Wilde at Heart (7 page)

So cheers to fucked-up childhoods and crappy mothers. She lifted her glass and toasted her reflection in the mirror behind the bar. She’d drink tonight and wallow in her self-pity, then tomorrow she’d find Eva and apologize. She could admit now she’d only told their mother about the wedding out of some selfish need to be loved.

Stupid.

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.

R
eece stepp
ed 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.”

“I dunno then.” Her tone was casual, as if a near mugging was something that happened to her every day. “But he’s gone. You scared him off. My hero. So why did you come looking for me anyway?”

Okay, she wasn’t ready to talk about it. Yet. But he’d get it out of her sooner or later, so for the moment, he let the subject drop. “Besides the fact you left me tied to my bed?”

Her smile was the picture of innocence. “Besides that.”

Grumbling, he lifted his head to glance around. Didn’t see Baldy anywhere nearby. Good. He led her away from the crowd, his hand entwined with hers. Just another happy couple taking in the sights and sounds of the Vegas strip together.

Shelby swung their joined hands and oohed and aahed over all the lights like nothing had happened. Her ability to deflect was astounding. Even better than Cam’s, and that was saying something since Cam was the master.

But Reece didn’t have the luxury of ignoring his problems. He had to deal with them, and fast. He waited only until the crowd thinned out enough that he could talk without being overheard, then drew a fortifying breath. “I came to find you because I’m being blackmailed.”

Her mouth actually dropped open, and she pulled him to a stop. “What?”

“Technically, we both are, because someone has video footage from the security cameras at The Bean Gallery.”

She scoffed, shook her head. “No, that’s not possible.”

“Then it’s a damn convincing fake, because it sure looked like us. I received the video with a demand for money unless I wanted the video leaked. And I don’t.”

She said nothing for several beats, then turned away. “Who can blame you?”

The note of dejection in her voice caught him completely off guard. “Shelby—” He had to run to catch up to her and grabbed her hand, pulling her to stop. “Hey, the reason I don’t want it leaked has nothing to do with you.”

She arched a brow. The ring there glinted in the neon of a sign promoting a burlesque show. “Oh no?”

“No!” When she remained unconvinced, he pushed out a breath. He had not expected this, hadn’t expected the hurt she was trying so hard to shrug off. He closed his hands around her shoulders and waited until she met his gaze. “Look, I’m in the middle of a very delicate negotiation and any…indiscretion on my part will ruin it.” And possibly ruin both DMW Systems and Wilde Security in the process. He needed this deal to keep both of his companies going, but telling her on this busy street felt too much like exposing his jugular and inviting everyone to come slice it open, so he kept his mouth shut.

“Indiscretion?” she echoed.

He winced. He was screwing this all up, wasn’t he? “Uh, not that I think what we’ve done is, but—”

“Forget it.” She shook her head. “I know you’re way out of my league and tonight and the other night—they were lapses of judgment on your part. I get it, really. So what can I do to help?”

“Nothing. I only told you about it to warn you. If that video or the photos I received earlier tonight go public—it could tarnish your reputation as well.”

She snorted. “Oh, Hershey. You can’t tarnish something that was never polished to begin with.”

“Stop.” He caught her chin between his fingers before she turned away. “Someone massively fucked with your head, didn’t they?”

Her lips tightened, and stubbornness shone in every line of her face. “I’m stating the obvious. Everyone might think I live out in la-la land, but I’m a realist. I know what I am. I know what you are. ‘Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.’”

Surprise coursed through him, and he dropped his hand. “
The Ballad of East and West.
Kipling.”

Color stained her cheeks. “I
can
read. In fact, I enjoy it.”

He blinked. This woman had the ability to throw him off like nobody he’d ever met. “I-I didn’t mean to insinuate—”

“Like I said, forget it.” She waved a hand dismissively, turned away, and froze in her tracks. “Oh, shit.”

Reece followed the direction of her frantic gaze to Baldy, a half a block away…

And headed right toward them.

