“You Are A Beautiful Woman.”

Max’s words hurt in a way he couldn’t understand—and she dared not explain. At one time, she’d have tossed her hair and given him a smile that would have brought him to his knees. But now…

“Not anymore.” She couldn’t believe those words had escaped. “How long will you be in Vegas?”

“Long enough to convince you that you are beautiful.” He took her hand in his, his thumb stroking over her knuckle.

“That’s not why you came,” she said, telling herself he was here for the Vegas allure. The mindless flirting, the hours of gambling.

“My plans have changed.”

KATHERINE GARBERA

Their Million-Dollar Night

Books by Katherine Garbera

Silhouette Desire

The Bachelor Next Door #1104

Miranda’s Outlaw #1169

Her Baby’s Father #1289

Overnight Cinderella #1348

Baby at His Door #1367

Some Kind of Incredible #1395

The Tycoon’s Temptation #1414

The Tycoon’s Lady #1464

Cinderella’s Convenient Husband #1466

Tycoon for Auction #1504

Cinderella’s Millionaire #1520

[*]In Bed with Beauty #1535

[*]Cinderella’s Christmas Affair #1546

[*]Let It Ride #1558

Sin City Wedding #1567

[*]Mistress Minded #1587

[*]Rock Me All Night #1672

[†]His Wedding-Night Wager #1708

[†]Her High-Stakes Affair #1714

[†]Their Million-Dollar Night #1720

Silhouette Bombshell

Exposed #10

Night Life #23

The Amazon Strain #43

KATHERINE GARBERA

is the award-winning, bestselling author of more than twenty books for Silhouette and has been nominated for Romantic Times BOOKclub’s career achievement awards in Series Fantasy and Series Adventure. Katherine recently moved to the Dallas area, where she lives with her husband and their two children. Visit Katherine on the Web at www.katherinegarbera.com.

This book is dedicated to two of my cousins—Annette Queck, who is like my mom’s twin! And Michelle Griffin, who is like my sister. Thanks for making my summer trips to New Jersey so memorable. First as a teenager when we spent tons of money on the midway rides in Point Pleasant. Then as an adult when we went gambling in Atlantic City and certain ones of us had to lie about our ages. Finally as a parent when we sat on the beach huddled in sweatshirts (us Floridians aren’t used to a cold breeze at the beach!) watching our kids play together in the surf.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

One

Roxy O’Malley stared critically at the body in the mirror. For the first time in her life she was embarrassed by how she looked. She skimmed her gaze and her hands down the tight Spandex running bra that ended just below her 36DD breasts. That part wasn’t bad.

Always when she got this far, she wanted to stop. She wanted to pretend that the last three months had never happened. Pretend that when she glanced lower all she’d see was the smooth skin of her midriff and stomach. Pretend that her life and what she knew about herself were still true.

She closed her eyes for a brief second, her hand going to her stomach. The ridges of the scars weren’t rough against her fingers, but she thought they should be. The texture was different—foreign—and Roxy O’Malley, who’d once been called the most gorgeous bod on the Vegas strip, glanced down at the three scars. Three of them. One would have been bad enough, but three?

“Hey, sexy lady! Admiring the view?”

Roxy glanced over her shoulder at her boss and friend Hayden MacKenzie. She forced a cheerful note into her voice. “Hi, Hay! What’s up?”

Hayden was a tall, good-looking man with dark hair and piercing blue eyes that always made Roxy feel like he could see straight to the heart of her vulnerabilities.

Quickly she dropped her hand and picked up the T-shirt she’d left draped on the back of the weight machine. She couldn’t look him in the eye until she covered up. She would have turned away from him for privacy, but her back was worse than her stomach. Alan Technety had made sure of that. Because she’d broken up with him, he’d decided to make sure no other man would want her.

He’d also ensured she’d never dance again by cutting her so deeply on her left leg that he’d damaged the muscles and tendons. She couldn’t even walk without a limp, which was worse than having the scars. Her body, which she’d always counted on, the one thing in her life that she’d always been able to control, was now out of her control.

Alan had done better than he could have expected. He’d made it so she didn’t even want herself anymore. And her face had never been her vanity—Alan had known that and had focused instead on the lean dancer’s body that she’d kept honed and in top form through careful diet and exercise.

“I need a favor, but only if you feel up to it,” Hayden said.

“Okay, what do you need?” She walked to the small refrigerator in the employees’ gym that held bottles of sports drink and water. It was only five o’clock in the morning. Normally Roxy was completely alone in the gym. She was surprised to see Hayden down here so early. The newlywed was besotted with his new bride and everyone in the casino knew Hayden and Shelby had a ritual breakfast every morning.

“Well, I want you to stop dealing,” he said.

She froze. For the last month, since she’d been off on medical leave, Hayden had assigned her to work at the blackjack tables. Dealing wasn’t really her thing, but she could do it—and she couldn’t go back to headlining the European-style revue in the main theatre of the Chimera Resort and Casino. Being a dealer was a bit of a struggle, because she was on her feet all day and thanks to her leg injury, standing was a pain. Literally. But there was nothing else for her to do at the casino and living off charity—even Hayden’s disguised charity—by taking an extended leave of absence was something she couldn’t tolerate.

“I can’t dance. You know I can’t have another surgery for six months…”

Hayden put a hand on her shoulder and turned her around to face him. “I’m not asking for that, Rox. I want you to be one of my VIP hostesses. Entertain the high rollers, keep them happy and in the hotel.”

She glanced up at him, feeling like a fool. She never reacted the right way. It was just like old Ms. Wiggins had said back at the group home. Blood always tells. And Roxy O’Malley’s blood, much as her name implied, didn’t include a pedigree worth mentioning.

She stepped away from Hayden, walking carefully so that the limp wouldn’t be obvious. He was always treating her like she was his kid sister, and there was a part of her that wanted to be his kid sister.

“When would I start?” she asked, grabbing a towel from the floor and draping it over her neck.

“Tonight.”

“Who will I be accompanying?”

“Max Williams. He’s a good friend of mine and I think you’ll enjoy his company.”

“That doesn’t really matter, Hay. I’m going to be working with him, right?”

Hayden shrugged.

“Please tell me you’re not setting me up with him.”

“I’m not. This is a legit job. But if you like him…”

“Hayden MacKenzie, matchmaker. There’s something very wrong with this picture,” she said. But deep inside, she was touched. “I think I’ll stick to the job.”

“Okay. I’ll have Kathy send you his information. I’ll need to see you in my office at three. We’ll meet Max in the lobby when he arrives.”

She nodded and Hayden started for the door. “Does he know about me?”

Hayden paused. “What do you mean?”

She wanted to chose her next words carefully but the only ones in her head were blunt and honest. “That I was a topless dancer who was attacked by a crazy man.”

She knew her words came from old criticisms that she’d thought she was past. But her new scarred body had left her vulnerable in a way she hadn’t realized she could be.

Hayden came back to her, put his hand on her shoulder again and didn’t speak until she looked up and met his clear steady gaze. “Roxy, you were the headliner in a highly regarded show. I don’t gossip about my employees.”

She saw something more than the truth in his eyes and it warmed her in a way that she couldn’t explain. But no man had ever really offered help to her and she didn’t trust it. “I know. But I also know Max is your friend.”

“Even to my friends.”

She nodded and he left. She slowly made her way out of the gym and into the employee locker room. She couldn’t shower here. Couldn’t take the chance that another woman would come in and see her scars. She always went back to her condo on the other side of town to clean up. When she’d been the star of the revue, she’d had a private dressing room with her own shower. But not anymore.

She thought about what Hayden was offering her. It was a good job. One that would require her to be charming, funny, entertaining—all the things she used to be, but wasn’t sure she was anymore.

Max Williams was tired and frustrated with the businessmen he was dealing with. Each time he negotiated with them and came close to sealing the deal, they came up with another item that had to be settled before they would sell to him. The latest hiccup appeared to be the fact that he was a bachelor and married to his job.

Duke, his right-hand man, had suggested that Max take a break, leave Vancouver and go to Vegas for a few days and let him handle this latest setback.

Max had agreed, even though Vegas didn’t hold the same charm for him that it always had. With two of his closest friends recently married, Vegas was no longer the bachelor playground that it used to be. At least not for him, the only single guy in a group of besotted fools.

Every time he turned around lately it seemed that marriage surrounded him. It was the reason Harron was stalling on closing the merger deal, and it was the reason his friends were no longer available for all-nighters.

His father, the five-times-married Harrison Williams, IV, had said marriage was the ultimate match in the man-versus-woman game. And only the player with the most cunning survived. Max wasn’t interested in negotiating as hard in his relationships as he did in his work, so he’d always steered clear of those types of entanglements.

The limo pulled to a stop in front of the elegant facade of the Chimera’s hotel. Max made no move to leave the vehicle. He scowled and cursed under his breath, then forced the social mask he always wore into place, that mix between interest and confidence that his mother said every successful person should always portray in their smile. He forced that look onto his face just as the chauffeur opened the door. Max stepped out and walked confidently past all the tourists, gamblers and celebrities milling there.

A rock guitarist stood in the middle of a group of fans, minor celebrities and photographers.

As soon as Max entered the air-conditioned comfort of the lobby, Hayden MacKenzie strode over to him. They shook hands and then hugged each other quickly. Max let his smile drop and a bit of his frustration show on his face.

“Glad you’re here. Shelby is, too. You’re invited for dinner tonight.”

“Thanks. I think I have an appointment in the high-stakes gaming room, so I’ll have to pass.”

“When are you going to have time for anything besides business and gambling?”

Max rubbed the back of his neck. “Not any time soon.”

Hayden put his hand on Max’s shoulder and Max let the bond of their long friendship ease some of his tension. “So where’s Jack?”

“I’ve got someone new for you this time. She’s really great and I think you’ll like her.”

“Does she have a nice personality? Am I supposed to bring a rose so she’ll recognize me?”

“She’s your hostess.”

“Then why does it sound like you’re setting me up?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I am. I like both of you, and you’re both…”

“Don’t go there. I’m here to gamble and that’s it.”

Hayden nodded. “I thought you’d feel that way. Let me introduce you to Roxy O’Malley.”

Hayden turned and gestured to a stunningly gorgeous blonde. She was the embodiment of everything that was feminine and seductive. She took one step toward them, carrying herself with grace. Her second step faltered, and he noticed she had a limp.

He also noticed the frustration that passed briefly over her face.

“Roxy, this is Max Williams. Max, Roxy O’Malley.”

Max reached out automatically to take her hand and forced his genial smile back onto his face. He’d been told by his second stepmother, Andrea, that he had the sweetest smile. Duke assured him that was not the case unless one was blind. There were too many teeth in Max’s smile to miss the resemblance to a shark. But then, Duke wasn’t a woman.

“Pleasure,” he said. But the rest of his words stuck in his throat. Her hand was smooth and cold in his. And when he glanced into her eyes, he saw how nervous she was. She was stunningly beautiful and her body was built to make a man think of long nights and slow loving.

He held her hand longer than he knew was polite, rubbing his thumb over the back of her knuckles until a faint blush stole over her cheeks.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Williams.”

“Call me Max.”

“Max. I’m Roxy.”

“I’ll leave you two to it then,” Hayden said and then left.

She tugged on her hand and he let her go. “Your luggage is being taken up to your suite. Do you want to stop up there first or head straight to the casino?”

“I want…” you, he thought. But knew better than to say it. He didn’t understand it, this wild attraction to her. And it was wild. He didn’t do lust at first sight. He had never had any problems controlling his reactions to any woman. Why her?

“Yes?”

“To head to the casino,” he said at last. Other than sitting in the boardroom and negotiating a takeover, there was nothing else he liked as much as playing the odds at the poker table.

She smiled at him. “Then let’s go play.”

“What do you think my game is?”

“Poker. And it was your game long before the current Texas Hold ’Em craze that’s sweeping America.”

He was surprised she’d guessed it. But then he knew better than to judge a book by its cover. How many times had he been mistaken for a rich brat of a man who never worked a day in his life? Okay, so, not often, but it had happened.

“Don’t be impressed. I read your file before you arrived. You won close to $50,000 last time you were at the poker tables.”

“What else did you read about me?” he asked, wondering what was in his file. He wasn’t concerned. Hayden kept stats on all the high rollers who came into the casino, even his friends.

She tipped her head to the side and her long hair brushed against her neck. He wondered if it was as soft and silky as it looked. “I can’t tell you that. You’d know all my secrets.”

He caught her hand and pulled her to a stop. Damn, she had the softest skin he’d ever touched. “All of them? I doubt that. I’d only know the ones about myself. And technically, those aren’t yours.”

He was flirting, and he hadn’t done that in a long time. The fatigue that had dogged him for the last few weeks melted away when she smiled and slipped her arm through his, leading him into the poshest section of the casino. The dinging bells and whistles of the main casino floor faded as they stepped into the high-stakes room.

She paused in the doorway, and Max realized that she must be new to the VIP hostess thing, because she pulled them into a quiet corner instead of urging him to the table.

“Do you really want to know my secrets?” she asked, her voice dipping low and sounding sensual, husky.

Yes, he thought. But didn’t say it out loud. He didn’t know why he was reacting so strongly to her but knew that he wasn’t himself and he needed to get back on track. He wasn’t looking for another affair. In fact, he was damned tired of them. And right now he needed just to play.

When he said nothing, she flushed and moved away from him. “Sorry if that was too personal. Let’s get you to a table and I’ll get you your favorite drink.”

She started to walk away with her limping gait and he almost let her but didn’t. He stopped her with his fingers on her shoulder. She glanced back at him, and he saw that damned vulnerability in her eyes again. “I do want to know your secrets, Roxy.”

He walked past her and seated himself at a table with a few familiar faces. But instead of concentrating on the cards and the game, he saw only the surprise in Roxy’s blue eyes in his mind.

Roxy tried to remember everything that Hayden had said, especially the part about being friendly but never forgetting that business was the focus of her assignment. Keep the gambler happy and at the tables.

Max made that hard. Every time she dropped off another drink for him, or inquired about his needs, he flirted. And for the first time since she’d wakened in a hospital bed, scarred for life, she felt like flirting back.

He played and won for almost four hours before pushing back from the table. Since this was her first hostessing assignment she had no idea if she should try to make him stay longer.

“Are you sure you want to stop now? You’re on a winning streak.”

“I’m sure. I want to take my hostess to dinner and see if my luck stays.”

“I don’t know if I’m allowed to do that,” she said, knowing she wasn’t lucky but not wanting him to know it. Every time she got close to grasping the brass ring of what she wanted from life, it slipped away. So she knew luck wasn’t with her.

“You’re supposed to keep me happy.”

She wanted to laugh at the way he said it. But didn’t. “Then I guess I’m going to dinner with you. Where do you want to go?”

“I’ll take care of the arrangements,” Max said. He pulled her out of the flow of traffic and reached for his Blackberry.

Immediately she knew she had to keep her head in the game with this man. This was a job. She couldn’t forget it, no matter how tempting it might be to do so. This new assignment was much better than dealing and she didn’t want to mess it up. “No, you won’t. That’s my job.”

“And you take your work seriously?” he asked, arching one eyebrow at her.

She sensed he was teasing, but she couldn’t joke about work. Anyone who’d ever lived off the charity of others learned pride at a heavy cost. “Of course I do.”

“I thought you were new here.”

“New to hostessing. But I’ve worked at the Chimera for almost ten years now.”

“What did you do before?” he asked.

“Danced,” she said. She heard the longing in her own voice and cursed herself for it. She should have been prepared for the question. But most people she encountered either knew her story or didn’t care about her personal life. Max was the first stranger to ask about her since…

“Why’d you stop?” he asked.

A simple little question. She closed her eyes for a moment. Years of practice and discipline gone in a few short minutes. Gone because she’d judged a man and his intentions badly. Don’t do it again, she warned herself.

“Injury,” she said. The lie fell easily from her lips and she hated herself for it. She’d grown up in a world where lies were traded and accepted for the truth. She was becoming her own mother. Something she’d promised herself she’d never do. “But that’s old news. Give me a minute and I’ll get us a table for dinner.”

She turned away from Max and took out her cell phone to call the VIP office. Thirty seconds later everything was set up, and she and Max were on their way to the exclusive five-star restaurant on the fifth floor of the casino.

“Have you eaten here before?” she asked, hoping he’d say no so she could slip easily into her role of tour guide. She led Max past the crowd at the front of the restaurant to the maître d’, very aware of his quiet presence behind her.

“Yes. In fact, the chef/owner is a friend of mine.”

She smiled at the maître d’, Henry, whom she knew from her years at the hotel. Henry winked at her and she relaxed a little. This new job was not what she expected. Or should she say that Max Williams wasn’t what she’d expected. “Mr. Williams and I are ready to be seated.”

“Certainly, Ms. O’Malley. Follow me.”

Max put his hand on Roxy’s back as they moved through the restaurant. She tried to ignore the heat from his large palm, but she couldn’t. It made everything feminine in her pulse into awareness. That long-sleeping part of her, the part that had been dormant even before her accident started to awaken. That scared her.

She was grateful when they reached the table and took their seats. Max asked for the wine list and the sommelier came to their table.

“Do you have a preference?” he asked after the sommelier suggested some wines.

“I usually buy my wine by the gallon in the supermarket,” she said. Then flushed as she realized how that sounded. “I mean—”

Max chuckled. “I have cousins who own a vineyard in the Napa Valley. They’d be outraged to hear that anyone in the U.S. still drinks cheap wine.”

“Sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be. Have you ever tried South African wine?”

“Does Gallo make one?”

He laughed. “We’ll have a bottle of the Thelema Chardonnay 1998, Stellenbosch.”

The sommelier left and Max turned his attention to her. She felt uncomfortable under his intense stare, as if she was naked but not in a sexual way. His gaze was probing as if he were trying to fit together all the pieces that made up Roxy O’Malley. She desperately hoped he couldn’t, because Roxy O’Malley wasn’t sure who she was anymore. Not a dancer, not a hot body, not any of the things she’d always been.

Finally she couldn’t stand it anymore. “What?”

“What, what?”

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because you are a beautiful woman.”

His words hurt in a way he couldn’t understand. Because at one time she’d have tossed her hair and given him a smile that would have brought him to his knees. “Not anymore.”

She couldn’t believe those words had escaped. “How long will you be in Vegas?”

“Long enough to convince you that you are beautiful.”

“That’s not why you came,” she said, telling herself that he was here for the Vegas allure. The mindless flirting, the hours of gambling. The vacation from reality and real life.

“My plans have changed.”

“Well then, you won’t be needing my company anymore. I’ll let Hayden know.”

He took her hand in his, his thumb stroking over the backs of her knuckles as it had when they first met. “I’ll still require your company, Roxy.”

She tried to tell herself that things hadn’t turned personal, that she was still objective and just his hostess. But she knew she wasn’t.

There was a promise of something in Max’s eyes that she wanted to claim for herself. Something elusive and tempting, and she couldn’t quite make herself ignore it.

Two

After dinner, Max excused himself to return several business calls. Sitting in his suite, he was aware of what his life had become. He was forty and successful but alone.

Alone by his own design, granted. But still alone. No mistress—he’d learned the hard way that even couching an affair in business terms didn’t mean a clean break when things were over.

Harron had made several comments about the fact that Max was lacking a wife, a family. But Max had his family. They were paid employees and a small core group of lifelong friends.

There was a knock on his door. He hoped it would be Roxy, but knew it wouldn’t be. Instead it was the bellman with a FedEx box containing paperwork from his office.

He took the papers with him to the minibar and poured himself a Scotch. Looking hard at his life made him realize that in his quest to make sure no one thought he was riding his father’s coattails, he’d created a vacuum. A place where no one existed except for himself.

Ah, hell, he was getting morose. He signed the papers, dropped them in the return envelope and then swallowed his drink in two long gulps.

He wanted Roxy.

He wanted to spend more time with the beautiful woman who could be charming until she remembered herself. Then she was awkward and shy. And he wanted to know why. He really did want to uncover her secrets, but he sensed she wouldn’t share them. Not yet.

He also couldn’t compromise her job. He made a quick call to Hayden and asked that Roxy’s job be changed, explaining very little to his friend, but then Hayden was a man known for being quick-witted. “I’ll be taking her out of the casino tomorrow for the day.”

“Don’t allow my business to get in the way of your personal plans,” Hayden said.

“You are the one who extolled her virtues.”

“That’s right. I did, but I didn’t count on your interest interfering with my business.”

“I won’t.”

Max hung up the phone then dialed the front desk and asked for Roxy, knowing that even though it was almost midnight she’d be available. Everyone was always available to him in Vegas. To be truthful, wherever he traveled he was seldom turned down. He waited while he was connected to her.

“Hello?”

Her voice was soft and sweet, husky with fatigue, and he knew that if he were a nicer man, he’d just hang up and let her get some sleep. But he wasn’t feeling particularly nice tonight.

“It’s Max.”

“Did you decide what time you wanted to start in the morning?” she asked, her tone warming a little.

Gambling was no longer the reason he was in Vegas. But he knew he’d have to keep that to himself a while longer. “No. I’m going back to the high-stakes room tonight. I need you there.”

She hesitated and he wondered if she’d tell him no. “Oh, sure, Max. Only, I went home so it’ll take me at least a half hour to get back to the casino.”

“Why aren’t you staying at the hotel?” he asked. He’d assumed she’d get a room while he was there. That was what his usual host, Jack, did.

“Hayden didn’t ask me to. Actually, it never occurred to me you’d need me in the middle of the night.”

If she only knew how much he needed her.

“Pack a bag when you come back,” he said.

“For what?”

“To stay here until I leave.”

