Waking up in Vegas

Waking up in Vegas - By Romy Sommer

Chapter One

I wish I were dead. Phoenix moaned and pulled the pillow over her head to block out the blinding light and the clamour of rain. If only her head would just explode and get it over with.

At least the pillow seemed softer this morning. And it smelled nicer than normal too. A fresh citrus scent that quickened her blood.

Hang on a minute. Rain? In Vegas?

She peeked out from under the pillow. Oh my…

Not her room.

This room was at least twice the size of her entire motel apartment, and way better furnished. Correction: this wasn’t just a room; it was a palatial hotel suite. Through the double doors she spied a living room.

She sank back on the pillows, which seemed to be dusted in gold glitter. Perhaps she’d already died and this was heaven. Though she highly doubted heaven would want Phoenix Montgomery. Not that she’d been a particularly bad girl, but she’d never made much effort to be particularly good either.

And she’d certainly seen and done a few things a more conventional person might quail at. This being one of them.

She covered her eyes. Blocking the sunlight streaming in through tall windows at least helped the ache in her head.

Sunlight? Then that wasn’t rain…

Instantly awake, she turned her head and identified the source of the sound of running water: not rain, but a shower running.

She wasn’t alone.

Terror clutching her heart, she lifted the crisply starched sheet. Oh hell…

Beneath the sheet, she was stark naked, aside from yet more gold glitter. And not alone, in a room she didn’t recognize.

What the hell had happened last night?

Through the aching blur, she fumbled for memories. She and Khara had got off work not long before dawn, and they’d gone out for a drink as they often did at the end of a shift. They’d chosen a pool hall away from The Strip, the kind of place that wasn’t in any tourist brochure. With the sedatives the doctor had prescribed to help her sleep, Phoenix hadn’t had that much to drink. Besides, she could handle alcohol. Unless…

There was only one thing that could get her drunk.

She closed her eyes, grasping for the memories. They’d danced to music from an old-fashioned juke box and played a couple of games of pool. She’d even won a little money off a guy with tattooed arms who couldn’t believe he’d been bested by a girl.

And then there’d been a man who bought her a drink…

The bathroom door opened. Phoenix sucked in a breath and opened her eyes.

Yeah, that man.

God, but he was drool worthy. Especially wearing nothing but a fluffy white towel wrapped around his hips. He definitely worked out. Until now she’d believed six packs like that were the results of air brushing in magazine spreads. This set of abs was one hundred percent real.

She forced her gaze higher, over the tanned chest, broad shoulders, up to meet a pair of startling blue eyes in a face framed by overlong fair hair.

“You’re awake. Good. I’ve ordered breakfast.”

She was so not hanging around for breakfast. She cleared her throat. “Where are my clothes?”

He pointed toward the living room. Clothes lay strewn across the floor and, yep, there it was, the only thing that could get her truly and embarrassingly drunk… a bottle of champagne, empty and lying on its side on the floor.

“How are you feeling?” The demi-god’s voice matched his face; deep, masculine, with a hint of amusement and a faint Germanic trace.

He perched on the edge of the bed. He smelled as good as he looked, clean and slightly lemony. Just like the pillow. Her blood all rushed south again.

She could only imagine how much fun he’d been up close and personal. Pity she had absolutely no memory of it.

“Did we really…?” She waved a hand at the bed, and her naked body beneath the sheet that she now held clutched to her breasts. And her heart stopped.

Was that a ring on her finger? On her left hand?

She clutched her head in her hands and groaned. “Please tell me we didn’t…”

She shook her head. Sex with a virtual stranger was one thing, but there was no way she’d done the M word.

He laughed a low, throaty chuckle. “Yes, of course we did. It’s going to take some getting used to, isn’t it? Who’d have thought we’d meet our destiny in Las Vegas?”

Destiny? He had to be kidding, right? There must be hidden cameras in the room. If this was someone’s idea of a joke, it wasn’t funny. Whoever the pranksters were, they’d better be paying her a lot of money. She rubbed her temples. “I need coffee.”

