Page 35 of One Night in My Rival's Bed

There was a beat of awkward silence.

‘Is Ash with you?’ his mother asked in an equally shocked tone.

I winced and bit my lip. Grayson let out a short breath and answered, ‘We’re having a breakfast meeting about the house Ethan and Niamh want us to co-design.’

‘On a Sunday morning?’ his mother asked.

‘We’re both too busy with our clients during the week,’ Grayson said with an eye-roll in my direction. ‘Now, what’s this about them eloping? We only had dinner with them last night. They can’t have gone far.’

‘They flew to Vegas first thing this morning.’

‘Vegas?’ Grayson and I were getting scarily good at the speaking in unison thing.

‘Yes, and I blame you both for it. They wanted a lovely church wedding, but you and Ash were so against them even being engaged, they had no choice but to fly to Vegas. I don’t even know if their marriage will be legal.’

‘Mum, stop panicking. I’ll sort it out.’ He said a few more reassuring phrases that I barely listened to in my own swirling panic, then he ended the call but kept hold of his phone. ‘We have to fly to Vegas and stop them.’ He began to scroll on his phone, presumably to book flights.

I was so many steps behind; I was still reeling from the thought of my sister getting married in a Las Vegas chapel instead of the flower-filled church of her dreams. How had I missed the signs that this was what she and Ethan had planned to do? We had shared a meal with them only last night and I had not picked up a single clue that anything like this could happen. But then, I had been totally consumed by my lust for Grayson. I had been so busy trying to hide the truth about our relationship, I hadn’t been aware of anything else.

‘Fly to Vegas?’ I gulped. ‘Now?’

‘Yes, we have to stop them making the biggest mistake of their lives.’

‘But I need to go home and pack.’

‘No time. We can buy you some clothes when we get there.’

‘I don’t have my passport on me.’

‘We’ll swing by and get it on the way to the airport.’

‘But it’s close to an eleven-hour flight to Vegas. How will we ever track them down in time?’ I asked.

‘I’ll think of something.’

And by the look of grim determination on his face, I could well believe he could stop a boulder rolling down a mountain.

In a dizzyingly short space of time, we were on a plane to Vegas. I don’t remember much about the flight other than my half-hearted attempt to watch a couple of movies. I tried to sleep but the time difference was already messing with my circadian rhythm...or maybe it was Grayson’s stern and brooding presence beside me.

‘Have you had any success tracking them down? What hotel and so on?’ I asked as we came in to land.

‘Yep. I tracked Ethan’s credit card payments. I’ve booked us into the same hotel. They only had a six-hour or so start on us, so we should be able to stop them in time.’

‘Unless they go straight to the chapel,’ I pointed out. ‘We’re talking about Vegas, remember? I’m pretty sure you can get married at any time of the day or night.’

He glanced at me with a frown. ‘Let’s hope they have the sense to get over their jetlag before they do such a stupid thing.’

I let a small silence pass.

‘Do you think your mother is right? That it’s our fault? I mean, we were a little distracted last night.’ I bit down on my lower lip, recalling how I had barely touched the lovely food Niamh had gone to so much trouble to prepare. I had been so absorbed by Grayson. Absorbed and bubbling with red-hot desire for him.

He held my gaze and then let out a rough-sounding sigh. ‘No, I think they had already planned this—to elope. The payment for the hotel was processed hours before the dinner party.’

It was my turn to frown. ‘Oh...’

He lifted my chin to bring my gaze back up to his. ‘If this is anyone’s fault, it’s mine. You warned me from the start about being too against their plans and now look what’s happened.’

Look what’s happened, indeed. I was fast falling in love with a man I had told myself I hated. I had forbidden myself to think of him as anything but an enemy. A business rival I could not have any connection to, especially in a romantic sense. How could I have been so stupid? So foolish to think I could be immune to him?

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