Page 2 of Yours, Forever

"I'm not spooked." I finished closing the luggage, before thinking it over and opening it again. I could rescue my antiperspirant, after all. "I just need to catch my flight."

He crossed his arms, and I feared the towel would fall. It didn't, thankfully. "Right. If you miss it, I can get you a plane back home. Which is… where, by the way?"

"We don't need to do that." I stepped around him, the smell of him delicious and alluring, fresh out of the shower. In contrast, I must have smelled like I could be flammable. "I don't know what we got up to last night, but I'm pretty sure we can leave it in the past."

"Interesting." He watched me skip around him on the way back to my carry-on, where I dropped a few of my toiletries in a plastic bag, then closed the luggage again. "Isn't that fun? I'm also in the dark about last night. I'm not certain of it, but I believe we met—"

"It's fine. I'd rather not know. I need to go."

He took a step toward me, but stopped when I swung the luggage to the floor and gave him a hard stare.

"Let's talk." His hands hung in a conciliatory gesture between us. "Let me charter a jet for you—"

I goggled at him. "You're a con artist."

"What?!"

"It's more likely that you're a con artist than you being rich."

"I am rich." The grin that accompanied the statement oozed sex appeal.

He must use his smile liberally, getting millionaires to invest in his ridiculous plans. It was charismatic enough that it didn’t matter that he only wore a towel around his hips. He might as well have been wearing a tuxedo.

"Right." I surveyed the room one last time, and hoped I wasn’t forgetting anything important. "Anyway. I'm going."

My dress had wrinkles everywhere and my hair was probably a mess. One side of my head was shaved close to the scalp; I ran my fingers over the prickly hairs in search of comfort. Otherwise, I let my curls fall as they may around my face.

I summoned my strength and stared at Random Guy once more. He'd barely moved, except for the renewed frown on his face. I didn't try to smile to soften my goodbye.

"I'm sure we had fun, but I need to go back home. Thank you…" Wow. His name really didn't want to come back to me. "Thanks. Have a good life."

I turned and tried to make my escape, opening the hotel room door.

"Wait! What's your name?" he asked.

"What does it matter? We're never meeting again. Just leave the room before the check out time, please— I don't want issues while trying to pay my bill, okay?"

And with that I closed the door, and left without looking back.

Chapter 2

Max

Alone on a randomsidewalk in downtown Vancouver, I waited for a local corporate car to pick me up. I checked my watch, then my cufflinks. The driver was late.

I bit back my hundredth sigh since leaving Nevada. It had been ten days since my impromptu trip to Vegas, and the memory of my mystery overnight friend still jumped me out of nowhere.

The disinterest in her eyes. The way her dress draped her soft-looking, generous body. Her hair, flipped to the side and curtaining down to her jaw, showcasing the shaved side. How she couldn't leave fast enough.

I'd gone there in an act of despair, and the person I'd hoped would agree to my ridiculous deal had left without even reminding me of her name.

A familiar discomfort enervated my hand; an impulse to drum my index and middle fingers against my thigh. It was an old show of my anxiety, triggered now by the idea that I was running out of time.

Good thing that the car arrived, providing distraction. For a little while, I could focus on preparing for the meeting I had flown in for. Except my phone rang and, after seeing my principal lawyer's name on the screen, I rearranged my priorities.

Martin navigated the car through town, and I focused on Leon on the phone.

"Hey. What you got?"