ive
“I told you, it was a joke,” she said to the others. They sat in the hotel room, all six women, getting ready for the wedding.
Ever since the opening night at the Rocque, she hadn’t heard the last of it. The picture of her locked in that passionate kiss with Garrett was all over the internet. She’d had to beg the women not to tell anybody who she was. The media was falling over itself hunting her down.
At least nobody knew what had happened afterward in his apartment. She’d paused at a toilet a floor below the penthouse level to fasten her dress, which she’d done with fingers trembling so badly the task had taken her a full five minutes, then run a comb through her hair, wiped away most of the heavy make up and left. Nobody noticed her go, and she’d got a taxi outside to her own hotel.
Fury and shock had rendered her unable to think properly for a full half-hour. Georgia had all but accused him of fathering her baby. The bastard had planned it, she was sure. He wanted Georgia to find them. Well, he’d have to deal with the fallout, because if anyone asked her, she’d tell them.
It had occurred to her that she could make a useful amount of money selling what she knew to the media, but as far as she was concerned, that would put her in the same ditch as Garrett Rocquelaire. He’d been so pleasant, too. Not to mention out-of-the-gate sexy. But that just went to show how little she knew about the rich and famous. After this brush with them, she was glad she’d steered clear. The only think she regretted was not getting that extra help finding her father.
Then the media got hold of the photo of Garrett kissing her on the dance floor. He’d set her up good and proper.
She had to give props to the girls, they’d kept their promise not to tell after she’d tearfully begged them to. “They’ll just make me look stupid,” she said. “The media. They want to laugh at me.”
“We’ll stick with you, hun,” Francine had said, and Bonnie had hugged her in gratitude.
Rocquelaire was a sleaze of the highest order. He wanted someone else to marry, anyone, so he could avoid his responsibilities? That was the worst, and she wouldn’t help him do something so despicable. Georgia was genuinely upset, and if Bonnie hadn’t felt she was in the way, she’d have stayed to support her. So the man had got her pregnant, then decided he’d changed his mind? He should man up.
Bonnie was ready. Arrayed in the demure lavender dress she’d brought from home, her face covered by the white veil of a fascinator Francine had picked up on their day’s shopping and with her hair pinned up in a chignon, she didn’t think anybody would recognize the girl in the too-tight pink dress and heavy make up from the night of the gala.
The gossip channels were full of Garrett’s outrageous stunt, as they called it. The gossips picked her dress apart, and kept on asking for information about her. The price of the women’s silence had been for Bonnie to let them watch TV, and that kiss. It looked even worse on the screen than she could have imagined. They kissed like lovers, like people who knew their way around one another’s bodies, not a couple who had just met.
Most of the reports concentrated on Georgia’s frozen features. She’d watched them, her expression more like a mannequin’s than anything real, all the emotion deliberately leached from her face. She’d refused to talk to the press about it; an innovation in itself. Her people had babbled explanations, saying it was a joke, a Vegas version of a strippogram, but nobody really believed that. They only had to see the way Bonnie’s body aligned with Garrett’s to know that was a lie.
Bonnie was ready. Arrayed in the demure lavender dress she’d brought from home, her face covered by the white veil of a fascinator Francine had picked up on their day’s shopping and with her hair pinned up in a chignon, she didn’t think anybody would recognize the girl in the too-tight pink dress and heavy make up from the night of the gala.
“They’re right. It was a joke,” Bonnie said.
To distract herself, she opened her laptop. Her phone didn’t work over here, or rather, would have cost her a fortune, so she’d stowed it in her luggage and used her laptop to get online and keep in touch with her mother.
Getting online took ages, but she wasn’t in a hurry, so she waited. Then she navigated to her email site. After sifting through the inevitable junk, the newsletters she couldn’t remember signing up for, the online sales channels and a few letters telling her she’d inherited millions of dollars, she discovered a real email.
She read it, and then went through it again. Then she checked the address to make sure it wasn’t a hoax.
Her school had sacked her. Made her redundant, they said.
Bonnie stared at the email, stunned. “Surplus to our needs at this time,” they said.
