CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
JORDAN
The photo op at Hakkasan nightclub brought me back to reality. Up until now I’d been in the clouds, skipping away, pushing thoughts of my actual job into the crapper while Reid whispered sweet nothings into my ear and Max tapped fairy dust all over my head.
The only positive about my situation was that I didn’t have to act. There was no forced emotional attachment because it was already there.
So when cameras flashed and people asked us about our relationship, I squeezed his hand because I felt something. I giggled when he kissed my cheek because he made me laugh.
And when Reid wrapped an arm around my shoulder and kissed my head, I sighed while longingly gazing up into his eyes like he’d just promised me a Kardashian-style wedding with Max as the officiant.
Because let’s be honest, Max wouldn’t want it any other way.
The club was something right out of a futuristic movie set. Lights—green, red, blue—flashed all over the place, and the entire effect was enough to give me a headache, which in turn made me feel extremely old.
“Up here,” Max yelled back at us as we made our way to the fifth level of the club. It was more private and overlooked the main floor. VIP tables were scattered upstairs along with a separate DJ and bar. Everything was blanketed in cool blue and violet colors. We made our way into a semiprivate room.
The colors were even dimmer in that room, blues and whites filling the floor-to-ceiling LED screens.
“You like?” Max turned around in a circle. “We can actually customize the room to look anyway we want.”
“Nice.” Reid nodded, then checked his watch.
I elbowed him; he winked back.
Oh, dear.
I swallowed dryly and folded my hands across my lap. That lasted all of five seconds before Reid grabbed one hand and placed a glass of champagne in the other.
“What are we toasting to?” Reid asked the group, not taking his eyes off me.
“Marriage,” Max shouted. “And real orgasms, none of that fake shit you guys keep trying to sell me every night.”
“Huh?” Colton asked. “They perform for you?”
“Not in that capacity, psycho.” Max rolled his eyes. “I say we make a toast to Reid’s career. If this weekend goes like I think it’s going to go, you two kids are one marriage away from an Academy Award.”
Reid chuckled, then lifted his glass higher. “So, to success?”
“Success.” We all lifted our glasses. The champagne tasted bitter, not smooth. But maybe it was me, I was the problem.
Because every publicist wanted success for their client. You’d be stupid not to—well, stupid and most likely homeless. But that wasn’t the point.
Was it so wrong that I wanted to sabotage Reid? That for the first time in my life I wanted my client, his talent, all to myself? Why share him with the world when they would never appreciate the man he really was? And why take the chance that once he was in the public eye—fully in the public eye—they’d ruin him anyway?
“Hey.” Reid tilted my chin toward him. “No frowns tonight.”
“Sorry.” I managed to smile. “Just thinking about work.”
“Don’t.” He set my glass down and reached for my other hand. “Does this feel like work?”
“Well, no.”
“Hmm.” Without warning he grabbed the back of my head and fused our mouths together, his tongue invading without proper invitation, just dominating me until I felt breathless for more. “And this? Is this work?”
I leaned forward for another kiss. “If it is, can I get overtime?”
Reid smirked, then kissed me again and again, peppering light kisses across my mouth that had me nearly crawling into his lap just so I could get closer, experience more.
“For once in your life,” he whispered above the music, “don’t overthink . . . this isn’t about my career or about yours. Let’s make tonight about us.”
Max shouted, “Ohana!” above the music, then pointed at both of us as if to remind us that there would be no skipping out.
“And Max.” Reid nodded solemnly. “Because if we don’t include him, he’ll just include himself and then I’m going to kill him and we really will land in a Vegas prison.”
I returned Max’s point with a wave and sighed against Reid. “Think when he’s married he’ll cut off the apron strings?”
“If not I’ll just burn them,” Reid said thoughtfully. “Or maybe just drop him off on a farm so he has space to run.”
“He’d like a farm.”
“Well, he finally likes animals again, so it just might work out.”
“I’m not going to ask.” I laughed against his chest. “I’m afraid of every answer where Max is concerned.”
The music swirled around us, some crazy techno beat that had Max and Becca bumping and grinding way too close to where I was sitting. The LED screens switched to a dark red that matched my dress; the air felt electric, alive with possibilities.