“I’ve ordered coffee and fresh orange juice with breakfast, but you should drink the juice first.” A knock sounded on the distant door to the suite. “Great timing.”

As soon as he turned his back to let the room service waiter in, Phoenix made a mad dash for the bathroom. One look in the mirror was all she could bear. While Demi-God had that tousled, fresh-out-of-bed-and-can’t-wait-to-get-back-in-it look, she just looked as if she’d fallen asleep drunk.

She bolted for the door and rubbed her throbbing temples. Think, think. What the hell had she done? And more importantly, what the hell was she going to do now?

Steeling herself, she turned and checked her reflection in the mirror. Glitter? Seriously? She was so not a sparkly, gold glitter kind of girl.

First things first. Shower. Clothes. And then she was getting the hell out of here.

She turned on the shower as hot as she could bear and stepped under the stream. Then she leaned her forehead against the cool, tiled wall. Okay memory, you can come back now.

The ring on her finger was bigger than a wedding ring, a masculine thing, more signet ring than wedding ring. A pattern of stylised roses wove around a blue stone carved in the shape of a dragon’s head. She was no jewellery expert, but she guessed it was made of silver and lapis lazuli, and was very, very old. It was the kind of ring one used when one married on the spur of the moment without any planning.

Not the big, flashy diamond ring the producers would no doubt supply if this were an episode of Pranked.

She groaned aloud. She couldn’t possibly have agreed to get married last night, even on a bad mix of sedatives and champagne. Though Demi-God sincerely seemed to think they had.

Demi-God also needed a name. She thumped her head against the tiles, but that didn’t help. One memory sprang to mind, though. They’d gone dancing in some swanky nightclub. And boy, could he dance. A sudden clear image surfaced, of his hands on her waist as they slow-danced, locked in their own little bubble on a dance floor, surrounded by grinding, gyrating bodies.

Desire flashed through her, so strong her knees threatened to buckle. If that was her reaction when he wasn’t even in the room, could she perhaps really have done it? Could she have married him in an endorphin-fuelled high?

She used his lemon-scented body wash and scrubbed her hair with the masculinely-branded shampoo. Feeling at least a little better, she switched off the water and stepped out the shower. The towels felt even fluffier and softer than they looked. Whoever Demi-God was, he could afford one of the best hotels in town that was for sure.

Whether he’d won it all in the casino last night, or earned it the regular way, she didn’t care. Either way, she hoped she hadn’t signed a pre-nup.

She shook her head. Focus, Phoenix.

She needed clothes, but hers were strewn across the floor of the suite, and getting to them would mean having to face Demi-God again. She wasn’t ready for that.

Beside the door hung a cotton bathrobe. This was Vegas. As long as she wasn’t running down the street naked, she could probably still hail a cab without getting arrested for indecency. She covered herself and faced the mirror again. Much better.

Now she had to figure out an escape route, preferably one that didn’t involve having to get past her new husband first. Morning After small talk was bad enough without having to throw in ‘Who the hell are you?’ too. Not to mention, heaven only knew what her endorphins might do if she had to face him again.

The window.

There was only one, high up over the massive spa bath. She climbed up on the bath ledge and wrestled with the latch. With an ominous and over-loud squeak it finally gave way, and she shoved it open as far as it would go.

Damn. Regulation four inches.

“Are you okay in there?” Demi-God’s voice sounded very close to the bathroom floor and her heart hammered.

“I’m fine.” Insane, crazy, desperate, but just fine.

Phoenix looked back at the window. It was high. It was extremely narrow. But as long as she didn’t breathe, she could do this. She hoped. Arms, head or legs first?

She’d only done this once before, but if she could do it once, she could do it again. All she needed was a ledge to stand on once she was out and a drainpipe to shimmy down. This time should be even easier, since she was barefoot.

As there was no curtain rail to hoist herself up with, she opted for arms first. Squeezing her eyes shut, she gripped the window frame, and pulled herself up. Then carrying her weight on her arms, she leaned through the gap to look out. And wished she hadn’t.