Horror twisted her stomach. It was as well she’d only had a snack last night. She felt sick. She’d scrambled into the bottom rung of the teaching ladder, but she’d done well at the inner city school where she’d found a job.
“Oh, hun.”
She might have guessed Francine was reading over her shoulder. Francine touched her arm. “I’m so sorry.” She leaned closer. “We’ll tell them later. We don’t want to make today a downer, yeah?”
Numbly, Bonnie nodded. She was glad she didn’t have to announce her fate to everybody else. Her mind whirled with speculation. Had they seen the pictures in the media and recognized her? Was that it?
She was a qualified English teacher. She’d find something, surely she would. The school didn’t want her to work her notice. They were paying her for the rest of the month, but they said her holidays would serve in lieu.
Her spirits plunged to the depths of her being. She was relying on her salary to help her mother pay the increased rent on the café. Without that, they couldn’t make the payments. She’d have to start job hunting as soon as she got home, or they’d lose their home. Maybe she could get a supply job. Thankless work, going from school to school, teaching another person’s curriculum, but she couldn’t afford to be fussy.
As her world tumbled down around her Bonnie kept her expression steady.
She couldn’t do anything about it now, so she might as well get on with her stay here and help to send Susie off in style. She only had to get through today, then she could tell the girls about her bad news, go to bed and pull the covers over her head until the world went away.
She’d been surprised when they’d asked her to come. They’d been in the same class at school, and it was only that someone had dropped out that Susie had got in touch with her and asked her if she wanted to be a bridesmaid.
The phone rang and Francine leaped to get it. “The cars have arrived!”
They traveled to the chapel in a ridiculous but fun stretch limo, with the men from the stag party in another one. Inside, strips of different colored neon lights marked the white seats, and thank goodness, the windows were blacked out.
The chapel wasn’t as tacky as she’d imagined it would be. Susie looked good in a white dress with a full skirt and a short veil. Graham looked great in his Elvis getup.
As the celebrant began his spiel, somebody sat next to Bonnie. When she glanced around to see who the latecomer was, her heart missed a beat. It was Garrett.
“You don’t give up, do you?” she murmured. “Go away.” She couldn’t speak freely here, or she would have told him exactly what she thought of him.
“Five million,” he said. “That’s my final offer.”
“Fuck off,” she whispered.
People hissed at them to shush. The celebrant announced a hymn, which turned out to be Love Me Tender. As the notes rang out, Garrett murmured in her ear. “Take pity on me. Marry me.”
“Go the fuck away.” She would not give in, she refused to.
He leaned closer, his breath hot on her ear. “Please at least agree to let me explain. If Georgia’s pregnant, it’s not mine. I swear it.”
The devil on her shoulder whispered in her other ear. You can do a lot with five million, it said. You could buy the lease on the café for that, as well as get your mother private treatment. Even at London prices, that was possible.
It wasn’t as if the man sitting next to her couldn’t afford it. He wore a gray lounge suit, effortlessly outclassing everybody else in the chapel. A few heads turned, then returned to the front when the music stopped.
She just couldn’t sell her soul to do it. And her mother would be disappointed if she did.
She couldn’t concentrate while Susie and Graham took their vows. “That’s a copy of Priscilla Presley’s wedding gown,” he said during the applause that followed the newlywed couple’s first, passionate, kiss. It hurt to watch them.
“How do you know?”
“Everybody knows that in Vegas.”
“I’m aware that Elvis weddings are a cliché here, but that’s what Susie and Graham wanted.” She couldn’t slide away from him without sitting on somebody’s lap.
“Say yes,” he whispered, his breath whispering past her ear.
Despite the air conditioning running at full blast, goosebumps prickled her skin. “No,” she said. “You set me up.”
Without another word, he took her hand, and pulled her to her feet. “Outside,” he said.
If people saw her with him, too bad, because she wanted to give him a piece of her mind. She didn’t care how rich or handsome he was, if he planned to do abandon his child, he was a sleaze.
The heat of a Las Vegas May day blasted down on them, but Garrett seemed oblivious to the blazing sun or the traffic roaring by a few feet away. He took her to the air-conditioned canopy erected so the newlyweds could take photos, which offered a bit of shelter.
