My reflection was pale.

I was always pale, cursed with a natural redhead’s complexion, but the pallor of the woman in the mirror wasn’t the peaches and cream I should’ve seen.

I was just white.

“Nerves,” I muttered as I patted some more powder onto my nose.

I was about to finally do it.

I was going to the hotel and while I didn’t know how it would go, I was going to reach out to LeVan very shortly after. I’d told Nicky we’d see a magic show when we got to Vegas, and now we were about to do just that. Hunting down LeVan and facing him weren’t in the cards for this part of the night. I needed to do that in private. But I damn well had to see his face for the first time in years, even if it was from a seat in the audience, with him on stage.

My plan was that once I got Nicky settled in after the show, I’d brave going over to the hotel and leave a message for LeVan at the front desk. For all I knew, he’d changed his number in the past few years. I doubted it, but maybe that was wishful thinking, assuming a guy wouldn’t change his number after so many years, all because he was willing to wait for years for a phone call from a girl he loved.

If he still loved me at all.

The last time I saw LeVan face to face was when my mother gave me the ultimatum.

“Do you think I don’t know the two of you kept up this ridiculous love affair behind my back?”

My stomach turned as the memory of her cold glare bored into me again, as though she was still here, standing in front of me, pointing her bony fingers at my face. But no memory could ever have compared to the revulsion I felt on her delivery of such a cruel blow.

“You will end things with that boy, Dorothea. Permanently this time.”

She had the most satisfied look on her taut face as I’d spent the ensuing minutes reeling from the content of the documents she’d placed in front of me.

“This is my last will and testament. Read it carefully. You and Nicky are my only heirs. You will be named my executor, Dorothea, and you’ll be your brother’s guardian, but only if you comply with my wishes. If you dare step out of line between now and then…even once…you’ll get nothing. You’ll be penniless, and more than that, I’ll name a new executor and make sure they end all contact between you and Nicky. I trust you don’t want to be responsible for making your brother a ward of the state.”

She took such pleasure in the numbness on my face as I kept reading.

It wasn’t the idea of being penniless that broke me.

It was the thought of losing Nicky.

And after consulting with several estate lawyers on the matter, I’d realized the truth. The woman had backed me into a corner. She knew that for me, losing Nicky was not an option.

I begged LeVan to wait for me, and I waited for her to die.

Wished for it.

Until she did.

Guilty conscience or not, it was finished. Mother’s control over me ended when her life did. In life, she took every possible step to use her money and her parental rights to control me. Her reign was over.

I didn’t wait a second longer than needed to notify my lawyer, Nicky’s specialist, and various others. The custody hearing took place within a matter of days of Mother’s funeral. After Nicky was placed in my care we packed it all up and left the state.

The lawyers would figure out everything else. Selling that house of horrors, figuring out trusts, and handling money would take place eventually and didn’t need my presence in town to make it happen. I didn’t need the Kent fortune. I’d spent close to half of the last decade making my own way. I devoted much of that time learning everything the academic and medical literature suggested about improving Nicky’s quality of life. What I’d learned was that my brother had some challenges, but he wasn’t helpless. He was slow, but he had the capacity to learn and to have a happy life. Just recently, thanks to Rose, he’d graduated from the life skills program at the group home and had been moved into a halfway house for a more independent living experience.

I was so proud of him. In some ways, even prouder than how I felt after wrapping up my final year of college.

Some people might think it was awful that I enrolled him in a group home program, followed by a halfway house, but once he got out of those independent living training grounds, he could be truly on his own. I wouldn’t have to worry every second that I had to leave him, or when my career required me to travel.

I already had an apartment for him, just one floor down from mine. I’d be with him as much as he needed to make sure he adjusted fine once he was out, but the plan was for him to have more control over his day to day life.

My eyes burned as I thought of how far he’d already come, but I blinked the tears back.

I didn’t have time for them now.

My hands shook and I lowered them to the surface of the sink, gripping the cool marble tightly as I waited for the shakes to pass.

There wasn’t any reason to be nervous, was there?

It was LeVan.

Why should I be nervous?

Maybe because you haven’t seen him in years. Maybe because the last time he called, no, the last ten, twenty times he called, you ignored him and just let it go to voicemail. Then you changed your number. You didn’t answer the emails he sent and you sent your best friend to him with a piece of shit note to ask him to wait for you.

I bit back a laugh that was closer to hysteria than I wanted to acknowledge.

I had reasons for what I’d done.

I knew that.

I had good reasons.

But it didn’t mean it had been easy—not for me, and I knew what I’d done had hurt him.

Part of me wanted to chicken out of what I was getting ready to do.

It was the other part of me that grabbed the phone from the area behind the sink and spun away from the mirror.

If fate was on my side, I’d be talking to him in a…hell, maybe the next thirty minutes for all I knew.

If he texted back and said, I’m on the street, be here in five, I’d run right into his arms.

Taking a deep breath, I squared my shoulders and stared at the door of my condo.

My heart pounded hard inside my chest and I realized my hands were shaking.

That was okay. My knees were, too. My legs themselves were quivering, but I started the walk out the door, still gripping my phone. I wasn’t going to stay in here when I texted him. I was putting my faith to the test as I did this. I was going have faith that he was in the hotel, that he’d get my text, that he’d answer me.

That the two of us could meet and see each other face to face.

I sent the text on my way down the elevator.

Hello, LeVan.

* * *

Two hours later, I hadn’t heard from him.

Sitting in one of the numerous restaurants Casino Torrid boasted, I checked my phone, then lifted my nearly empty martini glass to my lips. One thing I had to say—Casino Torrid’s bartenders were some seriously talented people. I’d had three drinks from the first bar I’d gone to, and then I’d found another, feeling restless and out of place, despite the fact that I was far from being the only person there alone, drinking in the middle of the day.

It had nothing to do with my location, the people around me, or anything else, though, and I knew it.

It had to do with the lack of response coming from my phone.

He hadn’t answered.

I knew that was the right number.

I had it memorized even now, after all this time.

But he hadn’t answered.

* * *

“Look…” I summoned up my most charming smile and thanked whoever it was who’d decided it was a good idea to stock personal hygiene items in the stores of luxury hotels everywhere. I’d brushed my teeth, gargled, rinsed and nobody could possibly smell the evidence of four drinks on my breath. Not that I was drunk.

I’d grown up in Louisiana, for crying out loud.

Laissez les bon temps rouler! Let the good times roll and all that jazz. Not that I’d been a big party girl, but I’d had my share of Mardi Gras and then some.

It would take more than a couple of cocktails to knock me off kilter, even if it was in the middle of the day.

But that didn’t mean I needed to breathe Cosmo-fumes all over the person I was trying to butter up.

The concierge smiled at me patiently.

“I know this has to be an insane request and I’m sure you get this all the time with those guys in residence here, but I need to get a message to LeVan Vanderbilt.”

The concierge dipped his head. “I’d be happy to take a missive. I cannot guarantee when he will receive it, of course."

Damn it. At least he was willing to take it.

Flashing him another dimpled smile, I said, “It’s pretty important. You…hell, I know you’ve heard this line. But we grew up together in St. Gabriel.”

He gave me another patient smile. “Maybe you could give me your name?”

My name would end up in file thirteen, I already knew it.

“Absolutely.”