Dani

When your father is a murderer and you have an unhealthy penchant for bad boys, you don’t think much about weddings. Maybe I had a fantasy or two as a little girl about a white dress and a nice husband, but the boys I picked when I was older disabused me of that pretty fast. And with McMurphy, marriage was the last thing on my mind. When I thought about the future at all during those seven months, I figured I’d be an old lady until he found a replacement and kicked me out. It was what he’d done with the old lady before me, and the one before that. Romance wasn’t McMurphy’s forte.

It wasn’t Cavan’s, either. I knew what he was doing; I wasn’t stupid. He was trying to make this as unromantic as possible so I wouldn’t get attached to him. Well, too bad—and way too fucking late.

I wanted him. That was why I’d agreed to this. I didn’t need a church and a puffy dress, I needed him.

We had to stop at a bank when we got into Vegas so he could get some of the cash Max had sent him. “We need a hotel, and then we’re going shopping,” he said.

“You can’t use a credit card?” I asked, pulling my sneakers back on.

“I don’t have a credit card. Never have.”

I stared at him, surprised and a little amused. “Cav, you’re going to be a terrible billionaire,” I said.

“Yeah, I know.” He frowned. He was the only person I knew who would find the idea of being suddenly rich annoying, like a stone in his shoe. “I’m going to fucking suck at it. That goes without saying. I’ve never owned a house, and this car cost me eight hundred dollars cash because the owner owed the club a favor.”

I opened my door. “I don’t know much about it, but at least I have a credit card, even if it’s maxed out. You’ll have to pay taxes and stuff.”

“Yeah, I don’t do that either,” he said.

I laughed. “I think you’re going to start. The IRS is going to be happy to see you. You know, your brother can probably help you with these things.”

But he shook his head. “First things first,” he said. “Let’s get some money.”

It didn’t take him long at the teller, but when he finished he had a lot of money. A stack of cash. I’d never seen so much money at once, and it made me nervous. “Put it away,” I said, folding his hand over it and pushing his hand toward his pocket. We were standing in the bank parking lot with people walking by.

It was his turn to watch me with amusement. “You’re not going to be a good billionaire either if you’re afraid of a little money.”

“That isn’t a little money,” I said, but he was right. I felt like we’d just robbed the bank, or done a drug deal. We both had to figure this out. “Let’s just get a hotel. Not on the strip, either. Nothing fancy. And no Elvis, or whatever they do for weddings here.”

“I can manage that,” he said, shoving the folded-over stack of bills into his back pocket. “Fancy isn’t exactly my thing.” He looked around at the skyline, at the Strip a mile away with its massive hotels, at the wide boulevard lined with expensive stores and stuffed with traffic. The window across the street advertised wedding dresses rented by the hour. The store next to it advertised knockoff Armani tuxes at eighty percent off.

“Right,” Cavan said to himself, lost in thought as he stared at the signs, and I had the crazy fear for a minute that he’d get cold feet. Gee, sorry Dani, too much commitment, I gotta go. But the frown appeared between his eyes, and he looked at me. “You ready?” he asked.

It was what he’d asked me in that dark parking lot. Apparently You ready? was all Cavan needed to go ahead with life-altering decisions. I felt myself smiling when I answered him. “I better be.”

Those gray eyes didn’t miss anything. He smiled back at me, and for once his smile didn’t have its usual tinge of sadness. “This will be fine, Dani,” he said. “I promise.”

* * *

We found a hotel first, off the Strip like I’d asked for, a Hilton-type place with a pool and a Gamblers’ Special advertised in the hotel restaurant. We were on the tenth floor—“No more motels,” Cavan said. “Too dangerous.”

We didn’t stay long. We dumped our stuff, took Cavan’s wad of money, and went to the mall.

The first order of business was a new phone for me. When that was done, we both needed clothes and we didn’t have a lot of time, so we had to split up.

He gave me half the stack of cash, and it burned like hot coals in my purse as I wandered from store to store. I hadn’t grown up with money; Mom and I had always made do. The Black Dog made money, especially cash, but very little of it ever came my way, because McMurphy was always paranoid I’d use the money to leave. He wouldn’t let me get a job, either, because it was too independent. I’d begged him to let me be a coffee barista, a grocery bagger, a hairdresser, anything—and the answer was always the same. Why? So you can meet men all day? My woman doesn’t need work, baby. The only job you need is me.

Seven months. It felt like a hundred years.

I bought underwear and bras. I bought shoes, t-shirts, new pants. And I tried on dresses—cool sundresses for the desert heat. McMurphy would have hated these, because they were sexy and showed skin without being slutty. He liked me to dress either in jeans, like a biker chick, or like a hooker if we were going to a club party. He didn’t like men looking at me.

I looked at myself in the mirror, wearing a sundress, and for a second I closed my eyes. I shouldn’t be thinking about McMurphy when I was spending Cavan’s money to buy new clothes, but I couldn’t help it. When Cavan wasn’t around and I was alone, McMurphy crept back into my mind, over and over. Why the fuck are you wearing that? You look like you want to fuck every man who walks by. Wear the short skirt, baby, so the guys know the only one you want to fuck is me. Take that shit off. You heard me. Take it off now, or I’ll rip it off you.

