Calling His Bluff (15 page)

“What are you doing?” She made a grab for her phone. “Give me that.”

He lifted it out of her reach, and held her off with his free hand as she leaped for
it like a jump ball at center court.

“Wait a minute!” Almost shouting now, J.D. snuck an arm around her torso and hauled
her up onto his hip to pivot and dump her onto the bed. “You’ve got the tournament,
right? And there’s no sense paying to change your ticket. Just stay through tonight.”

“I need to go home so I can spend the rest of the weekend figuring out how I’m going
to explain this to my lawyer,” she bitched as she pulled her legs under her. “She’s
always believed me to be such a respectable and sane woman. Until now.”

“C’mon. There’s nothing we can do before Monday. We’ll drown our sorrows in cheap
champagne at the bar before I hit the awards ceremony and you bring the poker table
to its knees. We can leave first thing in the morning on Sunday. Crack of dawn, I
swear.”

She’d forgotten about the awards ceremony. Shoot. A twinge of guilt shot through her.
The cost to change her ticket aside, it wouldn’t be polite to ditch the man who’d
invited her on this little jaunt in the first place.

Even if that man was responsible for turning her into the butt of a million future
family jokes from now until the day she died.

She’d be lying on her deathbed exchanging tender goodbyes with family members and
someone, almost certainly her brother, would be sure to mention that she’d better
have her apologies in order for when she met St. Peter at the pearlies. “Especially
for that weekend you got drunk in Vegas and came home married to J.D.—a coupla’ Hail
Mary’s ain’t gonna cut it for that one!”

“And being a guy, Peter’ll probably take your side,” she said and slid off the bed.

“Peter who? Where are you going?”

Stopping at the door to the bathroom, she swept him an ironic bow.

“In an effort to ensure that your
wife
isn’t still reeking of ouzo tonight, I am taking the only possible course of action.”
Her smile was a grimace that she held onto with a tight grip.

“I am going to the spa.”

She made several phone calls during the long, long walk across the enormous hotel
property. Her head was still throbbing and she was bracing herself for one last conversation
when disaster struck. It was just her bad luck that she had to pass through the lobby
on her way to the spa, which was tucked across from the Chihuly Conservatory. Bad
luck and Murphy’s Law, which meant that you’d always run into the exact people you
were hoping to avoid.

Her two drinking buddies from last night were hanging out in the lobby, eyes bleary
and hands wrapped around the biggest Starbucks cups she’d ever seen. For a moment,
she considered ducking behind a loaded luggage cart as a bellhop pulled it across
the slick marble floor, using it as a diversion to slide past them unseen.

She’d have to call them sooner rather than later, though, so she pulled her shoulders
back, acted as if she weren’t sporting beard burn all over her jaw and walked right
up to them.

Only to open her mouth to say hello and realize that she couldn’t remember their names.

Shoot.
She remembered every damn detail about Nikos and Hideko, their gone-but-never-forgotten
fathers, right down to military service records and preferences for blondes versus
brunettes, but she couldn’t remember for the life of her what the two poker tournament
sponsors were named. Her own hangover was crying out for coffee, which didn’t help
matters any.

Then they spotted her and the entire matter was academic.

“Sarah!”

Arms held out for the back-thumping hugs of long-lost friends, they advanced on her.
The older Greek gentleman, Nikos’s son, leaned in close, careful not to spill his
hot drink on her, and she caught a whiff of what was helping him power through the
morning.

“A little Irish in your coffee?” she asked, grinning. Jeez. These two were troopers.
She made a note to herself not to hang with them again. Ever. Clearly she couldn’t
keep up.

He winked at her and held a finger up to his lips as the younger man, Hideko’s son,
flashed the interior chest pocket of his sport coat, where the silver cap of a flask
peeked out.

“Come. We take you to Starbucks. Fix you up.”

“Ah, no. But thank you. Really. Very kind of you.” She slid a step back from the elbows
they were crooking in her direction. Five minutes of negotiation later, she was crossing
her fingers behind her back and swearing on her father’s name to ask for a glass of
champagne at the spa in order to assuage their disappointment. She braced herself
for further fallout.