“I’m not sure my job covers—”

He didn’t want to discuss the fact that her job description had changed. “I’ll cover it.”

“Max, are you okay?” she asked.

Her voice sounded sweet, but he heard the underlying pique. She didn’t like to take orders. And for the first time since he’d met her he had a glimpse into the fact that she was more than a pretty, smiling hostess. Her annoyance wasn’t unexpected because most people didn’t like to be told what to do. But Max had found the easiest way to get what he wanted was to do just that.

“Fine. I’ll see you in the lobby in thirty minutes.”

“It may take me longer than that.”

“Why?”

“I have to shower and then pack an overnight case.”

“What were you doing?” he asked. Jealousy pricked the back of his mind. Had she been with a man? He was her job.

And he was the one who was thinking this could be something more than gambler and hostess. He hoped he didn’t turn out like his father, desperately seeing a relationship where there wasn’t one.

He rubbed the back of his neck. It wasn’t personal, he reminded himself. But he knew that the reminder came too late. He felt something for Roxy whether he wanted to or not.

“Working out.”

“What about your injury?”

She hesitated and he knew that she wasn’t at peace with it yet. Was it recent?

“It’s fine.”

But something in her voice said it wasn’t. “You never said what type of injury it was.”

“I’m not going to, either. I’ll meet you in the hotel lobby in an hour, okay?”

“Why won’t you answer me?”

“Because it’s private and personal. Isn’t there something in your life you don’t talk about?”

There was a lot, but he had always had a knack for getting people to open up. It was one of the reasons he was so good at takeovers. He could find out exactly the qualm the other CEO had and reassure them that he’d take care of it.

“Max?”

“Yes, I have things I don’t discuss. But I’m asking about an injury, not asking you to bare your soul.”

“I wish that were true, but my injury changed who I am.”

He wished he was with her so he could read her expressive eyes instead of having to rely on the phone line to figure this out. Not being able to dance must be tied to her sense of self. He’d met dancers before. Knew that they’d usually spent their entire life practicing. Living at the dance studio and keeping their bodies in top shape.

“Tell me about it,” he invited.

She said nothing. The silence lengthened, but he knew she was still there. She was waiting him out, trying to see if he’d simply give up and hang up. But Max had made patience a priority when he was ten years old and had never forgotten it. His impatience at age ten had cost him time with his father. Something that had been rare in his childhood, and he’d never forgotten that had he waited an extra thirty minutes he could have gone on an extended weekend with his dad instead of spending time at the arcade with his boarding school pals. Nowadays he could wait for days—even weeks—for what he wanted.

“I’m not going to go away.”

“Yes, you will, Max. I can’t do this right now. I’m just your hostess. I’m not willing to be your vacation fling. That thing you did in Vegas that has to stay here because it’s a dirty little secret.”

He cursed under his breath. “You know nothing about the type of man I am if you think that I’d pursue a woman just to have a tawdry thrill to bandy about in the boardroom.”

“You’re right. I don’t know you.”

“Come to the casino with me tonight. Let me show you the man I am.”

She agreed and hung up the phone. Max left his suite and headed for the busy casino floor, hoping that by surrounding himself with people he could dull his need for Roxy.

It didn’t work.

Roxy had three dresses and four approved pant-suits that Hayden had sent to her to wear for this assignment. But they weren’t her style and she hated the feeling she got when she put them on—as if she was pretending to be someone she wasn’t.

She took the pants from one of the suits and paired them with her favorite silk halter top. She now had to wear flats instead of heels, and she hated that. Grabbing her overnight bag, she left her house without a backward glance.

She drove the same car she’d had since she’d made headliner. It was a sweet BMW Land Shark convertible. And for the first time in a really long time she didn’t have that sinking feeling in her stomach that stemmed from things lost. Instead she put the top down and let the cool summer air whip her hair around her head. She pumped up the music on the stereo, slipping in her favorite Dave Matthews CD when she couldn’t find a song she liked on the radio.

She sang at the top of her lungs to “Ants Marching” and refused to let her mind dwell on the joy that had come from…a man. It had come from Max.

His phone call. She never slept at night. No one knew that. His call had rescued her from tortured hours of trying to force herself to sleep. Trying to close her eyes and not see images of Alan’s face. Or worse, images of herself on stage performing the way she used to before the audience gasped in horror seeing her bright red scars.

Her foot slipped off the gas. Why had she let her mind go down this path?

She pulled into the parking lot of the casino and parked, but couldn’t make herself get out of the car. Suddenly everything was there. Every emotion and fear that she’d been running from, every damned thing she’d thought she’d left at her small house was in that car with her.

She put her head forward on the steering wheel and tried to recapture the joy, but it was gone. Dave Matthews kept singing, but now she felt that bittersweet emotion that came from hearing something happy when all you felt was sad.

She switched off the radio and forced herself from the car. She put the top up and locked the doors before walking toward the shimmering lights of the Chimera. The ultimate illusion, she reminded herself. She’d learned early on that illusion wasn’t bad. And the Chimera offered her an illusion of herself that she easily embraced.

She forced herself into the lobby, a smile firmly in place. She could do this. In fact, she had done this every minute since she’d come awake in the hospital. She’d learned that most people were fooled by a smile and a quick assurance, because most people didn’t like to dwell on things like her attack.

“Roxy.”

She stopped and looked at Max. He held a cigar loosely in his left hand and watched her with eyes that seemed troubled. He looked sophisticated and urban. The trappings of success fell easily on his shoulders and in the glittering crowds of Vegas she saw him for what he really was.

There was no illusion in Max Williams. There was only a solid core that made her realize he was the real McCoy. He was successful and sophisticated. She crossed to him and stood, unable to think of what to do next.

Then she remembered the old Roxy, the one who’d been so bold in life. What would she have done? She’d have wrapped herself around his arm and said something flirty. No matter what she felt inside.

“Roxy?”

She shook her head to clear it. She needed to get her emotions under control. Hayden was counting on her to make sure that Max stayed in the hotel and gambled. And she didn’t want to let her friend down. “Sorry, Max. Let’s hit the tables.”

“Not yet,” he said, cupping his hand under her elbow and leading her out of the hotel and into the lushly landscaped gardens. There was a box-hedge maze that was illuminated by the light of the moon and subtle horticulture lighting.

“Where are we going?” she asked. She hung on to her illusion of happy Vegas girl by a thread.

“Somewhere quiet.”

“Why?” she asked, closing her eyes as she inhaled the aromatic scent of his cigar mingled with the scent of jasmine. For a moment she felt as if she were somewhere else. Someone else. But who?

He stopped and trailed his fingers up her bare arm, leaving gooseflesh in their path. She shivered, opening her eyes and looking into his clear gray gaze.

He was watching her with an intensity that made her hyperaware of herself. Of her femininity and his masculinity. Of the elemental differences between the two of them. She put her hand on his biceps and felt the solid strength in him.

This was a man who could handle everything life threw at him. She wondered if she could learn how he did it. If she could figure out what made him tick and use that knowledge to help herself. Yeah, right, she thought. The main reason she wanted to know what made him tick was that she wanted to know him.

Wanted to lean up and kiss him. To see if the fire in his eyes would be matched in his embrace. To taste his kiss and see if it would be as exciting as she knew it would be. But he was still a stranger, and she was wary of letting any man too close too quickly.

He ran his finger down the line of her cheek and traced it over her lower lip. “We are out here because I want us to be. And you are supposed to cater to my every need.”

His every need. “I’m not sure what you’re insinuating. But I’ve never been that type of girl.”

“I know that. I’m not insinuating anything. I don’t want you to be my hostess, Roxy.”

She swallowed. “Okay.”

“I want to be free to spend my time with you. To take you out of the hotel and away from the gaming room.”

She didn’t know what to say. She only knew that this job had lasted only one day, and she had no desire to go back to dealing. She was going to be out on the streets. She’d have to sell her car.

“I want us to get to know each other,” Max said.

She shook her head. She’d have to find another job. “I’m not ready to date.”

“Yes, you are,” he said. His breath brushed against her face and she leaned into his body, wanting to kiss him. Wanting to feel his lips on hers and see if it would be the intense experience she sensed it would be. She realized that she was falling for the Vegas fantasy. Rich man, beautiful woman, whirlwind romance.

She pulled back, turning away from him and walking toward a bench a few feet away. “You’re too bossy.”

He didn’t follow her, just stood in the middle of the path, taking a draw on his cigar and watching her with enigmatic eyes that saw too much. “I’m used to being in charge.”

“This isn’t your boardroom and I’m not one of your employees.”

“No, you’re not. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to take control.”

Max was pushing and he knew it so he backed off. He really did want Roxy by his side, and not just here in Vegas. She was the right woman at the right time. He needed a fiancée and, well, she fit the bill.

Even as the words echoed in his mind, he knew he was walking on thin ice. She wasn’t just an accessory he could pick up in Vegas and return with to Vancouver.

“Come with me to the casino. You can be my lucky charm, and then I’ll take you to breakfast and we can discuss this further.”

“I’ve never been anyone’s lucky charm,” she said.

“Maybe you just didn’t realize it,” he said, steering them through the crowded casino floor toward the high-stakes poker area in the back. Now he hardly noticed her slight limp.

“I think I’d know if I was lucky.”

“Maybe your luck is with things you take for granted,” he said, knowing that his luck came from making things happen. From never sitting and waiting but getting up and taking action.

She stopped walking. “I think you might be right. I mean, I wanted to win the lottery but didn’t. I wanted to keep on dancing and can’t.”

“I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

She shook her head, shaking her honey-colored hair against her shoulders. Her hair looked like silk in the casino lighting, and he knew he should be concentrating on her words but instead just wanted to bury his hands in her hair and hold her head still for a soul-deep kiss.

“I just realized that I am lucky in a million little ways,” she said.

He took a deep breath and reached for the concentration that he was known for. Then he took her by the wrist and led her away from the noise and the crowds to an alcove tucked away in the corridor. “What are those things?”

She bit her lower lip and his concentration almost flew out the window. What would her mouth taste like?

“It will sound silly,” she said.

“I just called you my lucky charm, I think we’re already into silly.”

“Did you mean it?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She smiled at him then and her expression was so…tender that his heart almost broke. “That wasn’t silly, Max. It was very sweet.”

“Ah, hell, God save me from being sweet. You’re supposed to look at me and think, What a sexy guy. Not a sweet man.” But he liked that she thought of him that way. No one had ever seen him in that light before. They’d called him ruthless, determined and successful, but never sweet.

“Can’t you be both?”

“I don’t know, can I?” he counted.

He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer to him. Her words—that she wasn’t ready to date—echoed in his mind as he held her. Hell, neither was he, but holding her soothed that bit of loneliness that had been echoing through his soul.

“I’m not sure this is on the approved list of acceptable activities between a VIP and his hostess.”

“Your boss is one of my best friends, so I think I know how to make this right.”

“For you?”

He realized again that he was moving too fast. Her comment still ticked him off because he’d always been the kind of man that others respected. “No, Roxy, for you and when you know me better I’ll expect an apology for that.”

“I’m sorry. I’m much better at light social talk, or performing up on the stage where I can’t say the wrong things.”

“You didn’t say the wrong thing.”

“Yes, I did. I offended you.”

“I get offended daily.”

“How?”

“Usually from investors of rival companies. Or the board of directors of a company that I want to take over. Sometimes from my second in command, but he says that’s to keep my ego in check.”

“He’s your friend, then?”

Max thought about Duke and nodded. “Yes. He saved my life once.”

“Did you repay him?” she asked, with a shrewdness he wished she didn’t have.

“Of course I did. I couldn’t let that kind of debt languish.”

“Have you ever let any debt languish?”

“No, I haven’t. I like to keep things even,” he said lightly because he knew that he really preferred to keep the balance tipped toward him. To make sure that he was the one who did just a bit more in a relationship.

“But you’re bossy. So I’m guessing that you like to be in charge all the time.”

He shrugged his shoulder. “What can I say? I run an international conglomerate. I have to lean toward the type-A personality.”

“Just in business?”

He shook his head, uncomfortable pursuing this topic. “You were going to tell me what you were lucky at.”

“I was?”

“Yes, you were.”

“Is that an order?”

She was sassing him. And he liked it, but he gave her a quelling stare. One that always made the office staff jump through hoops for him.

“I’m not intimidated,” she said. “But I will tell you what I’m lucky at….”

She paused and he waited for her to continue.

“I’m lucky in being alive. Now, if I can just remember how to live.”

Three

Max played for four hours straight, insisting Roxy stay close by. She enjoyed being with him but the combined cigarette and cigar smoke was giving her a headache.

“I need to step outside for a few minutes. Breathe some fresh air.”

Max nodded. “I’m going to play one more hand and then we’ll go get some breakfast.”

Since it was almost six o’clock, it would be an early breakfast but she didn’t mind. She doubted that he’d only play one more hand.

Most of the men she’d dated had been gamblers. She’d met them all in a casino, and they never left any table or game after just one more hand or roll.

Six months time had made a huge difference in how she spent her days. Normally she would have been arriving at the casino about now and heading to the rehearsal hall for an intense dance workout and review of the previous night’s show.

Instead, she was fetching drinks and keeping a man who didn’t need the incentive in the casino. She hadn’t felt this lost since she’d turned eighteen and realized that she no longer had a place to stay at the group home in which she’d lived. Two months left until high-school graduation, and she’d been on her own.

“Rox?”

She glanced over her shoulder and saw Tawny and Glenda crossing the casino, heading toward the rehearsal hall. Glad to see her old friends, she tried to smile. This feeling of envy, jealousy and embarrassment was exactly why she’d been avoiding them. They were still doing something she no longer could, and she felt a weird combination of envy, jealousy and some joy every time they visited her.

“Hey, girls. How’s the show?” she asked. Both of them were still fit and pretty. Roxy looked at them and didn’t feel the same sense of belonging as she used to. She shifted her weight, trying to feel as if she could still fit in if she wanted to.

“Not the same without you,” Glenda said. “Roger has been really mean lately. One small slip-up and he reams you a new one.”

“Well it’s his butt on the carpet if the show isn’t good,” Roxy said. Roger’s temper was legendary, but he usually only exploded if the chorus was loafing. And she couldn’t imagine Glenda or Tawny loafing. They took dancing as seriously as she did…had.

“I didn’t see you at the blackjack tables earlier. I hoped that meant you’d be backstage,” Tawny said.

“Not yet. I still have a few more surgeries before I’ll be ready.” But that wasn’t the truth. She’d never dance again. The combination of the strenuous show moves and the weight of some of the headdresses they wore would be too much for her body. The doctor had told her after her last surgery that dancing in Vegas was out. A showgirl no more.

“Get well soon, girl,” Glenda said, giving her a hug before the two women moved on.

Roxy leaned back against the wall for a second. She really wanted to sink into it and become invisible. Then she remembered she was in public and straightened up, forcing herself to head for the exit.

The warm touch of a man’s hand on her back startled her. She jumped a little. But she knew that touch. The feel of that palm had been embedded in her memory already. She glanced back at Max.

“You okay?”

“Fine,” she said.

He rubbed his hand down her arm, linking their fingers together, and led her away from the casino floor and out of the hotel. “Who were those women?”

“Friends of mine,” she said.

“Dancers?”

She nodded. She wasn’t ready to talk about that part of her life. Not that he was probing into it. She knew her reaction had a lot more to do with the fact that she didn’t know how to deal with seeing her best friends than any question Max asked. “Where are we going?”

“For breakfast. I think I mentioned we’d eat after I finished that hand.”

She flushed a little, remembering she hadn’t thought he’d really get up and leave the table after one hand.

“Uh-oh, what’s that look?”

“What look?”

“That sheepish one.”

“I didn’t think you’d actually leave after one hand.”

“I’m a man of my word,” he said, pulling her to a stop in the middle of the path.

She tipped her head back to stare into his eyes. He patiently let her look at him and she sighed deep inside realizing that she’d never met a man like Max before. She doubted she ever would again. He was solid through and through. He wasn’t part of the illusion of Vegas.

“Sorry. Most gamblers can’t leave.”

“I really just do it for fun and to relax.”

His fun had a much higher price tag on it than hers did. She could have bought a new house with some of the jackpots that were won and lost while Max played cards.

“Tell me about your job,” she said.

“Later. We have to get moving to make our breakfast.”

“Are we leaving the hotel?”

He nodded, steering her down the path that led to Hayden’s private garage.

“We have some really nice—”

He held up his hand. “I know. I’ve already talked to Hayden about moving you to be someone else’s hostess.”

“You did?” she asked. She couldn’t believe his gall. Did he think he owned the world?

“Now don’t get mad.”

“Too late. Do you think that you own me? I’m not sure that you listened when I said I don’t work for you.”

“I heard that. That’s why I spoke to Hayden. I have other plans for you and I, Roxy.”

She shook her head. “Maybe I don’t want to be a part of them.”

He didn’t force her closer, but she felt surrounded by him. “I’m not like this normally, but there is something about you that draws me.”

“Lust?”

“Yes,” he said with a devilish grin. “But more than that. If you don’t feel the same, then say the word and this ends here.”

“What is this?” she asked, unwilling to admit that she found him attractive. She knew he was out of her league.

“I have no idea, but I don’t want to let you go. I want to spend the next day with you, exploring the attraction between us.”

His words combined with the fire in his eyes melted her resistance. She knew that this was going to lead to heartache. They were so different. But she wanted to spend more time with him.

Santa Barbara, California, was perfect for his needs. Roxy was quiet as he drove them to the private airport and his waiting Learjet.

“Okay, where are we going?”

“For breakfast on the beach. I want to watch the day begin with you.”

He could tell by her expression that she was overwhelmed and that pleased him. He’d been overwhelmed by a need to be with her ever since they’d met.

“The sun rises in Vegas, too,” she said vaguely.

“Trust me, this is one you don’t want to miss.”

“Is this a normal thing for you?” she asked as they boarded the jet.

“Welcome aboard, Mr. Williams and Ms. O’Malley,” Lourdes said.

“Roxy, this is Lourdes, our pilot. She’s been working for me for five years now.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“You, too,” Lourdes said. “Buzz me when you’re ready to go, Mr. Williams.”

He nodded. Lourdes went into the cockpit and left them alone. Max crossed to the bar and poured a glass of California sparkling wine and orange juice for each of them. Roxy stayed just inside the jet, her gaze sweeping over the plush carpet and leather seats. She took a step inside and then stopped completely.

“This is not going to work,” she said.

He knew she meant the two of them, but Max had already felt that irresistible pull toward her and knew that for him to walk away was impossible. Even if the only thing between them was this heat, then he’d be happy to explore it. But he sensed there was something more. The restlessness that had become a part of him was gone—at least temporarily.

“Give me this morning and then we can discuss our differences on the way back. I think you’ll find we have a lot in common.” He set the champagne flutes down and pulled her into his arms. She inhaled and held her body stiff. He rubbed his hands down her back, enjoying the feel of her in his arms.

“That’s kind of presumptuous.”

“Sometimes my instincts get the better of my manners. Please come to breakfast with me.”

She nodded.

“Have a seat and I’ll let Lourdes know we’re ready to go.”

He spoke to the pilot via an intercom and returned to Roxy’s side. He handed her a glass of the sparkling wine and O.J., and relaxed deeper into the leather seat as they took off.

“Most people go to the Grand Canyon for quick flights.”

“Have you been there?” he asked. He wanted to analyze her as he would a company he was thinking of taking over. He needed to figure out what her strengths and weaknesses were. Then he’d figure out how to make her his completely. That one brief kiss wasn’t enough.

If he played it right, she could also give him the edge he needed in his merger with Harron. Roxy would dazzle the businessman and Max could finally close the deal. He knew she’d dazzle Harron, because she’d dazzled him without even trying.

“Yes. I met a gambler one time who came to the show and saw me dance and then won five hundred thousand dollars. He took me on a helicopter flight to the Grand Canyon.”

Max was doubly glad he’d chosen the beach. He didn’t want to be lumped together with some gambler. “And you said you weren’t lucky,” Max said, not liking the jealousy he felt at her story.

She gave him a wry smile and took a sip of her sparkling wine. “I’m not, really. When we returned he asked me to accompany him to the craps table and he promptly lost the rest of his money. He definitely didn’t think I was lucky anymore.”

Max reached over and ran a his finger down the side of her face. He couldn’t explain it, but her luck stemmed from things that couldn’t be won or lost in a casino. “Maybe you weren’t lucky for him.”

“But I’m lucky for you?” she asked in a throaty little voice. She tipped her head more fully into his touch and he cupped it, loving the feel of her silky cool hair on his skin.

“Something like that. You were in the show at the Chimera?” he asked, wanting to piece together an understanding of her life. He had never been to any of the shows. When he came to Vegas he played hard, and watching shows had never figured into his plans.

“Yes, I was. At that time I was a lead dancer, but not yet the headliner.”

She tensed when she talked about it. He put his glass down and took her hand in his.

“That takes a lot of discipline, I imagine.”

“Yes, it does, but then dancing is my life. Was my life. Now, hostessing is.”

“Really?”

“To be honest, no.”

“Tell me about your injury.”

“Um…it’s not that bad. I’m going to have a few more surgeries and then I’ll be good as new.”

He didn’t think so. There was something in her eyes when she talked about dancing that told him she wasn’t sure about that part of herself any more.

“What about you? What’s it like to be a CEO?”

“Well, for one thing, when I give an order it’s usually obeyed,” he said, arching one eyebrow at her.

“You need someone to defy you. You’re too used to getting your way.”

“Maybe so. It’s very challenging. I’ve been at the helm of Pryce Enterprises for more than ten years.”

“Why Pryce and not Max or Williams Enterprises?”

“Pryce is my middle name…my mother’s maiden name.”