She came straight to the point. “Georgia said she was pregnant. I won’t stand between a baby and its father. I think it’s despicable you set me up like that.”
“Then we agree.” As she stared at him, shocked by his response, he continued. “The baby isn’t mine. If she persists with the claim, I’ll have a paternity test done, but I already know what it will say.” He faced her, meeting her gaze directly. “I never slept with her, although she tried to change that a couple of times. The arrangement was a business transaction, no more, a fake relationship to help both our businesses. I’ll swear it on a stack of Bibles if you want me to. That baby, if there is one, is not mine.”
The way he said it, directly and honestly, went some way toward convincing her. Would Georgia go as far as claiming a non-existence baby to keep Garrett? “What about the way to set me up?” Heat rose to her cheeks at the memory.
He frowned. “Sure, I kissed you on the dance floor. I wanted rumors to start. I freely admit that, and I’m sorry. But I don’t know who the hell told her we were in the suite, or who gave her a card to get in. I certainly didn’t.”
“And I should believe you, why?” Bonnie had to remind herself that she barely knew him, even if she felt otherwise.
“I’ll give you ten million, my shares in Rocquelaire Leisure, anything you want if I’m proved wrong,” he said. “That baby isn’t mine, so you can set the penalties as high as you like.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and took a few restless paces away, then back to her. In his gray business suit, he seemed super-cool. How fair was that?
There was only one way he could be certain about the baby, and that was the reason he’d given her. A bead of sweat rolled down her back. She waited until it had reached the base of her spine until she gave her answer.
“All right,” she said. “Under those conditions I’ll marry you.” She couldn’t walk away from all that money. She couldn’t afford to. And something about Garrett called out to her. Deep down, he was as lost as she was.
The wedding party barreled out of the chapel, laughter and shouts of happiness marking their progress.
Something hot whizzed past her face, then she heard something, a sharp crack that split the air cleanly.
“Fuck!” In a heartbeat, less, he dove across the space between them. His body hammered into hers and he bore her to the ground, rolling to break their fall. “Down! Everybody get down! That was a shot!”
Bonnie fought for breath.
Screams echoed around the green space. Some people raced back into the chapel. Diamantes flashed in the bright sunlight, handbags fell to the ground, and the people farthest away from the chapel fell to the ground.
Garrett lay on top of Bonnie, covering her completely. Someone called his name, and something dark and dull came through the air at them.
Garrett caught it. A gun. He checked the safety and held it ready. His security guy, dressed in the charcoal uniform of a chauffeur knelt in the lee of a shiny limo.
Screams rent the air. The men waited. Bonnie lost track of time, but she’d lay there as long as he wanted her to.
Sirens shrieked as two police cars, lights flashing, approached the chapel. They stopped, blocking the way in or out.
“Come on.” Garrett got to his feet in a lithe motion. “Whoever fired that shot has gone. It’s been twenty minutes. If they were going to follow up, they’d have done it by now.” But he still held the gun.
Every part of her shaking, Bonnie scrambled up.
With a stunned gaze she watched Garrett take control. Quickly, he outlined what had happened to the cops, then produced an ID card that seemed to satisfy them. “Shit, I didn’t know you were part of the Phoenix Agency,” one of the cops said.
Garrett shrugged. “Why should you?” He seemed as calm as all get-out.
Rapidly, he gave directions. The wedding party could go to the Rocque’s dining room, keeping them in one place for the police to question if they wanted to. Bonnie was staying with him.
*****
Within ten minutes of Garrett getting to his feet, they were in the limo and on their way to the hotel. Garrett dragged Bonnie close, and held her shaking body all the way. “Whoever did that is going to pay,” he said grimly.
Garrett talked on his phone, sending out instructions to his people as they drove away from the chapel. Murray drove, and left the privacy window open at his boss’s instructions.
He glanced at her. “You’ll stay at the Rocque.”
“I need to go back to my hotel to get my stuff,” she said. She was still shaking in shock, but her brain had clicked back into action.
“Not a fucking chance. I’ll send someone. I’m not letting you out of my sight until we’re married. And after that.”