If missing the chance to spike her coffee upset them, they were definitely not going
to love what else she had to tell them.

* * *

She could still hear their voices in her head, trying to convince her not to drop
out of the tournament, as the flawlessly coiffed woman at the spa reception desk escorted
her to the changing room. Shrugging out of her clothes, she tried not to let the guilt
weigh her down. Her drinking buddies and the players who’d ponied up serious cash
to enter the tournament were driven by different motivations than she was. And in
the end, the sponsors had hugged her again, kissed her cheek, and made her promise
to lift a glass with them again someday, so perhaps they hadn’t been too offended.

Hours later, after a series of wraps, exfoliations, steam baths and massages, all
of which was more punishment than pleasure in her state, Sarah indulged in a little
retail therapy at the Dior boutique on the Via Bellagio before returning to her room.
There were no remaining traces of J.D., who had cleared out even before she’d left
the bathroom to drag herself to the spa. He’d texted her that any appointments she
wanted at the spa were a combo gift/apology from him and that he’d meet her at the
bar in the center of the casino floor at seven unless she was still schooling the
poker whizzes.

Luckily for her, he didn’t seem inclined to show up to watch her play. With any luck,
he’d assume she washed out early and spent the day enjoying what he’d no doubt later
refer to as her “wedding present.”

She hooked her final purchase on its hanger over the door of the armoire and stripped.
Shrugging on the pewter robe, she began pulling undergarments from the drawers as
she waited for the knock that came on her door minutes later.

If you were going to go glam, go all the way.

She opened the door to the stylist and makeup artist she’d booked for a house call.

“You’ve got two hours,” she announced as she showed them in. “And I want drop-dead
gorgeous. I got married by accident last night, and I want him to spend the rest of
our soon-to-be-divorced lives thinking, ‘Damn, she looks fine.’”

The tall, thin man in the lavender silk shirt waved a hand at the younger, shorter
man, directing him to the phone.

“Call for champagne, Glen. A story like that should only be told over bubbly.” He
turned to Sarah, gesturing for her to spin around. Nodding, he pointed to the chair
they’d brought in with them. “Sit. Now, tell me about this man whose heart we’re going
to crush. Is he gorgeous?”

Exactly two hours later, Sarah stepped up onto the dais that held the raised bar in
the center of the casino. She immediately spotted J.D. along the rail, and was certain
that her stylists would have agreed with her.

Gorgeous didn’t do him justice.

She didn’t know what it was about him that said so clearly,
unknown danger ahead
. The elegantly tailored suit that did nothing to hide the muscles of the body beneath
it. The too-long dark hair echoing his dark eyes, eyes that truly saw you when they
looked at you, like you were always framed in the brutal lens of his camera. Eyes
that stripped the clothes off your body, the civilized veneer off your emotions. When
J.D. looked at you, you forgot that there was anyone else in the room.

You’d do anything to keep those eyes locked on you. Even though you knew that sooner
or later, when he finally saw everything you were hiding, it would cost you.

* * *

When he looked up from his scotch neat to scan the crowd for the tenth time in as
many minutes, J.D.’s gaze slammed to a halt, caught on the tall, dark-haired woman
who was watching him as if she could reach inside and pull out his soul with her eyes.

The midnight-blue floor-length dress she was wearing hung in a body-skimming column
from twinned straps over each shoulder. The delicate black embroidery that defined
the curve of her breasts and descended down one side of the dress was its only decoration.
Until, that was, she began to walk toward him and the hip-to-ankle slit that split
the embroidery revealed an impossibly long ivory leg with each step.

All the decoration any dress would ever need was in that walk.

Every bit of moisture in his mouth dried up, and he recognized the sudden twist in
his stomach that he hadn’t felt since asking his first date out for a movie and Cokes.
The desperate need to act cool because somehow it was more important for her to say
yes than catching your next breath
,
and you hoped she couldn’t read that on your face.