She encouraged him to talk about his company. As he did so he realized that he was glad to hear that she was at a crossroads. It made his plans for her and the future easier to achieve.

They took a limo to the beach and Roxy was overwhelmed by the luxury that Max seemed to take for granted. Someone had set up a low table in the sand, and large cushions were provided for seating. There were hanging candles on the canopy that covered the dining area.

The table itself was topped with a large, cut-glass vase full of light-pink and white roses. There was also a small blue box tied with a white ribbon. She’d never received anything from Tiffany & Co. before.

He was seducing her carefully with romance. And it wasn’t the kind of romance that she’d ever imagined existed. This was big-time fantasy romance, and she couldn’t ever forget that it was a fantasy. Max was used to throwing money around on things. For goodness’ sake, he had a Learjet.

This was more than breakfast, whatever he said. He wanted more than just a chance to get to know her on the beach. She might not be the savviest woman when it came to men, but she knew a setup when she saw one. The thing was, this setup was straight from her dreams.

“What is going through your head?” he asked, in that way of his that made her feel as though he could read her mind. As though he could see through all the barriers she’d thought she’d erected.

“We are never going to make this work,” she said at last. No way could she ever fit in this world. She was flashy and brassy, not sweet romance. She was…not his kind of woman. Was that what he wanted? Some kind of tawdry affair?

“Why not?”

“We are literally from two different worlds, Max. Why can’t you see that?”

“I already do. I want the chance to show you that we have more in common than you think. I’m not going to pretend that this isn’t my way of life.”

“Flying somewhere for breakfast?”

“It’s a mode of transportation. I bet you’ve driven places and met people for meals.”

He wasn’t going to let this be an issue and she wanted it to be one. She wanted to somehow convince him—and, okay, herself—that it was money that made the difference between them, and not her own fears that were holding her back. Her fears were responsible for that block of ice in her stomach. A block of ice that had started to thaw in his embrace.

“That’s hardly the same thing,” she said.

He arched one eyebrow at her. “We’ll talk about this some more after you’ve changed.”

He gestured toward a canvas structure that was the size of a dressing room. She was amazed at how much he’d accomplished in such a short time. She’d seen him on the phone before they’d boarded the plane, so she knew he’d made a few calls. She tipped her head to the side and studied this man who was able to make things happen so quickly.

“I didn’t bring anything else.”

“I’ve provided everything you’ll need. Go,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders and urging her toward the changing area.

She entered the room and saw two boxes from Saks. She opened them both. One held clothes for her, the other clothing for him. She sank down on the wooden bench that was inside the structure and closed her eyes.

What was she doing? What did this mean? She should be at the casino in the gym working out. She should be trying to claw her way back to where she’d been before Alan had taken her life away from her. She should be more leery of being with Max—but she wasn’t.

But she was tired of living with the fear that she’d never be fully alive again. Tired of pretending that nothing had changed when everything had. Tired of being scared because she’d never allowed herself to be before.

She stripped out of her clothing and opened the box. Her new clothes were wrapped in tissue and she pushed it aside, sorting through them. There were a pair of capri pants in signature Burberry plaid that hung low on her hips, bisecting one of her scars. The pants only covered part of it.

She dug deeper and pulled out the shirt, which was a cute T-shirt trimmed to match her pants. She pulled it on, but the T-shirt ended an inch above the pants. Her hands shook as she realized that her scars would be visible to Max.

She couldn’t do it. This was just one of many things she didn’t want to let Max see about her. He might be able to ignore the differences between them, but she couldn’t. He was physically perfect—she didn’t have to see his naked body to know it.

“Does everything fit?”

She grabbed her silky halter top and held it up to her stomach, trying to make the shirt cover her. But it didn’t.

The flap opened. Max stood there on the sand, his shoes removed, his shirt collar open and the sea breeze blowing in his hair. There was a slight chill to the morning and she shivered.

“I can’t wear this.”

“Okay.”

“I mean, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the gesture but it’s—”

He put his fingers over her lips again. Rubbed his thumb carefully against them and she closed her eyes, wanting to lean more fully into him. Wanting to pretend that all the things she didn’t like about herself wouldn’t matter to him.

But she knew they would. Because her scars mattered deeply to her.

“There should be a sweater in there.”

She hadn’t looked deeper. She sat on the bench and looked up at Max.

He came and sat down next to her, wrapping his arm around her and pulling her into the side of his body. She was tempted to rest against him. But didn’t.

She froze when she felt one finger trace the edge of her shirt to where the fabric ended and her skin was bare. She knew the moment he encountered the first scar. He didn’t pull back or flinch away, just let his fingers continue caressing her, but she couldn’t go on.

She pulled back, wanting to run away. To find some place to escape to.

Max lifted his head. “Let me change and then we’ll have breakfast.”

He wasn’t going to say anything.

Grateful for the chance to escape, she stood and left. He knew her secret now—and she wasn’t sure she wanted him to.

Four

Max watched the canvas door drop back into place and clenched his fists. Now he knew more about her injury than she’d wanted him to. What the hell had happened?

He could call Hayden and get all the details. Hayden treated the staff at the Chimera like family, and Max knew that his friend would have the facts. But he would rather have Roxy tell him.

He changed quickly, barely noticing the clothing, and exited the dressing room. Roxy wasn’t waiting at the table but instead was standing close to the water, watching the waves cycle.

She turned as he approached, her face still, as if she were afraid of what he’d say or do. And his heart ached for her. He realized in a flash that she needed something…someone who could make her forget her scars and the life she’d once had. She needed him—or maybe he could convince her that she did.

No one should ever feel the way she did. And he knew that she felt alone and in a kind of emotional pain that couldn’t be expressed. Knew it because he’d felt it himself. Of course, that had been long ago before he’d started taking steps to make sure he’d never be dependent on anyone again.

“Isn’t this better than the Grand Canyon?” he asked, striving for a lightness he wished he felt.

“It’s definitely one of a kind.”

“Well, I try. Want to take a walk? There’s a big surf point at the end of the beach. I don’t know if the waves will be breaking but if they are, well, it’s awesome to watch.”

“I’d like that. Do you surf?”

“Not big waves, but some in Waimae. You?”

“No. I can’t chance—couldn’t chance an injury.”

Dancing. He finally started to understand the impact of not being able to perform anymore. “Were you always going to be a dancer?”

“Yes. My mom wanted me to be one.”

“Was she living through you? My dad wanted me to row because he’d been on a champion team.”

“No, it wasn’t like that. She died when I was four, and it’s one of the few things I really remember about her.

“She’d sit in the front room at the dance studio and watch me.”

Max slipped his hand into hers as they walked down the beach. He was aware of each step she took and made sure that he kept the pace slow so she wouldn’t stumble.

She told him more about her life and he realized that until recently dancing really had been her everything. Listening was the key to his success in business, and when he’d been in his early twenties he’d realized that he could apply those same techniques to personal relationships.

But it was hard to focus on social skills when he wanted to pull Roxy back into his arms. He wanted to have her in his bed where he could remove her clothing and see her scars for himself. He wanted to lave them with his tongue and sooth away the lingering hurt they’d left deep inside her.

“What?”

He realized he’d stopped walking and was staring at her. Staring at her waist. “Nothing. Are you ready to head back?”

She took a deep breath. “I know you felt my scars.”

“Yes, I did.”

She said nothing else and he wasn’t sure how to proceed.

“I just want a chance to get to know you, Roxy. You don’t need to tell me anything, any of your secrets. Keep them for now.”

They arrived back at their picnic spot. Max seated Roxy and then himself.

“How did you arrange this so quickly?”

“I have a well-paid staff that knows how to make things happen.”

He signaled to the caterers, who were waiting patiently nearby to start serving breakfast.

He picked up the Tiffany box and handed it to her. When the caterers had left and they were alone again, he said, “Just a little memento for you.”

“You didn’t have to.”

She held the box loosely in her hands as if it were a time bomb.

“Open it.”

“Stop bossing me around,” she said, but a smile flirted at her lips.

“No.”

She stuck her tongue out at him but slid the ribbon off the box and then carefully opened it. She pulled the necklace from the box, and held it up. He stood and walked to her side of the table. Dropping to his knees behind her, he took the platinum chain from her and fastened it around her neck. The pendant was a diamond-encrusted sea branch.

Unable to resist the smooth length of her neck, he dropped a kiss there. Her skin tasted so good that he wanted to nibble on her. But she shifted to her side, her hands coming up to frame his face. She turned until they faced each other.

Their breath mingled, their eyes met and Max felt something shift in his soul. Something he hadn’t been aware he’d been missing or searching for until this very moment came into focus. And he realized that he wasn’t going to let Roxy go.

“Thank you.”

She kissed him then, nothing tentative in her embrace, but like a woman who knew what she wanted. Her tongue traced over his lips before sliding into his mouth, tangling with his own tongue. Tasting him with leisurely strokes of her tongue. Strokes that set flame to his entire body.

He angled his head, forcing hers back until he was in control. Control of the kiss and the woman in his arms. She made soft mewling noises in the back of her throat and he swallowed them.

Roxy forgot about the fact that she didn’t know who she was. Forgot about the strangeness of this experience that was unlike anything she’d ever known. Forgot that she had a body she no longer liked.

Instead she let herself live in the moment. She felt the crisp linen of Max’s shirt under her fingers and how that contrasted with the muscled body underneath. She felt the passion in his mouth as it dominated hers.

She felt the swarm of lust rising in the pit of her belly and overcoming her. She moaned deep in her throat and felt him move.

He stood up and walked back around the table. She touched her lips as he settled onto his cushion.

Every other man she’d ever dated would have pushed her for more. Would have taken the invitation she hadn’t meant to issue with her kiss. She wasn’t sure if it was Max who attracted her or the fact that he was looking beyond her scars to the woman beneath. Making her feel once again like a sexy, vibrant woman and not handicapped.

If he’d taken advantage she would have known how to handle him. She would have frozen him out because she could barely stand her naked form, how could she let anyone else see it? Even Max.

“It looks lovely on you,” he said.

“The flush from your kiss?”

“That, too.”

She tried not to be charmed but she already had been. Her cell phone started to ring and she pulled her purse into her lap, trying to mute the sound of the song she’d downloaded as her ring tone.

“Is that ‘Dancing Queen’?”

She groaned. Every time she heard it she wanted to pretend her life hadn’t changed even though she knew it had. “Yes, please don’t tease me about it.”

Now that the cat was out of the bag she might as well answer her call. “Hello?”

“Hey, Foxy Roxy, it’s Hayden. Wanted to let you know I’ve got you scheduled to start working tomorrow morning with the spouse of one of our high rollers. Basically you’ll entertain her and keep her busy in the casino.”

Hayden was all business and she wondered if Max had ruined her relationship with her boss with his high-handed manner. She needed to make sure that Max knew dating was one thing—were they even dating? Did she want to?

She took a deep breath and turned away from Max. “Is that okay, Hay? I know that Max asked you—”

“Everything’s fine. I’m glad to see you and Max enjoying each other.”

“It’s not like that,” she said, wanting to explain but not sure where to begin. There was no other man she’d have gotten on a plane with and flown out of Vegas just for breakfast.

“Whatever you say. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Hayden disconnected the call and she turned to face Max. He watched her with that intense gaze of his that made her wish she could read his mind.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

She thought she heard genuine concern in his voice but that could just be wishful thinking. He’d said he wasn’t after a vacation fling and the necklace he’d given her—her memento of the day—cost more than her mortgage payment. So what was he expecting from her?

“Yes. Just Hayden telling me about my new assignment.”

“Is it to your liking? I can have him change it to something else.”

“You have to back off that. I’m used to being in charge of my own life.”

He shrugged. She noticed he was more relaxed than she’d seen him since they met. In the casino there’d been an intensity to his face as he’d gambled. But not here.

“I’m not trying to take over, I promise. I’m only making the way smoother so that we can do things like this.”

“I can’t do breakfast tomorrow.”

“Lunch?”

“I don’t know. But my job is important to me.”

“I can appreciate that. But I’m only in town for a short time.”

“I mean it, Max. I grew up on charity and I have to work. This is important to me. Don’t do something like this again.”

He nodded. “I’m sorry. I’m used to making things happen.”

“You’re used to getting your way. But I’m a working girl and I’m not easily managed. You have to ask me before you rearrange my life.”

“I can do that,” he said.

“You seem different here,” she said, before he could comment on the fact that she’d been staring.

“How?” he asked.

She felt silly; she’d never intended to bring the subject up. “I don’t know exactly—more relaxed.”

“I am in the company of a beautiful, charming lady and we’re alone on the beach. What more could anyone ask for?”

“I’m thinking, fewer of those clichéd lines.”

“Hey, that wasn’t a cliché.”

“Beautiful and charming…I know I’m not either of those things.”

“How do you know that? Maybe you’ve never been told before.”

She leaned forward, hearing the words of Madame Tremaine in the back of her mind. Her level-three ballet teacher had made sure that Roxy knew her limits. You’re too homely to be the lead without having the skill to keep the audience’s eyes from straying to your face.

The words echoed in her head, and for a minute she was that twelve-year-old at that awkward stage between girl and woman. “I was told by an expert that I shouldn’t rely on my looks.”

“No you shouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean you should dismiss them, either.”

She didn’t know what else he wanted from her. But he didn’t stop watching her. “What?”

“I’m trying to figure out what you see when you look in the mirror.”

Those words struck fear into her heart and she wrapped her arms around her waist.

Max had no idea how to deal with Roxy. Usually his words had a golden quality to them and people took them to mean more than he ever intended. But he’d never had someone look at him the way Roxy was. And he felt like a jerk.

She was hyper-sensitive about her body and he struggled to understand that. To him she was a woman who worked out and took care of herself. He could tell that she spent time on hair and makeup, yet she didn’t have the confidence he would have expected.

He hadn’t meant to hurt her but somehow he had. Maybe he should buy her something. Except he knew that money wasn’t the solution. He’d learned that at a young age when he’d watched his mother wither from expensive gifts but a lonely life.

Roxy definitely liked the beach.

“Do you want to go to Hawaii for a few days?” he asked. He had a place on the Big Island of Hawaii, which would probably be crowded since it was summer and the height of family-vacation season. “We can get away from Vegas and really have a chance to get to know one another.”

She shook her head but the sadness had left her eyes and he felt better. He wasn’t even sure what he’d done to make that happen. “I have to start a new job tomorrow, remember?”

She was pretty cagey about that job that she wasn’t even sure she liked. But he could respect her need to work and pay her own way. Those were the very two things that had driven him to start his own company, Pryce Enterprises, and not go to work for his family.

“Hayden won’t mind waiting a few extra days for you,” Max assured her. He was confident that he could pay the wage of a temporary employee so that Roxy’s job would be waiting for her when she got back.

“I can’t. Why would you even offer such a thing?”

“You seem to like the beach.”

She tipped her head to the side, studying him, and he hoped she found whatever it was she was searching for in his gaze. Hoped that whatever was there wouldn’t scare her off. He tried not to think about how her breasts had felt pressed against him when they’d kissed. Or the fact that he’d been able to feel her nipples harden. He wanted to touch and taste them.

“I do. But why a sudden trip?” she asked.

He couldn’t remember what they were talking about. He was imagining them both naked in his tropical paradise retreat.

“Max?”

Something about why he’d offered to take her to the beach…he remembered suddenly that it hadn’t started out as a sexual thing but more of an emotional one. He’d wanted to stop her from hurting.

“Blondie, you had a look on your face…” How could he say it without upsetting her again. Damn, this was exactly what he wasn’t good at.

“What look?” she asked, shifting her legs under the table.

“Never mind, I thought you needed a distraction and it was either offering a trip or kissing you.”

“So you opted for the trip?”

“If I kiss you again I don’t think I’ll be able to stop until I’m buried in that sexy body of yours. And I have the feeling public displays of affection don’t rank too highly with you.”

“They used to.”

“Really? Well, don’t let me be the reason you stop.”

She laughed. “God, you are so sophisticated I forgot you were a guy.”

“What does that mean?” he asked. No one had ever said anything like that to him before. But to be honest, that was true of just about everything that Roxy said. She was a breath of fresh air in his world, which was filled with the jaded and cynical.

She winked at him. “Just that I thought you were too cool for lust.”

“Think again.” Obviously he’d been a little too gentlemanly in stopping earlier. He should have followed his primitive instincts and made love to her on the cushions.

“I am,” she said, with a blush that revealed more than she probably realized.

“So what’s your hang-up with public nudity? I think together we can get you past that.”

“I don’t think so,” she said, the humor dying in her as she scooted back away from the table and stood up.

He pushed to his feet and went around to her. Signaling the caterers to start cleaning up their picnic, he put his arm around her shoulders and led her down the beach to a rocky outcropping.

“I did it again. I said something that made you close up. What is it?”

“You’re moving too fast, Max. I’m still getting used to the new me. I’m not ready for a man to notice me yet.” She moved so gracefully, he could see years of dance training in her posture and in her body. There was no hesitation to her movements today. Her injury, whatever it was, didn’t seem to be bothering her.

“How were you injured?”

She looked out at the sea. Suddenly he realized that she must have done something to her body that would require cosmetic surgery. That the surgeries she was referring to were aesthetic.

“Look at me.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him and he saw the tears in her eyes. Saw the way she clenched her jaw from saying too much. He stepped up on the rock next to her, easily finding his balance and pulling her into his arms.

He slipped his hand under her shirt at the small of her back, remembering the way she’d frozen earlier when he’d touched her there.

Carefully he brushed his fingertips over her back and felt the ridges left by scar tissue. He lifted her shirt to her midriff and leaned down for a closer look. The scars were still red, still healing, and they were vicious. He heard her gulp in a huge lungful of air and then felt her shaking in his arms. He dropped the edge of her shirt and pulled her into his arms, wishing he knew how to make this right.

Five

Roxy was glad to be back on the jet and headed toward Vegas. She wanted to go to her small house and hide. No matter how attracted she was to Max, they were from two different worlds, and she didn’t want to fall for a man who’d be leaving in a few days time.

She especially didn’t want to bare her soul to someone who might only be interested in her while he was here. Max hadn’t said anything else or asked any more questions, but she saw in his eyes that he wanted to. That he needed to know what had happened.

Lourdes smiled warmly when they stepped back on the plane. Roxy took a seat close to the cockpit and questioned the pilot about her job while Max sat in the back returning phone calls and receiving faxes. Finally it was time for takeoff and Lourdes shut the door, leaving Roxy with no choice but to turn and face the man who saw too much.

She’d found the sweater he’d left in the box of clothing for her and donned it. She didn’t think she’d take it off around him again. Not that it would matter if she stripped naked. Now that he’d seen the ugliness she carried around with her he wouldn’t want her to.

“Stop looking at me like I’m the Marquis de Sade.” He didn’t even glance up from his paperwork. She knew he was busy, had heard his phone ring several times when they were on the beach, but he hadn’t even glanced at it until they’d boarded the plane.

“I’m not. I wasn’t thinking you wanted to have kinky sex with me.”

He looked up then, arching on eyebrow at her. “But I do.”

His words made her mind jump to images of the two of them in bed, maybe with her hands tied above her head. Max was so dominant outside the bedroom she couldn’t imagine him being any other way in it. “Stop teasing me. We both know I’m not the woman you thought I was.”

“You say that as though I just discovered you were a transvestite.”

“Please stop trying to make light of this,” she said around the lump in her throat. She couldn’t joke about her body. Not yet. Maybe never.

He caught a strand of her hair in his hand, rubbing it between his fingers. “I don’t know how else to deal with this, Blondie. It’s either joke with you or give in to the anger that someone would hurt you.”

“I used to love my body,” she said, because Max was the first person she’d met whom she didn’t know from before the accident. “I was more than a little vain about it, and I was mean about people who didn’t take care of themselves. I’ve been struggling with the fact that maybe this is some kind of cosmic payback for that attitude.”

He shifted the papers on his desk. “I don’t believe in things like karma. I think we make our own. No matter where we start or what kind of baggage we are dragging with us, it’s how we handle the present that defines us.”

“I hope you’re right. But I’m struggling, Max. You’re the first man to look at me and make me forget that I’m not who I used to be. And that frightens me, because we both know that this isn’t ever going to go beyond an affair.”

Max left his desk area and joined her on the low couch toward the front of the plane. She didn’t have a magazine and thought about pretending to go to sleep but knew Max wouldn’t fall for it. She wasn’t surprised when they reached their cruising altitude and he unfastened his seat belt and hers.

“Take your sweater off.”

“No.”

“The only way you’re going to get past it is to stop viewing your body as something abhorrent.”

“I don’t think seeing it in broad daylight is going to help.”

“How about seeing it through my eyes?” he asked, stretching his arm behind her and drawing her into the curve of his body. He was big and strong. Solid in a way so few men in her life ever had been.

She stared at Max, afraid for a minute to trust him. Okay, she was afraid to trust herself. She’d been serious when she mentioned the fact that all they had between them was the possibility of an affair. Max wasn’t a forever kind of guy…at least not for her.

“Trust me,” he said.

Strangely she wanted to. She’d never have left Vegas with any other man she’d known only twenty-four hours. There was something very trustworthy about Max Williams. “I think I do. But the last man I trusted…”

“Did this to you?” He slipped his hand under the layers of her clothing and traced over her scars.

“I’m not sure about this,” she said, grasping his wrist and trying to stop him from moving any farther up her body. From discovering the extent of her scarring.

“Tell me what happened.”

She took a deep breath. No one knew the whole truth. She’d been too embarrassed ever to utter the words My ex-boyfriend is stalking me.

