She nodded. “I always wondered about PR folks with that setup. I’ve wanted to do it myself, but I don’t have the budget. I guess you have any budget you want, since you own the place.”
“Almost,” he acknowledged.
Her lips parted, and she watched him. She probably was trying to think of another probing question for him with a joke at the end, but her brain wasn’t cooperating.
“Give up,” he said. “Here’s your bag.” He set it down inside the bathroom door. “I didn’t know what you would want, so I brought it all.”
“Thanks,” she said on a sigh of relief, trudging past him. “You’re not going to ask me about the bunny ears?”
“And the bunny tail? No, I didn’t see those.” As she was closing the door behind her, he warned her, “Don’t lock it.”
She stared at him blankly, like she suspected him of something but didn’t have enough evidence to accuse him.
“I’m worried about you,” he explained. “You seem a little unsteady.”
“I am completely steady,” she said, but she gripped the doorjamb so hard that her knuckles turned white. “Okay.” She disappeared back into the bathroom. He listened, but he didn’t hear the lock turn.
He moved some of the bottles aside on the bar and set water heating in the coffeepot. After he changed clothes, he poured water over a teabag for her. Then he walked to the window and stared out at the blackness shot through with all the colors of the rainbow, glowing to entice tourists toward their own destruction. For the millionth time in the day and a half he’d been here, he wished he were one of these tourists. The only sounds that penetrated the window were the occasional siren or an especially insistent horn, but the Strip looked like it should be noisy, even through the glass.
He heard the bathroom door open. She padded out in bare feet, boxer shorts, and a threadbare T-shirt, weaving a bit.
“You take the bed,” he said. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”
She shook her head. “No, Daniel—”
“I’m so tired of arguing. Please.”
She slipped under the covers on one side of the bed and propped herself up against the pillows. He brought her the cup of tea.
“Thank you,” she said, taking the mug with both hands. “What is it?”
Sitting down in the desk chair on her side of the bed and propping his feet up near the mound of her feet under the covers, he said, “It’s tea. What did you think it was?”
She took a sip, then said with her eyes closed, “I have no idea what you’ve got at the Blackstone Firm bar over there. Beverages made of ground souls and topped with fallen stars.”
“I think you’re tasting the rose hips.”
She snorted, which turned into a short whine. “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts my head.”
“Did a detective interview you at the hospital?” he asked.
“Yes. His name was Detective Butkus. I asked him if he made that up so people who’d been hit in the head would remember it later. He laughed uncomfortably.”
“You don’t say.”
“Yeah, but I couldn’t tell him anything helpful. I felt like a dork.”
“I talked to the police when they came to the museum,” Daniel said. “They didn’t find Colton’s phone, but they did find what they think the guy used to hit you. It was the butt of a long-barreled Colt .45 from a statue of Wyatt Earp. They didn’t seem optimistic about catching the guy, though. I told them he’d taken a hunk of your hair, and that he’d done the same thing at the casino bar. They said he’s probably an overzealous photographer who took a shine to you.
“Somehow he snuck past security at the museum. He saw the opportunity to steal the phone from you, and he took it. He kept going through the exhibits and escaped through a back entrance. Apparently you can’t get into the museum from the back, but you can get out without an alarm sounding. And they’re not big on security cameras.”
“I guess they’re not too concerned about a patron making off with a wax statue of John Denver.” She set the mug on the bedside table. With no ceremony, she snuggled down in the covers. Her blond brow furrowed. Her soft-looking hand, perfectly manicured in an understated pink, lay next to her cheek.
Sensing that he still watched her, she murmured, “I’m okay. Don’t worry about me. I hurt, and the hospital was torture because I wanted so badly to go to sleep. All I dreamed of doing was getting here and finally lying down and letting go, and now I’m being stared down by the winner of the Clarkson Prize.”
He grimaced. “Sorry.”
“No.” Her hand flailed blindly until it settled on his hand. “I didn’t mean it. I’m relieved to lie down, but I feel so safe with you. Thank you.”
She dropped off to sleep seconds after that, it seemed. She stopped talking—a first—and her breathing turned deep and even. Rising, he turned off the lamp.
Then he bent over her body and gently kissed her forehead. When she half smiled, he couldn’t resist touching his lips to the corner of her mouth.
He stood up straight in horror. Just as he’d feared in the museum, he was falling for her, hard—this brazen, complex strategist, the enemy of his firm, the worst possible woman for him to want.
With a long last look at her pretty face—deceptively angelic when she was unconscious—and a wistful sigh, he eased a pillow from the other side of the bed and a blanket from the top of the closet. He settled on the sofa, facing the Strip, and stared at the view for a long time, mind spinning like the lights in the signs, wondering who had hurt her. And resolving not to let it happen again.
9
The next morning, Daniel sat in a chair, surfing the news on his laptop, like pretty much every morning when he was traveling. Wendy still slept in his bed, which was unlike any morning ever.
Sometime in the night, she’d rolled to face him. The late morning sun kissed her face and made her seem to glow with gold and blush. Her br**sts looked large and soft underneath her T-shirt. He thought one of her ni**les strained against the fabric, but he couldn’t be sure. It might have been a wrinkle. After considering this for a while, he turned back to his computer screen. He’d been staring at her breast so long that the screen saver had turned on.
“Ow,” she finally mumbled with her eyes still closed, reaching for the back of her head with one hand. “Zounds.”