“Will you relax?” Emily says, shaking her head at me. “We’re in Vegas.”

“For work,” I answer back. “Not for going on a bender.”

She laughs. “Have you ever even been on a bender? And I’m not talking about a fender bender with that old clunky car you used to drive.”

“I have.”

She snorts out a laugh. “When?”

“I have done plenty of naughty things,” I say, feeling my cheeks heat up. “But now is not the time for drinking in bars. We should be studying for tomorrow’s meeting.”

We have a big meeting with Mack McMillan, the billionaire business giant who bought out our company. I really want to make a good impression on the commander-in-chief, so that’s why I’d rather be studying in my hotel room instead of drinking in a bar. Emily doesn’t share my view.

“Oh, relax,” she says, waving a hand at me. “It’s going to be fine.”

Mr. Wallace walks over with a beer in his hand. “Beer always tastes so much better when my kid is miles away from me,” he says, smiling to himself as he sits at the table. “And it always tastes better in Vegas.”

“Dahlia has never been,” Emily says, giggling at me. “Which is probably a good thing. I don’t think she could handle Vegas.”

I roll my eyes at her. I’ll see what she can handle in tomorrow’s meeting. I’ll be answering questions like rapid fire and impressing the heck out of our new boss while she’s hungover under the table. She’ll see.

“What are you even drinking?” she asks me. “Please tell me there’s alcohol in there.”

“There’s alcohol in there,” I lie.

She grabs the glass out of my hand and tastes my drink. “This is a Shirley Temple,” she says, staring at me in disbelief. “Will you go to the bar and get yourself a proper drink for once? You’re in Vegas, not Disney World.”

I take a deep breath and look at my watch. How much longer do I have to stay here before I can go back to my hotel room and prepare for tomorrow’s meeting?

Emily looks to our boss when I don’t move. “Order her to go get an alcoholic drink,” she pleads. “This is such a buzzkill.”

“I’m not here to be your drinking buddy,” I say, getting annoyed. I’m here to impress Mr. McMillan.

Mr. Wallace is sick of our bickering. He’s been traveling with us and dealing with it all day. “Just go be a normal person for once and get a drink,” he says, taking a big sip of his beer.

I push away from the table with a roll of my eyes. “Fine.” I could use a break from them anyway, and a white wine spritzer to sip on sounds pretty nice right now.

“And no white wine spritzers,” Emily calls out to my back. “This is Vegas, not Sunday brunch. Get a real drink.”

Ugh. Am I that predictable?

I feel eyes on me as I walk to the bar, feeling a bit out of my element. I’ve never been a fan of the bar scene. I don’t understand how girls can meet guys here. It’s just full of creeps and perverts trying to take advantage of drunk girls.

Oh, great. One of those creeps sitting on the corner of the bar has his eyes on me. I turn to flash him a bitchy look but my stunned face freezes in a twisted grimace when I see what he looks like.

If the rest of the men in the bar are like warm flat beers, he’s like a fine expensive wine: Bold, strong, and looking fucking delicious in his perfectly tailored suit.

He has the kind of flawless face that makes you stop in your tracks. The kind of tousled dark brown hair that causes car accidents when he walks down the street. The kind of smile that makes you hate your life because he’s not in it. The kind of catastrophic emerald green eyes that make you think you died and went to heaven.

Simply said, he’s beautiful.

The lines around his eyes become visible as he smiles at me. I give him my shoulder before he can see my blushing cheeks.

I’m here for business, not whatever he’s here for.

The bartender lets out an audible sigh when he sees me and then shuffles over, looking like I just ruined his entire day. “What would you like?”

The man at the end of the bar is sliding over empty stools until he’s sitting right beside me, smelling like hours waiting by the phone and tear soaked pillows.

“Whatever it is, it’s on me,” he says with a voice that feels like smooth leather.

“No, it’s not,” I say curtly, resisting the urge to look over at him. “I can pay for my own drink.”

“Ralph,” the man says to the bartender, ignoring me. “Put it on my card.”

Ugh. This is why I don’t come out to bars.

“What do you want, lady?” Ralph the bartender asks, looking annoyed that I’m making him perform his job.

“A white wine spritzer, easy on the white wine. In a martini glass, please.” The white wine spritzer is for me. The martini glass is for Emily. I’ll tell her it’s a strong cocktail to get her off my back.

“A white wine spritzer?” the man beside me says with a chuckle. “This is Vegas, not Disney World.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” I snap, finally turning to him. Wow. Those eyes are from another planet.

He grins now that he has my attention. “Because Vegas is a place to let loose and have fun.”

“I’m loose,” I say, trying to look casual. Damn, I never know what to do with my arms. He chuckles as he glances down at them sticking out awkwardly like the stiff arms of a broken manikin.

“I’m having fun,” I lie. My cheeks burn as his eyes inappropriately wander up and down my gray pantsuit.

“Let me show you how to have fun,” he says, meeting my eyes again.

“Are you going to jump out the window?” I ask, throwing a smirk back at him. “Because that would be really fun for me.”

He chuckles as he turns to the bartender, and my lips curl up into a smile at having made him laugh.

