So, how was your date?”

I’m still reeling from the epiphany that I am in love with this man I know so little about, and he tosses a proverbial glass of water in my face. I should be used to his sharp edges by now; I don’t even know why I’m surprised.

For whatever reason, those sharp edges don’t bother me though. They still manage to surprise me, but I consider it part of the Sin package deal at this point. Experiencing some level of arousal and/or intimacy? Brace for him to throw something unpleasant your way and try to kill the mood. I wonder if it might be a subconscious way of trying to push me away, which brings me back to wondering what kind of relationship issues he might have. I guess if I’m in love with this jagged-edged maniac, I should probably learn those things about him.

Right now I’m more interested in learning every curve of his body. I love lying here like this with him—even if he’s hurling unpleasantness at me. I’ll show him how well I can duck and miss every barb he lobs at me.

“It wasn’t a date,” I tell him, tracing shapes on his bare chest with my index finger.

He cocks an eyebrow, his tragically beautiful face the very picture of skepticism. “No? Seems like it was.”

“I don’t think it would have ended with me sucking your dick if it had been a date,” I point out, smiling mildly.

He doesn’t seem mad, but I can’t quite put a finger on what he’s exuding. “Where did he take you?”

I squirm, but I don’t want to leave his embrace, so I stay here despite the mild discomfort. “A couple bookstores, a botanical garden, private helicopter ride over and into the Grand Canyon, then we had a picnic lunch. He didn’t bring dessert and I’m a big fan of dessert, so we went to the strip, strolled around Paris and New York for a bit, and when we had room, we hit up a bakery for strawberry shortcakes.”

Sin is quiet for a few seconds, then he says, “So, not a date—six dates. Got it.”

“We were just hanging out, Sin. It was zero dates,” I say, squeezing him a little tighter. “He knows I like you. It was not a date, I swear.”

He doesn’t buy that at all. “It was six dates rolled into one day. He took you to the Grand Canyon in a helicopter, Laurel.”

My stomach sinks, but I don’t know how to argue with that, so I give him a puppy dog pout instead. “Please don’t be mad at me. I thought about you all day. I wanted to text you, but I didn’t know if I was allowed. I had no idea he was going to take me to do all that stuff. Besides, you told me to go with him. I would have told him no and stayed home if you hadn’t. If you aren’t comfortable with me spending time with him, I won’t do it again.”

“I’m not mad at you, Laurel; I was just asking how your day went.”

“But you keep saying it was a date.”

“It was a marathon date. He pulled out all the stops. Did he try anything? Did he kiss you? Touch you?”

I’m bothered by the way he asks—not so much in the jealous way you might expect of a man lying in bed with you, asking about the day you spent with his rival for your affections. His tone is calm, but then I guess that’s probably better than an irate asshole who flies off the handle.

It’s just, I sort of feel like he has a right to be mad if I consented to going on a date with Rafe. I wouldn’t be lying here with him if I wanted someone else.

Seeking to reassure him even if he’s pretending he doesn’t need it, I say, “Nope. Casual touches, but he didn’t try to kiss me or anything like that.”

With a knowing nod, Sin says, “He will. He’s going to start coming after you hard.”

That makes my heart ache. I don’t want Sin to feel like he can’t trust me, or that Rafe is a threat to whatever we’re building here. It makes me feel even worse because of the conflicted feelings I had in the Grand Canyon, when even I got a little wobbly.

There’s no wobble now. I know exactly how I feel about Sin, even if I can’t always tell how he feels about me. Sin makes me feel free in a way I never have, understood in a way I didn’t even know I wanted. Lying here in each other’s arms like this, there’s nowhere else I would rather be. I need to reassure him—I want him to make me his. I want to see where this goes, because I love where it has gone so far.

Hooking my leg over his, I round up all my nerve and tell Sin, “So give him a reason not to.”

Sin meets my gaze. “What?”

“Right now he can come after me, right? Because I’m single. Because when I refer to us, I don’t know what to call it. Because he sees this as just a hook-up.”

I can’t read Sin’s expression, so I don’t know what he’s thinking. This is scary enough when you know the other person is on board, scary enough when you haven’t told yourself for days that your situation is okay because it is just casual, but what am I supposed to do? The way I feel for Sin isn’t going away. Maybe I don’t know what I’m doing or what I’m agreeing to, and it could certainly be a mistake, but maybe Sin is right. Maybe if I want the role of a lifetime, I have to put my money where my mouth is. Maybe Sin is a gamble, maybe staying in Vegas is a horrible mistake, but I’ll never know if I don’t give it a shot.

