“Do you come to Vegas often?” she asked.
He let out the smallest of pained sighs at her continued conversation. “Every couple weeks or so,” Gray finally responded.
“That often?” she asked, surprised. He didn’t seem like the gambling type. “What’s your vice of choice? Slots? Texas Hold’em? Lap dances? A little Cirque du Soleil?”
This time he didn’t bother to hide his sigh. “Listen, I get that you’re nervous, but do we have to, you know…talk?”
“Yes, we have to talk. It helps take my mind off the fact that we’re stuck in a dark death box. Plus your conversational skills clearly need some practice.”
“Are you always this noisy?” he asked.
“It’s not like I’m singing show tunes. It’s just small talk. You know…safe topics. Weather, movies, careers…Let’s start simple. Where are you from?”
More silence.
“Chicago,” he said finally.
She waited. Nothing. No detail. No reciprocal question. Not even a full freaking sentence. Sophie gently rapped her skull against the elevator wall in exasperation. “You’re killing me. Don’t you ever put more than three words together at a time?”
“Now who’s being rude?”
Sophie fought for calm, both over nerves and temper. Her fingers tightened reflexively on his leg. She belatedly realized exactly how high her hand had slid up his thigh. Her pinky was almost touching…
Oh God. She froze as she realized she was practically fondling the horrid man.
Gray turned his head sharply toward her, and she felt his breath against her cheek in the confined space. He looked away just as suddenly and studied the ceiling.
“I’m not interested in acquiring your services, so you can save yourself the effort,” he said quietly.
She blinked at him, totally confused. “My services?”
“You know, I mean…” He shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not really the type to pay for sexual, um…attention.”
Heat and disbelief swelled to Sophie’s head. She slowly pulled her hand away from his thigh as she processed what he’d just said.
“You think I’m a prostitute?” Her voice sounded like a twelve-pack-a-day chain smoker’s.
Something unfamiliar crept over Sophie’s cheeks, and she realized she was feeling something she hadn’t in years: humiliation. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d bothered to care what someone else thought of her. Somewhere between her family’s lectures and getting her first job carrying full martinis on a tiny little tray, Sophie had learned to let the looks and snide comments roll off her.
She’d thought herself immune to surprised disdain and friendly condescension. She’d learned to deal with the label of “law school dropout.”
But this?
A prostitute? It was a whole other ball game of embarrassment.
It was worse than the time she’d seen her mother’s golf instructor at the bachelor party where she’d been working as a bartender. Worse than the time she’d been uninvited from her former best friend’s engagement party for being too “showy.” Worse than Brian accusing her of floating.
Sophie was still reeling when the lights flickered on. The elevator gave another sharp jolt before it began a downward descent. A very slow, normal downward descent.
“Looks like they fixed it,” Gray said.
He climbed to his feet, and although he avoided her eyes, he must have had some long-stifled seed of humanity floating around, because he extended a hand to help her up. But there was no way Sophie would let her hooker hands touch his saintly ones, so she ignored the hand and crawled to her feet, more conscious than ever that she wasn’t wearing enough fabric to cover a Chihuahua.
His gaze was fixed once more on the door, and she realized that he wasn’t going to discuss the misunderstanding. He hadn’t even asked if she was a hooker. He’d just assumed.
“You think I’m a prostitute,” she repeated, her voice stronger this time.
His silver gaze flicked to hers. Then away. “Look, it’s not that I don’t respect your choices. I’ve just never been in the market for an escort service,” he said.
“An escort service, is it? At least have the balls to call us what we really are. Call girl. Hooker. Whore.”
He flinched but didn’t refute her.
“You know what I think of you?” she hissed, humiliation sending her into attack mode.
“I can hardly wait to hear,” he drawled in a bored voice.
But he never heard. The elevator gave a small beep as they arrived at the lobby level, and the doors opened. A flood of voices and faces swarmed toward them. Correction: they swarmed toward him.
“Mr. Wyatt!” A small man in a flashy striped suit rushed forward to greet her fellow captive. “I can’t believe it was you on that elevator. I’m so sorry, sir. I assure you, it will never happen again. I’m Philip Clinksy; as manager of the hotel, I’m personally horrified. If there’s anything I can do—”