The words appeared in her head—A guy I dated over a year ago never got over me. And one night when I went into my dressing room, he was waiting. We had a fight and he…he…stabbed me. Several times. He left my face alone because he said it was my body that I loved and worshipped.

But they made her feel dirty and guilty and she couldn’t say them out loud. Especially to Max, who was all that was sophisticated and polished. For God’s sake, the man took her to breakfast in another state. How could she say that her own vanity had driven an ex-boyfriend to come after her?

She couldn’t. She liked Max. She wanted him to like her, to think that she was worth this trip to the beach on his Learjet.

He framed her head with his hands and leaned down, kissing her with exquisite gentleness and making her doubts fall away. She wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder. Then quietly told him the story of the night that had changed her life.

Max knew that it would take more control than he had at the moment to conceal his anger from Roxy. The quiet rage that had grown as she spoke in that soft, hesitant voice. He held her in his arms and made plans. If it was surgeries she wanted, he would see that she had them.

He’d make sure that Technety never saw the light of day again and that the other women in the show were protected. Because she worried about that as well. He didn’t question or understand why what he felt seemed magnified. He only knew that it was, and he couldn’t tolerate anything other than fixing this problem.

“You’re quiet.”

“I’m quiet because I’m trying to find a way to speak around my rage. And no, you haven’t disappointed me.”

She tipped her head back against his shoulder and looked up at him. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone has said to me.”

“Ever?” he asked, lowering his head so that his lips brushed against hers. He wanted to make the physical part of the relationship all-powerful so that she wouldn’t notice the fact that his emotions were kept hidden away. And he was going to keep them locked away because Roxy made him feel things more intensely than any other woman had, and there was danger in that. Whenever he reacted from that raw emotional place everything in his neatly ordered life fell apart.

“Ever,” she confirmed.

He hardened and groaned. He wanted this woman. He wanted to strip her naked and then take her. Make her forget about the imperfections which seemed so large in her mind.

He pulled his mouth free and dropped kisses down the length of her neck, sucking on the sweet spot at the base. She smelled so womanly, all fresh air and sea breeze, but more than that, her scent was the essence of Roxy. Sassy and shy. Tasting her was addictive.

“You are so beautiful,” he said, framing her face in his hands and looking into her eyes. They were fathomless and he couldn’t read what she felt there. That bothered him, because he’d thought she would be easy to read. What else was he missing about her?

“Don’t talk, Max. I don’t want to think—just feel, okay?”

But he couldn’t after that. He didn’t want her to kiss him because she wanted an escape from her life. He wanted her to want him with every part of herself. He rubbed her back and knew that he was going to regret being noble. Not taking what he wanted went against the grain. But Roxy wasn’t just an object to be acquired. She…she was getting to him.

She was quietly illuminating parts of his soul that had been dark and dusty for too long. And he knew that he wanted to be more to her than just a means to forgetting her reality.

“I ruined the mood, didn’t I?” she asked, slipping off his lap and back into her seat.

“No, you didn’t. I was rushing you and I’m sorry.”

“Well, I’m not. Rush me some more. That way I don’t have to think about how different we are.”

He was tempted. But he’d learned early in life that all the good things were worth waiting for. And he didn’t want to make love to Roxy for the first time on the jet. He wanted to do it in his bedroom where he could stand her in front of a mirror and make her see the woman she really was.

“When you’re ready for me, the differences won’t matter.”

Roxy had never been so glad to be back in a casino in her life. She felt unkempt, exposed from her time on Max’s plane. She just wanted to escape and find a quiet place to regroup. She stood awkwardly in the portico in front of the hotel while Max tipped the valet and gave him the keys to the Jaguar that had been waiting for them at the airport.

“I guess this is goodbye. Thanks for breakfast.”

She turned and started walking toward the employee parking area. Max caught her arm. She felt the steel in his grip and knew that he wasn’t happy at the way she’d tried to dismiss him.

Well, she wasn’t happy, either. She couldn’t look at Max right now, because she was still embarrassed that she’d confessed so much to him.

“We’re not through yet.”

“I’m tired, Max. I need a break. I know that I owe you an apology for what happened on the plane.”

“No, you don’t. I really don’t mind waiting. When we do make love I want to take you in a bed, where I can stretch you out and really worship that luscious body of yours. But I want it to be about more than sex when we’re together.”

She warmed inside, where the real Roxy had always lived. The shy dancer who just wanted to lose herself in the movements. She knew the image she projected was of an outgoing woman who could come through anything. But deep inside she’d always felt insecure, still the awkward adolescent who’d been dropped off at a group home.

Max, for all his worldliness, had seen past the facade to the woman beneath.

A group of Japanese tourists were headed straight for them and Max used his body to move her out of the flow of traffic. He backed her up against the sun-warmed wall of the casino, his tall muscular body surrounding hers and caging her.

“Have dinner with me tonight,” he said, rubbing his lips over hers. His breath was minty and warm.

She opened her mouth, hoping for a deeper kiss, but he only nipped at her lower lip and lifted his head.

“I’m waiting.”

“Are you asking me?” She knew he wasn’t. He was so used to having his way.

“Only if I have to. I think there’s something between us that deserves to be explored.”

“Shouldn’t you be playing poker? That is why you came to Vegas.”

“I think I’ve hit the jackpot already.”

She started to close her eyes against the charm she saw in his, but then she forced them open. She made herself look up and down the strip. To see the fake Eiffel Tower and pyramid. To remind herself that this was Las Vegas, baby. The place where sinful behavior was indulged in. Men like Max came to Vegas for one reason and one reason alone.

But the way he held her didn’t feel as though he was looking for a cheap thrill. And he’d stopped earlier, on the plane, when she was willing to go further. “What do you want from me?”

“A chance.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s been a long time since anyone has interested me as much as you do. I love the contradictions of you. The mystery of what makes you tick. And I want to solve it.”

She leaned forward, breathing in the scent of his aftershave mixed with the salt from the sea breezes. “Max, I’m not worth all this effort.”

“You are to me. I’ll pick you up. Does eight sound good?”

“You’re not going to listen to me are you?” she asked.

He gave her a half smile. “I always listen. It’s just that sometimes you say things you don’t mean.”

“How can you know that?”

“Because I’ve held you in my arms and looked deep into your eyes. I’m beginning to know what makes you tick.”

“Then maybe I should pass on dinner. If you figure me out then I’ll have no place to hide.”

“You don’t need to hide from me.”

“What about you?”

“I’m not hiding from you.”

But she knew he was. He was dazzling her with fancy plane trips and expensive trinkets. He was keeping the focus on her and she was letting him. “What about from yourself?”

“I’m forty, the CEO of an international conglomerate and I’ve lived a full life. There’s nothing to hide.”

She tipped her head to the side studying him. She knew he had secrets. Real secrets, the same as she did, and she wanted to know them, because she already liked him too much. She was very afraid that before too long, liking would turn to love. And, as he’d said, he was a sophisticated, successful man. The kind that didn’t marry a former topless dancer.

Six

Max spent the rest of the afternoon in the casino. Hayden and Deacon showed up during one of his winning hands and then enticed him to play with them. Deacon Prescott was one of Max’s oldest friends. A hell-raiser who’d grown up on Vegas’s mean streets and worked hard to make himself into the man he was today. The owner of the Golden Dream Casino was every inch the family man and casino owner. Since they were two of his oldest friends, they played a little dirty, deliberately distracting each other. It was fun, and Max relaxed around the men for the first time since Hayden’s marriage.

He didn’t analyze it too closely and refused to answer any of Deacon’s and Hayden’s prying questions about Roxy. He took great pleasure in beating them both and walking away from the table with his friends’ money in his pockets.

But as he fastened his tie in a classic Windsor knot, staring at himself in the mirror, he realized that he was doing what he always did. Trying to fix Roxy’s life.

Since he’d been eight years old he’d always followed that pattern. As an adult he’d realized that part of the problem was his mother’s demand for perfection. She wasn’t an uncaring woman; she just had very high standards. And Max was very much her son. But he was also his father’s. And if he’d learned perfection at his mother’s knee, then he’d learned compassion at his father’s—and also how to move on.

The course of his life had been set when he’d befriended Hayden at boarding school. When the two boys had met, they hadn’t hit it off at all. Hayden, in fact, hadn’t gotten on that well with anyone, spending all his time alone until one night Max had overheard a conversation between Hayden and Hayden’s father. The conversation reminded Max of the many he’d had with his mother. And he’d seen that the arrogant boy who no one had liked was really a lot like himself.

Max blinked. Damn. He was still trying to fix people. Hayden had called him on it more than once, but Max couldn’t change. He knew that much about himself.

But fixing Roxy in this instance could help him with business. There was no doubt that he wanted her, but he was thinking of her in terms of permanency, and he’d never thought of any woman that way before. Was it simply the effect of having his pals settle down? Did he want a wife because it would make his negotiations easier? Or did he want Roxy tied to him because of emotions he’d rather not acknowledge?

When he arrived in the lobby Roxy was waiting with the two friends he’d seen her talking to the day before. As soon as she spotted him, she smiled and held up her hand, telling him she’d be right over.

He didn’t wait for her to come to him. It was simply a power thing, but he didn’t want to lose control for a minute. He slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her back against him.

“Hello, Blondie.”

“Max,” she said. “These are my friends, Tawny Patterson and Glenda MacIntosh. Tawny and Glenda, this is Max Williams.”

Max shook hands with both women, who eyed him speculatively. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both.”

“Right back at ya,” Tawny said, winking at Roxy. “We’ve got to be going. We’ll talk to you later.”

Roxy groaned as her friends walked off. “They are not going to be happy until they’ve pumped me for information on you.”

“What will you tell them?” he asked, leading her toward the escalator to the shopping and dining level. The resort was crowded. Now that night had fallen the casino was starting to really come alive.

Max breathed in the sights and the sounds. The feel of the woman in his arms and the sound of her soft voice enhanced the night.

“I’ll tell them…I’m not sure, Max. I think I want to keep what I’m feeling for you a secret.”

Not, he suspected, just from her friends, but also from him. She was such a blend of blatant sexuality and shyness. It turned him on to watch her go from confident woman to reserved, because he knew that when he touched her, he could make her lose her inhibitions.

“What are you feeling?” he asked, keeping his hand at the small of her back. Her sundress had a deep V in both the front and back.

He stroked his finger along the fabric and watched her body react. Her skin flushed a little and then goose bumps spread up over her shoulders.

“Lust,” she said.

“How could you be around me and not experience that?” he said without blinking an eye.

“What an ego you have.”

She leaned back into his touch as if she couldn’t get enough of his hands on her, feeding his ego in a way that no woman had done in a long time. She tipped her head to the side when he spoke, really listening to his words. And she showed him the real woman behind that perfect face and knockout body. The real woman, with all her faults and fears. That was a bigger turn-on than she could ever realize.

“Hey, you’re the one who brought up lust. The way I feel around you, it would be impossible to deny our attraction.”

“Impossible?” she said, blinking at him.

“Oh, yeah. You’re not going to try it, are you?”

“How can I argue with a crazy man?”

He laughed and realized that he was more relaxed here with her than he’d been at the poker table. That the game which had always been his release valve wasn’t working the way it was supposed to.

When they reached the dining level, she paused and glanced at the row of restaurants that would impress the most jaded gourmet. Max was glad that the all-you-can-eat lobster buffets of the past were gone. Now, five-star restaurants and celebrity chefs were the norm in Las Vegas.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Dinner, remember? Is that lust thing messing with your mind?”

“Yeah, like that’d ever happen. I meant, where are we going for dinner?”

“I promise you, before our night is over I will make sure you are totally out of your mind with lust,” he said, lifting her hand to his mouth and brushing a kiss along the back of it.

Their dinner was a five-course affair at a themed casino restaurant—the Chimera’s Applewood Vineyard of Sonoma—the vineyard sponsored the restaurant and they’d sampled a different wine with every course. She felt very mellow and relaxed as Max led her out of the restaurant and up one more level to one of the smaller clubs on the entertainment level.

While they waited outside for the doors to open, she saw the line to get into the main club revue. Her show. Not her show anymore. She’d left that behind…at least for now.

“Is that where you used to work?”

“Uh-huh.” She felt butterflies in her stomach as she recalled how it felt each night to wait backstage for the house doors to open. She remembered how they’d all tease and laugh to hide their nerves, but even the fact that they went out on stage every night hadn’t dulled the magic that dancing and performing had always held for her.

“Roxy?”

She realized he’d spoken, said something. She pulled her gaze from the crowd of people and looked into his gray eyes. He was watching her with that intense look that was half lust and half something she couldn’t read.

“I’m sorry. I haven’t been up here since the…accident.” She flushed as she realized she’d mentioned something relating to her injuries.

“Do you want to go into the show? Would that help?”

“No. I’d rather go into the jazz club.”

The doors to their club opened and people slowly filed in. Max and Roxy waited until the crowd had lessened, and then approached the ticket taker. Max handed over their tickets, and they were seated at an intimate table close to the stage.

Her hands were shaking and she didn’t understand why. She looked up at Max, a sense of panic closing in on her. “Talk to me, please. I need some kind of distraction.”

“About what?”

“Your job. Are you on vacation?”

“No, I’m here to take a break from some tense negotiations.”

“For what? I don’t even know what you do.”

“I run an international company. We’re trying to merge a travel agency into our conglomerate. But the owner of the travel agency isn’t too sure he wants a man like me at the helm.”

“A man like you?”

“A bachelor. They are very family-focused, and Harron wants to be assured that I won’t let that focus slip.”

“You don’t strike me as a family man,” she said, carefully.

“I guess I’m really not. But that doesn’t mean I can’t see the value in being one.”

She tipped her head to the side. “I’ve never had a family. Just the girls in the show.”

“Will you be able to dance again?”

She shook her head. “Not at the same level, and I’m not one of those people who will settle for second best.”

He scooted his chair closer to hers and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. Leaning in close, he whispered directly into her ear.

“Are you wearing a bra?”

She glanced up at him, startled. “I’m a 36DD, what do you think?”

He ran his finger down the V at the front of her dress to the cleavage revealed there. He slipped his finger under the material. She shivered from his touch. His finger was big and warm. Gently caressing her. Moving slowly lower, his finger encountered the lace edge of her demi-cup bra before brushing her areola.

“Ah, yes, you are.”

Her nipple had hardened at his first touch. They were secluded close to the stage in an alcove where no one could see them. But the fact that they were in a public place heightened her excitement.

He drew the tip of his finger lazily back and forth across her nipple. With his free hand he stroked her neck, urging her to tip her head back onto his shoulder. She did, and he lowered his mouth to hers.

His tongue teased hers before dipping deeper, thrusting into her mouth in time to his finger strokes across her breast. She squeezed her thighs together as she felt an answering pull in her center.

He lifted his mouth from hers. “Are you wearing panties?”

“A thong,” she said, feeling dazed by the sensuality he wove so easily around her.

“Take it off.”

She’d never done anything like this before. And it made her feel exciting and daring. “I’m not—

“Please.”

No other word would have made her react, but that one did. There was a fire in his eyes that answered the one he’d started in her body. She’d expected him to remove his hand, but he kept stroking her breast and nipple as she lowered her hands to her lap.

The table was draped with a cloth that fell to the floor, so there was no way anyone could see her. She attempted to glance around, but Max stopped her with his hand on her chin.

“No one is looking. There’s just you and I and the music. No past or present. But it’s up to you…do you want to do this?”

She swallowed hard, staring into his eyes. She nodded. Speaking would break the spell he’d cast around her.

“Lift your dress to your waist.”

She did as he asked, pulling the fabric up slowly. His eyes were on hers the entire time. And what she saw in them egged her on. Made her want to be the sexy woman he thought she was. The sexy woman she’d known she was before her attack.

“Is your skirt up?”

“Yes.”

He glanced down and his hand tightened on her breast. He breathed a little more heavily, lowering his hand to her thigh. She glanced down as his hand moving higher, slowly, toward the apex of her legs.

“May I touch you?” he asked, again directly in her ear.”

She nodded again. He slipped his hand into her thong, his blunt fingers caressing her, slipping lower to find her wet and ready for him.

She inhaled sharply as he slipped one finger into her while at the same time scraping his fingernail over her nipple. She had to bite her lower lip to keep from crying out. Just then the house lights dimmed even further and the jazz combo took the stage.

The tempo of the music was mellow and smooth. But the tempo in her body raged out of control—like a Stevie Ray Vaughan guitar riff that went on forever.

His mouth found hers as he teased her body, driving her closer and closer to a climax. A second finger slipped inside her, driving deeper. He continued to play with her nipple and his tongue matched the thrusts of his fingers. She gripped his thigh with one hand then slipped it between his legs, finding him hard. She stroked him in time with his stroking of her body. Her fingers bit into his thigh as he pressed his thumb to the nub at her center and drove her over the precipice to orgasm.

She felt him lower her skirt over her thighs and he pulled his hand from her breast with one last caress. His erection still strained against his zipper, but when she tried to open his pants and bring him some relief, he stopped her.

During the second set, couples left their tables for the small dance floor. Max watched Roxy watching them, a look of envy flitting briefly across her face.

“Let’s dance,” he said.

She hesitated. “I’m…”

“Scared? I promise not to step on your feet.”

“Not of that. You’re poetry in motion.”

He arched one eyebrow at her. “No one has ever said that before.”

“Well, I’m sure they’ve thought it. You move like a graceful predator.”

“A predator?”

“Not that you’re looking for the kill. You’re just very confident, very sure of yourself and very aware of where everyone else is.”

Since he knew that he was always aware of others, he wasn’t surprised to hear her description, but he was surprised that she’d noticed. She seemed to see more of him than others did.

“I want to hold you in my arms, Blondie. I want your luscious body against mine, teasing us both. I’ll catch you if you stumble. Trust me?”

She licked her lips. “Okay.”

Max escorted Roxy to the floor and held her in his arms. Something he’d been craving since…he realized that he had no idea when the urge had begun, only that he needed her in his arms.

Her skin was flushed, and the remembered feel of her warmth on his fingers kept him in a state of arousal. But he wasn’t ready to end the anticipation and take her back to his suite. He wanted to keep the tension building between them.

“You’re a good dancer,” she said.

She held on to him as they moved. Roxy’s dance training was obvious to him as they swayed together. Her posture, which was always very good, was even more so here. And every beat of the music came alive in the way she danced.

“Thank you.”

“Is there anything you don’t do well?”

Yes, but he wasn’t about to tell her. He was horrible at cooking no matter how many lessons he’d had. “My mom made sure I knew the basic ballroom steps. My dad has to be coerced onto the dance floor.”

She rested her head on his shoulder, shifting closer to him as they danced. And he had a flash image of her underneath him. They’d be a perfect fit in bed. He slid his hands down her back to her hips.

Her mouth was at his neck, kissing him as her hands slid up and down his back. She bit him softly and he reacted immediately, hardening further against her lower belly.

One of her hands was at his nape, her fingernails scraping over the skin there. His breathing deepened, his blood flowing heavier in his veins, pooling in his groin. He knew he’d have a problem when it came time to leave the dance floor, but for now, it felt good to have her tease him.

This was the first time she’d taken the lead, and he savored it, knowing he was starting to unlock the real Roxy, the woman who’d been frozen by the cruel attack.

He lowered his head and breathed in the summer scent of her hair. His hands lowered from her hips. Her butt was full and curvy, and he flexed his fingers against her. She shifted her hips, rubbing her mound against his erection.

He heard her breath come in quick and sharp. Her full breasts rubbed against his chest and he wished he’d left his jacket at the table so he could feel her against him. In fact, he wished they were both naked.

She was toned and in shape. Everywhere he touched renewed the lust he felt for her body. But every touch of hers on his body renewed the affection in his heart. He liked this woman. Liked her in a way that he didn’t understand or want to analyze.

The tempo of the music changed, but Roxy didn’t seem to notice and he didn’t want to either. He maneuvered them away from the center of the dance floor to a corner near the stage where the low lighting didn’t reach, and they continued to sway together to a beat that could only be heard by the two of them.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said.

“Give me a minute.”

She skimmed her hand between their bodies, running her fingers over his erection. “I think it might take more than a minute.”

He grabbed her wrists and pulled her hands behind her back, then lowered his head till his mouth nearly touched hers. “If you keep that up, it will.”

She shifted in his arms, undulating against him. “When we’re alone, you’re going to pay for that.”

“Promise?”

“Oh, yes.”

He reached between them, adjusted himself as best he could and led her back to their table. She grabbed her purse while he tossed some bills on the table to cover their tab. He put his hand at the small of her back as they walked from the club.

Outside, he wrapped one arm around her waist, putting the other under her chin, tipping her head back and kissing her until she softened against him. After a long moment, he lifted his head.

“Come back to my suite.”

“Yes,” she said. And he took her hand, leading her toward the bank of elevators.

Seven

Max’s cell phone rang while they were waiting for the elevator. He took one look at the caller ID and cursed savagely under his breath. “I have to take this call.”

She nodded and started to move away, but he held her close, unwilling to let her go. She held his hand and stood patiently at his side. Though it was only ten o’clock in Vegas, it was after midnight in Atlanta where Duke, his right-hand man, was calling from. So he knew that this had to be some sort of emergency.

“Williams.”

“It’s Duke. Sorry to bother you so late, but I just got a call from MacNeil. He has another objection to the merger that only you can satisfy.”

Max was sick of Harron MacNeil. The man was making what should have been a beneficial corporate merger a living hell. Max was ready to change his bid on the company and just take it over regardless of what MacNeil wanted. “What the hell is it now?”

“He wants another face-to-face meeting—tomorrow afternoon.”

No way. MacNeil was assuming a lot of bargaining power from the fact that Max wanted the man’s company. Too much. “I can meet with him on Friday.”