When Sarah had announced early that morning that she was going home immediately, J.D.
hadn’t understood his own panic. All he’d known was that he didn’t want her to leave,
that it was impossible to let her go that way.

And since it seemed even more likely that if he confessed that they hadn’t gotten
married—that there was nothing to worry about—she would be too pissed to stick around,
he’d decided the safest course was to sit tight. To tell Sarah that they’d fix it
all when they got home and plan on confessing then.

The plane ride home might actually be his best bet. What with the possibility of an
air marshal throwing them off, she might restrain herself from wreaking serious violence
upon his person.

There was one problem, however, and the small heavy lump of it had lodged just behind
his sternum, building upon itself like an oyster creating a pearl around a speck of
grit, layer after layer. When he’d told Sarah that their “marriage” was her idea,
and she’d asked him why he had gone along with such nonsense, his first answer, the
answer that surged to the front of his brain, was “because I wanted to be married
to you.”

And where the fuck had that come from?

J.D. was beginning to worry that his recovery from this weekend might require something
stronger than two aspirin and a coffee.

Like therapy.

For now, however, he was content to set those questions aside, reach out a hand to
this confusing, desirable, smart, funny and constantly fascinating woman, and simply
look forward to another evening with her.

For now, he was just glad that she’d stayed.

* * *

His eyes on hers, J.D. brought Sarah’s hand to his lips and pressed a soft kiss to
her knuckles. It was only a moment, but his attention was so fierce and focused that
Sarah was sure everyone in the room must have stopped to watch them. She struggled
not to duck from the intensity of his gaze. She held it instead, offering a lifted
chin and a clear look in return.

When he spoke, she expected humor or sarcasm to lighten the tension of their situation.
But his voice was so husky and low that she had to lean in close to hear him, and
he didn’t seem to be joking at all.

“You are stunning, Sarah.”

He held her hand and motioned her back a step before twirling her around in a slow
circle. And Sarah, whose father had indeed died young, who had modeled prom and homecoming
dresses for her sisters and her mother, enjoyed the uniquely female sensation of showing
off a dress to a man whose good opinion she desired.

Though she told herself she was wearing the dress because she enjoyed the way it made
her look and feel, she knew that was only a partial truth. The slow smile and nod
of approval from the man in front of her started a low, melting heat in her belly
and brought a flush to her cheeks.

“Absolutely stunning,” he repeated.

With the confidence of one who had been professionally styled and painted, in a Dior
dress no less, she was able to incline her head a fraction in return and say, “Thank
you.”

That simple moment was enough. Her self-consciousness about appearing at this event
with J.D., who’d last been photographed with a Hollywood starlet on his arm, melted
away.

She would be fine. Everything would go well. Anonymous amongst people who did not
know her, she would simply be looked upon as J.D.’s date. It would be an enjoyable
way to spend an evening and she could do a little surreptitious celebrity gazing at
the same time.

* * *

Later on, she would decide that the best word to describe the event would be
surreal.

The vast crowd of people milling in the giant hallway outside the Grand Ballroom,
where the awards ceremony was being held, spilled onto the patio overlooking the pool
area. The wall of sound from a thousand people gossiping over cocktails slapped her
back a step. J.D.’s hand squeezed hers, and he tugged her forward into the fray.

When the first person congratulated them on their wedding, Sarah’s mouth froze open
and she could only nod and paste what she feared was a lifeless smile on her face.
The director of a competing film congratulated her and J.D. again before stepping
away to greet another acquaintance, and Sarah yanked J.D.’s arm until he bent over
so she could reach his ear.

“How the hell did he know we got married?”

“The people in this casino know more about you than they do about me,” J.D. said,
shrugging. “And all of these celebrities are handled personally by the casino management
staff. Ask your boyfriend, Mr. Fiorentino.”

Before she could even respond to that ridiculous idea, not to mention the juvenile
crack about the floor manager, another man she recognized from the celebrity tabloids
as a well-known producer swept over to them and wished them well, having just heard
the good news from the director.