What Happens in Vegas... (7 page)

“Isn’t it?” he challenged.

Anger battled insult and came out as outrage. “
Excuse
me? What do you mean by
that?
”

“Couldn’t you have just as easily claimed to have fallen hard for your personal trainer and avoided all this? I’m sure he would love the ‘settlement’ you outlined
and
served your purpose nicely enough.”

She opened her mouth to inform him she didn’t
have
a personal trainer before she realized the stupidity of that argument. “If you have some kind of problem with me—” Nick snorted and she dug her nails into her palms. “Which obviously you
do,
why on earth did you agree to marry me?”

“As you said, it’s
my
baby.” Nick’s possessive tone grated across her already raw nerves.

“You seem to be taking that at face value. No doubts about paternity? No real fears about my trainer?”

He stiffened. “Like you’d come all the way to Vegas to get me to marry you if the baby wasn’t mine. It’s too easily disproved.”

“Are you two coming or not?” Lottie’s head appeared around the door as she shouted for them.

“In a second,” Nick called, and Lottie disappeared back inside. “Come on,” he muttered at her.

She took a step back. She’d been insulted enough for one day. “No way. I’m going back to my hotel now.”

A muscle twitched in his jaw. “This was your idea, Evie.”

“It was
your
idea to involve your friends. Not mine.”

Nick’s eyes narrowed. “If you can’t pull this off in front of Kevin and Lottie—who, by the way, are genuinely happy for us—then you don’t have a prayer of convincing
your
family.”

Dear God, he was right. She needed to screw her head on straight, suck it up and ride out this rodeo. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. She was doing what was best for the baby, for her family—for everyone. She needed to stay focused on that. The deed was done—she was pregnant and safely married—now she had to follow through.

If she managed to survive this with her sanity and dignity intact, she would never,
ever,
step outside the lines again.
I swear, God, really.
She’d live the most boring, circumspect, politically correct life Dallas had ever seen.

If
she managed to survive.

She nodded her agreement at Nick and plastered a smile on her face as he took her elbow and led her to the door. To her surprise and chagrin, her skin tingled where it touched his, and getting back in close proximity caused an uptick in her pulse.

That
if
was getting more questionable by the moment.

Kevin might have initially been skeptical about this sudden wedding, but Lottie—who just happened to be right there when Nick called—had let her inner romantic out to run free at his first mention of the word
married.
Even Kevin had warmed to the idea rather quickly—thanks to Lottie—trapping Nick in their romanticized reading of the situation before he could tell Kevin the truth. He hadn’t planned on misleading Kevin about this wedding, but he got in too deep too fast to extricate himself gracefully.

As the elevator doors opened to the roof, he realized he should have stopped them both long before now. The Sheik’s Tent was romantically lit with candles, and Lottie had sent
someone up here with flowers and a miniature wedding cake. Kevin popped the cork on a bottle of champagne as the elevator doors closed behind them.

Lottie was beaming, but apologetic. “It’s not much, but on such short notice…”

He looked at Evie, whose shoulders seemed to square as Lottie spoke, and noticed the kind smile on her face. “It’s beautiful, Lottie. So much more than I could’ve hoped for. Thank you.”

Evie could pull out the grace and graciousness in a millisecond. In fact, he was beginning to notice how the more uncomfortable she got in a situation, the more polite and amiable she became. Except with him. Evie was shooting daggers in his direction every time she caught his eye, but she played her part well, holding his hand, trailing her fingers down his arm playfully and generally driving him insane with her touch. But with Lottie and Kevin, she turned on the charm, accepting their toast with the tiniest of sips of the excellent champagne, admiring the cake and expressing what looked like genuine interest in them both.

All the hallmarks of the society belle she was. He needed to remember that, and not get blinded by her beauty or her charm. Nick could easily picture Evie at her debutante ball, a charity gala, even a polo match, working the crowd with charm and ease. But Kevin and Lottie left as soon as they cut the cake—Kevin making ribald comments about needing privacy while Lottie hushed him and dug elbows into his ribs.

