Lizzy Jones smoothed invisible wrinkles from her silky cocktail dress, and wondered what the heck she was doing. Fancy parties in Vegas weren’t exactly her scene, and while she’d enjoyed the dressing up and seeing all of the glitzy people around her, she was eager to get into something more comfortable, more her. She walked back to her table, hoping her stride looked more like the strut of a woman comfortable in heels, and less like the hobble of someone who rarely wore them.

Crystal and Maya sat at the table, martinis in front of them. Crystal’s face lit up with a big smile at Lizzy’s approach, and she squeezed Lizzy’s hand when she sat down.

"We ordered you a drink," Crystal said.

She suppressed a grimace. She didn’t mind a drink now and then, but the martinis Crystal favored were terribly strong. But what the heck, this was likely to be her only chance to play dress up and hang out at a swank Vegas hotel for a long time. Soon, she would be home. And while home wasn’t so bad, this little taste of fantasy wasn’t bad either.

Pushing thoughts of home from her mind, she took in the glitz and glam of the casino around her. The hotel was nice. More than nice, it was beautiful, elegant, flashy—all the things she wasn't. The only thing that could make the weekend any better would be a fantasy guy to go with it. But she’d resisted Crystal’s attempts to set her up with her acquaintances. The idea of hooking up for a weekend with a stranger was just a little too scary.

"Wow, ladies. Check him out," Maya said.

Lizzy turned her head slightly so she could check out the man Maya had indicated without tipping him off. A tall lean frame, adorned by a tuxedo greeted her. Dark hair was styled off of his chiseled, handsome face.

A face that was all too familiar.

"Oh my God," she muttered.

"What?" Crystal asked. "Do you know him?"

Lizzy could only nod. The cocktail party and fancy Vegas hotel faded into the background, and suddenly she was six years younger and getting ready to go to her high school prom. His eyes watched her walk nervously down the stairs, then slid away from her, disinterested.

Now his eyes were fixed, staring out the window. Still not focused on her.

"Who is he?"

"Um…an old acquaintance," she said, then spared a glance for her friends. Crystal looked worried. Did she look that shocked to see him?

"Oh? Because you look like you’ve seen a ghost," Crystal said.

Yeah, a ghost. A ghost from her past.

"I’ll be right back."

She pushed up from the table and headed for him, and when his eyes didn’t move from the window, she had half a mind to keep walking. To not stop to talk to him, reconnect with him. But she couldn’t resist. Steeling her spine, she plastered on her most confident smile, and headed for her first crush.

* * *

Ian Davis stared out the window, taking in the bright lights of the Vegas Strip, and tried to figure out how he'd gotten here.

The divorce had been difficult. He and Elise had looked so good together on paper. But two years of a passionless marriage full of charity balls and newspaper photo shoots had been miserable for him. He'd longed for the days before his business had taken off. When things had been simpler.

Oh the first couple of years had been a rush. For a twenty-six-year-old kid, they'd been a whirlwind. He'd gone from dirt poor to wealthy in what seemed like a matter of days. It had been years, really. Years of working his ass off. But it felt like one day he was poor and the next he was rich. And he'd enjoyed it—for a while. But he'd tired of Elise's world. So they split. And had been apart for nearly as long as they'd been together.

But that didn't mean he was ready for this.

He’d come to Vegas at his best friend's insistence. Dragged here in the hopes that he'd find a nice woman to spend a night with, at the very least. He needed some fun to pull him out of his shell, Jacob said.

Jacob had been his best friend since the sixth grade, and despite the very different directions their lives had taken as adults, Jacob was still very much in his life. Unfortunately, Ian rarely got to see Jacob's family—his little sister, specifically. Which was probably for the best. She had blossomed into a beautiful woman sometime between college and his marriage to Elise.

He could still picture her, beautifully decked out for his wedding. Even now, years later, his cock twitched at the thought of her. When he was happiest with Elise, he still had to fight the urge to pull his childhood crush into his arms.

Jacob would kill him if he knew the thoughts that ran through Ian's mind about his sister.

He turned from the window back to the upscale party he’d begrudgingly attended at Jacob’s request. It was supposed to give him an opportunity to mingle, to get out there, to meet a woman who could help him move on—even if the affair was short-lived. Jacob had insisted he attended with him, and then he'd been forced to go back to his room for a conference call, leaving Ian to attend on his own.

But Jacob would be back soon. Maybe they could just get drinks later, some dinner. He didn’t want to be here among strangers. Jacob would give him a hard time, but he’d get over it. One last look to make sure Jacob hadn’t gotten away from his meeting early and he’d go.

He turned to survey the room. Glitzy dresses and shining hair abounded among tailored tuxedos and colorful drinks. The women that attended these things were too similar to Elise—exactly the sort of woman he didn’t want.

Breath catching, he took in the beautiful woman walking toward him. The dress held tight to her slim form, accentuating her breasts and hips. She was slender, but still quite feminine. Dark hair curled around her heart-shaped face. Just his type. He moved his gaze up to her bright smile, to her stunning hazel eyes, and his mouth dropped open.

* * *

"Lizzy." Her name came out of him in a rush of breath. "I never expected—"

"Hi Ian." Her voice was stronger than she’d hoped, and she mentally congratulated herself for not squeaking.

"My God, how long has it been?" He reached down and hugged her, and as his hard arms closed around her, her breath caught in her throat, and a dull ache settled inside of her.

"Well, I think I saw you for two seconds last Christmas, but then you were off on another adventure with my brother," she teased. Her voice remained confident, but her insides were ready to explode. She was teasing Ian Davis. After watching him from a distance for so long she was actually standing here teasing him.

And how she'd watched him. Rich. Powerful. Self-made. And her brother's best friend since she was seven years old. The boys had been twelve at the time. Her first and—as fickle fate would have it—only crush.

Oh she'd dated other men. Stewart's face flashed in her mind, and she shook her head. He'd been a man in sex and age—but a real man? No. They'd dated through most of college—her only real relationship. But Stewart wasn't the kind of man she needed in her life. He was weak willed and wishy-washy, hardly a knight in shining armor.

Her stomach clenched, and her breasts ached. God, she'd never wanted anything so much as she wanted Ian. But he'd been out of reach ever since she could remember—too old while she was a teenager and too out of her league by the time she'd matured.

"So are you here with friends?" His gaze moved to the table where Crystal and Maya watched. Blatant interest was plain to see on their faces.

"Oh, yes." She took a breath to tell him that Crystal, a friend of hers from college, had dragged her to Vegas, gussied her up, and allowed her to spend the weekend pretending she was a socialite rather than a librarian, but then snapped her mouth shut. There was such a thing as oversharing, and while she knew Ian would never buy her glamorous girl facade she’d donned for the trip, she didn’t have to admit it just yet.

"Want to have a drink with us? I mean…unless you’re here with someone."

"I’m actually supposed to be here with Jacob."

"What?" Sudden heat flushed her cheeks at the thought of her brother watching her drooling all over Ian, and she scanned the room around them.

"Yes, but he’s abandoned me. I’m afraid I’m all alone," he said, voice husky. His gaze locked with hers, and there was something there. An intensity she’d never seen in him before.

"Well, I can’t just leave you all alone." Wow. Wonders would never cease. She was actually keeping her cool around Ian Davis. Pretty soon a pig would fly across the city view behind him.

A sexy grin crept onto his face and she smiled back hesitantly. She couldn’t believe he was standing here in front of her on the night when she had dressed up like one of the glamorous women he favored. She was here for a night of forgetting. A night of fun. A night of fantasy.

It was hardly fair her fantasy man had shown up for it.