Duke chuckled. “I had a feeling you’d say that. So I scheduled a Friday lunch meeting and he’s coming to you.”

“Thanks, Duke.”

“Hey, that’s why you pay me the big bucks.”

“Then why did you have to call me tonight?” Max asked. The elevator car came, but he held Roxy by his side. The elevators had really poor cell reception.

“MacNeil is bringing his wife. Just a heads-up. Any chance you found a lady in Vegas who will convince Harron you’re a family man?”

He glanced at Roxy, but said nothing to Duke. “MacNeil is going to have to take me as I am.”

“No? I have the feeling he’s going to be on the phone to you here tomorrow morning as soon as the office opens. Which means either I get up early or—”

“You take care of it before you go home to Cami,” Max said. Cami also worked for Max. She and Duke had met when Max had assigned them to work together. Cami never hesitated to take him to task for working Duke too hard.

“I’m already home and she’s not too happy. I’ve been on the phone all night.”

“Would a bonus make her happier?” Max asked. He knew that the key to a successful company was happy employees.

“Nah, you know Cami. I think a vacation will satisfy her.”

“You can have two weeks at my place in Fiji as soon as MacNeil signs on the dotted line.”

“I’m out the door before the ink dries,” Duke said.

“Anything else?”

“His latest offer should arrive by courier tonight.”

“Thanks, Duke.” Max pocketed his cell phone.

“Everything okay?” Roxy asked.

“Just business.”

She wrapped her arms around her waist and stood awkwardly by his side just staring at him. She seemed…unsure.

He realized too much time had passed and she was thinking about her scars again. He knew it only because in the jazz club he had glimpsed her totally relaxed and wallowing in her feminine sexuality. Now she wasn’t. “Changed your mind about going up to my suite?”

She shrugged her shoulder, but she’d dropped his hand and had her arms wrapped around her waist. “I’m not sure.”

The elevator cars opened again and Max knew that if he pushed now he would lose whatever advantage he had with her. But he was physically on the edge and waiting was not going to be easy.

Touching her had a pronounced effect on his body. Going dancing was out of the question. They each needed a distraction, Roxy from whatever fears had crept into her mind and him from the ones that hadn’t left his.

“What would it take to make you sure?”

“Could we leave the lights off?”

“No.”

She bit her lower lip and once again the elevator car left without them. “You didn’t even hesitate.”

“I know that I want to see you—all of you.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for that.”

He realized then that his usual take-charge style wasn’t going to get the job done. Roxy needed understanding. He’d be understanding if it damn well killed him, and he knew he wouldn’t die from not having sex.

“Let’s get out of this place.”

She blinked at him. “Where will we go?”

“I don’t know, but we need to do something active, something that requires me to use my brain.”

“Thinking is a turn-off for you?” she asked, with just a little bit of the sassiness he’d come to expect from her.

“With you around, I don’t think anything will work.”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, her hand reaching for his. She led him back to the elevator alcove. And shocked him. “Let’s go up to your room.”

They stepped on the elevator and he felt the trembling in her body and noticed her hand shaking as she clutched her handbag. They were the only ones in the car.

He put his hands on her waist and held her loosely between his body and the wall of the car. She glanced up at him, her blue eyes wide, but not with fear. Instead he saw desire.

“What?”

He bent his head to hers and took her mouth in the gentlest kiss he had in him right now. Then he lifted his head and stared down at her. “Just wanted to make sure you were still with me.”

He lifted her into his arms as the elevator arrived on his floor and carried her down the hall to his room.

In Max’s arms there was no room for self-consciousness. Roxy forgot everything except the taste of him on her tongue, the feel of his strong shoulders under her hands and the emotions he drew effortlessly from her.

No man had ever tempted her more than he did. In the jazz club, she’d simply forgotten they were in a public place and found that the world had narrowed to just the two of them. She’d asked him to distract her because her own thoughts had been starting to scare her. And Max had given her a refuge that was so totally captivating and exciting that her fears had melted away.

She closed her eyes and tucked her head against his neck. No man had ever treated her the way Max did, with his demanding sexuality that was at times at odds with the concern he showered on her. He really paid attention not just to how she reacted physically around him, but also her emotional reactions. She suspected it was due to his time in the boardroom. He just knew how to read people. Especially her, and that made her more than a little nervous.

He made her feel needy and she was used to standing on her own. For tonight, though, she would put those fears to rest and enjoy her time with him.

He set her on her feet at his door and opened it with the key card. “Still sure?”

She nodded, not voicing any more of her body concerns. He made her want to stop hiding in the shadows of her former self—her former life—and step back into the land of the living.

She took his hand and tugged him behind her into the room. She stumbled over the carpet and reached out blindly to catch her balance. Max slipped his arm around her firmly holding her in place.

“Okay?”

No, no. But she wanted to be and Max was the one man to offer her that chance. As soon as the door shut behind them they were surrounded by the darkness. She knew that if she let Max take the lead, she’d be standing in a fully lit room with all her imperfections on display.

The only way she was going to come through this in one piece would be to take control now. She’d rarely done that in her relationships. She wasn’t aggressive outside of dancing. But dancing was gone, and with Max she…she felt different than she ever had before. She wanted her actions to be distinctive to this man and this relationship.

So she pushed him back against the wall and leaned up to catch his mouth with hers, kissing him deeply and with all the passion she’d been waiting to shower on him since he’d brought her to a climax in the middle of the jazz club.

She sucked his tongue into her mouth and when he tunneled his fingers in her hair and tilted her head to a better angle for him, she nipped his tongue.

“Convinced?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. I might need a little more persuasion,” he said, turning on the light.

She froze, then pushed her fears down. This was about Max and what he made her feel. She’d ignore the light for now—distract him—until she could turn it off.

She loosened the knot in his tie but left it dangling. Then she tugged his shirttails from his pants and slowly unbuttoned his shirt, taking her time with each button, leaning down and kissing each new piece of skin that was revealed.

His nipples were hard by the time she had the shirt unbuttoned and his erection strained against his zipper. She smiled to herself at how he reacted to her. It made her feel very much like a woman. Very much in control of this man who made sure he was always the one in charge.

She lifted his collar and slid his tie over it to rest against his skin. The differences between them slipped away and there were only Max and Roxy in this moment. It didn’t matter that he had more money than Midas and she’d been a showgirl.

She removed the cufflinks at his wrists and put them in his breast pocket before pushing his shirt off his shoulders and onto the floor.

Undoing the knot and holding on to each ends of his tie, she drew the soft, silk material over his nipples. His breath hissed out through his teeth.

She continued to brush one nipple with the tie while she bent and licked delicately at the other one. Then, when his hands clutched at her shoulders, she bit very carefully at his nipple.

He groaned and his hips jerked toward her. She smiled and switched her mouth to his other nipple while continuing to move the silk over his body. She kissed her way down his chest, following the line of hair that disappeared into the waistband of his pants. She let go of his tie and reached for his belt buckle.

He had six-pack abs that had to have come from working out. She traced her finger over the delineated muscles and watched them ripple under her touch. “Do you work out?”

“Yes. Another thing we have in common,” he said in that husky voice of his.

Maybe the only thing they had in common. Doubts surfaced, but she pushed them aside. She wanted Max, and to be honest there was little she’d wanted in life lately.

“May I?” she asked, stroking her fingers over his belt buckle. The metal was cool in comparison with his hot stomach.

“Yes, you may,” he said, in a voice that was little more a rasp.

She unbuckled his belt and pulled it through the loops. Once it was free, she doubled it up in her hand and snapped it. “Have you ever had your hands tied during sex?”

“Why? You think you can dominate me?” he asked.

She waited a heartbeat and then two before looking at him from under her eyelashes. “I know I can, and I don’t need this leather belt to do it.”

He arched one eyebrow at her and leaned back against the wall. He looked like a decadent pasha from an exotic land who could have his pick of glamorous women, and for a moment she faltered. Max could have any woman…why her?

But as she looked at this man, she knew that tonight he wanted only her. She dropped the belt and unfastened his pants. Slipped her hand into his loosened waistband and was surprised to encounter nothing but warm male flesh.

“Commando?”

He shrugged. “I don’t like to be confined.”

She stroked his length, exploring him with her fingers before reaching lower to cup him. He shifted his stance, spreading his legs farther apart. She scored him with her fingernails, scraping carefully against his sensitive flesh.

He cupped her head and brought her lips to his. His tongue thrust deeply into her mouth before he pulled back and stared into her eyes. He pushed lightly on her shoulders and she knew what he wanted. She lowered herself slowly, not kissing her way down his body but keeping her gaze fixed to his as she sank to her knees.

She leaned forward, letting her breath brush over his erection before twirling her tongue over the tip. Before she could go further, he held her head in both his hands and gently guided her back up until their eyes met. She felt a shift deep inside her and knew that she was falling for this man.

Max lifted Roxy into his arms and carried her into his bedroom. He placed her fully dressed in the center of his bed. He toed off his shoes and socks and then pushed his pants off before he turned on one of the bedside lamps. The room was cast in soft light and shadows. His tie still dangled around his neck but otherwise he was naked.

She rolled to her side to watch him, the skirt of her dress moving up to her thighs, and she shifted on the duvet. When she noticed how much skin she’d exposed, she stiffened and drew the skirt down her legs until they were covered again. Part of his heart was sad at the way she’d covered herself. Roxy was a woman who liked sensual things and that world had been taken from her when Technety attacked her.

He was determined to give her back that world. To reintroduce her to the pleasure of sensual delight and to her own body. He wanted—no, needed—to make her come apart in his arms.

He approached the bed. “I think you convinced me that you want me.”

“Did I?” she asked, a candescent light in her eyes as she watched him.

“Yes. Now, it’s my turn to convince you,” he said, knowing he had to take it slowly for her but unsure of his ability to do so. He wanted to claim her, to thrust inside her body and make her admit that he was her man.

“How are you going to do that?”

“You’ll see,” he said. Since she was on her side, he sank down next to her and lowered the zipper at the back of her dress. She rolled onto her back, her honey-colored hair spread out on the comforter and he felt that clenching in his gut as he realized that this woman was his. That she was here in his bed.

He lowered himself next to her on the bed and kissed her, caressing her through her clothing. Rubbing his hands down her back, slipping his hand inside her dress to feel the smooth silk of her skin.

He traced her spine down to her buttocks and cupped both cheeks in his hands, drawing her closer to his body. Her legs shifted, one of them draping over his hips so that he could get closer to her. He pulled her more fully against him and felt the warmth of her center through her skimpy thong.

He slipped his hands lower, dragging her panties down her legs. They tangled in her shoes and he sat up, taking them off and then removing her shoes. He took one ankle in either hand and pushed her legs apart. She watched him and he waited to see her reaction.

She pulled her dress up to her waist and then opened her legs wider. “Come to me.”

“Not yet.” Starting at her feet, he traced the lines of her legs, all the way up the outside, skimming over the tight curls at their apex and then back down the middle. She had two serious scars on her left thigh, and he ached when he touched them and she flinched. One of them was longer and deeper than the other. That was the one that had given her the limp.

She rolled to her side, reaching for the bedside lamp. He caught her around the waist, holding her in place. He ached for her, for this woman who had lost so much of herself. He wanted to assure her that he’d just found her and he would shelter her. Even though those words felt foreign in his mind, he wanted to offer Roxy something he’d given no other woman. Not just in bed, either. In his life.

He bent his head to her thigh and traced those angry-looking scars with his tongue. She quivered under his touch. If she pushed him, he’d let her turn out the light. But he really felt that, tonight, she needed the light on. If he let her hide from him now, she’d never stop hiding. And that wasn’t acceptable.

He slipped his fingers between her legs while he kissed her thigh. She moaned as he slipped a finger into her body.

He levered his body up until he lay behind her, her naked back to his naked chest. Her dress still covered her in the areas that he knew she didn’t want him to see.

He slid his free hand under her body and rested it over her stomach, then gathered the material of her dress in his hand and tugged until it slid down-ward, slowly revealing her full breasts encased in pink silk and lace.

As he kept his fingers moving between her legs, her hips picked up his rhythm, rocking in perfect counterpoint. He shifted her in his arms until she lay on her back.

She reached up and held his head, brought her mouth to his as he continued touching her deep inside until he felt her start to tighten around his fingers. He thrust deeper inside her, petting her until the orgasm had rocked through her.

Then he reached into the nightstand and took out a condom, putting it on with the same hand he’d just had in the warmth of her body. Her dress was bunched around her waist and he reached under her to undo the clasp of her bra. He pulled it from her body and tossed it aside.

Her nipples were hard and red, begging for his mouth. He leaned down and suckled her while caressing her entire body and building the fire between them again. He pushed her dress down her body and she kicked it to the floor, her eyes closing as soon as she realized she was naked.

He pushed her thighs apart and settled himself between her legs. The primitive beast deep inside he tried to always ignore roared in his head, demanded that he make Roxy his completely. That she acknowledge she belonged to him.

“Open your eyes, Roxy.”

She did, looking up at him and waiting. “Watch me take you this first time. Watch me make you mine and know that there is no one in the world who’s more beautiful to me.”

He shuddered as her eyes met his, their gazes locked, and then slowly her eyes slid down his body. If possible he hardened even more as he watched his body slowly sink into hers. Felt her legs tighten around his, moving higher so that he could slide all the way home.

He joined his hands with hers, stretched them over her head and started to move between her legs, thrusting into her again and again, making her completely his and giving himself to her. Needing to hear her soft cries. He moved both her hands into one of his and with the other caressed her entire body, pinching her nipple while he thrust even deeper than before. She made a sound in the back of her throat and then he felt her tighten around him as she cried out with her release. He let go of her hands and held her hips, thrusting into her two more times before he joined her over the edge.

He rolled over, wrapping his body around hers, telling himself that nothing had changed. But inside his soul, he knew it had.

Eight

Roxy waited until she was sure that Max was sleeping before slipping from the bed and turning off the light. She hurried into the bathroom, gathering her clothes as she went.

What had she done? She’d let him see her and now he knew. This man in his perfect world with his perfect life. She wasn’t a mass of fears during the day, but tonight she felt so vulnerable, so alone. She was supposed to be in charge, dammit. This night had been for her, to reclaim her shattered femininity. Instead she found that she wanted to stay in the shelter of his arms. To find a way to make him stay in hers, and she wasn’t one of those dependent women.

He’d touched her. And she’d forgotten about them. Forgotten for a while that she didn’t know what she wanted anymore. In his arms it was easy to pretend that nothing had changed and that the changes that had happened didn’t matter.

She sank to the marble floor of the bathroom, sitting in the dark with her knees drawn up. The door opened and light from the bedroom spilled into the room. She glanced up at Max.

“Blondie, what are you doing?”

He leaned against the counter—long, lean and perfect in his nudity. She was afraid to glance up at him. Afraid to reassume the role she’d assigned herself when they came into his hotel room. Fiercely sexual and in control…but she wasn’t and she couldn’t pretend any more.

“You wouldn’t understand, Max.”

He gave her a really sweet smile and she felt it all the way to her toes.

“Midnight is the time for regrets,” he said.

If he only knew. Midnight was only the beginning. She hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in a long time. And she wished she’d been able to relax and sleep in Max’s arms. But her own fears of what her body would look like in the morning, of his revulsion when his lust had passed…

“What do you regret?” she asked. Anything would be better than dwelling on her own insecurities.

He hunkered down on the floor next to her, cupping her face in those big hands of his. “That the woman I just made love to is sitting on the floor in the dark.”

She held on to his wrists, looked him straight in the eye and said, “It’s not you.”

“It’s not you, either,” he said, kissing her tenderly. Drawing her up off the cold marble floor and into his embrace. In bed he’d been dominating, making sure she reacted to every move he made, but now he was gentle. She kept her eyes open, afraid to close them and find out that this was all a dream.

She realized something important about Max that she’d never noticed before. He really saw past all the things she used to keep most people at bay.

He lifted his head, rubbing his thumb over her bottom lip. She shivered in reaction to his touch, but he pushed to his feet.

He took one of the thick terry robes from the back of the door and wrapped it around her, then pulled her into his arms. She leaned against him, very much afraid that this was becoming a habit and one she’d never want to break. But she couldn’t force herself away.

She’d been on her own since she was twelve and it was nice to have another person really care for her. Even if it was just a sexual thing, or temporary. For this night she didn’t have to lie alone in her bed with only her thoughts for company.

“Will you stay with me until morning? Or would you like me to take you home?” he asked.

“I don’t sleep. I haven’t since…”

“No problem. What do you usually do?”

“Exercise. Watch TV. Sometimes I try to read.”

“How does a bath sound?”

“Naked.”

He arched one eyebrow at her. “Do you bathe with clothing on?”

“I usually bathe alone. I have body issues,” she said, knowing that he must have realized it before this moment.

“I noticed.”

“Hey, that’s the first unchivalrous thing you’ve said to me. So the real Max isn’t as nice as he pretends to be?”

“The real Max…are you sure you’re ready for this?”

“Yes.” More than he could understand, she needed to see his vulnerabilities.

“The real Max is a little spoiled, mean and determined.”

“I’d say a lot determined.”

He smiled at her. “I’ll give you that.”

He pulled her closer in his arms and she settled there. “I have issues with your body, too. You are too sexy. Every time we’re out together, other men keep checking you out. It makes me want to do something to stake my claim. To make sure those men know you belong to me.”

“Do I belong to you?” she asked. For most of her life she’d belonged only on the stage when she was dancing. Off the stage the competitive nature of her career had prohibited any deep and lasting bonds from forming.

“I don’t know,” he said, honestly. “I’m not entirely sure how to deal with you. But I want you in my life.”

“For how long?” she asked and immediately wished she hadn’t.

He rubbed her back, leaning against the counter-top. She liked how well they fitted together physically. If only she’d get over her body issues, they could both relax together skin-to-skin.

“I think if I said forever we’d both be scared,” he said at last, watching her reaction carefully.

He was right. Forever did sound scary, since she’d only known him two days. Two days…but it felt like a lifetime. Too much was happening too fast and it was easy to let Max sweep her along in whatever he had planned because it gave her the freedom of not being responsible for the choices she made. He swept me off my feet. Even as she said the words in her mind, she felt disconnected.

For the first time in her life another person was asking her to make a decision that affected them. Asking her…oh, man what was he asking her? Forever? That was something that she’d never believed in. Her earliest memories were of being alone. Forever with another person—she simply didn’t buy into that.

“You can’t fool me. Nothing scares you,” she said, trying to keep the focus off herself.

He hugged her tightly to him and bent his head so that he spoke right into her ear. “I’m afraid that I won’t be able to keep you.”

“I’m not a Learjet, Max. I’m not a possession.”

“But I want to possess you,” he said, shoving his hands through his hair. “I know that I sound…well, not exactly rational. But I am rational. If you know nothing else about me, Blondie, know that I’m the kind of man who thinks every decision through.”

She didn’t know how to respond to that. No man had ever wanted her, her father had left before she was born, no boy had asked her out in high school and once she’d started dancing the men who’d asked her out had always left. All except Alan, who’d scared her with his possessiveness.

She wanted to tell him that she’d be his. “I’m not ready for you.”

“No? What about physically?”

She shrugged. Every time he touched her she felt the bonds between them strengthening. She tried to tell herself it was just sex but she was beginning to believe it was so much more.

“I bet you are.”

He lifted her in his arms and carried her into the bedroom. That lamp on the nightstand was on again and she knew that this time he wasn’t going to let her slowly remove her clothing and pretend that he wasn’t seeing the scars.

And she didn’t want him to have to treat her as though she was fragile, to have to factor in how to get her out of her clothing without her flinching like some frightened virgin. So she took a deep breath, untied the belt of her robe and slowly let it drop to the floor.

Max appreciated the strength it took for her to stand there in the lamp’s light and drop her robe. He had to be honest and say that once she was naked he wanted to forget about everything except making love to her again. But he couldn’t ignore the sadness in her eyes. This was a woman who had once felt pride in her body, and he wanted her to again.

“I thought I was supposed to be convincing you,” he said, moving toward her.

She held her hand up and he stopped when less than a foot of space separated them. “You already did. Now, I want to do something for you.”

“I think we’ve covered that. Why don’t we do something that’s for each other?”

“That’s why I’m standing here naked. But first I want you to look at me. Really look at me.”

“I am.”

“Not my breasts.”

“Well, they are gorgeous.”

She stared at him for a minute and then smiled, her expression so tempting that he felt his erection twitch in reaction to it.

He took her hand in his and led her to the mirror that stood embedded in the wall in the dressing area. He hit the light switch.

Roxy wrapped her arms around her waist and tried to shrink her body. He stood behind her, pulling her arms from her body and holding them out to her sides.

“Look in the mirror.”

She hesitated for a second and then looked up. Their gazes met in the mirror and he bent and kissed her shoulder. Drew his mouth and teeth along the expanse of skin there until she shivered in his arms and tipped her head, offering him the long column of her neck.

He nibbled at her neck, working his way up to her ear. He sucked the lobe of her ear into his mouth and bit it delicately. “Look at your body.”

She shook her head. Max wondered if he was pushing too hard. If he should just back off. But he didn’t want Roxy in his bed feeling as though she had to hide part of herself. He wanted her free of her inhibitions.

“Then I’ll look at you and tell you what I see.”

He cupped her shoulders and she lowered her arms to her sides. “Your arms are so feminine yet at the same time muscled and strong. I like the way they look in those sleeveless tops you wear. I can’t resist reaching out and touching you.”

He ran his hands down both of her arms, slowly taking his time to make sure that he didn’t miss a single inch of skin.

“I like my arms, too,” she said quietly.