Their exit left him alone with his wife, who shut off that charm the moment the elevator doors closed behind their wedding guests.

Evie lapsed into silence, setting aside her champagne glass and foraging behind the bar for a bottle of water. She sank onto the low sofa, only to jump to her feet again as if it burned
her. The flush rising over the V of her neckline made clear the memories of that sofa were fresh in her mind, as well.

Although his earlier compliment had been rather offhand, something that seemed appropriate to say in the silence, Evie looked more than just nice. She looked beautiful, as stunning as the first time he laid eyes on her, but tonight her elegance and good breeding were on display, as well as her charms. Her skin glowed in the candlelight, and the simple dress hugged the delicious curves he remembered with stark, haunting clarity.

And while he was touched by Lottie’s thoughtfulness, he rather wished they’d not brought him and Evie here, of all places. Returning to the scene of one of his most erotic memories with the woman who played the starring role had his body hard and aching, but tonight was a far cry from last time. Instead of the sensual, exciting Evie of his memory, this Evie was distant, wary and bordering on hostile.

She was also his pregnant wife, and the stunning absurdity of
that
knowledge was enough to send him behind the bar to search for something stronger than champagne.

“So we seem to be stuck here. What do we do now?” Evie asked, as the silence stretched out between them.

He raised an eyebrow at her, and she blushed deeper.

“I mean, the official part is taken care of, so where do we go from here?” She twisted the gold band on her ring finger as she spoke.

His body had a grand idea, and it circled around Evie wearing nothing but that gold band. Somehow, he knew Evie wouldn’t be amenable to
that.
“Are you hungry?” he asked lamely for lack of something better. Lottie’s minions had left a simple cold dinner behind the bar.

“No. My stomach’s all tied up in knots at the moment. Food is the last thing I need. But I guess we
do
need to stay here for a little while, at least. You go ahead, if you’re hungry.”
Evie pulled out a chair and sat at the small table, the politeness back in her voice and her hands folded neatly on the table. “We can make a few plans, get our story straight.”

“What’s there to get straight?”

Her tone all business, she jumped into the conversation. “I’d really like to avoid dropping two bombs on my family at once. Our elopement will be enough of a shock for them without mentioning the baby. I can call home with
that
news in a couple of weeks—after they’ve had a chance to recover.”

“Unless your family is stupid, surely they’ll make the leap from elopement to pregnant.”

Evie shrugged. “Maybe not. This isn’t the first time I’ve done something crazy and unexpected.” A bitter laugh escaped.

So she did have a wild streak. “This is merely par for the course?”

“I wouldn’t say that. Eloping is definitely an extreme even
I
hadn’t considered. There will be speculation, of course, about me being pregnant, but I’ll be safely up here before any of that gets spinning.” She drummed her nails on the glass tabletop, but when he came to take the chair opposite hers, she slid back and moved her hands in her lap. “Since we’re mar-married,” she stumbled over the word, “I’d like to break the news to my family as soon as possible, and I think it would be more believable if you were with me. Is your schedule flexible enough for you to come to Dallas for a couple of days?”

It wasn’t. Especially not with a sale pending on The Zoo. But something in Evie’s wide green eyes stopped him from saying so. “I’ll need to make a few calls in the morning to arrange things, but we could go to Dallas tomorrow afternoon.”

Evie’s shoulders dropped in relief, and she nodded. “You could be back here by the weekend, but it may take me a couple more days to get my things together, tie up a few loose ends at work—”

“You have a job?” He couldn’t keep the shock out of his voice. Between the state of her finances and the fact she was in Vegas on a Tuesday, he’d assumed being beautiful
was
her primary job.

Her eyes narrowed at him again. “Of course I have a job. It’s not much of one, but it’s a job.”

Most people would describe a job flipping burgers like that, but there was no way Evie worked for minimum wage. But what did someone like Evie do? Honestly curious, he asked her.

“I work in HarCorp’s marketing department.”