I was breathing hard, sweat between my shoulder blades. I wasn’t myself anymore; I wasn’t anyone anymore. I didn’t know how Dani Farraday was supposed to dress, what her hair was supposed to look like, what shoes she wore. I didn’t know what jokes she laughed at—McMurphy didn’t like me to laugh at any joke told by a man—or what TV shows she liked to watch. I didn’t know what she was good at, what she wanted to do for a living. I didn’t know anything, and for a second I felt pure panic, like I was falling down a hole. I pressed my hands to my closed eyes and took one breath, then another.

Start with what you know. What do you know? There must be one thing.

I let time unspool for a minute. Women came and went in the other changing rooms outside my door, the doors banging, women talking softly together as they assessed this item or that. No one came to check on me. So I just stood there, my hands over my eyes, and thought about what I knew.

I pictured Cavan’s face, his voice. I want to be inside you so deep, so fucking deep you can’t feel anything but me. I shivered in excitement, right there in the change room.

Okay, that was one thing I knew about Dani Farraday: Cavan Wilder was an aphrodisiac for her. Even when he wasn’t present, he completely turned her on.

I knew that she was marrying Cavan in a few hours, and she felt just fine about it.

I opened my eyes and looked at myself in the full-length mirror, and I knew a third thing: Dani Farraday looked fantastic in this dress.

I yanked the tag off it, picked up my purse, and walked out of the change room to find the saleswoman. “I want to buy this dress,” I told her, handing her the tag, “and I want to wear it now. Do you have sandals to match?”

She did. I bought them. I bought three other dresses, too.

Makeup. Lip gloss. Beautiful, pale pink, and expensive—but I picked it because it was called Siren’s Call.

A girl has to start somewhere.

* * *

We were going to meet back in the car in the mall parking lot. I was right on time, checking the time on my new phone as I came out into the blinding desert sunlight. I found my sunglasses in my purse and put them on, juggling my purse and my shopping bags as I headed for the car. I looked up and I stopped.

The back seat door was open, and a strange man was bent, looking inside it, one hand braced on the car’s roof. He was wearing a dark suit, cut slim on his hips. Pants, a jacket, a glimpse of white shirt—that was all I saw. I thought about turning around and running, hiding, because a stranger had somehow broken into our car.

Then I recognized him.

My stomach dropped. I stared helplessly as the man stood up, and I recognized every line. I knew that body. Those lean legs, those hips, that flat stomach, those strong shoulders and long, beautiful hands. I even recognized his gorgeous ass, even though I’d only seen it in jeans—or bare.

I made a sound, and Cavan turned and looked at me. I was speechless all over again, because he’d changed. His hair was cut, trimmed off the back of his neck and from his temples. His beard was shorter too, trimmed close to his jaw line. Two small changes, but it made his face different—cleaner, sharper, harder maybe. And dear God, it was sexy. He’d been sex incarnate when he was a tattoo artist in jeans and a t-shirt. Now he looked like the devil in a dark suit and white shirt unbuttoned at the collar. Like the kind of man who made women fall to their knees.

“You look nice,” he said, looking me over.

I made my voice work. He could probably see that my nipples were hard through the dress, though he was too polite to say anything. “So do you,” I said.

He shrugged, the motion doing fascinating things to the suit jacket and the shirt beneath. “I figured I should get cleaned up for my wedding,” he said. “I know it’s just a piece of paper, but it seemed disrespectful not to.”

“Me, too.” I stepped forward and took my sunglasses off.

“Here, give me your bags,” he said, taking them from me and putting them in the back seat alongside his. I was treated to another view of his rear end, which I soaked in like water. Then he turned and stood again, looking at me. “What?”

“You, um,” I said. “I just never saw you as a suit guy.”

“Hmm,” he said, watching me. “It’s the suit, huh?” It was impossible not to tell how turned on I was, and he obviously noticed. He stepped toward me and cupped my face lightly in his hands, tilting me up toward him. He leaned down to my ear.

“It’s just clothes, Dani,” he said in a low voice. “I’m naked underneath, remember?”

I put my hands on his waist, beneath the jacket. “A haircut, too,” I said. “You look different.”

His lips brushed my skin. “So do you. That dress. And you have lip gloss on.”

My hands tightened on his waist, his skin warm through his shirt. “Kiss it off me,” I said.

He growled against me. “You have no fucking idea.”

“I think I do.” I was being bold, but I didn’t care. We were in the middle of a parking lot, but I didn’t care about that either. In fact, I preferred it if everyone saw that this man belonged to me. My hand left his waist and slid to his flat stomach. I didn’t have a plan. I just wanted to feel him.

“I had no idea a change of clothes would have this effect,” he said, and stepped back. “Keep your lip gloss. For now.”