Taking Sin’s hand and linking our fingers together, I meet his gaze, even though it terrifies me to do so. I hold on for dear life and make the leap. “Make me not single. Make me yours.”

Something like a smile tugs at the corners of Sin’s lips. He shakes his head slightly, then brings our entwined hands up to his lips so he can place a soft kiss on the back of my hand. “That wouldn’t make him want you less, Laurel. Rafe likes to chase what he can’t have. The higher out of his reach it is, the more appealing it looks to him. Thinking I want you is what took him from ‘get the fuck out of my town, I never want to see you again’ to pursuing you full-force in just a few days. I told you Rafe likes competition. I thought it went without saying he ultimately wants to win.”

“Well, it’s not up to him,” I point out. “It’s up to me. I’m not a prize, I’m a person. I’m not awarded to the best player; I go where I want, and I want to be with you.”

His words could be mean, but his tone is gentler than it usually is. “You barely know me.”

“I know enough,” I insist. “I know it’s a little crazy, but you’re the one that said fuck what people think, I should do what feels right. Well, this feels right. You feel right. More right than anything ever has. It doesn’t make sense, but maybe it doesn’t need to. Maybe I’m supposed to follow my heart instead of my head this time.”

Now he drops my gaze. “Laurel…”

My heart stops. That’s not the face of someone who is on the same page I’m on. Even logic tells me that the man who just had his face buried between my legs surely likes me, at least to some degree. But the hesitation in his tone causes my blood to run cold. Even though I’m confident he likes me, it doesn’t sound like he wants to keep me.

He has said too many things that led me to believe otherwise, so I can’t quite swallow that. Hell, he expressed interest in me despite me being knocked up by someone else. He said that wouldn’t be an issue for him, commented on my breasts growing like he would be there to see it.

Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. Maybe that isn’t what his hesitation means. I don’t know how to ask, though. I’ve already put myself out there beyond what’s comfortable; the ball is sort of in his court now. I need something from him, but I have a sinking feeling I won’t get it.

There’s really no going back from here, is there? I can’t open my mouth and shove the words back inside. I can’t go on after asking to be his, knowing that’s not what he wants, and still be able to do the things I have done with him as recently as a few minutes ago.

If he shoots me down, that’s it. I don’t understand, I don’t know why, but if he doesn’t like me enough to date me when I like him enough to risk my whole world by staying here and seeing if we can build something together… well, that really tells me all I need to know, doesn’t it?

I despise the next words out of my mouth, but they spill out anyway. “Don’t you like me?” I ask it with a smile, hoping that will camouflage my vulnerability, but it only accentuates it.

His hand caresses my jawline, his eyes softening with something like regret. “Of course I like you, Laurel. You made me like you. But I wasn’t supposed to.”

“Well, I wasn’t supposed to like you either,” I tell him, stroking his arm as he caresses my face. “But here we are. I guess we’re just a couple of rebels. I say, let’s embrace it. Let’s run with it. I have a couple months to play with—school doesn’t start back until late August; that gives us plenty of time to see if this wears off. I love being with you. You haven’t even kissed me, and I’m already crazier about you than I’ve ever been about anyone. I know that’s a severely uncool thing to admit, but it’s true. I’m completely smitten. This is far from what I expected when I came here, but… I’m falling, Sin, and I only want you to catch me.”

My stomach hurts, but maybe your stomach is supposed to hurt when you go all-in.

Maybe it’s not the size of the bet that’s terrifying me, but the look on his face. There are no teammates in this game, only opponents. I made a wild bet on a few hastily drawn cards, but dammit, I have faith in them. I have faith in him. I have this strong feeling that I can have something magical with him, something I’ll never have with anyone else…

Only, right now, I’m not getting the feeling he wants the same thing. His hand drops from my jawline, easing around to cradle my head as he smoothly pulls me into his arms. This could be a safe place—in fact, it is, when Rafe does it—but safe is the last thing I feel right now. This feels like comfort, like soothing, like an apology without all the noise. Leave it to Sin to apologize without a single word right before he breaks my heart.

“You’re not for me, Laurel.”

“I can be,” I insist.

He pulls me back so he can look down at me, but the sympathy on his face is horrible. “You’re so young.”