He’d used Google to look up Evie shortly after leaving her hotel this afternoon. In addition to seeing her smiling face at every society event in Dallas worthy of making the paper, he’d found Evie’s description of her “family’s company” to be misleading. HarCorp was a huge international company with fingers in many different pies. And she worked in their marketing department? The surprise must have shown on his face, and Evie’s mouth twisted.

“I’ve been regulated to PR mostly—doing all the ‘public stuff’ like charity work and fundraisers—and it’s only part-time, but it was the best I could do considering my brother’s extreme surprise I’d even want to work for the company.” That hollow, bitter laugh escaped again. “I see you’re surprised, as well. I realize you can only judge me based on our current fiasco, but I’m not a complete ditz. I graduated at the top of my class and everything.”

Oh, he had no doubt of her intelligence, even if everything
else
about her—including how she used that intelligence—was in question. “From finishing school? Let me guess…France?”

Evie bit her lip and he saw her knuckles whiten. Then she lifted her chin and smiled broadly. “Switzerland, actually. But I was really referring to Trinity University’s Business
School. I should be able to get a job up here doing something, don’t you agree?”

“Why would you want to?” She didn’t need to work—even temporarily while she was pregnant. Did she not want to stay home with the baby?

Genuine confusion twisted her face. “What else would I do for the next nine months? Sit around and knit booties? You don’t expect me to become president of the Junior League or join the UDC, do you?”

What was she talking about? “I have no idea what either of those are.”

This time Evie’s laugh was real, and it echoed off the stone walls of the roof. Even though he didn’t understand the humor, her laugh reminded him of the Evie he’d met before. “Really? Oh, that’s fabulous. I think I’m going to love living in Vegas.”

“It’s nothing like Dallas,” he reminded her.

“And that’s one of the many,
many
reasons I love Las Vegas.” She eyed him carefully. “You’re not press fodder, are you?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Do you make the papers a lot? Gossip columns, fashion pages, society blogs, anything like that?”

Evie had a skewed view of the world. “Do you honestly think nightclub owners are interesting to the press? In
this
town?”

“I just wanted to be sure.” She looked out at the skyline and sighed. When she didn’t elaborate, he let the silence spin out until Evie started to shift uncomfortably in her seat and she cleared her throat. “Have we killed enough time up here? Can we go back to the hotel now?”

The absurd reality of the situation—which he’d managed to forget momentarily—settled around him. This was his wedding night, and he was sitting on the roof of Blue with his bride, debating what to do next.

That spark, that sizzling need that marked their first meeting, had been slightly damped by Evie’s revelations and the circus of their wedding, but it was still there. The tightening of his body at the thought of what he
should
be doing with Evie on their wedding night was real enough, as had the light in Evie’s eyes she hadn’t been able to fully hide behind the variety of emotions she’d spiraled through this evening.

She’d blushed when she said she wanted to go back to the hotel, but she’d wanted a marriage in name only, like some sort of a bad movie plot, so he assumed Evie wouldn’t be open to his idea of how to kill some time—here
or
at her hotel.

Her next words confirmed that.

“I’ve had a long day, and I want to go to bed. To sleep,” she corrected. “I’m, um, tired. Really tired.”

Well, he had his answer. Although every part of him protested, he wasn’t going to push as if he was some sort of desperate teenager trying to get into her pants.

This marriage thing had to have some perks attached to it—beyond custody of his child. He’d let Evie think whatever she liked until they got back from Dallas, and then he’d explain the situation to her.

C
OWARD.
E
VIE PUNCHED
her pillow into shape and curled around it as her stomach churned at the thought. She may have become more cautious, better behaved, over the years—with varying degrees of success, granted—but never had she been such an outright, chicken-livered, all-hat-and-no-cattle
coward.

So now she was alone in her hotel suite on her wedding night, unable to sleep because she couldn’t quit berating herself for her cowardice and unable to shake the feeling that, regardless of the circumstances surrounding their wedding, she should be having mind-blowing sex with her new husband right now.