“You know . . .” Reid whispered in my ear above the music. “I used to be in a boy band.”
“I know.”
“I was their best dancer.”
“Were you?” I bit my bottom lip to keep myself from laughing. “Prove it.”
“Thought you’d never ask.” He stood and held out his hand, like a gentleman.
Laughing, I took it, thinking he’d swing me around and we’d share a joke about how we’re old and don’t know how to dance or expend that type of energy anymore.
Instead, Reid started slowly rolling his hips behind mine.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to run away or press against him.
So I did nothing.
Like a real invisible nerd, who’d suddenly been discovered by the captain of the football team, I froze.
Reid placed his hands on my hips, his breath tickling my ear. “Let the music move you.”
“Uh.” I wanted to ask how. I’d never been asked to a school dance and I’d never actually danced in public. I wasn’t that girl, the woo girl who partied on the weekends and stuck her face out of limos and shouted into the night air just because she could.
“Come on.” He tugged me harder against him, his lips moving fluidly down my neck as his hips ground slowly into me, moving faster as he lifted my hands into the air and twirled me around.
I finally relaxed enough to let go.
We danced for a few songs while Reid continued torturing me by touching every inch of my body that he could without being indecent. By the time the fourth song ended I was ready to lose my mind.
The teasing had to stop.
“Drinks!” Max shouted, waving us over to the table, where he’d apparently ordered several rounds for everyone.
Control was my thing.
So drinking more than a few drinks in one night seemed . . . well, the exact opposite of being in control. I pulled one of the bottles of water and chugged, only to have it slapped out of my hand.
“No!” Max scolded me. “Girls who wear Dolce don’t drink water.” He shrugged. “Probably don’t eat either, but that’s not the point. The point”—he shoved a drink into my hand—“is that part of this night is about you letting go and being awesome. So be awesome.”
“The man has a point, Sebastian.” Reid lifted his glass into the air.
I sniffed the drink.
“What was that?” Max frowned. “Did you just smell your drink?”
“Well, what if you drugged me?”
Max laughed. “First, I would never drug one of my best friends—”
“We aren’t best friends,” I said shaking my head no.
“Second”—he elbowed Reid—“your innocence is showing. It’s impossible to smell drugs in your drink unless you purposely pour NyQuil into the glass, but people who do weird shit like that end up in prison, and you don’t want to end up in prison, do you?”
I had no idea how me getting drugged had turned into me going to prison, but I went with it. “Are you there?” I asked sweetly.
Max seemed to think about this for a while, then slowly shook his head. “No, not at the time of your arrest.”
“Oh, good, then I choose no NyQuil.”
“Aren’t you glad I was present during DARE week?” He grinned. “Even won the damn bear because I pledged to be drug-free for LIFE.”
“Yet you’re drinking.” I pointed at his glass.
“This?” He lifted it into the air. “Amateur. This is cranberry juice. Like I would drink in Vegas when I have to babysit you guys.” He knocked his drink back. “It’s my gift, take it or leave it.”
“I’m confused.” I looked to Reid, but his eyes were narrowed in suspicion, so maybe I should be more than confused. Alarmed? Maybe alarmed was the better word.
“Chill.” Max held up his hands. “My crazy days are over, all right? I just know this one”—he pointed to me, so clearly I was the one—“won’t let her hair down, so to speak, because her job is to be worried about publicity and actors not wearing underwear.” He lowered his gaze to Reid’s pants. “Dude, you are wearing underwear, right?”
Reid didn’t answer.
I grinned.
“See?” Max rolled his eyes. “Now, say you two were drunk and Reid started stripping in the elevator—”
“There will be no stripping in the elevator,” Reid interjected.
“And his light saber just pops out!” Max shuddered. “Can you imagine the ramifications?”
“The empire strikes back?” I joked.
Colton’s eyes got wide as he eavesdropped on my conversation, then steered Milo far away from us.
“Ha.” Max cackled. “Good one—ain’t nobody gonna be striking with that saber, feel me? At least not in public, that’s what you have me for!”
“So let me get this straight.” I cleared my throat. “You’re not drinking, so you can watch me and Reid and make sure he doesn’t pull out his light saber?”