“Don’t do that. You’re seven years older than me. That’s nothing.”

“I don’t mean in years,” he says, simply. “Your heart is still tender and impressionable. You’re still capable of thinking you’ve fallen in love in just a few days.”

He’s said a lot of mean shit to me since we met, but nothing as mean as that. I want to stop him. I want to ask him not to do this, not to push me away, not to take a wrecking ball to all the feelings I’ve already grown around him, but I know it’s too late. I can already see the ball swinging; I know we’re only moments from demolition, and I’m already living inside a memory.

One more experience I don’t get to keep.

I want to blame the pregnancy for tears that well up in my eyes, but I think they would fall either way.

“I don’t want to make you cry,” he says, but in the way that conveys he knows he will. As sure as the sun will rise in the morning, Sin is going to hurt me right now.

“If I couldn’t be for you, why do any of this?” I demand. “Why would you toy with me if you had no interest in seeing it through? I’m not being crazy. You’ve said things to me…”

He pushes himself up in the bed so he’s sitting instead of lying here with me. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. None of this was supposed to happen. I didn’t think… I mean, it was only a few days. None of this should have happened. It wasn’t my intention.”

For all the sounds coming out of his mouth, he’s not saying much of anything.

“What was your intention?” I demand.

For what seems like a million moments, he doesn’t answer me. He avoids my gaze and I want to tell him he’s a coward, but I’m too afraid he has a Hail Mary up his sleeve. I know it’s absolutely hopeless, but some small part of me wants the next words out of his mouth to be an awful confession, followed up by a change of heart. He didn’t intend for any of this to happen… but it has, and he does have feelings for me, and he’s not about to shut me out. I don’t need things to make sense right now; I just need it to stop feeling like the beautiful thing I want to build with him is already crashing down all around me.

His tone is subdued when he finally speaks, like he’s reading a grocery list. I tell myself he had to remove himself emotionally because what he’s about to say is so horrible, but maybe he’s just a fucking sociopath and I’ve been wearing blinders these few days.

“Rafe liked you, but you lost his interest when you told him you were pregnant. You weren’t going to get it back. It wasn’t your fault, it was nothing you’d done, it wasn’t even because you were wrong for him, it’s because you came bundled with the last thing in the world he wanted to deal with. He needed something to wake him up, to get him to look at you again and see what’s really there. Not to look at you and see a problem, a pregnancy he doesn’t want, but to see you and your value. The fastest and most effective way to do it was to make you something he couldn’t have. To take you off the table, make you something he missed out on. He had to lose you to see you were worth hanging onto, and… well, if you caught my interest, that would catch his attention even if you’d never been his. I don’t get romantically involved with women. If a vegetarian gave it all up to taste a single steak, wouldn’t you wonder what’s so damn great about that piece of meat?”

It takes me a minute to sift through all this information, to distill it until I have a concise summary. I want to believe I’m getting it wrong, or that he’s lying, but right now he’s telling me the realest thing I have ever felt has been complete and utter bullshit right from the start, and I don’t know how to digest that.

“You’ve been playing me. Like my life is a game. Like my feelings are…” I shake my head, unable to even grasp at a word to adequately express my horror. “This was all playacting for you?”

“I wasn’t playacting, Laurel. I just didn’t give you all the facts.”

“You’re a monster,” I state, staring him straight in the eye. “You’re a monster.”

Whatever part of him was still open to me, that still wanted to take the sting out of this, it shutters as soon as I say that. Even his tone is colder as he pulls back the blanket and pushes his legs over his side of the bed. “I fucking kidnapped you, Laurel; did you expect me to be a good guy?”

“There’s not being a good guy and then there’s this,” I tell him, throwing my legs over my side of the bed and climbing off. My legs don’t feel completely up to the job of holding me up, but I shakily make my way across the floor to grab my panties. I flush with mortification as I pick them up now, knowing what I know, still feeling the evidence of our intimacy between my legs.

Oh, my God.

“How could you—I did things with you that—” I shake my head, my stomach rolling. “We almost had sex. You would have fucked me when you didn’t give half a damn? When you were just, what, babysitting me until Rafe came around? What if he never did, huh? You were feeding me all this bullshit, trying to convince me to keep a pregnancy you knew I didn’t want, making me think… making me think stupid fucking thoughts, and you were just manipulating me! You didn’t mean any of it. You pushed me into making huge, important life decisions—” I stop, remembering him saying just yesterday that maybe he was already making my decisions for me.