Her blood heated with the memory, the fantasy of what could’ve been on the agenda for tonight, if she hadn’t been such a weenie when Nick turned her question around on her. Despite everything else going on, she’d felt the tension in him, seen the barely banked desire in his eyes. He might not like her very much, but he
did
want her.

And while her body had been all in favor of taking what she could get, her pride was still smarting from his revelations and his treatment of her, and she’d backed down.

If she wasn’t such a coward, she’d have asked him straight out
what
his new problem was, but how could you ask someone “Why don’t you like me?” without it sounding like
a pathetic whine? Was he angry she was pregnant? Did he blame her? Think she did it on purpose? Or had he only been out for a good time and now resented the result? Had she been suckered in by a player and fallen for his lines? That was an unpleasant thought.

The deed was done now. She was married to Nick—at least for the near future.

They’d killed a little more time on the roof—Nick booking plane tickets back to Dallas while she sent Gwen a text inviting herself and a friend over for drinks the next night—before they snuck out the back door of Blue like thieves. Nick had delivered her back here without much conversation, then left. She assumed he went home—wherever that was.

God, she didn’t even know where he
lived.

She couldn’t help but wonder if she’d made a grave mistake in her rush to try to fix this situation before it exploded in her face. Nick, at least, seemed game to hold up his end of the bargain—even though he had no real reason to do so—so she should be thankful for that.

Still, it seemed wrong to be married and not have any of the benefits that went with it.
Why
had she opened her big mouth? Hadn’t she learned anything about negotiating a contract from listening to Will over the years? Obviously not, or else she wouldn’t be burning with frustration right now.

With a groan, she rolled to her other side and looked at the clock. Maybe she’d feel better once she got the showdown at home over with. After she dealt with her family, she could concentrate on sorting out the mess she’d already made of her marriage.

Nick had never been taken home to meet the family before. He wasn’t the type of guy women took home to their parents—not since he picked up his prom date had he been expected to make nice with the family. This would be
awkward no matter what the circumstances were, but the tension radiating off of Evie had his own nerves on alert in response.

Their conversation—if that’s what it could be called—on the flight to Dallas had been stilted at best and circled around their “story.” Evie seemed lost in thought most of the time, staring out the window and often dropping off to monosyllabic replies to his questions.

The flight had been delayed, and they’d barely dropped their bags at Evie’s place before she was ushering him out the door and muttering about not being late as if tardiness was a capital crime.

He let Evie drive without comment since she knew the way, but her knuckles were white from her grip on the steering wheel. She seemed to be carrying on an interesting conversation with herself, and he couldn’t get a word in edgewise. But that graciousness he’d seen her pull out before came into play when they pulled to a stop in front of a high-rise building, and she turned that dazzling smile on the doorman as she handed over her car keys.

In the elevator, she finally looked at him directly, and he saw a spark of energy there he recognized. Evie was steeling herself for a fight, and she was ready for it, even. “Just let me take the lead on this, okay? This won’t take long. Just stick to our story like the gospel, and the ugliness will be over quickly.”

Ugliness?

He saw her set her jaw and take a deep breath as she slid her key into the door, and he wondered
what
the hell kind of family Evie came from. He rather felt as if the guard escorting the princess into the dragon’s lair for the sacrifice.

“I’m here!” Evie singsonged as she pushed open the door, and the turnaround in her attitude floored him. She was all smiles and sounded completely carefree. “Anyone home?”

“Evie!” Two boys, maybe six or seven years old, came
thundering down the hallway and launched themselves into Evie’s outstretched arms.

“Hey, monsters! Whoa, someone’s feeding you too much. You keep growing.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “I thought we had a deal about that.”

She gave each of them a big kiss, showing a facet of her personality he hadn’t seen yet. Evie liked children—or at least
these
children—and they loved her. That knowledge alleviated a tiny bit of his primary concern.

The boys giggled as they wiped the kisses off, then turned curious green eyes exactly like Evie’s on him.

“Nick, these two monsters are Justin and Patrick, my nephews,” Evie offered. “This is my friend Nick.”