“Ralph,” he says as the bartender is about to pour my drink. “Scrap the white wine spritzer. Give us two Lucky 7s.”

My chest tightens. Why can’t he just leave me alone and let me get my drink? The sooner I’m out of this bar, the better.

“Want to get lucky?” he asks with a heart-stopping smile.

I stare him dead in the eyes with a blank expression. “No, I want to get out of here.”

He chuckles. “Back to all that fun you’re having?”

I roll my eyes. It seems like all of Vegas won’t leave me alone until I have a drink. Fine, Vegas. You win!

“What’s in a Lucky 7?”

“Yes,” he says, rubbing his hands together in excitement now that he finally broke me. “It’s always different.”

“Huh?”

He points to the top row of bottles and my eyes fall onto his thick forearms that are creeping out of his suit. They’re covered in tattoos.

Good thing he’s not my type.

I lean against the bar so that my legs don’t give out on me.

“Count seven bottles from the left,” he says as Ralph the bartender grabs it. “Now on the second shelf, you count seven bottles from the right. Last shelf seven bottles from the left again. Mix them together and you have Lucky 7s.”

“I’ll be lucky if I don’t puke it up,” I say, crinkling my nose up in disgust.

He laughs. “It won’t be that bad. Probably. Ralph, what do we have?”

The bartender places two bottles in front of us as he quickly dusts off the third bottle. “Scotch,” the hot guy beside me says, reading the label. “And Kiwi Schnapps. Ew. What the hell is that?”

Ralph places the third bottle on the marble bar with a clunk.

“What the hell is that?” I ask, staring at it with wide terrified eyes.

“Insane-O Worm-O Tequil-O,” the man says as he picks up the old bottle and rolls it around in his hands. “I think the last time they served this was to celebrate the end of the Civil War. Where’s the worm?”

“He probably moved back to Mexico,” I say, leaning away from it. “I would too if I had to live in that bottle of acid.”

The man hands the bottle back and grins to Ralph. “Mix ‘em up!”

“No, thank you,” I say as Ralph opens the bottles. My eyes immediately start watering as soon as the bartender opens the Tequila. Even Ralph jerks his head back in surprise. “I’ll stick with my white wine spritzer.”

“Come on,” the man says at the bartender pours a shot of each bottle into two glasses. The color looks like raw sewage but doesn’t smell nearly as good. “You’re going to let me go to the emergency room all by myself?”

Ralph slides a glass in front of him and one in front of me.

“Ugh,” I say, jerking my head to the side to get away from the toxic fumes.

“It’s a good luck drink,” the man says as he lifts up his glass, grimacing as the smell hits his perfectly shaped nostrils. “I know you need some good luck.”

My meeting with Mack McMillan tomorrow morning flashes into my head. “How do you know I need good luck?”

“Everybody in Vegas needs good luck.”

I raise an eyebrow as I look down at the drink, sitting there full of future regrets. I do need some good luck.

“It’s called Lucky 7s for a reason,” he says, holding the glass up to me.

“Fine,” I say with a sigh. If anything, it may get Emily off my back. Hopefully she believes me about all of this, which she probably won’t.

He taps my glass with his and smiles as he looks me in the eyes. “Asses up.”

A river of burning lava scorches my throat as I gulp down the huge shot. “Geez!” I say, coughing like a first-time smoker as my eyes start watering like a broken fire hydrant.

I frantically wave my hand in front of my open mouth, hoping that some of my tears will drip into my mouth to soothe the intense burning. “So, that’s what a Molotov cocktail tastes like,” I say, gagging as it threatens to come back up.

The man isn’t faring any better, I’m happy to say. He’s wiping his watery eyes with the back of his hand as he takes a sip of his scotch to get rid of the horrible taste.

“It feels like a demon just blew a load in my mouth,” he says, sticking his tongue out as he coughs.

“See?” I say when the worst of the burning has settled. “This is why I’m anti-fun.”

“At least now you’ll have some good luck,” he says, waving the bartender back over. “Can you get the pretty lady a white wine spritzer? Actually, make that two. I need something to soothe my throat.”

“In a martini glass,” I call out to Ralph’s back.

I close my eyes as my stomach starts to gurgle. That shot was a bad idea. It’s time to go back to my room before it hits. I’m not used to drinking, and a shot like that might be enough to get me tipsy.

And I really don’t want to be tipsy in front of my boss. Mr. Wallace sees me as the model of self-discipline and control, and I’m never going to do anything to ruin that image he has of me.

“Two white wine spritzers in martini glasses,” Ralph the bartender says, handing over the drinks. “Now, who’s paying?”

“He is,” I say, pointing at the man sitting next to me. “You can pay for my drink now for putting me through that.”

He smiles as he pulls out a wad of cash, slides off two bills, and hands them to the bartender. “I never got your name,” he says as I take my drink.

I smirk at him as I walk away. “I know.”

He turns on the stool as I walk back to my table. “You can at least give me your name. You’re going to get lucky tonight, and it’s all because of me.”

I snort out a laugh. “Yeah,” I mutter to myself as I walk away from him. “Like that’s ever going to happen.”