When I turn to look at him, he has pulled on sweats. I’m glad. As much as I enjoyed the sight of him naked ten minutes ago, just looking at any part of him right now feels like someone is thrusting a flaming sword right through my lungs.

“I’m a fool,” I finally surmise.

“You’re not a fool,” he states, shortly. “You’re young. You’re open. You’re not used to being around people like us.”

I shake my head slowly, those words weighing on me like they never have before. “If this is what being one of you means, I never want to be.”

“That’s fine,” he mutters. “Be better. Be whatever you want. Say what you will about my methods, they worked. Four days ago Rafe never wanted to see you again, now he’s bending over backward to win back your affection. Hate me all you want right now; you’ll be grateful when you’re dancing at your wedding.”

“Fuck you,” I fling back.

Because he’s a miserable fucking bastard, he cocks an eyebrow and gives me a mean little smile. “No, that’s one thing you won’t get to do. Sorry.”

That’s so cruel, it knocks the wind right out of me. I look around for something to throw at him. I find a lamp, so I rip it out of the wall and lob it at him.

“What the fuck?” he mutters, ducking just in time for it to go sailing past him. The damn thing doesn’t even shatter; it just hits the carpeted floor with a dull thud.

I grab the nude heels on my feet one at a time and throw them at him next. I miss him the first time, but as he dodges the flying objects, he also heads toward me. I hit him with the second shoe because he’s at such close range, but he doesn’t even seem fazed. He walks straight at me, catching me by the wrists and forcing me back against the wall.

“Stop that shit right now,” he commands.

“I hate you,” I tell him, narrowing my eyes.

“Good,” he murmurs. “That’ll make it easier.”

I’m so full of hatred and hurt, I can scarcely breathe, but my body hasn’t caught up. Being cornered by him like this, my back against the wall, his strong hands like vices around my wrists… fuck, I still want him. I’m a fool, and I’m furious at myself for it, but I couldn’t turn him away if he wavered right now. If this closeness felt like something to him too, if he changed his mind, backed down from this stupid idea. If he told me to be his right now, I still would.

I’ve already bet my last chip, so I borrow just enough to meet his gaze and tell him, “I don’t want to be his.”

Sin holds my gaze, but his poker face doesn’t budge. “You’ve always been his,” he tells me, quietly. “Why do you think I haven’t fucked you, Laurel? Because it will be easier for him. Because when he grills you about our time together, now you can tell him I was never inside you and you won’t be lying.”

Somehow, that’s the worst thing he’s said to me yet. Doesn’t he know he was already inside me? I just told him. Maybe not physically, but he slithered inside my heart, and now he’s coiled around it, wringing every last drop of happiness from that disgraceful organ. I fight to break his grip, and he lets me because he thinks I’m going to move away from him. I am, but before I do, I slap him right across the face.

His jaw locks and my palm stings, but otherwise he doesn’t respond.

I swallow, take a breath, and move away from him. My heart, my pride, my ability to trust—they’re all in tatters, strewn across his bedroom floor, but it doesn’t matter. Before I humiliate myself by crying in front of him again, I cross the room, step into my panties, and slip my feet into the little white boots he gave me. Perhaps it’s fitting that there’s nothing left that’s mine on my body, but I won’t stay here long enough to collect my things. Whatever poor bitch left her things in the lair of this heartless beast, I’m sure her shoes are the least of what she’s missing after loving this empty, soulless pit.

I pull my phone out of my purse and try not to fall apart as I summon my escape.

I stiffen when I hear Sin’s voice behind me. “What are you doing?”

I sniffle as quietly as I’m able and clear my throat. “Texting Rafe. Telling him to come back to gather up his winnings,” I state, bitingly.

He doesn’t say anything more.

I don’t really expect him to.

This was his end game anyway, wasn’t it? Let him enjoy his victory for a few minutes. Apparently that means more to him than I did.

I shut myself inside the bathroom and try to rid myself of him. I don’t want to still be able to feel his tongue moving inside me, to feel this heaviness he left in my heart. Most importantly, I guess, I don’t want to see these horrible tear tracks on my puffy, red face, the evidence that I’m a girl dumb enough to offer her heart to a monster who never had any interest in it.

I am startled to find him in the hall outside the door waiting for me, but my fight or flight senses are too numb right now, so I don’t show it.

“I’m leaving,” I say, needlessly. “I told Rafe I’d be waiting outside. Don’t follow me.”