Chapter Seven

“I
n here.” Reece ducked into the first avai
lable building, dragging Shelby behind him with a hard tug on her hand, and they came face-to-face with Elvis in a black and pink fifties-themed diner. As if that wasn’t surreal enough, a woman in a blue poodle-skirt sat at a table nearby, popping her gum as she tapped out a text on her phone.

Shelby giggled, and the sound was slightly hysterical even to her own ears. But this was all so ridiculous, and the shell-shocked look on Reece’s face was the cherry on top.

“Hello,” Elvis said. “Are you here to get married?”

Reece choked. “Uh, what? Married? No. We’re just…passing through.” He grabbed her hand again and tried to pull her across the tile floor, but Elvis gave her an idea. A crazy idea, sure, but what was life without a little bit of cray-cray?

“Wait.” She dug in her heels. “This is it. This is the answer to both of our problems.”

Reece glanced back at her like she’d lost her mind. And maybe she had, but since Jason, goddamn him, was determined to force her hand, she couldn’t see another way out of this mess.

“Give us a minute?” she asked Elvis. He nodded and both he and his assistant slipped away.

Reece whirled on her. “We’re not getting married.”

“Just hear me out, okay? I know it’s nuts. We’re east and west. But you need the blackmail threat to go away and if we’re married, those pictures and video become sleazy. No longer blackmail material. You can secure your business deal and then we can get it quietly annulled an
d go our separate ways.”

He opened his mouth. Closed it again. Opened. Closed. Like a fish gasping for breath. Finally, he shook his head and muttered, “It would solve my problem, but what’s in it for you?”

Oh, bugger. She hadn’t thought this far ahead. She should have known he’d not go blithely along with such an insane plan without asking questions first, but how much to tell him?

What’s in it for me, you ask? Well, if we do this, I can unobtrusively get all up in your business, give Jason the information he wants, and maybe, just maybe, he will finally let me go.

Yeah, no. The truth was 100 percent out of the question. She bit down on her lower lip, glanced toward the door, and settled on a version of the truth. “I, uh, kinda need money.”

His eyes darkened and he shrugged off the hand she’d set on his arm. “I should have known.”

“I’m sorry. I wouldn’t ask but I…”
Okay, deep breath and spit it out.
“I lied to everybody. I, um, kinda
own
The Bean Gallery.”

“You
what
?”

“Yeah. Surprise.” She tried for a smile, but it withered under his blistering stare. “I borrowed money from some bad people and bought it when the owners put it up for sale in November, then I told Eva I got a job there.”

Reece pinched the bridge of his nose. “Let me get this straight. You
bought
a
business
when you have
zero
management experience?”

She shrugged. When he put it that way, it did sound ridiculous, but she was a fast learner and until the arson, The Bean Gallery had been doing just fine. “I thought it would be a good way for me to go straight and do something right for once, but now it’s gone and I don’t have a way to pay back the money I owe.”

God, her stomach hurt. The lies came much too easily now.

“Shelby…” Clearly exasperated, he dragged a hand through his hair, tousling the neat strands. “What about insurance? Surely you had the store insured.”

“Yes, but the people I borrowed from…” She motioned to the door behind them and let Reece draw his own conclusions about why Jason had been following her. “They’re not content to wait for an insurance payout and as long as there’s an arson investigation going on, I’m not going to see a dime.”

Reece said nothing for a long time. “So the man chasing you…?”

“Yes. That’s why.” It was the truth. Mostly. Or at least a version of it. But, God, she needed Reece to believe because this half-truth was her only way out. “They sent him after me. I…think they want to make an example out of me.”

“You
think
?” he demanded. Then after a beat of silence, asked, “How much?”

“One hundred thousand.”

“Jesus Christ, Shelby.”

“C’mon, your car’s worth more than that. It’s pocket change to you.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, sighed. “How bad are these people?”

Oh, God. She didn’t want to tell him.

His eyes narrowed. “Shelby?”

“They’re…” She winced. “The Headhunters.”

“The motorcycle gang? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Mom used to date one of their guys.” Another half-truth. She was digging herself into a deeper hole, but she couldn’t tell him the full truth and wasn’t that the story of her life? “I grew up around them, and they seemed like a safe bet.”