamelessly with his brother.
“Are you here for the conference?” I asked, eager to change the subject.
“Mostly.”
“Blake’s here for business. I, however, am here for pleasure.” Heath winked at Alli.
He was laying it on thick, and Alli was eating it up. I couldn’t tell if she was genuinely interested or just doing really good PR. I hoped it was the latter.
“Actually, Heath is my VP of business development. Technically he’s here for the conference too.”
“Yes, whenever Blake’s work takes him to Vegas, my involvement in the company becomes suddenly very important,” Heath said. “We have very important titles, but most of us just sort of orbit around Blake here. He does all the real work.”
I waited for Blake to reply but only his jaw twitched. He seemed different somehow, more serious than I’d seen him before. He appeared relaxed, controlled, but I sensed tension beneath the calm countenance.
Alli broke the silence. “Sounds like Erica. She’s our fearless leader.”
Blake was about to speak when the waiter arrived with enough tequila shots to guarantee some seriously poor decision-making later in the evening. I picked mine up tentatively, making an agreement with myself and the tequila that this would be my first and my last. I couldn’t trust myself around Blake as it was, and tequila made me do crazy things.
Heath raised his in the air to toast.
“What shall we toast to?” I asked.
“To winning,” he said, and our glasses clinked.
I could drink to that, and I tossed mine back, grabbed a lime, and sucked it hard to salve the burn of the liquor.
For the next hour or so, Heath regaled us with his stories—adventures in Sin City, backpacking in Europe, and the opulence of living in Dubai. Charismatic and funny, Heath was a magnetic force of his own. Alli asked him questions and kept him talking, which was almost a relief. I was still pissed at Blake and didn’t feel up for sharing any tidbits of my personal life with him.
“Can I get you another drink? Something different?”
I shivered at the depth of Blake’s voice, effectively distracted from the show of Alli’s and Heath’s interactions.
“I have to speak on a panel in the morning,” I said. “I should actually call it a night.” It was almost two a.m. local time. The long day was starting to catch up with me, but I wasn’t so sure about Alli. “Do you want to head up, Alli?”
“Um…” She looked to Heath.
“Hang out with us for a while,” he said softly.
She looked back at me, saying yes with her eyes, which were lit up like Christmas.
“Are you sure, Alli?”
“Yeah, I’ll be up in a bit. Don’t worry about me.” Alli glowed. The tequila was already winning.
“We’ll make sure she gets home in one piece,” Heath promised.
I almost believed him. Normally I would have guilted her into leaving for her own sake, but I didn’t want to spoil her fun tonight.
Blake stood up with me. “Let me walk you up.”
“No, thank you. I’m fine.”
“I’m heading back too. We can walk together.”
I relented, fairly confident I could survive the next ten minutes alone with him.
We made our way to the elevators and Blake ushered me into an empty car, his hand resting on the small of my back. The unexpected contact warmed me through to my core. We stood side by side as the doors closed. My fingers drummed the railing anxiously.
“They seem to be hitting it off,” he said, breaking the silence.
“I noticed. Your brother is very charming.”
“He’s a handful.” He shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair.
“Alli can be too. Maybe they’ll keep each other out of trouble.”
Blake raised an eyebrow, looking doubtful.
Silence descended again. The hum of the elevator seemed to amplify the energy between us, as if my attraction to Blake had somehow become audible and now radiated in the silence. Clearly I had underestimated how long ten minutes with him could be.
When the elevator stopped at my floor, Blake walked me out and escorted me down the hallway to my door.
“Here we are,” I said, hoping our goodbyes would be brief.
Instead his hand trailed from my back to my elbow and down my arm until we were hand in hand again. He traced tiny circles in my palm with the pad of his thumb, and I was uncertain in that moment if the sensation had caused actual pain. It was an undeniable shock to my system, almost electric, traveling to my fingertips and other areas.
“Blake, I—”
My body was rioting against the tyrannical misgivings of my brain. His face was mere inches from mine, intoxicating me with his scent once more, reminding me of the first moment we met.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in for a drink?” he murmured. His tongue traced his lower lip and his teeth caught it.
Who could say no to him?
I swallowed hard and stepped back a little, disconnecting from the electricity of his grasp. I shook my head and twisted with my hair nervously, trying to concentrate on anything other than his lips. “I have to get up in a few hours.”
“Me too.”
This was the same Blake Landon who had nearly destroyed my chances for funding my company only a few days prior. I wasn’t about lie down with the man. Right?
I took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eye. “Blake, I’m sure you’re not used to hearing this, but I’m really not interested. We had fun tonight, but I’m here for work.”
“You don’t look like you’re here for work.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, but he only grinned.
“Seriously, Erica, are you saying that you aren’t attracted to me, at all?” His arm slid up the wall as his body circled mine.
Determined to keep distance between us, I pressed myself against the door. Were those last few inches that separated us the last bastion between me and…a night of a lifetime?
No, between me and a very big mistake.
“If you’re fishing for a compliment, you’re not getting one from me,” I said. “And even if I were attracted to you, I would not be acting on that for a number of reasons, not the least of which is keeping my relationship with Angelcom as uncomplicated as possible.”
“I’m not investing in your project, so it’s not complicated.”
“I disagree.”
“How could I persuade you?” He smirked, challenging me.
The fabric of his suit strained a little against his arms and thighs. Jesus, techies weren’t supposed to be this sexy. All I wanted to do was unwrap him like a present. How I could possibly resist him if he touched me again, or God forbid, kissed me?
I wanted nothing more than to drag Blake into my room and f*ck him senseless, but I knew better.
“It’s quite simple. You can’t.”
I turned away and fumbled in my purse for the key. The next minute his body was behind me, and a warm and possessive arm circled my waist. I closed my eyes and sucked in a sharp breath, reeling at the sudden contact. He swept the hair away from my neck, brushing a soft kiss behind my ear. My vision went white and I pressed my hands against the door for balance.
“See you tomorrow,” he said with a shaky breath.
I turned and he was gone. He disappeared down the hall and into the elevator. I leaned into the door, cursing myself and wishing he had stayed as much as I needed him to go. My fingers trembled but I finally found the key…and the chip next to it.