No frickin’ way. She wasn’t afraid of heights, but this was high. And this certainly wasn’t anything like that three storey boutique hotel in Miami she’d escaped from. Even if she could squeeze herself through a four inch gap, there was nothing but a thirty storey fall on the other side. Give or take a few storeys.

Four inches was a whole lot smaller than she remembered. Her arms were scraped by the time she managed to wriggle backwards onto solid ground.

Okay, re-group.

She sat on the cold toilet seat and wiped her arms down with a damp facecloth.

One bonus. At least now she knew it was morning. Probably tomorrow morning. Which meant she hadn’t just lost a few hours, but had a whole day and night to account for. And at least one bottle of champagne.

Well, she couldn’t change what was past, so she would focus on the here and now. Since escape wasn’t an option, she should unbolt the door and go out there, get her clothes, tell Demi-God ‘That was fun. Have a nice life’ and leave the traditional way.

Or she could sit right here until the maids came in to make up the room and use them as cover to duck out?

Option B it was. She stuck her hands between her knees. Had the bathroom shrunk? The walls seemed to be pressing in.

“You still in there?” The voice on the other side of the door sounded concerned now.

“Sure. Where else would I be?” Spread across the asphalt thirty storeys down?

“The coffee’s getting cold.”

At the thought of coffee, her mouth watered.

“You want to talk?”

No, she didn’t want to talk. She twisted the ring around her finger. The craftsmanship was certainly awe-inspiring. The carved silver roses even had petals. Nope, the producers of Pranked definitely weren’t that imaginative.

“I hope you’re not having second thoughts this morning.” This time Demi-God didn’t sound at all concerned. He sounded amused, confident no woman wouldn’t want to be married to him.

I’ve got news for you.

“I know it’s sudden, but see this as just another fun adventure,” he said.

Sure. Like root canal was fun.

“You know I thought I’d be the one needing time to adjust to the idea. Are you sure you’re okay in there? Is there anything I can get you?”

He wasn’t going to let her be, was he? If she didn’t go out there and face the music, he’d probably call Security to bang the door down. Actually, that could work…

But if she had to sit still another moment longer, she’d go mental. “I’m fine. I like my coffee black, one sugar.”

When she heard the clatter of coffee cups in the distance, her stomach growled. Maybe staying for coffee wouldn’t be so bad. She could explain this was all a big mistake, get dressed and leave like any rational person. She could do rational.

But if she was going to do this, she wanted a rough idea of who her host was, where she was, and how to get home.

She rummaged through the bathroom cupboard. There was nothing there except the usual hotel branded toiletries. At least now she knew where she was. The Mandarin Oriental.

Talk about getting lucky. She’d always wanted to spend a night at the Mandarin.

Next, she tackled the leather toiletry bag beside the sink. Jackpot!

A small container of headache tablets with the name Max Waldburg and the contact details of a pharmacy in Napa.

Mrs. Waldburg … no, that definitely didn’t sound like her. Hell, Mrs. Anything didn’t sound like her. She was a tumbleweed, an adventurer, not a married woman tied to some man she barely knew.

She swallowed one of the tablets, combed her hair, then found a complementary airline toothbrush and toothpaste in the bag, and brushed her teeth.

Okay, she was as ready as she was ever going to be. Sucking in a deep breath, she headed for the door.

The first thing to assault her senses as she emerged from the bathroom was the scent of bacon. Her stomach flipped in ecstasy. She was starved. Maybe coffee and bacon, and then she’d get away.

The suite was decorated in a slick Asian design, in soft creams and browns, but what grabbed her attention was the panoramic cityscape beyond the floor to ceiling windows. It looked a whole lot better from this angle, when you weren’t dangling over the drop.

Max sprawled on the sofa, reading a newspaper. He grinned up at her, a dimple appearing in his cheek. “Ready to eat?” He waved at the dining table that had been set for two. Including polished silver cutlery and a crystal vase full of yellow roses.

He sat aside the newspaper and moved to join her at the table. “The flowers are for you, to make up for the ones you didn’t have at our wedding yesterday.”

Did he know they were her favourites? She shook her head. She didn’t want to know how much he knew about her from yesterday. And she hadn’t even been able to remember his name. Guilt and shame crowded her, but she pushed them aside. Life was too short for regrets.

