Chapter 1
Derek
Before I came to Vegas, I was told the beer here was weaker than what I was used to in Canada. If that was true, why was I waking up with a ring on my finger and no memory of how it got there? I squinted at the silver band, trying to clear my vision and make sense of the situation.
No luck.
My eyes landed on a bottle of Gatorade and Tylenol on the unfamiliar nightstand, and I grabbed them. I threw two white pills down my throat and drank half the bottle in one go. I was forty-one and hadn’t downed that much booze in at least fifteen years.
Now I remembered why.
I tossed the bottle aside and started to look around the room. My suitcase sat on a footstool at the end of the bed, but this was one hundred percent not my hotel room. It didn’t smell like cigarette smoke for one thing. It was also huge compared to the thirty-dollar-a-night place we’d rented out for Nick’s bachelor party. Not to mention, there was a massive, framed picture of what could only be a naked woman on the wall. If I remembered right, my hotel had a picture of Elvis.
With no answers forthcoming, I grabbed a set of clean clothes and headed to the attached bathroom. I had to pee so badly my teeth were swimming. Not to mention, I smelled likecheap, stale beer, and it was making my already iffy stomach turn.
After brushing my teeth twice, drinking a gallon of water, and having a shower, I came out of the bathroom to the high-pitched sound of a woman’s voice. I froze and listened, hoping to get a clue about where the hell I was.
“Mother, I’m telling you, the media has it all wrong. We’re in love. Do you really think I’d marry some stranger just to keep my name from being dragged through the mud? Again.”
I couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation. Through the gap in the door, a woman with long blonde hair came into view. She wore a dark pink silk robe that went almost to her ankles.
Did I wake up on the set of a soap opera?
That was the only logical explanation. Nowhere in my blue-collar, small-town Canadian life did I have an experience that would make this make sense.
The mystery woman paced out of sight, and I moved back into the bedroom. The door squeaked as I eased it open, and the woman whipped around, her sea blue eyes locking on me. “I have to go, Mom, I’ll call you back.”
Her eyes ran over me, from mygoodblue jeans—in other words, the ones without any rips—to my plain t-shirt. “Well, it’s about time you woke up; we have a crisis on our hands.”
A headache that had been desperately trying to break through blossomed across my temple. “Not to be rude, but I’ve had kind of a weird morning. Can you just tell me where the hell I am and who you are?”
She finally stopped her pacing and planted a hand on her hip. A large diamond sparkled from her ring finger as she moved. “Are you saying you remember nothing from last night?”
I took a deep breath. “That is exactly what I’m saying.”
She pursed her lips and grabbed my wrist, dragging me over to the bed and depositing me next to her. “Short version, because I’m hungover and have a hundred things to do. We were dancing at Club Bounce last night. Paparazzi got a picture of us making out on the dance floor. Last month, my parents threatened to cut me off if I had any more bad press, so you and I decided to get married.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head. “You are going to need to go way slower than that.”
She crossed her legs and jiggled her foot. “Do you at least know who I am?”
I took a moment to look her over. She was hot in a high-maintenance kind of way. Makeup that made her look photoshopped and a figure that definitely didn’t allow for the kind of backyard barbeques I loved. She kind of looked familiar, but I shrugged.
She huffed out a breath. “Do you know what Huxley Enterprises is?”
That was when it clicked.
The woman sitting next to me was Rosalind Huxley. Heiress to the Huxley fortune. Wild child who was always in the news when her sister, Violetta, was known for philanthropy and color-coordinated pant suits.
Holy shit.
“Rosalind?”
She nodded.
It was my turn to pace now, even though the ground wasn’t quite steady under my feet. “So you and I—”
“Were partying at Bounce, yes.”
