There was a reason I didn’t drink.
Drunk, I was a fucking idiot.
“Ugh.” I rubbed my hands over my face, like that could turn back time. Erase this humiliation.
When was the last time I’d been embarrassed? Years. The last time I’d felt like this it had also been because of a woman.
But Eloise wasn’t to blame for the icky feeling creeping beneath my skin. No, that was all on me.
I needed to get the fuck out of this hotel room.
I needed to get the hell off the strip.
I needed to never drink tequila again.
Eloise and I had both been drunk. Not blackout drunk. Not slurring, sloppy drunk. No, we’d been the dangerous kind of drunk, the kind when you thought you were still in control. When inhibitions were low and courage was high. When you were foolish enough to believe a wild, reckless idea was the challenge of a lifetime.
“Fucking tequila.”
With my shoes on, I left the room, digging my wallet from my jeans pocket. Then I took the elevator down two floors, rushing to my own hotel room. The bed was made, its white sheets crisp and undisturbed from yesterday’s housekeeping.
I owned a house an hour from here, but Foster had wanted us all close to the strip for the fight, so he’d reserved me a room. Maybe I should have insisted on sleeping in my own damn bed. Then I wouldn’t have gone to the club last night. I wouldn’t have been anywhere near Eloise Eden.
My backpack was on a chair in the corner, so I hurried to pack it up, shoving my clothes and toiletries inside. Then I slung it over a shoulder and left the hotel, walking through the lobby to the main exit.
There were cabs waiting, but I passed them, needing to walk for a while before going home. To burn off some energy. To think.
The morning air was fresh. Crisp and cool. I drew in a long breath, smelling the water they’d used this morning to hose down the entrance. The concrete was still damp in a few places untouched by the sun. Clean, for now. Someone would probably puke on it later.
Nothing ever really stayed clean.
Especially in Vegas.
That had always been part of Vegas’s appeal. No matter how many sparkling, neon bulbs they added to the strip, there was always some dirt. Grit, like the sand that waited beyond the city’s borders.
People here flaunted their fake. There was freedom to be gaudy and loud. Judgment was loosened, usually by alcohol.
Last night was the ultimate example of Vegas’s poison. Eloise, a pure, beautiful woman, had been corrupted by Sin City. Tainted by a man whose demons had come out to play.
With my chin down, I kept my gaze locked on the sidewalk as I headed toward Las Vegas Boulevard. Left would take me to the Bellagio fountain.
I turned right.
Not a chance I could face that fountain this morning. With no destination in mind other than away, I walked, my hands tucked in my pockets.
Block after block, I waited for the pressure in my chest to lighten. Exercise had always been my outlet. My refuge. Except the tension in my shoulders, the pit in my stomach, seemed to grow with every step.
That’s when I looked up.
And realized this path I was walking was familiar.
“For fuck’s sake, Vale.”
I should have taken a left and faced that fountain. Apparently my feet had developed a mind of their own. And this morning, they wanted to return to the scene of last night’s crime.
The small, square building was out of place against the backdrop of sprawling casinos and massive towers. It was too charming. Too real. It belonged anywhere else.
But that was another part of Vegas’s appeal. This city welcomed all shapes and sizes. A couple could get married by Elvis beneath the glow of neon lights at a chapel that offered ninety-nine-dollar weekday specials. Or they could come here.
The Clover Chapel.
The white stucco walls were dotted with intricate, stained glass windows. Their blues and greens caught the morning light. A steeple with a brass bell sat atop the peaked roof. Vines with dainty flowers climbed the structure.
The pale wooden doors were marked with a small four-leaf clover tacked above the threshold. At my rental in Montana, there was a horseshoe in that spot instead.
Maybe if I believed in luck, maybe if I’d ever been lucky, I would have appreciated those symbols.
The chapel was closed now. Clover herself was probably at home, rolling in the cash I’d paid last night. The Clover Chapel didn’t do ninety-nine-dollar specials, certainly not for last-minute walkins only minutes before closing.
But you paid for their ambience.
You paid for the wisteria blooms that filled the open ceiling. They charged a premium for guests wanting to get married beneath a pergola teeming with glittering twigs, fairy lights, greenery and magnolia flowers. For the aisle lined with short, wooden pews to make you feel like you weren’t getting married in Las Vegas but in some quaint country church, surrounded by beloved guests.
Of all the places in the world, why would I come here again?
The ugly horse.
I’d brought Eloise here because of the story she’d told me about that ugly horse drawing.
She’d created such a vivid picture with that tale. Of her as an angry child, painting over a sketch so she could give her dad the card he wanted. I could picture her as a kid, desperate to please her father and surrounded by her shredded attempts at a birthday card. Then her again, smiling and happy, her skin marred with every shade of paint as she flipped off the idea of perfection.
That was why I’d brought her here last night.
She wasn’t the only one who wanted to take something ugly, something lacking, something painful, and cover it up with something beautiful.
“Pretty chapel, isn’t it?” A woman walking a chihuahua on a sparkly pink leash passed by. Her rainbow iridescent visor matched the dog’s collar.
I nodded, waiting for her to leave. Then I focused on the building again.
An ugly horse.
Covered in vibrant paint.
Yeah, this was a pretty chapel. I’d thought so the last time I’d been here.
The first time I’d gotten married in Las Vegas.
CHAPTER THREE
ELOISE
“Miss?”
I jerked at the lady’s voice. Lost in my head, drawing invisible circles on the hotel’s mahogany reception counter, I hadn’t heard her approach.
Guests had been sneaking up on me for the last three days, ever since I’d come home from Vegas.
“Sorry.” I gave her a bright smile. “Welcome to The Eloise Inn. Checking in?”
“Yes.” She nodded, then gave me her name to pull up in our reservation system.
Five minutes later, I slid over two key cards tucked into a paper envelope with her room number written on its face.
“The elevator is there.” I pointed toward the foyer. “You’re in room 302. Take a right when you get off the elevator and your room is at the end of the hallway. Can I have anything sent up for you this afternoon?”