And with her stomach doing some serious complaining, life was also too short to reject a good meal, no matter how awkward the circumstances. Who knew when she was ever going to afford to eat at the Mandarin again?

Pulling on her metaphoric big girl pants, she sat across from Max at the table and spread the real linen napkin across her lap. No paper napkins here.

And the bacon was every bit as good as it smelled. Like a good girl, she drank the glass of orange juice Max handed her. He was right about one thing; she felt a whole lot better with the food and juice inside her. It certainly beat her usual bowl of cereal, eaten standing up in her elbow-room-only kitchenette. And the view was way better, without looking at what lay beyond the windows. Wasn’t it just her luck that she pulled the most gorgeous man she’d ever met, and she couldn’t remember any of it?

When they were done, Max cleared away the plates and poured the coffee. Fresh, full-roasted coffee with cream. Phoenix couldn’t help but lick her lips in anticipation.

Max rocked his chair back as he sipped his coffee. “So what shall we do today?”

“I need to get to work.” Or anywhere but here. Besides, if this was really tomorrow, then she was supposed to switch to the day shift today.

“No, you don’t. Khara offered to take your shift today, remember? After all, we’re on honeymoon.”

Khara was in on this? Phoenix was going to wring her neck as soon as she got back to work. Friends weren’t supposed to let friends drive drunk. Or get married while drunk, either.

She swigged down a mouthful of fortifying caffeine. “Well now, that’s kind of the problem. I don’t remember.”

Max’s forehead furrowed. “What don’t you remember?”

“Everything. Anything. The last thing I remember was you offering to buy me a drink in the pool hall.”

She wished she had a camera for the expression on his face. Floored didn’t even begin to cover it.

Then a smile crinkled the edges of his eyes. He obviously smiled often, because the crinkles deepened so naturally. “I guess I’ll have to remind you, then.”

With a grace she could only hope to emulate, he rocked his chair forward and grasped her seat with both hands, yanking her closer.

He wasn’t even touching her, yet his proximity sent a rush of static heat through her. And when he slid a rough hand up her thigh, parting the robe … now she understood why she’d married him. Endorphin city. The sex must have been the best of her life. She damned well hoped her memory returned soon, because there wasn’t going to be a repeat performance anytime soon.

She pushed his hand away and clamped the front of her robe closed. Clamped her knees shut too, but that was more to ward off the sudden wave of desire shooting through her. He had her wet and needy and all he’d done was touch her leg.

She shifted her chair away from him, far enough away that she could breathe again, and reached for her coffee cup. “So tell me about yourself.”

His brow furrowed again. “You seriously don’t remember anything from last night?”

She shook her head.

He blew out his breath, grinned and stuck out his hand. “Hi, my name is Max. It’s a pleasure to meet you Miss…?”

“Ms. Montgomery.” She couldn’t help but smile back. He had that kind of infectious grin that was really hard to resist. “But you can call me Phoenix.”

“Interesting name. Is it your real name or a nickname?”

“I’m not telling. At least not until we’ve dated at least six months.” And none of her relationships ever lasted that long.

“Okay. But if you prefer, I can always call you Georgiana.”

She flushed all the way down to the roots of her hair. How much had she told this complete stranger yesterday? She never told anyone her real name. “Since I’m obviously at the disadvantage here, I don’t suppose we could speed this up a little? Like full name, place of birth, age, job description?” The reason why I married a complete stranger?

He eyed her for a long moment and she resisted the urge to squirm. For a mad second she thought he was weighing something up and deciding how much to tell her. God, she hoped he wasn’t a con man. That would be awkward if she was left with the bill for this fancy suite. She didn’t think her life savings would stretch to breakfast, let alone a night in this hotel.

Then he smiled, mouth wide, eyes crinkling, and her heart thundered against her chest. With a smile like that, it was amazing he was still single. Well, single enough to marry her, of course.

Assuming he wasn’t some Mormon with three wives back home. Was bigamy legal here in Nevada?