Max frowned into his drink. “Well, it’s not like I’m going to watch him whip it out, but you get the picture.”
“Great mental picture.” Reid groaned. “Really, it’s like you’re trying to kill sex for me.”
“I always had a thing for Chewbacca.” I felt my cheeks heat.
“Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” Max mimicked Chewbacca, then slapped Reid on the back. “May the force be with you, my son.”
“Max—”
“Reid, I’m not your father—”
“Max.”
“But . . .” Max handed us both new drinks, apparently I’d sucked mine down during his speech. “I’m more like the Obi-Wan to your Kenobi.”
“What’s a Kenobi?” I asked.
“It’s what happens when his light saber meets your . . .” Max squinted. “Force.”
“Good talk, Max.” Reid slapped him on the back, turned him around, and then waved down Becca to take him off our hands.
Becca started kissing him, they danced, and I was sure Max forgot all about his weird offer to help.
“It’s kind of cute,” I said once Max was out of earshot.
“What?” Reid tilted back his drink. Even the man’s throat was sexy as he took a large gulp and turned those aqua eyes in my direction.
“Max’s protectiveness, his plans, his schemes. I mean, it’s cute in small doses.”
“And yet, he does nothing in small doses. You should have seen him pre-Becca.”
I gaped. “He used to be worse?”
“You have. No. Idea.” Reid chuckled. “Now finish your drink. More dancing and then . . . who knows what?”
The rest of the evening was fuzzy . . . I remember a few more drinks, and I remember Jason icing his face because he ran into a door. Milo and Colt called it early, leaving me alone with Reid, Max, and Becca.
Somehow we all ended up at some rooftop bar where scantily clad women were dancing.
Max started chucking dollar bills into the air. I believe his words were, “Make it rain.”
Becca smacked him.
And then I ended up with a few dollar bills after I jokingly did a little dance in front of Reid.
He stuffed them down my dress, then yelled, “Another!”
Two hours later we were still dancing, but my heels were officially off. I was walking barefoot down the street—until Reid gave me a piggyback to our hotel.
We’d lost Becca and Max somewhere between Planet Hollywood and the Hard Rock.
“Wow!” I gasped. “Look at the fountain!”
“The Bellagio?” Reid yelled back at me, my body slamming against his back as we picked up speed, then stopped in front of the fountain. “I forgot, you’re a Vegas newbie. Pretty cool, huh?”
He talked as if he hadn’t been drinking all night.
While I was seeing, like, ten fountains, a unicorn, and Danny Ocean after pulling off the con of the century. Hey, George!
“Something funny?” Reid slowly let me down to my feet.
I kept giggling. “Nothing, just thinking about Ocean’s Eleven.”
“Hot men who masquerade as jewel thieves make you laugh?”
“It’s weird you called them hot.”
“Quoting every woman alive.” Reid held up his hands. “Just being honest.”
“We should swim.” I nodded, slowly making my way closer to the fountain.
“Oh, no.” Reid grabbed my arm and tugged me back. “Not in the fountain, they frown upon things like that.”
“But I want to swim!” I laughed. “Naked.”
People glanced over at me.
Reid grinned. “We have a huge tub in our room. I promise I’ll even turn the lights off and then give you a flashlight so that it looks like the Bellagio.”
“But what about the music?”
“I’ll hum.”
“Really?”
“Yup.”
“Phantom of the Opera music?” I crawled up his body, landing in his arms as my legs straddled him. He hefted me up and kissed my mouth.
“Why, Sebastian, I didn’t know you were a fan.”
“He wears a cape. Who isn’t a fan of the Phantom?”
“He’s also psychologically unstable.”
“Again.” I laughed. “He wears a cape.”
“You know, for a shrew you sure laugh a lot.” Reid’s forehead touched mine. “Jordan, I’m happy to announce I think the taming is finished.”
“How’d I do?” I joked.
“Well, I think I have one more thing I need to check.”
“What’s that?” I whispered.
“Come back to the room and I’ll show you.”
“Where else would I go?”
He sobered. “I hope that’s always your answer.” Reid set me back on my feet. “Now, crawl on my back like the crab you are and I’ll walk us back.”