Both boys nodded and extended small, slightly sticky hands for him to shake. “Nice to meet you,” they chorused carefully before taking back off down the hallway with shouts of “Mom! Dad! Evie’s here!”

“Well, that still needs a little work.” Evie laughed. “Don’t run,” she called after them, and Nick could hear a woman saying the exact same thing as she dodged the children on her way through a doorway to their right.

He’d been expecting a veritable dragon, not a petite woman half a head shorter than Evie with soft, gentle features. She wrapped Evie in a tight hug. “Evie, honey, it’s good to see you.” She then turned to Nick expectantly.

Evie reached for his arm, her fingers tightening around his bicep. “Nick, this is my sister-in-law, Gwen. Gwen, this is Nick. Nick Rocco.”

The possessive touch and the deliberate lack of even a brief explanation of who he was weren’t lost on Gwen. She raised an eyebrow at Evie briefly, a smile tugging at her mouth, before she extended a hand to him. “It’s lovely to meet you, Nick. Welcome.”

“Thank you. And it’s nice to meet you, too.”

Evie’s hand loosened a bit, and her shoulders slipped just a little. What had she expected from him? Did she think he was so low-class he couldn’t handle meeting her family without causing embarrassment? His manners might not be as polished as Evie’s, but he did have them.

Gwen waved them out of the hall and toward a large room with a great view of Dallas. “Will is on the phone in his office, but he should be out any second now. We can have a drink while we wait.”

Hard on her words, a man he assumed had to be Will joined them. Evie’s brother didn’t seem to be a fire-breathing dragon, either, as he kissed Evie on the cheek and she repeated the introductions. Nick knew he was being assessed as Will shook his hand and cut his eyes at Evie. The man was not subtle at all.

But Evie’s family seemed remarkably normal—not at all worth the stress he’d seen from her or the tension she was holding in check behind her smile. The older couple—he really couldn’t call them “old” since they only looked to be in their forties—knew something was up. It was clear that they were waiting for Evie to make some kind of announcement, but they were still friendly enough.

He settled back onto a leather sofa and accepted the wine Gwen offered. Evie sat her glass on the table as Will took a chair opposite them and Gwen perched easily—if oddly, considering there wasn’t a lack of seating available—on the arm with her husband’s hand on her waist.

Gwen leaned forward, her face kind but curious. “Nick Rocco. I don’t think I’ve heard the name before. Would we know your family?”

Evie jumped in before he could answer, her voice bright as she took his hand and twined her fingers through his. “No, Gwen, you wouldn’t. Nick’s from Las Vegas.”

And the air in the room changed at that moment. Evie’s statement had been simple and delivered with friendliness, but
a gauntlet had been thrown down. Will’s eyebrows drew together in a frown, and Gwen’s eyes darted toward Evie’s hands. Gwen was quick on the uptake. Surprise registered on her face before she lifted her glass and drank deeply.

Will, however, was busy glowering at his sister and hadn’t made the same leap his wife had. “Surely I didn’t hear that correctly. You met him in Las Vegas, Evie?”

Evie’s spine straightened an inch. “Yes, I did.”

“When, exactly?” Even Nick could hear the dangerous growl under those words. Evie hadn’t been kidding when she said her brother was unhappy about her taking off for a weekend in Sin City.

“Four weeks ago.” She took a deep breath. “And I wasn’t at work yesterday or today because I went back to Vegas. To get married.” She held her hand up to show the gold band on her finger.

“What the—” Will started to roar, only to have Gwen’s elbow fly sharply into his ribs. Now Nick understood Gwen’s choice of seating. And a little of Evie’s stress.

“That’s quite a surprise, Evie.” Gwen came to hug Evie again, and this time, she hugged him, as well. “Congratulations to you both. I wish you’d given us a little warning, honey. We would’ve liked to have been there.”

While Gwen was all smiles and hugs, Will was shooting dark daggers at him and no doubt planning how to dispose of his dead body. “Did you know she was an heiress?” he snapped.