He tipped her head back and kissed her. She opened her mouth for him, angling her head the way he liked her to, and teased his tongue to come deeper into her mouth. When he lifted his head they were both breathing more heavily. Her lips were wet and swollen from his kisses and her eyes were slumberous.

He skimmed his hands over her breasts. He cupped the full weight of them, and felt her nipples tightening under his touch. “You have gorgeous breasts.”

Her eyes were on his hands, his tanned skin a contrast against her pale white flesh. Her body, so delicate and pink and feminine, contrasted with the masculine strength of his. She put her hands over his as she undulated against his entire body, her buttocks rubbing over his erection, her shoulder blades rubbing over his chest, her long silky hair brushing his neck and shoulder.

“Can we stop now?” she asked, her voice low and husky. She turned in his arms, her hands roaming down his chest. Fingernails scraping over him. “I really like your body.”

“I know you do,” he said, kissing her harder than he intended because he really couldn’t resist her. He turned her back in his arms and held her firmly against him. One hand at her waist, the other right beneath her breasts.

“This is the part you don’t like,” he said, caressing her stomach from her ribs down to her belly button and stopping before he reached the curls between her legs.

“Yes,” she said her voice breaking.

He kept touching her there, stroking over her skin until she relaxed against him. He took her hand in his and moved it over her own body. Sensitive to her reaction, he stopped when she lingered over the first scar. There were seven in total, all varying in length, the longest of them no more than three inches.

It was a miracle to him that she was here now in his arms—whole and complete. He had to batten down his own rage at what she’d been through. He vowed she’d never be that vulnerable again.

“I was very vain, Max. I think I hate these scars because they are proof of that vanity. Proof that I liked my body too much.”

He hugged her tighter to him. Words were impossible at this moment. He just rubbed their joined hands over her body. “You are a dancer, your body is your work. It’s how you express your art.”

She turned in his arms again. There was a sheen of tears in her eyes and another emotion he couldn’t define. “Make love to me.”

He lifted her and carried her back to the bed. He settled her in the center and then slowly lowered his body over hers. He rubbed his torso against her. Felt the humid warmth at the center of her body. He liked the feel of being totally naked with her. He slipped just a little into her body just to tease them both.

“Yes, that’s it. Take me and make me yours. Make us one,” she said.

He was tempted to do it like this, with no protection, but he’d made a life of being responsible, so he sighed and pulled back. Their hands met at the box on the nightstand and she took the condom from him. She rolled it onto his body and then pulled him back to her. He slid into her body and she held him with her arms and legs. He moved slowly, rocking them from side-to-side and thrusting leisurely into her body until they were both consumed by waves of pleasure.

He rolled to his side, disposed of the condom and then pulled her back into his arms. She reached out and flicked off the light on the nightstand, then turned to him, resting her head over his chest, and went to sleep.

Roxy woke up to the smell of coffee and the low rumble of Max’s voice. She rolled over and glanced at the clock, surprised to see that it was almost ten. She’d slept the entire night in his arms. This morning she was determined to face what she’d put off last night.

She got out of bed and put on her robe, walking into the other room where Max was on the phone at his laptop computer. He smiled when she entered, reached for the carafe of coffee and poured her a cup. She added cream and then sat down on the settee that faced the windows overlooking the city.

This was his world. She’d glimpsed it more than once. He worked all the time, his job was demanding…it was his life.

She’d expected to feel different this morning. Somehow, her outlook should have changed in a significant way. But aside from some aches from having had sex for the first time in a year, she didn’t feel unusual.

He finished his call and came over to her. Bending, he kissed her and then sat down next to her.

“Thanks for the coffee,” she said, feeling shy and a bit unsure. She had nothing to wear but last night’s dress; she’d bared her soul to this man last night. She wasn’t sure she wanted him to realize how much of herself he’d seen.

“I would have had breakfast for you, too, but Hayden didn’t know what you liked to eat. I’ll order that now.”

“Why would Hayden know that?” she asked, sensing there was more to this than breakfast. She’d noticed how Max liked every detail to be perfect. Why?

Max put his arm along the back of the couch and drew her closer to his side. “I know my employees’ preferences.”

“All of them?” she asked, because from what she understood he ran a huge conglomerate.

He squeezed her tight. “No, smarty, not personally, but I have a file and my secretary accesses the information when I need it.”

She was amazed at the amount of detail that implied. Why did Max do that? She tipped her head back to study him more carefully. She sensed there was something underlying here. What was she missing? “Why would you keep a file like that?”

“People like it when you remember little things about them.”

Details were the things most easy to forget, Roxy thought. She knew that because, in the group home she’d lived in as a teen, she’d been one of three blond girls. No one had bothered to remember any of their names, just called them all “blond-girl.” A name was an important detail, and she’d made sure as an adult that everyone remembered hers. But Max was going beyond that. He was remembering things that sometimes even spouses and parents didn’t know.

“What are the details about you? What are the things that make you happy?” she asked, hoping he’d reach out and show her some part of himself that no one else knew.

“That’s not important. What do you like for breakfast?”

She sighed. Max wasn’t going to reveal anything intimate to her. She’d bared her body to this man and he wanted to know what she liked for breakfast. When was she going to learn? “I like toast with blackberry jelly and coffee.”

“That’s not breakfast. That’s what you eat when you’re in a hurry.”

He wasn’t going to let this go. There was more to this than breakfast. From growing up in the system, she knew that everyone, no matter how normal they seemed, had some kind of issue to deal with. This need for facts was Max’s way of building a relationship.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m trying to figure out what makes you tick.”

“What you see is what you get. Tell me about you and breakfast.”

“What’s to tell? I’ve never had a leisurely breakfast. Mornings aren’t really a time to hang out for show dancers.” When she was younger, she’d spent all of her time at the dance studio before and after school. Food had just never seemed that important, mainly because it had been scarce.

“Now that you have the gory details about my morning eating habits…what about you?”

Max stared down at her, his hands moving slowly over her shoulder, caressing her as they talked. She settled deeper into the curve of his body.

“I’m usually the one who makes the arrangements, so no one needs to know my preferences.”

“What if I’m the one ordering?” she asked. She could never tolerate a relationship that was uneven. She wanted to take as good care of him as he did of her. She was going to make this relationship with Max work. She didn’t want it to end when he left, and that meant really getting to know him. She’d shown him way more of herself than she’d meant to, something she’d never done before with anyone. So there was more to Max and her than she’d initially thought.

He arched one eyebrow at her. “In that case, I like poached eggs and Canadian bacon.”

“Was that so hard? I’m not going to leak the information.”

“You might be the first person to ask what I liked,” he said, leaning her head back against his shoulder. He kissed her slowly and with great tenderness.

“I’m sure that’s because most people already know.” The kind of man he was, he’d surround himself with like-minded people. Hayden might not know what she liked to eat, but he treated his staff like family and she knew he was one of Max’s closest friends.

“They don’t.”

“That must be your fault then.”

He waited for her to continue, and she felt as if she might have blundered into something that she didn’t mean to say. But she’d noticed that Max took care of the people around him, and not vice versa.

“You don’t give anyone a chance to know you. You keep the spotlight focused on them.”

“Them, or you?”

“Well, me, and it’s very flattering but I forget to ask about you. I want to know your secrets.”

“I thought Hayden gave you a file on me?”

“That only included your gambling habits. I want to know the real secrets. The ones that no one else knows.”

“There are no secrets, Roxy. What you see is what you get with me.”

He pushed to his feet and went back to his computer. He lifted the phone and made a call to room service, ordering breakfast for both of them. “I have to work after breakfast for a few hours.”

She put her coffee cup down and walked slowly toward the bedroom. Then she realized she was running, the way she always did when things got a little sticky emotionally. She had no idea how to treat Max. But she knew that they both had to be able to pry into each other’s lives. It was unfair that he’d seen her in all her imperfection and was unwilling to give her even a glimpse at the inner man he carefully hid.

“Did I offend you?” she asked.

“No, you didn’t. I’m not a secrets kind of guy. This really is all I am.”

There was a sadness in his eyes, and Roxy knew that there were secrets inside Max but sensed they’d been buried too deeply for him to tell her easily what they were. She’d find them out on her own.

Nine

Roxy wiped her sweaty palms on the legs of her pants and walked into the lobby of the Chimera one week later. SuziYuki, the high-stakes gambler whom Roxy had started hostessing for after Max, was a lot of fun. And she needed little encouragement to stay in the casino. Her game was craps and she was a phenomenal player. When Roxy had left Suzi a few minutes earlier she’d been up almost fifty thousand dollars.

Of course, she wasn’t nervous at all about being a hostess. That job was turning into something she could definitely get used to doing, even though it didn’t hold the same luster that dancing always had. But she’d realized that dancing would never be the center of her life again.

Max was slowly becoming that focal point, which bothered her because she wasn’t sure how she fitted into his life. One on one, they meshed, mainly be cause Max made sure that they did. He really listened to her and understood the things she wanted, as well as things she was afraid to ask for.

And that made her nervous, because she didn’t know what to do for him. Of course, when he’d asked her to join him at a business lunch, she’d said yes.

Now she was having second thoughts. She’d never gone to college, hadn’t even graduated high school. Her birthday was in March, so she’d become an adult before she was supposed to have graduated. Having no place to stay she’d started working in clubs instead of staying in school.

What if she embarrassed Max? What if she said something that was—

“Hey, Blondie, I’ve been waiting for you,” Max said, slipping his arm around her waist.

She tried to relax against him and couldn’t. “Hey, yourself. Where is everyone else?”

“We’re meeting them upstairs in a private dining room. I wanted a chance to talk to you first.”

She took a deep breath. “You don’t have to worry, Max. I won’t embarrass you.”

He furrowed his brow. “What are you talking about?”

“Just that I know I don’t know anything about your business. I’ll keep quiet and just smile. I won’t say anything—”

He put his finger on her lips, stopping the flow of words that was growing out of control. In her mind she wanted to apologize for everything she’d ever done and she didn’t like that. She didn’t like feeling discomfited by the life she’d led when she compared it to his.

“What are you talking about?” he asked quietly. “I know all I need to about business. I need you here to keep me from saying something I shouldn’t.”

“That doesn’t sound like the man I’ve come to know,” she said. She’d observed Max on the phone and he was always unfailingly polite and to the point. The ultimate professional.

“Well, MacNeil is seriously pissing me off,” he said, taking her hand and leading her out of the lobby and into the courtyard that led to another tower of the hotel.

“So what am I supposed to do?” she asked as they walked.

“Just be yourself. He’s bringing his wife as well. That’s his way of calling a truce.”

“Are you sure you want me there?” As soon as she asked she wanted to kick herself. What was wrong with her that she had to doubt her own worth? “Forget I said that.”

“I will. Don’t be nervous. Harron is a nice man when he’s not trying to keep me dangling. And his wife, Sheila, is a huge patron of the arts in Vancouver, especially local dance.”

She relaxed a little, thinking that maybe this lunch wouldn’t be as bad as she feared.

But Max still seemed tense, and she wasn’t sure how to help him out. “Are you nervous?”

“No. Why?”

“You seem edgy.”

“Edgy?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way…but you remind me of a predator on the hunt.”

He laughed. “Good. I want MacNeil to understand exactly how I feel about this delay of his.”

“Isn’t this just part of the way acquisitions work?” she asked. Max had explained that he was in the process of buying out MacNeil’s family-owned travel agency, the third largest in North America.

“Sometimes, but I’m on vacation and I’d rather be in my suite making love to you. Yet duty calls.”

“If you hadn’t invited me to lunch you’d be in your suite by yourself,” she said, because she didn’t want him to be too confident in his hold over her.

“You think so?” He pulled her off the walkway and behind a hedge.

There was a fountain gurgling in the middle of an oasis. The Chimera prided itself on its romantic ambience, and this particular fountain was a well-known wedding proposal spot. In fact, it was hidden so that a couple could have privacy and still have a photo souvenir. There was a small area behind the garden area where a photographer could be stationed.

“I know so. There’s no way I could have asked Hayden for a long lunch to meet you in your room. Why are we here?”

Max led her to the bench in the middle of the garden. “Please have a seat. I have something I need to ask you before we join the MacNeils.”

Anxiety slithered down her spine. “Do you want me to pretend I wasn’t a topless dancer?”

He cupped her face in his hands, his long fingers sliding over her cheeks to the back of her neck and holding her so that he could stare down into her eyes. He lowered his head and brushed his lips over hers.

“I thought we already covered this. I want you to be yourself. I like the woman that you are, Roxy.”

She swallowed, unsure how to respond to that statement. Sometimes he made her feel too much. A swell of emotion that she was unprepared to handle welled up in her throat. His hands dropped to his sides and he gestured toward the bench again. She sat down, crossing her legs and waiting for Max to join her. When he didn’t she tipped her head back to look up at him.

Max straightened his tie and glanced around to make sure the photographer he’d hired was in position. He’d planned every detail of this proposal carefully. It had been a tight timetable to make sure he was ready for the MacNeil meeting and get the ring he wanted flown in before lunch. But he was used to juggling several projects at the same time.

And this thing with Roxy needed to be settled. He wasn’t going to be happy until he’d put his mark on her so that every man she encountered knew she was his. Last night when she’d contemplated going home instead of coming up to his suite, he’d realized that he needed something permanent between them. A bond that even Roxy couldn’t deny.

He patted his pocket again and rehearsed the words he’d planned to say.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

Great. First she thought he was nervous and now she probably thought…ah, hell he had no idea what she thought. He only knew that he’d been on his own his entire life and finding Roxy was like finding a piece that had been missing.

“Making sure every detail is right,” he said, leaning to the left and finally spotting the pedestal ice-bucket and the bottle of champagne in it.

She raised both eyebrows at him. “For what?”

He took a deep breath and sat down next to her on the bench. He took her small fine-boned hand in his and traced the veins on the back of her hand. She twisted her hand and slid her fingers through his.

“These last few days have been incredible,” he said, not really sure where those words came from. Though they were the truth he didn’t want her to know how he felt.

“I feel the same. I never thought that I’d meet someone like you.” She smiled at him, her expression so tender that he knew he’d made the right choice. Knew there was no way she’d deny him.

“I think Hayden’s finally found a way to pay me back for befriending him all those years ago.”

“I don’t like the sound of that. I told him I wasn’t interested in being set up with you.”

“You did?”

“Yes.”

“Well my considerable charm must have worked on you.”

“Not your charm, Max. Your attention to detail.”

Max wasn’t sure how they’d strayed onto talking about Hayden and knew he didn’t want to discuss his friend. He wanted to discuss them. “Hayden has nothing to do with this.”

“With what? You’re being vague and that’s not like you.”

No it wasn’t like him. His normal mode of operation was just to take what he wanted and keep moving forward. To acquire businesses, homes, cars, friends. He knew how to do that. But a wife…that was infinitely harder. They’d share everything—a home, a bed, their lives—and he’d never in his forty years shared all that.

Even his childhood home had been a series of empty showplaces that his family members had moved between depending on the season. His father always remarried in June, his mother always retreated to Aspen in November. But he wanted more with Roxy. He wanted to have something—someone—who could be with him all the time. He wanted a person to fill the void his career had always filled.

“I’ve never done this before.”

“Done what?” she asked, putting her hand on his thigh.

All his thoughts faded. He wanted to move her hand higher. To bend and take her mouth with his and then make love to her. To reinforce the physical bonds that were between them.

“Done what, Max?” she asked again.

“Asked you to marry me,” he said, biting out the words in a way he hadn’t planned on them sounding. Dammit, he always screwed up the romantic fantasy when left to his own devices.

“What?”

“Marry me, Roxy.”

He stood and pulled the velvet box from his pocket, snapping it open as he dropped to one knee in front of her. He took her hand in his and looked up into her eyes. They were cloudy with doubts and he understood that. Everything had happened so quickly between them…too quickly, it might seem, but Max had learned long ago to trust his instincts and the way he reacted to Roxy was totally instinctive.

He took the platinum marquise-cut aquamarine-and-diamond-encrusted ring from the box and slipped it onto her ring finger. She didn’t say anything, but goose bumps spread up her arm.

He heard the sound of the photographer snapping the pictures. The sound of people on the path that lay beyond the hedges. The soft sound of her every inhalation of breath, but he didn’t hear the one word he waited for.

“I have a bottle of champagne and some glasses over here. We’ll have a toast and then after lunch, I’m taking you away for an afternoon of pampering.”

“I can’t go.”

“Why not?”

She pushed to her feet, wrapping her arms around her waist. She started when the ring scraped the skin of her arm. She looked down on the large ring and pulled it from her hand.

“Thank you for asking me to marry you, but I can’t.”

She held the ring out to him, but he didn’t take it. He knew she’d change her mind. He just had to find the right words to say. The correct argument to use.

“Why can’t you marry me?”

“We hardly know each other, Max. We’re still practically strangers.”

“No, we’re not. We know a lot about one another. I know you inside and out, Roxy. Don’t deny that.”

“Maybe you know my vulnerabilities, but that doesn’t mean we can live with each other day in and day out. I’m still adjusting to my new life, and it’s hard. I don’t know that I’m ready to become your wife and change my life again.”

He crossed to her, taking her chin in his hand and leaning her head back. “Those are excuses.”

“You might be right, but I can’t marry you now.”

He let go of her chin and stepped back. No one had ever told him no before. That wasn’t true, he thought, his mind racing to accept the fact that she’d really said no. He forced back the momentary anger that had risen when she’d taken his ring from her finger. Roxy just needed to be persuaded, he thought.

He’d studied the details around Roxy. He knew things about her that few others did. What had he missed? Somehow this wasn’t about marrying to make Harron get off his back anymore, but about making sure she stayed in his life.

He didn’t say anything, just kept looking at her with a mixture of anger and resolve. Roxy didn’t know what to do. Only knew that saying no was the hardest thing that she’d ever done. But she was only just figuring out this new life she had, this life away from dancing, and marrying Max after knowing him for such a short time wouldn’t be fair to either of them.

She didn’t want to face the truth, but in her soul was the fear that the home she’d felt in Max’s arms might disappear if they lived together.

She took his hand in hers and pressed the ring into the center of his palm. She knew he wouldn’t beg her to reconsider and she admitted to herself that was the problem. It was almost as if Max knew those details of her life and that he’d figured she’d say yes because acceptance had been so rare for her.

She turned on her heel and walked away, struggling not to limp but so agitated she couldn’t keep her gait smooth. Her legs trembled. She didn’t know if she’d make it back to some private place before she gave in to the tears she felt welling up behind her eyes. Because for a minute there she’d wanted to give herself to him cheaply. To trade her life for a ring. And she’d always believed she’d never do that.

“Roxy?”

She paused but didn’t turn to look at him. She couldn’t see him again, knowing she was just the right face at the right time, not the love of his life.

Why did that matter?

Her mind didn’t know the answer, but her heart did. She was falling for him. Heck, she’d fallen for him that first morning on the beach. Saying no was the only way she knew to protect her heart from breaking once again.

“Yes?”

“Where are you going?” he asked in a gruff voice that gave her a spark of hope that maybe he wasn’t as unemotional as he was pretending to be.

She pivoted on her heel to face him. The midday sun slanted through the canopy of tree branches in the garden, falling over him, leaving him mainly in the shadows next to the fountain.

He looked so alone and determined that her heart ached. He still stood next to the bench. The ring and its box had been tucked away somewhere.

There was no hint of vulnerability in him, and she wondered for a moment if he’d really just asked her to marry him, because he didn’t look like a man who’d had his proposal turned down.

“I…I was going back to work. I didn’t think you’d still want to have lunch.”

“You thought wrong. I misjudged you, but I won’t do it again.”

She didn’t like the way that sounded. He was focusing on her the same way he was his merger. She bit her tongue before she could ask him if he was going to draw up a statement about the pros and cons of her marrying him. “I’m not a business you are trying to acquire.”

“I know that. Companies are a lot easier to get a handle on. All I have to do is look at the P and L and then figure out if I can turn a profit.”

“What’s a P and L?” she asked to distract herself.

“Profit and loss statement.”

“Kind of like pros and cons?” she asked.

“Kind of.”

“How’d I stack up?”

His expression lightened as he skimmed his gaze down her body. “Better than I did, obviously.”

She couldn’t help but laugh at him. She slapped him on the arm. “That wasn’t very sophisticated.”

“Who said I was sophisticated?” he asked.

“No one had to. You exude breeding and culture with every movement you make. Unlike me.”

“Is that why you said no?” he asked.

She wished it were something easy like comportment so she could take a class and fix it. But she knew it was more complex than that. She needed more from Max than a proposal after a few days. She needed emotion, and the man she’d come to know wasn’t that open with his feelings.

“I’m going to ask you again, and the next time you will say yes.”

“Do you have any idea how arrogant that sounds?” she asked, trying to change her mood and get past the emotions that weighed so heavily in her throat.

“Yes.”

She had to laugh at the totally unrepentant way he said it. She knew she shouldn’t encourage him because marriage wasn’t in her plans, but there was something that felt so right about slipping her arm though his as they walked. “We’ll see.”

He stopped walking and turned to her there on the path, and there was emotion in his eyes this time. Real emotion that made her hope that he might feel more for her than he did for his business merger. “I want you in my life. If you’re not ready for marriage then I can wait.”

It scared her how important he’d become to her in such a short time. He was making her change and she knew she’d needed that impetus to start changing, but at the same time she was afraid to trust.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I misjudged something. I’ll figure it out and ask you again when the time is right.”

“Part of the problem is you thinking that you have to figure this out by yourself. A relationship involves two people.”

He scratched his chin. “I’ll try, but honestly, I’m not sure I can do what you ask. I’m too used to operating on my own.”