Questions crowded through her head, some of them relevant, some trivial, while she tried to make sense of what was happening. Was it a stray shot? Was it even a shot at all? And she’d somehow agreed to become wife to a busy billionaire. Her life had spun one-eighty in the space of half an hour.
Reaching out, he took her hand and startled from her thoughts, she faced him. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “It was a bit of a shock, that’s all.”
“Then let’s get our story straight before the media descends on us. We say that we met and fell instantly in love,” he said softly. “We need to keep that up, at least in public. Are you ready to do that?”
She regarded him doubtfully before she recalled the devastating effect he’d had on her the minute they’d met. If she was going to fall in love with anyone at first sight, it would be Garrett. “The story’s for Georgia’s benefit, right?”
“Not any more,” he said. “I’m keeping you close, baby girl.”
Murray’s voice rumbled through to them. “This was no accident, boss.”
“I’m aware of that. That came from an assassin’s rifle.”
He said the words so calmly it took her a few seconds to catch up with him. “It really was a shot from a gun?”
“It really was.” His voice gained a gravelly edge, so different to the soft tones she was used to in him. “And somebody will pay for it.”
“But why?” Tears threatened but she blinked them back.
His fingers curled around hers as if protecting her. Bonnie had never had a protector, it had always been her mother and herself against the world.
He glanced out the window. “We’re pulling in. Are you ready? We don’t talk about that shot unless somebody asks us first. If we have to say anything, we’ll tell them we don’t know anything. I want to keep this quiet. Can you handle that? Behave like a woman in love, keep smiling?”
“Sure.” Piece of cake, she thought grimly as she set her mind to the task.
He climbed out, came around to her door, and helped her out like a proper gentleman, as her mother would say.
Keeping her hand in his, he strolled to the entrance as if they had all day. A muffled squeal to her left drew Bonnie’s attention, where a couple of girls stood brandishing mobile phones. Garrett took no notice, though the attention made Bonnie feel like a frump. Her hair was ruffled from losing the fascinator, and her makeup was melting.
A surge of cool air greeted them as they stepped through the wide glass doors. They were walking across the casino floor when a slot machine abruptly exploded into a cacophony of bells and electronic cheers. The man in shorts sitting at the machine leaped up, waving his fists in the air and yelling, “Yeah, baby, yeah!”
Startled, Bonnie shrieked and burrowed against him. Garrett closed his arms around her and she instantly felt safe. As well as stupid, because slot machines in Las Vegas did that all the time.
Extricating herself, she muttered, “It took me by surprise, that’s all.”
He was still smiling when he gazed down at her, but the amusement in his eyes turned into molten heat. “Then let me kiss it better,” he said, and suited actions to words.
She reached up, standing on tiptoe, eager to taste him again, to claim what he offered her.
Garrett delved into the wonder that was Bonnie. Every time they kissed, the experience was more intense, deeper and richer. That had never happened before, and he couldn’t work out why it was happening now. Sure, he wanted to stake his claim, and adrenaline was surging through him after the recent shock, but this was more. It felt like more. Murray would have called the guards, and they were as safe as they could be in this spot.
His senses screamed at him to find the nearest bed and his shaft rose to press against her through the fabric of his pants. He unashamedly ground it against her, and to his delight, she pushed back. He explored her mouth, unable to take it easy. The pings of the machines went on around them and he was dimly aware of a happy commotion. Probably the staff making the most of the guy that had just won. Right now, Garrett felt he was the one with the jackpot.
He pressed harder against her. With a gasp, she shoved her palms against his chest, pushing. Garrett pulled away, but kept his arms around her. He wanted to say he was chivalrous, but to be honest he needed the support as much as she did.
The jackpot winner to their left had a fair number of people gathered around him, including the casino staff who were taking pictures. They couldn’t fail to attract attention with all those people around.
Lifting his head, he assessed their situation. Garrett grabbed a dazed Bonnie’s hand and headed for the elevators.
They were in luck. Doors opened and disgorged the contents, people pouring out on either side of them. He’d usually use his private car, but this time he wanted to get her upstairs as fast as possible. Swiftly followed by Murray and two other security guards, Garrett dragged Bonnie into the car and punched the button to close the doors.