Who’d ever love her? Her own mother couldn’t, and her sister barely tolerated her.
Shelby realized too late that tears had escaped her eyes and were rolling freely down her face. “Dammit.” She whisked them away with the back of her hand and lifted her glass to take a healthy drink. Movement in the mirror drew her attention, and she gazed up into the eyes of the one man she absolutely did not want to see.
“Jason.” She shook her head and downed half of her cocktail in one swallow. “You fucking followed me to Vegas?”
Jason Mallory stood behind her chair, blocking her in with his big, tattooed body. His hands landed on her shoulders. “I need an answer, Shelby.”
“How about ‘fuck you’. Is that answer enough for you?”
His fingers tightened. “Are you already forgetting our arrangement? Prison wouldn’t look good on you.”
“I’m not forgetting.” She spun and held out her wrists. “If you’re going to arrest me, do it.”
He stared at her for a long time, jaw clenched, then knocked her hands aside. “I’m doing you a favor here. The least you can do is honor our arrangement.”
“The last time I honored our arrangement, someone died and my father ended up in prison.”
“Because you put him there.”
She let a shuddering breath go and turned back to her drink, downing a large gulp. “I’m not helping you hurt Reece.”
“If he’s done nothing wrong, you won’t be hurting him.”
“He’s done nothing wrong.”
“That’s for you to find out.” His gaze went over her head to the mirror and tracked someone near the elevators.
Oh God. It was Reece. And no doubt he was looking for her.
Reece stepped off the elevator and studied the casino floor, searching for Shelby’s distinctive hair. He was holding out hope she hadn’t bounced off to one of the other casinos on the strip. Or, Christ help him, a dance club.
He scanned the bar area and—
There. A flash of turquoise headed toward the front door in a hurry.
Reece ducked and maneuvered through the crowd and opened his mouth to call her name, but stopped. A man was following her—huge, bald, long dark beard, covered in tattoos.
Shit, that couldn’t be good.
Outside the hotel, the guy grabbed her arm so hard he spun her around. She teetered on her ridiculously high heels and even from this distance Reece saw the flash of fear in her eyes. Anger sliced through him, startling in its intensity, and he picked up the pace, reaching her just as she twisted out of the man’s grasp and lost her footing. She tumbled to the sidewalk and the man reached inside his lightweight coat.
Armed.
The guy had a gun. Was he planning to use the weapon on Shelby?
Reece didn’t think, just let instinct take over, honed by his near religious devotion to the dojo. He braced himself and sent a kick flying toward the guy’s side, felt a solid connecting blow rattle up his leg. The man howled, and the gun clattered to the sidewalk. Several stares turned in their direction as Baldy scrambled for the weapon.
Reece stepped in front of Shelby, but the guy had lost interest as more people stopped to gape. He must have decided there were too many witnesses, because he bolted across the street, headed in the opposite direction of their hotel. He’d be long gone before any of the bystanders finished calling 911, and Reece didn’t particularly want to stick around for an encounter with Las Vegas’s finest, either. He pulled Shelby to her feet and hustled her into the teeming crowd gathered to watch the Bellagio’s fountains dance to Frank Sinatra’s Fly Me to the Moon against the glittering palatial backdrop of the hotel.
As water soared into the air in synchronized bursts, he caged her against the balustrade and used his bigger body to hide her distinctive appearance in the crowd, just in case the guy got any stupid ideas about circling back and trying again.
She was shaking, little trembles racing through her, and yet she smirked up at him. “Nice roundhouse, Hershey.”
He backed away just enough to meet her gaze while still keeping her shielded. “What was that all about?”
“It was…nothing. No big.” She lifted a shoulder and tried to shrug away from him, but he was not letting her get away so easily. He banded his arms around her and lowered his face to hover inches above hers. To anyone nearby, it’d look as if they were lovers stealing a romantic moment in front of the fountains.
Hah. Couldn’t be any further from the truth.
“That was not nothing,” he said. “He had a gun. What’s going on, Shelby?”
She licked her lips. “I…” For a heartbeat, genuine fear showed in her eyes before she dropped her gaze. “I think he wanted something from me.”
“Like?” When she didn’t respond, he added, “You’re not carrying a purse.”