“What about your family? Don’t you compromise on stuff like where you have holiday dinners and vacations?”

“We’re not a close family. My schedule is always available to them, but they are busy.”

“That’s not what family is supposed to be. Is that how you envision marriage to me?”

“I’m not sure what you’re asking.”

“I’m asking if I’d get a copy of your schedule and then have to decide when I wanted to see you.”

“From your tone, I think my answer better be no.”

“We still have a ways to go, Max. We’re not ready for marriage yet.”

“What do I have to do? I’m good at achieving objectives.”

She shook her head at him. “Stop acting like I’m a company you’re trying to acquire. And you’re going to have to compromise.”

He arched one eyebrow at her in that arrogant way of his. “I’m sure you can be very persuasive if you put your mind to it.”

“Are you talking about sex again?”

“I listen to you when we’re not in bed.”

He led the way into the tower building, holding the door for her to enter. She thought about how different Max was from every other man she’d ever been involved with. He did listen to her, and he heard things she wasn’t even aware she wanted or needed. But he kept his own dreams and desires hidden away, and she really needed to know him to feel safe spending the rest of her life with him.

Ten

The next two weeks were hectic as Max divided his time between Vegas and Roxy and business trips to Vancouver and his corporate headquarters in Atlanta. He was tired, he missed Roxy and he wanted nothing more than just to hold her in his arms.

The second day in Vancouver, he’d invited her to join him for a mini-vacation while he closed the deal with MacNeil, but she’d refused. She had a job to do and she hadn’t yet earned vacation time. Max had made a call to Hayden and asked him to free Roxy from her schedule.

Hayden had refused and Roxy had called Max, livid that he would try such a thing. It had not been the smartest move on his part.

He’d showered her with gifts, but she’d told him to stop trying to buy her. She didn’t need anything, and it made her uncomfortable to receive pricey gifts. Max had stopped, but it hadn’t felt right.

From his mother’s knee he’d learned that women wanted trinkets and baubles, and Roxy’s disinterest in them was just another thing that set her apart from every other woman he’d ever known. She’d also told him that he better get used to her working, because she’d never be a lady of leisure.

Tonight she was working until nine o’clock, when her gambler was leaving for the airport. So he went to the poker room to play a few hands. Hayden was there talking to two Japanese men whom Max recognized from his own deep play. They were both whales, big-time gamblers who spent weeks at the casino several times a year. Hayden waved him over but Max didn’t feel like socializing so he declined with a shake of his head.

He still had Roxy’s ring in his pocket, and he wanted it on her hand. He hadn’t asked her again, but had made love to her as often as he could. He’d also taken the time to ask about her dreams and where she saw her future. She wanted to open a small dance studio and pass her love for dance on to others.

She had an idea for opening a showgirl college of sorts in Vegas and Max had already done some research into what that would take. He wanted to talk to Hayden about space for the facility in the hotel.

He’d called her every night, at first hoping to make her realize how much she needed him in her life. In his arrogance, he wanted to remind her of what she’d said no to.

But instead he’d found that he was the one who needed the conversations. And because dependence wasn’t something he could tolerate, he’d deliberately stopped talking to her every day, calling her when he knew she wouldn’t be there to prove to himself that he didn’t need to hear her voice before he went to bed. He’d have her in his arms for the next four nights. That was the longest stretch of time they’d been together.

Arms snaked around his waist and he felt the cool press of Roxy’s lips against his neck. “Hey, there!”

He turned in her embrace and kissed her with all the pent-up emotion that had been bottled inside him for the last five days. “Damn, I missed you.”

Her lips were wet and swollen from his kiss. “I missed you, too.”

“Are you ready to go?”

“Yes. I just got back from the airport.”

“You took Suzi to the airport?”

“She asked me to ride with her. She’s really nice and she gave me a huge tip. Dinner tonight is on me.”

“No way.” No woman of his was buying him a meal. He knew it was an archaic attitude, but he wanted to take care of her because no one else ever had. She’d been working and providing a shelter for herself since she’d turned eighteen, and now he wanted to spoil her. “I’d rather you buy something for yourself.”

She shook her head. “I want to do this, Max. You’re always showering me with gifts and stuff. And you have everything…”

He started to argue but she put her fingers over his lips. “Compromise.”

When she put it that way, he understood where she was coming from.

“Great. Do you have a favorite restaurant?”

He had several and he tried to pick one in the moderate price range. He wanted her to feel good about buying him dinner but not stretch her budget. “There’s a nice sushi place near the hotel. I’ll have my secretary make us a reservation.”

Over the last few weeks he’d come to realize that when she’d stopped headlining, her income had been cut in half. And he admired the way she’d been careful to make sure that she was still able to make ends meet by adjusting her lifestyle.

He kept his hand at the small of Roxy’s back as they walked to his limo.

Two nights later Roxy put the finishing touches on her makeup in the luxurious suite that Max used whenever he was at the Chimera. Max was at a meeting, but they were having dinner with Harron MacNeil and his wife, who had flown to Vegas for the weekend.

Ever since she’d turned down his wedding proposal, Max had been going out of his way to learn to compromise. She knew it was a struggle for him.

“Roxy?”

“In here,” she said. She blotted her lipstick and turned as he came in, shedding his jacket. He tossed it on the edge of the bed and crossed the room to kiss her. She loved that he did that.

“I’m sorry, Blondie, I thought I’d have you to myself for a few days but sometimes duty calls.” He undid his belt and tossed it on the bed and then went to work on his shirt.

“Sometimes? It calls you all the time.” She opened the closet and took out a fresh shirt for him while he went into the bathroom and freshened up.

“This is my life,” he said, poking his head around the door and holding his hand out for his shirt. She handed it to him and he shrugged into it.

“I know. When I used to dance I was the same way about my career.” She understood Max’s dedication and didn’t resent it. He always made time for her. The reality was, he was the CEO of a huge company, and there was no way he’d be able to step away from that.

He pulled a new tie from the drawer and put it around his neck, leaving the tails dangling while he buttoned his shirt and tucked it in.

“This should be the last dinner with them. I think MacNeil is ready to sign on the dotted line.”

“What’s been the hold up?”

“The company has been in his family for the last three generations and he wants to make sure that I don’t change the essence of what they do.”

“And that is?”

“Cater to families. They pride themselves on their wholesomeness.”

“You’re not exactly virtuous.”

He gave her a wicked grin. “Ah, you know you like that about me.”

He pulled her into his arms, leaning back against the vanity table. She rested her hand on his bare chest. “MacNeil is finally convinced that I will keep my word. I told him he could have an opportunity to meet the woman I’m planning to marry.”

“Max, I haven’t said yes.”

“I know that. I was upfront with Harron, told him you were dragging your feet.”

She shook her head. Sometimes he was outrageous. She honestly thought that the reason Max was so successful in business and in life was that he simply never gave up. “Harron thinks I’m the key to you keeping your word.”

“He does. Dinner tonight is just a formality. Thanks for doing this.”

“I don’t mind. I really liked Sheila when we met them for lunch. I want to talk to her more about the dance studio she and her daughter own.” She liked being a part of Max’s business life. Since that was a huge part of who he was, it gave her another glimpse into the complex man she cared for. She stepped away from him so he could finish dressing.

“I’ve done some preliminary research into starting a showgirl dance college, if you’re interested,” he said, tucking his shirt in and knotting his tie.

She leaned over his shoulder, catching his eye in the mirror to make sure he saw that she was serious. She’d mentioned her dream of opening a school during a late-night conversation. If she didn’t put up some stipulations, he’d use his money to make the showgirl college a reality before she had a chance. “Really. I don’t want you to buy it for me. Plus I’m not sure I have the right personality to teach.”

“Somehow I knew you’d say that. I ran the idea past Hayden, because it makes sense to have a central training area. Even if you decide not to teach, the idea should still go forward and you should be a part of it.”

She shook her head. “I’m going to do this research, not you.”

“Did you just tell me no?”

She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. If only he were as arrogant as he thought he was, it would be easier for her to resist him. Easier for her to pretend this was just an affair. Easier to sleep when they were apart.

“Yes, I did. You can’t keep buying me things all the time. You make me feel like a kept woman.”

He shrugged into his suit jacket, checked himself one more time in the mirror before turning to her. “Not a very well-kept one. You work as many hours as I do.”

“And your problem with that would be?”

“Absolutely nothing, Blondie.”

He mixed them both a vodka martini, shaking it perfectly, and handed her the glass.

“To us,” he said.

“To us.” Their eyes met as they clinked their glasses and even though she knew she wasn’t really part of this world—his world—for once she felt as if she was exactly where she belonged.

Their dinner was nice but Max wanted to be alone with Roxy.

For the majority of his life, work had been his number-one priority and it was unnerving to find that a woman was now edging business out. It was early and he should suggest something like dancing or drinks, but all he really wanted to do was get back to his suite and make love to Roxy.

He shook hands with Harron and watched as Roxy and Sheila said goodbye. Niceties over, be guided Roxy back to his limo as quickly as possible without seeming to rush.

He wanted to ask her again to marry him. The words had been on the tip of his tongue every time they spoke, but he knew he only had one more shot to get it right. He couldn’t keep asking her without making himself look like a desperate ass, an image he never wanted to cultivate.

“You’re quiet,” he said as the city lights flashed into the back of the limo.

“So are you.”

He raised both eyebrows at her tone. “What’s up?”

“I’ve been thinking about our relationship. I don’t see how we can go on this way. I miss you a lot when we’re apart.”

He pulled her into his arms. “Good.”

She punched his shoulder lightly but didn’t leave his embrace. Instead she settled back against him as he wrapped his arm around her.

“I don’t think so, Max. I’m not sure we can keep on the way we have been.”

Finally, he was going to be able to have what he wanted. What they both wanted. He couldn’t explain the bond between them. It was like nothing he’d ever experienced before. He only knew that his life paled when he was away from her.

“I agree.”

“You do?”

“Of course, I do. I’m not any happier with the way things are. I want to sleep with you every night.”

She tipped her head back and he lowered his mouth to hers, sipping from her. Tasting her with long sweeps of his tongue. The brief taste he’d had of her passion earlier wasn’t enough. He needed more. He needed it now.

He shifted her in his arms until she straddled his lap. Her hands on his face, her breasts resting on his chest.

“I don’t see how that’s possible unless you move your headquarters to Las Vegas.”

He skimmed his hands over her back, tracing her spine and shifted under her until he had them both as close as they could get.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. Too many jobs are at stake. Why don’t you quit working for the Chimera and travel with me?”

She shifted off his lap and to the rear-facing seat. She crossed her legs and wrapped her arms around herself. “I can’t. I can’t stop working to be with you. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I did that.”

“Compromise, isn’t that what you’re always telling me?” he asked.

“Yes, I am. But—”

“What?”

“I’m not sure what I want to do,” she said.

“I’ll support you until you figure that out. You can try whatever you like.”

She gave him a hard glare. “I promised myself I’d never live on charity again.”

“There’s a big difference between being charity and living together with a man you can’t get enough of.” Even now he couldn’t make himself talk about emotions. Hers or his. He wanted her, he could vocalize his attraction for her body and late at night he could admit to himself that he needed her in his life. But he couldn’t make himself that vulnerable to her.

“That’s really not for me.”

His anger bubbled over. He couldn’t believe they were having this conversation. He felt like a heel for suggesting that she live with him. He didn’t want a mistress—he’d wanted a wife. “I asked you to marry me and you said no. So tell me what will work.”

“When you say it like that—”

Immediately he regretted his outburst. Eye on the prize. He was focused on getting her into his life. Making her his wife. “Sorry, my temper got the best of me. I know you need time to see for yourself what I already know about the two of us.”

“What do you know?”

“I know that we fit together.”

“Physically, we sure do. But our lives are very different.”

“Variety is the spice of life, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. But what if this is just the newness?”

“I can’t make you any promises for what the future holds, I’d be lying and we’d both know it. But I can tell you that I can’t imagine a time when I won’t want you by my side.”

She shifted in his arms, leaning closer to him. Her head on his shoulder. “I’m so tempted. But reality is hard on those kinds of fantasies. And I’m falling for you, Max. Really falling for the man you are in a way that has nothing to do with sex. Relationships are built on more than what we have.”

Fear gripped him by the throat. He knew sooner or later this would come up. “I’m giving you all I can.”

She swallowed. “I’ve always wanted a different kind of relationship.”

“What kind?” he asked, knowing that this was the key to Roxy. The key to really understanding her.

“The kind I’ve never had. That perfect dream family I wanted as a child, the kind that I’d look at when I was at a shopping mall and long to be a part of.”

“There’s no such thing as perfect,” he said. He cradled her closer, wanting to undo all the wounds that life had dealt her in the past. He would give her this if that’s what she needed to be happy with him. “This isn’t a fantasy or a dream. I’m a real man and I want you in my life. I want you to marry me so that everyone who sees us will know that you belong to me.”

She took a deep breath as the car pulled to a stop in front of their hotel, then put her hand on his arm as the driver came around to open the door. “I want that, too.”

Eleven

Max lifted her into his arms when she stepped out of the car and carried her through the lobby, drawing the attention of everyone they passed. But he didn’t linger or say anything except to tell her to push the elevator button when they arrived at the bank.

She did, and then hit the button for their floor. Max lowered her down his body, his mouth finding hers. She wrapped her arms around him and clung to him, a feeling of complete rightness swamping her, making her feel like the choice she’d made was the right one.

The car stopped on their floor and Max lifted her into his arms again. She’d been carried before in a couple of shows and in ballet class, dancing a pas de deux. But this was different. Max’s mouth was on hers, his arms tight around her, and even though he hadn’t spoken of love or affection, she felt the commitment in his embrace.

“There isn’t going to be champagne or photographers. You caught me by surprise,” he said, setting her on her feet to open the door.

She remembered how much effort he’d put into his first proposal and knowing him as she did, she knew he liked every detail planned. It said something to her that he’d kept pursuing her even though she’d turned down his orchestrated proposal. “I don’t need those things. I just need you.”

“Me neither. I need you, too, Blondie.”

He carried her over the threshold and kicked the door closed behind them. A lamp from the living area of their suite was lit and the room was cast in its soft glow. The drapes were pulled back and the lights of Vegas were spread out in front of them. And she felt like this time she’d get the emotion she’d been wanting from him.

“I know I should take this slow, give you a romantic evening to remember, but it’s been too long since I’ve had you.”

He found the zipper at the back of her dress and lowered it. She caught his hands and waited for him to look at her. No man had ever looked at her with as much passion as Max had in his eyes at that moment. “Every moment I spend with you is one to remember.”

He twisted his hands in hers until he held both of her wrists in his grasp. “Me, too. I don’t have the words I know you’d want to hear. Let me show you how happy I am that you’ve finally agreed to become my wife.”

A feeling of joy and playfulness filled her. Nothing in her life had prepared her for the depth of her feelings for Max. She wanted to be with him more than she’d ever wanted to dance and be on stage. She wanted him more than she’d craved a family as a child or security as an adult.

He was an all-consuming passion that welled up inside her and spread everywhere. But he was also a soft and gentle breeze that brought peace and acceptance to her, something she’d never had before him. Sure the other girls in the show had accepted her, but they were all struggling the same way she’d been.

Only Max saw her, flaws and all, and accepted her. She hugged him tightly, her emotions bubbling over. She was so afraid to let him see how much she needed him in her life. Afraid to trust him with the depth of her love.

She bit her lip realizing the truth she’d stumbled on. She was marrying Max but letting him believe that she really wanted just this picture-perfect life when what she was afraid to ask for was his love.

He brought his mouth down hard on hers, his hand tangling in the hair at the nape of her neck, forcing her head back as he plundered her mouth in a kiss that left no doubt in her mind that he was staking his claim on her body. But what about her heart?

She stretched her fingers in his grasp and felt the fabric of his shirt. She skimmed her fingers over it until she could slip her fingertip under the button and feel his warm flesh.

He inhaled sharply, his hand leaving her neck and unknotting his tie. She watched him as he brought her hands up to his mouth and kissed each palm. “Take your dress off.”

Was this the way to win him? What if this backfired on her?

She took her dress off and felt so naked with her newly acknowledged emotions flowing through her. She hesitated as she stood in front of him in the lamplight wearing only her panties and strapless bra.

“Turn around,” he said, his voice gruff and commanding, sending shivers down her spine. She loved the way he sounded when his civilized demeanor dropped away and left behind just the man.

She pivoted on her heel, glanced over her shoulder at him. And felt a moment of intense pride in the body that she’d thought was flawed. Because the look on his face was a combination of lust and awe. Where was the love? And was she asking for too much to expect that?

He reached out and touched the skin of her back. “Lace your fingers together.”

She didn’t want to play sex games with him. She wanted him to drop the facade and show her what he really felt. “What are you doing?”

“Making you behave.”

She shook her head. “I can’t do this, Max.”

Immediately he pulled her into his embrace. His hands rubbing down her back as he held her tightly to him. “What’s the matter, Blondie?”

“I don’t want to be an object to you. I need to know that I’m more than sex.”

He framed her face in his hands and looked down at her. “You are.”

“It doesn’t feel like it.”

“You are my life, Roxy.”

He kissed her deeply, arousing her to the point where she stopped thinking. He finished undressing her.

He unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it on the floor on top of her dress. He pulled her into his arms, the hair on his chest abrading the tips of her nipples. She tried to shift in his arms, to move her aching breasts against him, but he held her still.

His mouth moved down her neck, suckling at the pulse point. She shifted her legs, wrapping one around his thigh, trying to get closer. She needed him. She needed to believe that this was an expression of his affection for her.

He reached between them, lowering his zipper and freeing himself. She shifted against him.

He grabbed her waist and lifted her up. “Wrap your legs around my waist.”

She did and felt him slide into her body. He cursed and pulled out. “Forgot something.”

She held on to his shoulders, nibbled at his neck while she felt him reach into his pocket. He ripped the condom packet open with his teeth and sheathed himself with one hand.

She looked down into his eyes as he positioned himself and slid into her body, taking her deeply and completely. His gaze held hers as he leaned back against the wall and used his hands on her hips to control both of their movements. She rocked harder against him until she felt everything in her body reaching for her climax.

She fought it off as long as she could, waiting for him. He thrust harder and quicker and then leaned down and bit the tip of her breast as they both came together. She clung to him, holding him tightly.

But as their breathing slowed and he carried her to bed, she realized that she might have taken a high-stakes gamble that she wasn’t ready to pay out on when she’d agreed to marry Max. Because she knew without a doubt that she loved him—and she had a hard time believing he felt the same.

Max had an early-morning meeting and got out of bed before Roxy. He left her a note telling her to be ready to make wedding plans that afternoon. He wanted to marry her before she had a chance to change her mind.

He glanced down at her sleeping in his bed. Damn, he wanted to see her in his bedroom in Dunwoody, not in a hotel bed. But the ring on her left hand reassured him that she was his. His. He knew she’d object to that statement, but it felt right in his soul.

He left their suite a few minutes later, getting on the phone to start making arrangements. His dad was in Napa visiting his family there and his mother was in Beverly Hills, but both would be in Vegas tomorrow for the wedding. Hayden was happy to make all the wedding arrangements. Duke had agreed to be his best man and was flying out with his wife Cami and their two children.

Max felt like all the pieces of his life were falling into place. He had a full day ahead of him and wanted everything cleared from his agenda so he could take the next two weeks off and fly to Hawaii with Roxy. Spend time, just the two of them in the same time zone. For a minute last night he’d felt her slipping through his fingers. He wanted to make sure she didn’t.

His phone rang as he was walking through the lobby. “Williams.”

“Hey, it’s me,” Roxy said, her voice soft and deeper than usual. He had no trouble picturing her sexy body in bed.

“Hey, you. What’s up?” he asked.

“I’m trying to figure out what part of ‘I don’t want to sit around and wait for you’ you didn’t understand. Hayden just called and gave me the next few days off.”

He should have guessed she wouldn’t like the way he’d handled this morning, but to be honest, he couldn’t concentrate while she was around. He needed to be one-hundred-percent at work.

“Blondie, I heard you, but I have to finish a few last-minute things. I thought you could use the time to get ready for our wedding.”

“Are we really going to get married tomorrow?” she asked.

He exited the hotel into the sunny Vegas morning. His driver, Carl, pulled the rented limo up to the curb and got out, opening the door for him.

“Yes. I asked Hayden to make sure Tawny and Glenda are off the schedule for tonight and tomorrow. You should pick out dresses that you’d like them to wear. Let my assistant know and I’ll make sure they get the sizes they need. Can you hang on a second?”

“Sure.”

He pressed the mute button on the phone and turned to Carl. “I’m going to MacNeil’s hotel—he’s staying at the Golden Dream. While I’m there, I need you to go to the airport and pick up a package for me.”

“No problem, boss.”

Max slid into the car and opened his briefcase, pulling out his laptop to start downloading the numbers and e-mails that had come in the night before. He un-muted his phone.

“Sorry about that. I’m back now.”

“You’re doing too much.”

He heard the concern in her voice and it warmed him. Even his parents never said anything about his work schedule. But then Roxy noticed things about him that no one else ever did. She noticed the details.

“This is what I get paid to do,” he said lightly, not wanting her to realize that she’d touched on one of his weaknesses.

“Then do what you’re getting paid for—running Pryce Enterprises. Let me handle the wedding details. You concentrate on finishing whatever you need to at the office.”

“I want you to enjoy this wedding,” he said, carefully. It was a character flaw of his that he hated to let go of any part of a project. And he knew he could make the wedding a fantasy dream come true for Roxy. It was that important to him. He knew her life had been hard and she’d worked hard for everything she had. He wanted to surprise her with a complete dream wedding. Although, to be honest, he had no idea what a woman dreamed of for her wedding.