“Will!” Gwen scolded as Evie tensed. He tightened his fingers around hers in support. He opened his mouth in their defense, but Evie shook her head slightly. She’d asked him to let her take the lead on this, and he’d honor that.

For the moment, anyway.

Will’s face was red as he pushed to his feet, every inch the outraged parental figure. “If he married her thinking…”

“He didn’t,” Evie interrupted, an edge to her voice. “He
didn’t know how much I was worth when we met, and when he did find out, he signed my prenup without hesitation. Nick has his own money, Will. He doesn’t need mine.”

“Everyone needs that kind of money.” Evie’s brother looked directly at him as he spoke, and Nick bristled at the insult. “At least you thought far enough ahead to have a prenup.”

“I’m not stupid, Will.”

“
That
seems debatable at the moment.”

Okay, that crossed a line.
“Now just wait—”

Evie interrupted him, holding up a hand. “Stay out of this, Nick.”

This was the fight he’d seen her steeling herself for in the elevator. He had to admire her chutzpah; she’d known her brother would react like this—not that he didn’t understand where Will was coming from—and yet she hadn’t chickened out and simply called with the news. In a strange, train-wreck kind of way, the showdown was fascinating to watch.

Will crossed his arms over his chest. “Who wrote your prenup?”

Evie mirrored the movement. “Sabine’s brother.”

“
Jackson
drew up a prenup for you and didn’t tell me?”

“Well, it’s not really your business, now is it, Will?”

“The hell it’s not.”

Both Harrison siblings were on their feet now and the volume was rising. He was getting hard-pressed not to get involved, regardless of Evie’s wishes. Based on Gwen’s reaction, though, he didn’t jump in the middle. She seemed strangely calm, as if these kinds of fireworks were commonplace.

“Are you pregnant?”

Evie paled at her brother’s question.
“What?”

“I can’t think of a single good reason otherwise for you to elope like this. To someone you barely know.”

“Maybe I’m just a romantic at heart, swept off my feet by love,” she responded.

Nick had never seen someone’s head actually explode, but Will had to be close as his voice dropped dangerously. “Evangeline…”

“William…” Evie gritted out.

Gwen cleared her throat. “Voices, please.”

Without a word, but still glaring daggers at each other, Will and Evie went out onto the balcony and shut the door. He could no longer hear their battle, but it was certainly still raging. So much for thinking her family was
normal.
Gwen seemed unperturbed by what was going on outside.

She patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. Neither of them will end up over the balcony rail. They’re volatile, but not homicidal.”

“They do this a lot?” He couldn’t keep the shock out of his voice.

“Will’s a bit overprotective of Evie, and she’s always chafed against that. When you throw in that Harrison temper they both have…well, it can get explosive.”

Still…
He could see Evie’s wild gesticulations and Will’s increasingly deepening frown. Will didn’t seem like the kind of man who would take a swing at a woman, but at this point he wasn’t sure about anything as far as Evie’s family was concerned.

Gwen’s eyes followed his to the balcony. “It was hard for me to watch at first, too. It still is, but I understand them both better now. I don’t like the boys to hear it, though, so they take it outside. Can I refresh your drink?”

This family was truly nuts. Gwen was playing gracious hostess while Evie and Will fought it out on the balcony. He’d witnessed plenty of violence growing up, and it usually started with people shouting at each other much like Evie and Will were. Rich people—those so-called “good families”—weren’t supposed to have that problem. Maybe that was a myth. But he’d be damned if he was going to stand here…
He moved for the glass door, but Gwen stayed him with her hand on his arm.

“They need to get it out, Nick. I promise you, she’s fine.” Gwen’s eyes darkened in understanding, and her voice turned serious. “Really, she’s perfectly safe out there. Will has never raised a hand to Evie—
would
never.” She led him away from the door, explaining the whole time. “Evie is probably the only person in the world who will go nose-to-nose like that with Will. And, oddly, I think they both enjoy it. I do know that they won’t be able to discuss anything like adults until they get
this
out of their systems. They fight fair, though. Don’t worry about that.” She cocked her head. “I can’t believe Evie didn’t warn you.”