Page 79 of Dirty Big Sins

“I think he was lying about where he’d come from. Working a case my butt. I’m pretty sure that man is wearing the same suit he had on last night when we saw him here and I KNOW that was lipstick on his collar. Not to mention the red marks on his neck.”

“What?” I strained to get a glimpse of him in the crowd, but he’d already disappeared into the throng.

I had been so preoccupied with his FBI status, I hadn’t even considered he might have been in the hotel for an entirely different reason.

“Not only that, but think about it. He was onyourfloor. Where there are only a handful of suites. Yours, Vincent’s and…”

She didn’t have to say it. Julie’s thought process had triggered a memory from not long ago that I’d forgotten all about in the chaos of everything else. In the bar, he was the man watching Nova and me. Damn, why hadn’t I put two and two together before now?

Did that mean they were…

Six weeks later

Standing on my bedroom balcony overlooking the city, I basked in my love and devotion to this incredible city. Born and raised in Las Vegas, I couldn’t get the unique and wild energy of this place out of my blood if I tried. It pulsed through me in a way that anchored me and fed my creative muse at the same time.

For the last five years, I’d stood in this very spot to design every new creation I sent down the runway or customized for my boutique in The Sinclair. And for five years I’d tasted a freedom that had awakened my soul.

I’d certainly tried to go other places, but nothing ever came close to home.

Now that was all about to end. Five years ago, I’d made a deal with the devil. My father. A ruler in this city who wielded his power like an iron fist. He’d raised me for one purpose and one purpose only.

To marry a man he chose.

No exceptions. No alternate options. And no ability to choose.

However, in exchange for my eager submission when the time came, he offered me five years of total freedom to do as I pleased. No questions, no connections and no interference. Needless to say, I jumped at the chance to experience that kind of life. At the time, five years had felt like an eternity. Today, it felt like a blink of an eye.

Daddy had lived up to his word, leaving me alone to live as I’d pleased, and now it was my turn.

Tomorrow, the man I had promised to marry would arrive and everything I’d built would come crumbling down. He expects my willing submission and rightfully so. It was what I had vowed.

I don’t know my supposed prince well, nor He I. His reputation, however, precedes him. First and foremost he’s known as a cold and cruel businessman. As the dark knight of his family, he doesn’t shy away from getting his hands dirty—or bloody. Whatever he wants he takes and everything else he destroys.

With him, I will be bound to a man exactly like my father.

That thought alone made my stomach twist. At this point I’d do anything to escape that fate.

Even sleep with the enemy.

Although I’d done that completely by accident.

The first time he was a stranger, but by the second I had an inkling. Definitely, by the third I suspected the truth. I couldn’t offer an excuse for the times after that. I’d known what I was getting into, but couldn’t seem to help myself. When he pressed his body to mine, I couldn’t think straight. When he brought his mouth down on mine I was lost.

Mr. tall, dark and fuck me against the wall had hooked me in good and I didn’t want to break free. He might look like a boy scout to the rest of the world, but to me he was anything but.

Tonight, however, would have to be our last. One way or another I would find a way to open my mouth and tell him goodbye. I had no doubt he would go and never return. The only promise either of us had made was that there were no strings or commitments of any kind. It simply wasn’t going to be anything but the hottest sex of my life…

That still left me backed in a corner alone.

Unless my fiancé to be was willing to negotiate.

I turned away from the setting sun over the strip and walked to the painting on the wall that hid a secret safe behind it. I twirled the dial backward and forward in a complex pattern that would eventually unlock the door.

Over these five years, designing haute couture was not the only skill I had honed. I had also discovered that in some respects I was truly my father’s daughter. When I saw something I wanted, I found a way to get it. If that meant I had to bend the rules, I did. Without hesitation.

Opening the safe I pulled out a simple bag made of black velvet tied with matching silk ribbon. I wanted my freedom beyond the five year mark and to make that work I had to find something that my father wanted more than my marriage. These I believed were it.

It had taken years to figure out the answer and months more to obtain them. But finally, I had procured what I perceived as my one and only life insurance policy.

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