“It’s your celebration, too. I can take care of this. I want to do this for us.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“Silly man, we’re in this together. This is what I was talking about. Compromise, remember? We’re stronger when we both work together.”

“I know you’re right, but if you are struggling I can’t promise not to step in and make things easier for you.”

“That’s one of the sweetest things anyone has ever said to me, Max.”

“I’m glad.” They hung up a few minutes later and he got out of the car at MacNeil’s hotel with a lingering fear in his gut that he hadn’t covered all the bases he needed to with Roxy.

Her wedding day was picture-perfect. Her dress was a lovely white creation that she never would have chosen if she wasn’t marrying Max. It was slim-fitting and formal. The neckline plunged low between her breasts, but covered her entire back. She’d looked at several lovely gowns that had low-cut backs but in the end she still wasn’t ready to appear in public with too much skin showing. She was nervous about walking down the aisle and having her limp observed by everyone in attendance. Yet she hadn’t found the words to tell Max.

She’d had barely three hours of sleep the night before and hadn’t had a minute alone with him. Max’s friends had thrown a party in their honor and she’d learned a lot about her soon-to-be husband. Especially that he was the solid one in his group, the man they came to when they needed anything.

It had amazed her, all the different things he was to so many different people. It was clear they all liked him, but just as clear that Max had carefully manipulated the relationships so that they all owed him a favor. He was never in anyone’s debt.

She wanted to be his partner in that. She liked the man he was and realized that he had created his own family from his friends. His parents were more concerned with their own worlds than their son’s. Roxy had been surprised, because as a child she’d always imagined that having two parents would fix all of her problems.

“Gosh, girl, you look good.”

“Thanks, Tawny. Thanks for agreeing to be my maid of honor, too.”

“It’s my pleasure. I’m just glad to see you smiling again.”

Roxy appreciated her friend’s comments but they made the doubts plaguing her more real. Gave them more substance, because a part of her wondered if she was simply marrying Max because he’d helped her get past her scars.

But she knew she loved him. The depth of the emotions she held for him scared her sometimes. Last night she’d been unable to sleep, afraid if she closed her eyes she’d wake up and find that Max, and her relationship with him, was only a dream.

She swallowed hard as Tawny moved off to check her makeup one last time. As Roxy sank down on the padded chair in the dressing room, her hands were shaking.

Who would have thought a wedding would be so nerve-racking? She’d seen many pictures of brides and newly wedded couples at the hotel, and they’d seemed so blissful. But then from Roxy’s point of view those brides had been living the charmed life she’d never had.

“You okay?” Tawny asked.

She thought about the fact that things in her life never stayed good for the long term. The bubble always burst and she was left standing on the outside looking in. And she really didn’t want that to happen with Max. “Yes. No. I don’t know. I’ve only known him a few weeks.”

Tawny put her arm around Roxy, and she leaned on her friend, needing the support of someone who really knew what it was like to have come from nothing.

“I’ve never seen you like this with any other guy,” Tawny said.

“Like what?” Roxy asked in a whisper, afraid to confess her own fears out loud.

“Like you’re in love. Before, no man could compete with dancing in your life.”

“Would I be in love with Max if I was still dancing?” Did Max love her? That was the biggest fear she had.

“I don’t know, sweetie, but I really don’t think that matters. You’re not dancing anymore, and Max is your life.”

“That totally scares me.”

“It would me, too.”

Someone knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

Hayden walked in, dressed in his tailored tuxedo. He’d agreed to walk her down the aisle and Roxy was glad to see her friend. “Hi, Hay.”

“Hey, Rox. You ready to do this thing?”

“Gosh, boss, did you woo your wife with romantic lines like that?” Tawny said.

“She likes it, says it’s part of my charm.”

“I think she might be prejudiced in your favor.”

Hayden laughed and Roxy started to relax. She was getting married to Max.

“Thanks, Hay.”

“For what, Rox?”

“Introducing me to him.”

“No problem. A little of the good life is what you both needed.”

“I don’t know how Shelby lives with your ego.”

“She has this way of deflating it,” he said with a sardonic grin.

She checked her veil one last time, adjusting it before she took Hayden’s arm. Tawny led the way out of the dressing room and they entered the chapel at the Chimera. She stumbled on her first step but Hayden just slowed his pace.

Glenda went up the aisle first, followed by Tawny, and Roxy kept her gaze trained on her friend’s back until Hayden tightened his arm around hers and they started walking. She glanced up then. All the way to the front of the chapel. Past the rows of her friends and the rows of Max’s family and friends.

There he was. Watching her with a look that was a combination of pride, lust and possessiveness. Her footsteps seemed a little lighter as she moved toward him. She knew that there was more to their relationship than sex and commonality. She saw a deep emotion in his eyes that he couldn’t hide from her today.

Suddenly she was at his side and Hayden was placing her hand in Max’s. His big hand was warm against hers and he brought her chilled fingers up to his chest, rubbing them against his shirt.

He leaned down to kiss her and whispered in her ear. “You take my breath away.”

She didn’t know how he knew the right thing to say. Or why it mattered that he had. She could only smile at him as the minister started the ceremony. She wasn’t aware of the words she said or the other people who witnessed her vows. All she was focused on was Max and the way he watched her.

He put the wedding ring on her finger and leaned down while the minister was blessing his ring.

“Now, you’re mine.”

Once she slipped his ring on his finger, she said, “And you are mine.”

“Forever,” Max said.

Twelve

Max stepped out of the bathroom and found their suite empty. Candles still flickered on every surface in the room. Rose petals still littered the floor. The sheets on the bed were still rumpled from their love-making but his bride was gone.

All night he’d fought against the feeling that she wasn’t really his. That the whirlwind romance he’d swept her up in wasn’t overwhelming her. But there had been that almost panicked look in her eyes, and he’d sensed that she wasn’t comfortable.

He cursed under his breath and grabbed his pants from the floor, pulling them on. He’d given Carl the night off, so his driver wasn’t available. That meant no one had been out front to see when or how she left.

He’d have to call Hayden and ask to see the security tapes. To track her down…oh, man, how the hell had he come to this? He was back in the exact same place he’d been when he was twenty-one. Chasing after a woman who didn’t want to be caught.

He left the bedroom and walked into the living room. He was halfway across the room when he realized the balcony doors were open. He turned and saw the silhouette of Roxy. His racing heart slowed, and he moved toward her with a measured stride that should have calmed his temper.

But didn’t. Why was she out here hiding from him? He stopped on the threshold. “I thought you’d left.”

She had both hands braced on the wrought-iron railing. The lights of the strip were bright and colorful, an illusory background behind this woman who’d become the center of his life in such a short time. And he felt his hold on her was no more secure than a “sure thing” hand at the poker tables.

She glanced over her shoulder at him, an aura of sadness wrapping around her that made him feel as though all of his carefully ordered plans were falling apart. Getting his ring on her finger had been his focus, but now he knew the other details were going to haunt him.

“Did that bother you?”

“No, it pissed me off.”

“I didn’t think you got pissed, Max.”

“I do. I just don’t show it.”

“Like all of your emotions.”

Please don’t do this, he thought. Just once in his life he wanted his failings to be overlooked. Rationally he knew they couldn’t be. That she was entitled to have everything she wanted.

“This isn’t about emotion, Blondie. This is about trying to find my wife of less than—” he glanced down at his watch “—five hours.”

She wrapped her arms around herself. “Why would my being out here bother you? We had a quickie courtship, why not a quickie wedding?”

“I thought I made it clear to you how I felt.”

“No, you didn’t. And lying in bed, I started thinking about how much I needed you—emotionally—and I realized that you didn’t have that same need.”

He needed to distract her. To find a way to make her realize what he felt without having to say it. Because even though Roxy would never understand or believe it, she was the stronger of the two of them. She allowed him to see her flaws and vulnerabilities.

“You don’t need anyone. You’re this great tower of strength and you take care of everyone around you. I’m sure you realize that.”

“Yes, I do realize it.”

“Why? Why do you do that?”

He didn’t want to tell her, but maybe an explanation would be enough to appease her. To get her back into his arms. “I’m trying to make sure that they never leave.”

“Who left you, Max? I never realized you were vulnerable until tonight.”

“Uh…” He didn’t want to tell her. Didn’t want to share that intimately embarrassing part of his life. The impetuous young man he’d been was a faint memory. Max had buried that part of his soul a long time ago.

“I stood naked in front of you. You forced me to look in the mirror and see this scarred body of mine through your eyes. Tell me, Max. Tell me so I can believe that I didn’t just buy into the Vegas illusion.”

He took a deep breath and stepped out onto the shadowy balcony with her. He hoped that somehow in the dark the words would be easier to say.

“I was twenty-one when I thought I’d fallen in love. My parents of course said I was too young. My father wanted me to get established in Williams & Co., the family business. But I wanted…it’s hard to remember what I wanted and why, but I definitely wanted Jessica.”

“Did she want you?”

“She seemed to. We had a quick engagement, and then the night before our wedding she disappeared. I thought…she’d been kidnapped because of my family’s money.”

Roxy left the railing and came to sit down next to him on the other balcony chair. “Oh, Max. You must have been terrified for her safety.”

“I was. We started searching for her and found her back at college in the apartment she shared with two of her friends. Her parents were angry, I was angry.”

She tilted her head to the side, studying him and he was afraid that she might see all the way to the truth. He hadn’t been angry. He’d been scared that Jessica had finally seen the same thing in him that his parents and everyone else in his life had. That thing that made them want to leave before he got too close.

“We talked, she gave me back my ring and I left. My dad sent me to Japan to oversee a new operation for Williams & Co.”

“Is that when you started channeling all your energy into work?”

“I guess. I didn’t do much work then. I partied every night and got myself into a dangerous situation. That’s how I met Duke—he saved my ass.”

She sat down on his lap, pulling him into her arms, so that his head rested against her breasts. “And since then you’ve found a way to make sure no one can leave you…everyone in your life owes you something.”

“Not you,” he said between clenched teeth, knowing the truth of his words and the very real fear in his heart.

“Especially me. I love you, Max. I haven’t said those words to anyone since my grandmother died. You gave me a home here,” she took her hand and placed it over her heart. “Where I’ve been longing to find one.”

“Thank you for loving me, Blondie.”

“You don’t thank me, Max. You tell me that you love me, too.”

He stared down into her face. “I’ll never leave you.”

She pushed herself to her feet. “That’s not enough, Max. I need to know how you feel.”

“That’s the one thing I can’t give you.”

She backed away from him. He knew he couldn’t make her stay. She dressed and quietly left their honeymoon suite.

Max woke the next morning feeling more alone than he ever had before. He’d followed Roxy to her home outside the city limits and made sure she was safely inside before he came back.

Maybe he was just one of those guys who couldn’t be married. But in his gut he knew that wasn’t true. He wanted Roxy—he was just afraid to tell her how much.

Roxy took her time getting dressed and slowly drove back to the Chimera. She shouldn’t have left last night without hashing everything out. Max was the one person she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. The only person who’d ever wanted her for herself, not because she was a good dancer but because of who she was inside.

She had to find a way to his emotions. Had to figure out the details he needed to feel secure enough to tell her how he felt.

She called Max and left him a voice mail asking him to meet her in the atrium café for breakfast. She drove to the hotel and went directly to the restaurant to wait for him.

The hostess told Roxy her table would be available in a few minutes. Roxy sat down on the bench to wait. Trying to gather her thoughts. She heard someone approach the table and glanced up expecting to see Hayden.

Instead, she was surprised to see Harron MacNeil standing there, a concerned look on his weathered face.

“Good morning, Harron. What can I do for you?”

He stood still, towering over her. Roxy pushed to her feet.

“Where is Williams?” he asked. He held a newspaper clutched in his hand and wouldn’t look her in the eye.

“In his room. He’ll be down in a few minutes,” she said, hoping that was true. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

He nodded stiffly. But instead of sitting he paced around her. She caught the hostess’s eye. The woman gestured for them to join her and took them to a table at the back of the restaurant.

“Is Sheila okay?”

“What? Yes, she’s fine. This is about our merger.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing I want to discuss with you.”

Roxy pulled back from Harron. She was surprised by the way he was behaving, had thought they’d become friends after sharing several meals together.

“Harron, whatever it is, maybe I can help you.”

He pulled today’s newspaper from his briefcase and tossed it on the table. The picture of herself stopped her.

The paper had been folded to the society pages and the headline would have been visible even half a room away. The Billionaire and the Showgirl.

She picked up the paper, reading quickly.

Billionaire Max Williams got lucky at more than the poker tables in Las Vegas, where rumor has it he walked away a big winner. He also found himself a bride—the former headliner at the Chimera’s famed revue, Chimère.

“I don’t care how much it costs. I’m going to stop the merger now,” Harron said. “Our image isn’t about gamblers and showgirls. Topless dancers turned trophy wives are not what my family has spent the last three generations building our reputation on.”

She gasped out loud, realizing that she was going to be responsible for Max losing this new piece of business. A piece he’d worked really hard to acquire.

“I’m sorry you had to hear that,” Harron said, shaking his head.

“I’m sorry you said something like that. Obviously this paper was looking to stir up some trouble and you are playing right into their hands.”

“Don’t make this about anything other than what it is. You took your clothes off for a living. I thought you were a dancer.”

Did he feel duped? Was that what this was about? “I am a dancer. I was the headliner in Chimère. I worked long hours to get to that point. As many hours as you and your father and grandfather worked to make the travel agency one of the top three in this part of the world. How does hard work not fit into your ethics?”

He said nothing to her, and she thought maybe she was getting through to him. She wanted Harron to understand that dancing, topless or not, was just as hard as running a business. Maybe even harder. The struggle, the competition was fierce.

“I started training to be a dancer when I was a little girl, Harron. My entire life was dedicated to dance until I was injured. There is nothing sleazy about what I did. Not in my mind. Not in the minds of the people who came to the shows I performed in.

“We’ve gotten to know each other over the last few weeks and the man I’ve come to know isn’t going to let the society pages dictate his business decisions.

“Pryce Enterprises is the kind of company you want to trust your business to, because Max cares about his workers. He remembers their birthdays and little things like what they like to eat at catered meals.”

“That’s about employee retention.”

“It’s about a lot more than that. Max actually cares for his workers and treats his employees the way he does his friends.”

Max was ready to meet with Roxy and give her whatever she needed to stay with him. He exited his suite and got on the elevator, noticing he had missed a call from Duke. He dialed the callback number.

“It’s about damned time.” Duke greeted him. Max heard the sound of a computer keyboard in the background and knew that Duke was on his laptop.

“Skip to the good part. I left you in charge for less than twenty-four hours and already you’re calling me.”

“Actually, there’s no good part to this. I wouldn’t have called unless I thought you needed to handle this. Have you seen today’s paper?”

“No. Why?”

“Because instead of running a bridal portrait of Roxy, they have her publicity photo from Chimère.”

Max cursed succinctly under his breath. “Where is MacNeil?”

Max didn’t have time to deal with this. Roxy was his first priority and he couldn’t afford the time away from her. He was fighting for his life with her and he needed to make sure she understood how important she was to him. More important than Pryce Enterprises. Without her, nothing else mattered.

He almost dropped the phone as he realized he loved her. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

“He wants to call off the merger regardless of what it costs him. He said, and I quote…topless dancers turned trophy wives aren’t the image we want at MacNeil Travel.”

Max couldn’t believe Harron had had the gall to say something like that. Max was sick of this merger anyway. They’d wanted a nice profit-maker for their company and to expand into a line of business they hadn’t dabbled in before but honestly, at this point, he didn’t want to do business with MacNeil. “I can’t deal with MacNeil this morning. I have another fire that needs to be put out.”

“What fire? I haven’t heard any rumblings from anyone. Is it that damned hockey team you bought?”

“No, Duke. This one’s personal. I don’t need your help with it.”

“You always need my help.”

“Not with my wife.”

“Oh, you have a point there. What do you want me to do with MacNeil?”

“Let him back out of the deal. We’ll do it the aggressive way. We’re still going to acquire his assets.”

“Are you sure about that? We have our reputation to think of, and we don’t do hostile takeovers.”

Max closed his eyes. He wanted MacNeil’s heart for his angry words about Roxy. He didn’t care that he’d built Pryce into the kind of company that everyone respected and admired. Right now he wanted revenge. He wanted to take MacNeil’s company and break it into pieces while the man watched.

“You’re right. I’ll deal with MacNeil later. In the meantime make an offer to Trans/Time Travel. They are MacNeil’s chief competition, right?”

“I’ll pull together the numbers and information we have. But we don’t have to move on the travel company acquisition until you’re back from your honeymoon.”

“Are you managing me, Merchon?” he asked, because though the two men were friends, Duke had never told him what to do in his personal life before.

“Yes, Williams, I am. Enjoy your new wife and forget about business for a while.”

“I don’t think I’m going to be able to do that until I take care of the newspaper people and MacNeil.”

“Pryce Enterprises has already sent a letter and wedding photo from yesterday’s event. I personally sent a letter expressing my outrage.”

“You were outraged. I’m touched.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t have many friends, you know that. When they strike at you, they strike at me, too.”

Max was a little humbled by Duke’s words. “Thanks, man.”

“I think I owed you.”

“No you didn’t. Touch base with MacNeil later, will you?”

“No problem,” Duke said, before disconnecting the phone.

Max rubbed the back of his neck, hoping that MacNeil hadn’t said anything to Roxy about the photo the paper had run. Harron and Sheila were staying in the Chimera for a few days gambling. She might not want to be reminded of a career she no longer had.

He entered the restaurant—and saw Roxy talking to Harron. Anger began a slow burn in his gut as he crossed to the corner table where they were sitting. Roxy had her back to him, but he could see that she was sincere in her words.

“Max actually cares for his workers and treats his employees the way he does his friends,” Roxy said.

He was humbled to hear her defending him. She’d come to his rescue, even though he’d let her down. Taken what she had to offer but been unwilling to give her what she really needed in return. Not gifts or money or a new career, but love. Even though she’d walked out his door last night, here she was defending him.

The press had portrayed her in a bad light, but she wasn’t slinking away from Harron in embarrassment or regret. She put her hands on the table and leaned forward.

“You should be happy to merge with Pryce Enterprises because Max is the kind of man who never rests on what he’s accomplished. He’s going to take your number-three travel company and make it number one. I know the fact that I was a Las Vegas showgirl doesn’t sit well with you, Mr. MacNeil, but I’m willing to bet any profits you’d see from Pryce would go a long way to making you feel better.”

“There won’t be any profits from Pryce,” Max said, crossing to Roxy and MacNeil.

“Now see here—”

“No, MacNeil, you see here. No one insults my wife.”

“I didn’t mean those insults. I’ve got a quick fuse and this morning I was surprised by what I read in the paper.”

“So surprised that you had to track down my wife to confront me?”

“Yes. We spoke at length about the client base that MacNeil Travel draws from. We once lost ten percent of that base when Sheila’s dance studio put on a show from Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project. And that’s a legitimate ballet. Can you imagine how this would affect business?”

“Maybe you don’t want those people as your clients. Dance is an expression of emotion, Harron. I’m confident Sheila wasn’t embarrassed by the ballet they did.”

Harron flushed. “No, she wasn’t. And she wasn’t too happy with me this morning when I got angry over Roxy’s picture.”

“I’m not happy, either. Duke will be calling you this afternoon and we’ll stop the merger.”

Harron started to leave but Roxy stopped him with her hand on his arm. “Wait. I think you two can work something out. You’ve both worked so hard on this.”

Max waited to see what Harron would say. Finally the older man nodded. “I’ll talk to Duke this afternoon and we’ll work the details out. You go enjoy your honeymoon.”

Harron left the restaurant. Roxy faced Max, and he didn’t know how to thank her for what she’d done. Nor how to tell her how much she meant to him. He wanted to make sure she realized that Pryce Enterprises wasn’t the most important thing in his life anymore…she was.

Max pulled her into his arms as soon as she was close enough. “I’m sorry.”

“For the picture? Don’t worry about it.”

“No. I’m sorry I was too stubborn to tell you how I feel.”

“How do you feel?”

I love you. The words were in his head but he couldn’t force them out. Not now, not here.

“Did seeing it make you regret not dancing? If you decide you want to dance again…I can open an office here.”

“That’s a sweet offer, but I think my headlining days are over.”

“What about your days with me? Are they over?”

He wrapped his arm around her and led her from the restaurant to the private bench in the maze where he’d first proposed to her. “I was surprised when I heard you defending me.”

“Why surprised?”

“I’m used to being the one who makes everything right.”

“Well, you’ve got me now.”

“Yes, I do,” he said, holding her closer. He kissed her, but now there was something more than passion in his embrace. He should have known when she turned him down the first time he asked her to marry him and he’d decided he had to have her that there was something more than comfort in his mind. Something more than sex and things in common.

She put her hand on his jaw and looked into his eyes. “No matter what happens between us, Max, I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.”

He squeezed her even tighter. “I love you, Roxy.”

Max’s words were like magic wrapping around Roxy and clearing out the hurt that had lingered after Harron’s callous words. She relaxed against him and remembered how little she’d had to like about her life just a few weeks earlier before he’d swept into her life and changed it.

Finally, she felt like she found the home she’d never had here in his arms.

“They got one thing right in the article,” Max said, picking it up and skimming it.

“What?”

“I did get lucky in Vegas.”

“At the tables?” she asked, teasing him.

“When I met you.”

ISBN: 978-1-4268-7425-3

THEIR MILLION-DOLLAR NIGHT

Copyright © 2006 by Katherine Garbera

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.

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[*]King of Hearts

†What Happens in Vegas…