“Max Waldburg. I was born in a tiny principality in Europe you won’t have heard of, my age is on our marriage contract, and I work for my grandfather on his farm.”

Farm. Napa. Something clicked. “A vineyard. You make wine.”

“I’m a vintner, yes. Five years of studying viticulture, and a whole lot more as an apprentice to my grandfather, and the critics say I’m getting quite good at it.”

He reached for her hand, and this time she didn’t push him away. His touch was more than a caress; it was as if she stood in a rainbow, in a shaft of sunlight on a cold day.

“You’ll love it there. The farmhouse has a wrap-around veranda and a kitchen the size of forever. You can stand at the front door and look out over the entire valley and see nothing but vines and trees. At sunset, it’s truly magical.”

She’d married a poet. That figured. She always managed to attract men with very little grasp on reality. “You were born in Europe, but your family’s American?”

“My mother’s family is American. My father was from Europe, but he’s dead now. He died a few weeks ago.”

“I’m sorry. My father died recently too.” And this was the first time she’d thought of him all morning. She’d been awake nearly an hour and not once had the familiar grief overwhelmed her. Max might have his uses after all.

He squeezed her hand. “I know. That’s what drew us together in the first place.”

She didn’t need to ask what drew them together in the second place. The delicious static buzzing between them spoke for itself. And if she didn’t put a little space between them very quickly, she was going to find out first-hand how good the sex had been. She wasn’t usually a girl who slept with a guy she didn’t know. At least, not when she was sober.

She pulled her hand out of his and slid off the chair, away from him. Pacing the floor was preferable to being seduced by the deepest, darkest blue eyes she’d ever seen.

Blonde hair, blue eyes, tanned skin. He would make a good surfer boy if he ever decided to give up farming.

“So we signed a marriage contract?”

He laughed. “It’s on the side table. Knock yourself out.” The idiom sounded quaint in his subtle accent. She took advantage of his offer and leapt at the envelope on the small table he indicated. The papers inside seemed genuine. And that really was her signature, messy beside his large, looping, slightly old-fashioned scrawl.

“Is there a pre-nup?”

“We won’t need one.” His confidence bordered on arrogance. “There hasn’t been a divorce in my family in over three hundred years.”

She had news for him. She could only track back two generations of her family, and there hadn’t been a divorce in any of them that she knew of either. But that didn’t mean there couldn’t be a first time.

On the plus side, her impetuous little marriage could be her ticket out of a dingy motel in Vegas. Max had wealth and privilege written all over him. “So what’s your big plan for our future?”

He leaned back in his chair, lips curling in a smile. Did anything bother him? Did he ever stop smiling?

“We’ll go back to Napa, of course. And we’ll make wine, and enjoy the sunshine, and clean air and good food. We’ll have a family, and we’ll grow old together.”

Phoenix was ready to stick her finger down her throat. Stay in one place the rest of her life and grow old there? Stay with one man, forsaking all others? Over her dead body.

She dealt with the easiest issue first. “Why do I have to uproot myself and move to Napa? You could move here.”

“Because I have responsibilities in Napa, to my grandfather, to everyone who works on the farm. You don’t. Last night you told me Napa was as good a place to live as any.”

She rolled her eyes. “I was obviously out of my mind last night. I like not being responsible for anyone or anything.” Or to anyone. As long as she showed up for work every day and didn’t spill drinks on the customers as they threw their life savings into the slot machines, her life was her own, to do with as she pleased.

Max leaned back. “That’s a rather selfish way to live, don’t you think?”

“Of course it’s selfish. And I’m perfectly happy with that, thank you very much. So how do we go about getting a divorce?”

That wiped the smile off his face pretty quick. “I just told you there hasn’t been a divorce in my family for over three hundred years.”

“Then you’d better start making plans to have me bumped off, because there is no way in hell I’m going to settle down and play happy families with you. If the choice is between life as a soccer mom driving an SUV in the suburbs, and death, then it’s a very easy choice.”

“Who says it has to be either?” He laughed, and her tolerance level jumped from mild irritation to flat out anger.

