Page 7 of Outlaw

I had to be here. In Vegas, celebrating my best friend’s last days as a bachelorette. Next weekend, she would be walking down the aisle to marry not only the man she claimed was the love of her life, but also my ex-boyfriend. Oh, and not just any ex-boyfriend. The one who had told me he loved me, convinced me to spread my legs for the first time, and had our future planned out for us. That was the problem—his planning.

Bastian Draughn hadn’t broken my heart. I wasn’t looking at the bottle of Tito’s, contemplating getting blackout drunk overhis marrying Idris. It was more of the painful fact that I was having to stand back and watch her make a huge mistake. But she didn’t see it that way.

Bastian had targeted her a year ago after I turned down his marriage proposal and broke up with him. But she refused to believe he’d ever proposed to me. As if I would lie about that. Being the nonconfrontational person I was, I let it go. Gave her my blessing, although I didn’t think she really would have cared either way, but at least she’d asked me. Granted, they had been talking on the phone and meeting for coffee for over two weeks by the time she got around to asking me if I was okay with her going on a date with him. I hadn’t wanted her to because I knew she was the rebound. He was trying to get to me. When his calls, flowers, love notes—sent to the office I worked in at his father’s dairy farm—hadn’t worked, he had gone after my best friend.

The love notes hadn’t stopped right away. He had been dating Idris and was still swearing I was the only woman he would ever love. Bastian was a spoiled rich kid who had been given everything he wanted. He was attractive and never had a female tell him no. My doing so was something he hadn’t expected or handled well.

Now, here we were, one week away from his wedding to my best friend—although I couldn’t really call her that anymore. The girl I had met in high school and who I’d survived our twenties with, living in a shitty apartment together that we loved, was gone. She didn’t text or call me much these days. I was her fiancé’s ex, and even though I wasn’t in the wrong, she seemed to feel as if she had to keep me close but still at arm’s length.

That was what hurt the most. Losing Idris. In the end, Bastian had gotten the last laugh, it seemed. He’d stolen her. The person I trusted most. She had been the closest thing I had to family. After my father’s death, I’d been left with an aunt who put up with me until I was old enough to move out. Idris had filled thatvoid. Until she chose Bastian over me. I hadn’t even asked her to choose.

There had been other guys before Bastian, but none I had gotten as serious with. It wasn’t until I moved out of my aunt’s that I went on my first date. She never allowed me to date. Most guys I went out with a few times, then ended things. I always saw their flaws. I started dating Bastian when I was twenty-six and my being a virgin at that age gave him some weird sense of ownership over me. He hadn’t believed me when I told him I had never had sex, up until the blood on the sheets and his penis had proven I wasn’t lying.

Shaking my head, I rolled my eyes at my stupidity and drank down the rest of my cosmopolitan. I was thirty-three years old. I had wasted six years of my life with that man, never really loving him. He was just someone who wanted me. I had finally let go of my fantasy man. The one who would check all my boxes. The ones that had been set in place since I had been a kid. The reason I had held on to my virginity for so long. No one was ever the right one. No one was ever the outlaw my memory wouldn’t let me forget.

I turned on the stool to see Idris already drunk, dancing with her hands in the air, along with two of her other bridesmaids. They were her new friends. Danielle was Bastian’s best friend’s new girlfriend—well, new, as in he hadn’t started dating her until after I broke up with Bastian. They had been together eight months now. Evie was her current roommate. Seemed Idris had felt awkward, having Bastian over to our place after they got serious, and in a fit of tears, she’d told me she had to move out and hoped I understood.

What I had understood was, she was leaving me with a rent payment I couldn’t manage on my own. We’d long since moved out of the shitty first apartment. Once we got real jobs that paid well, we moved on up in the world. She had decidedcollege wasn’t for her after only one year and gotten her real estate license, then began working for her mom and stepfather’s agency. I hadn’t been given the opportunity to attend college. My aunt wouldn’t cosign with me for a loan, but then I’d never expected her to. I had gone right into the work field, having been a bank teller, bartender, and lastly a secretary at Draughn Dairy, which was where I met Bastian. It had good insurance, a 401(k), and paid me well. However, the apartment we had been living in was still too steep for my paycheck alone, so I’d also had to downgrade to a studio, but I had found being alone wasn’t so bad.

“Hello, gorgeous,” a man’s voice said as a body sat down beside me.

Great. Another annoyance. I had sent three of them off already.

I cut my eyes to the guy who had decided to sit on the stool next to mine. He was young. Possibly still in college. He had the frat-boy look about him. The cocky glint in his eyes told me he knew he was attractive. I was sure his greeting worked on most females. But he’d picked the wrong one. Nothing about him was my type.

“Get her another of whatever she’s having,” he told the bartender.

Nick—who, I’d found out from talking with him, was twenty-five, had married his high school sweetheart, and had a five-month-old baby—glanced at me.

I nodded my head. The kid wouldn’t be paying for it though. He’d be gone in less than five minutes. Three if I spun my story faster. Nick had been on duty since I’d sat down, and he’d gotten used to my pattern. They showed up and offered to buy me a drink, and then I sent them away with one horrible lie after another. When I’d asked the last guy how he felt about genital warts, Nick had choked on his water, and I’d struggled to keep a straight face.

I licked my lips,my mind already spinning my next tall tale to send this one running. I’d done the STD thing and thefive kids under six years old at homething. The age role play one, where I asked a man how he felt about being diapered and put in a crib, had been fun too. Nick had bent over in a fit of laughter when that man made his excuse and escaped.

“Tell me how a woman as beautiful and sexy as you is sitting here alone,” the guy drawled. Then flashed me a crooked grin that was so practiced that he probably did it in the mirror every morning.

Nick placed the cosmo in front of me, and the twinkle in his eye as he fought off a smile made me want to laugh this time. He was ready for it, and I needed to make this one good. I had my audience now, and I might as well keep him entertained. He’d said he couldn’t wait to tell his wife, Cindy, about this when he got home. She was going to love it.

“Oh,” I replied, “I don’t know.” I picked up my drink and took a sip, then winked at Nick before turning my attention to Frat Boy.Time to deal the hand. “Perhaps there hasn’t been a man brave enough to take me on.”

The challenge in his eyes was just too easy. He didn’t even think about the hand I had dealt before tossing in his bet. Silly boy.

“Seems we both just got lucky then. Because I can promise you, I’m more than willing to take you on.”

I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth and let it slowly slide back out as he watched, transfixed. My turn to deal the flop.

“Is that so?” I asked in a sultry voice. “You seem very sure of yourself…I didn’t get your name.”

“Devin,” he replied, leaning on the bar and closer to me.

Someone should tell him to lay off the CK One. I recognized that scent from a guy I’d dated before Bastian. It seemed Devin had bathed in it.

“I can keep calling you beautiful all night, but I’d like a name to go with that showstopping face.”

Showstopping face? What was he, ninety? Not rolling my eyes was difficult, but I held my smile.

“I don’t like my real name. I prefer to go by Candy. It was my stage name.” I batted my lashes at him as I dealt out the turn. “But I’m not allowed to go by that name anymore.”

I was pretty sure there was drool forming in the corner of his mouth. He probably had watched many Candys dance on a pole, void of clothing.

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