She waved the papers in her hand. “This marriage is a mistake. Commitment is the quickest way to end a good relationship, and we don’t even have that.” Not to mention that it committed you to only one person, and where was the fun in that? No more waking up in strange hotel rooms and trying to climb out through windows? Thanks, but she’d skip it.

He frowned. “You don’t really believe that.”

“You don’t have a clue what I believe.”

“Last night we talked about having dreams. About a shared life together. I’d never met anyone before who wanted the same things I did until I met you.”

“Last night was last night, but this morning you’re dealing with me.”

His voice was low and soft. “You’re still the same woman you were last night, Phoenix.”

She shook her head, refusing to listen. Bad move. The headache still pressing at her temples thumped harder against her skull with the movement. “I know I have a tendency to be impulsive, but I don’t go around marrying strange men, and marriage is definitely not something on my Bucket List.”

Max pushed himself up off his chair. “No, what’s on your bucket list is to see the world. As soon as the harvest is in, we can do that. Together. Starting in Europe, as we discussed last night.”

Okay, so she’d pretty much told him everything. Parents dead, check. Dreams and ambitions, check. Real name, check.

Even Khara, who she’d worked with – and partied with – for nearly two months didn’t know more about her than her favourite music and movies. And she considered Khara one of the best friends she’d had in years.

Phoenix needed something stronger than coffee to deal with this. But since it couldn’t be more than…she glanced out the window…ten in the morning, she’d have to settle for the sofa and resting her fevered head in her hands.

Even if she could magically grow wings and fly out of this suite, she’d have to stay. There was no way she could run away from this. Not until there were signed divorce papers next those marriage papers.

Max came to sit beside her on the sofa, but he didn’t touch her. “Can I get you anything for your headache? Do you want to go back to bed?”

“Yes.” One form of escape was as good as another. Then as that infernal smile tugged at his lips, she added: “alone.”

Why waste such nice sheets and pillows? She could have a nap, and when the headache was gone they could have a rational conversation about getting divorced. And if she was going to sleep, it might as well be here in luxury, rather than in the motel where she could hear the couple next door bickering through the walls all day and all night. They’d lived there going on six years now. That was the thing with couples. They tended to get stuck in a rut, in a dead end. She wasn’t ever going to get caught in a rut. She wasn’t planning on staying in either the dead-end motel, the dead-end job or even this dead-end city, for more than a few months.

Besides, she’d come here for the memories, a final adieu to her parents before setting off alone into the wide world. But her parents weren’t here. Vegas had changed since they’d lived here. She’d changed.

There was never any point in going back, only moving forward.

She struggled up from the sofa, but Max was quicker. He caught her up in his arms and, ignoring her protest, carried her back to the bedroom. “Second time I get to carry you across the threshold.” His voice was low and husky, right by her ear.

“Please tell me we didn’t follow every cheesy wedding custom? If we were married at a drive-through or by Elvis, I think I might throw up.”

“Pink Cadillac, Elvis in a white suit, and everything.”

She must have turned green, because he laughed, a deep rumble against her chest. “That was a joke. Except for the glitter guns, it was classy and intimate. And very, very private.”

“I don’t suppose you have pictures?” Not that she planned to keep a scrapbook of the occasion, but maybe they’d trigger a memory…

“No pictures.” He smiled, and this time she had the distinct impression he was smiling at some secret. Almost gloating.

She narrowed her eyes. There was something she was missing here.

“Shall I tell you a bedtime story?” An odd way to divert her, but she nodded. No-one had told her a bedtime story since she was ten and her mother died. Since Dad almost always worked nights, she’d usually been tucked away to sleep in some dingy dressing room, or in the corner of a brightly-lit green room. Dad always said it was her greatest accomplishment: the ability to sleep anywhere at any time.

His death had robbed her of that gift. Sleep eluded her most nights now.

Max laid her down on the bed and pulled the covers over her, tucking her in. It was certainly nice to be taken care of, and made for a pleasant change. And maybe, if she was really lucky, she’d wake up and find this was all nothing more than a strange dream.

She closed her eyes and didn’t open them when Max climbed onto the bed next to her. He stayed above the covers but looped an arm across her hip. The weight of it was strangely comforting, in spite of the flutter in her heartbeat that accompanied it.

“A long time ago, in a kingdom far away,” Max began. “There was a king who lived in a big stone castle. Since his kingdom controlled access to the river, he was a very rich and powerful king. Like all kings of that time, he married a wealthy princess from another land. It was, of course, an arranged marriage, and the king never bothered to make any effort to know his bride, or to love her. Instead he flaunted his mistress for the entire kingdom to see, giving his bastard children great honours, and carving up the kingdom between them. His subjects grew to hate him, and they hated his mistress even more, and when he announced that he was divorcing his rightful queen to marry his mistress, the people revolted. They appealed to the queen’s family who sent an army, and for many years the little kingdom was torn apart by civil war.

“When the war finally ended, the kingdom was never again as prosperous as it had been. The new king who took the throne, after his uncle was brutally and publicly executed, made a vow to his people: never again would any member of the royal family divorce. They would love their spouses and live quietly without scandal for as long as the kingdom remained.

“A powerful sorceress witnessed his vow and cast a spell on his family, a blessing on their marriages. Ever since, every marriage in the royal family has been a happy one, and the couples have always found true love with the one they married.”

It was a very strange bedtime story. She’d never heard anything like it. But his voice was hypnotic, and his hand stroking down her hip was soothing. Phoenix sank back into sleep, the deepest sleep she’d had in months without the aid of sedatives.





Max lay beside Phoenix and watched her sleep. Awake, she had a vibrancy about her that made it hard to see the real woman behind the façade, but asleep the fragility beneath the surface was more apparent. Her slender face, with high, pronounced cheekbones and pointed chin, looked almost elfin.

After the restlessness driving him these last couple of weeks and the jet lag from all the travelling he’d done, it was an unexpected joy to do nothing. And to do nothing with the woman who turned him inside out every time he looked at her.

He hadn’t truly believed all those stories he’d been raised on about falling in love at first sight until the moment it happened to him. It had been that way for his parents, and his grandparents, but he hadn’t given his own marriage much thought.

But the moment he’d walked into that dingy bar and seen Phoenix leaning over the pool table, concentration focussed on lining up her next shot, he’d been a believer. ‘Moth to a flame’ and all those other clichés had nothing on the instant attraction he’d felt for her. And it wasn’t all due to the sexy, slender figure wrapped in tight jeans. Her appeal had been more than physical. She’d laughed as she’d lifted her head and caught his eye, and he’d been dazzled.

He still felt dazzled.

And she still hadn’t removed his ring from her finger.

He stroked his finger lightly down her cheek, and Phoenix stirred in her sleep, full, pink lips curving in a brief smile as she sank deeper into sleep. She smiled a lot when she was awake, but that smile was nothing like this one. She seemed to have a public smile, a wide, bright one, and this smile, her more intimate, sexier one. Fitting. He knew all about the difference between the public persona and the private one, and it would make life easier on his wife if she did too.

He fluffed the pillow beneath his head and rolled on his back to look up at the ceiling. For the first time since he’d received the tearful midnight phone call from his mother, he felt at peace.

The big state funeral in the gothic cathedral in Neustadt had been more than he could bear. All that ritual and pomp for someone who was no longer there to appreciate it. It was life that should be celebrated, not death. So he’d said the right words, shaken the right hands, and got on the first plane back to the States.

He’d stood in the vast concourse at JFK and watched the flight announcements flashing on the large screens, and for a moment he’d wondered what life was really all about. He’d felt as if he stood at a crossroads, between a life only half lived and all those things he still wanted to do. Then the Las Vegas flight had shown up and he’d known that’s where he wanted to be.

Destiny had called and here he was.

He traced a finger over Phoenix’s lips. She’d met death up close and personal too. And she too had chosen to celebrate being alive. He’d never met a woman so full of life and energy, so dedicated to making the most of every moment, that in the space of an hour she’d made him feel more alive than he ever had before. It had taken even less time than that to lose his heart to her.

He had no intention of letting her go now that he’d found her. All he had to do was talk her out of this nonsense about a divorce.