Not that he would anyway, but at least he nods instead of telling me that.

Shoving my purse strap on my shoulder, I pull myself up tall and walk down the stairs for the last time. I hear him fiddling with the alarm behind me as I approach the front door, and it makes me unexpectedly sad. The sound of him disarming his alarm means he had already locked up for the night; it means he had no intention for this to happen—not yet, at least. It means I could have had one more night curled up in his arms, oblivious to my own insignificance.

I get the door shut before I start sobbing, but just barely. Since I’m outside now, I don’t have to keep it in; I can let the pain out. There’s no one around to see my breath hitching, to hear me struggle to breathe because I’m crying so hard.

Thank God there are no witnesses to this.

I don’t stop at the end of Sin’s driveway. I keep walking until I’m a couple houses down, and that’s right about when the white sedan coasts to a stop on the road beside me. I use the palms of my hands to scrub away my tears, take a deep breath, and pull my shit together so I can open the back door.

A friendly-looking kid a little older than me peers back, smiling until he sees the state I’m in. A little more awkwardly than he probably would have if not for my being a complete shit show right now, he says, “Uh, Laurel Price?”

I nod my head, clearing my throat and climbing in the car. “Yes, that’s me. Sorry.”

“No problem,” he says, forcing a smile. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I tell him, closing the door.

The kid nods and checks his rearview mirror. Even though I shouldn’t, I’m feeling a little paranoid. It’s not like Sin would watch out the window to make sure Rafe picked me up—he had no reason to believe I was lying to him, and since he doesn’t give a fuck about me, he wouldn’t do it out of some sentimental desire to have one last look.

Well, he also doesn’t think it was his last look. He thinks his awful plan worked, that I’ve won Rafe’s attention, and now that Sin has rejected me, I will slink back into Rafe’s arms, seeking the comfort he would happily offer after the lovely day we had.

I don’t think so, asshole.

I’m not a fucking hot potato; you don’t get to pass me around when you’re done with me.

“Can we get moving?” I ask my Uber driver.

He nods, shifting his car out of park and touching the gas so we finally start rolling down the road, away from Sin’s house. “Of course. Heading to the airport, right?”

I reach for my seatbelt, stretching it across my body. As it clicks, I say, “Yes, that’s right.”

It’s quiet for a few minutes, then my driver tries to make small talk. Asks if this was my first time in Vegas. Light-heartedly tells me how he hopes I didn’t get caught up in the fun and gamble more than I could afford.

Smiling without humor, I tell him, “Unfortunately, I did.”

“Aw, man, that sucks. I’m sorry.”

I shrug, looking out the window. “At least I had the experience, I guess.”

“That’s true,” he says, more than willing to look on the bright side with me. It’s not his loss, after all. “There’s really no other place like Vegas, is there?”

“God, I hope not,” I mutter.

He laughs a little uneasily, but thankfully seems to accept that the girl with the tearstains on her cheeks probably doesn’t want him to make small talk, so he shuts his friendly mouth and leaves me alone to reflect. To think about the wonderful time I must have had this week, about the real world I have to go back to now, maybe about the consequences I’ll have to face. Whatever monetary loss he imagines, I am envious of the Laurel who lives in his mind. The one who came to Vegas and only lost a little cash.

Money you can recoup. Money you can earn more of. What I’ve lost here comes from a finite well. I may have only spent a few days in this town, but the experiences I’ve had here will leave an imprint on me that I’ll feel much longer than I would a financial loss. Maybe the rest of my life.

So funny how fifteen minutes ago I thought I might stay here. I was so fooled by the hospitality, so swept up in the game; I thought there was a place for me at the table.

What a fool I’ve been. I should have run away from this place at the very first opportunity. The first moment Sin let his guard down enough to let me out in public, I should have excused myself to the restroom and hauled ass out of this place.

I was seduced by Sin. All the sins, every last offering. Even now, still feeling the pain so acutely, I can remember the high. I can remember all I stood to win, how sure I was that I would have it all—right before the ball landed in the wrong slot and all my chips were raked off the table.

The problem with gambling is that the longer you play, the greater the likelihood you’ll lose. I may not like the feeling of being a temporary player in their high stakes world, I may have fallen for the flash and bet far more than I could afford to lose, but there’s one thing I know.

Even if you’ve lost all you came with, the only way you win is to walk away from the table. The house has deep pockets, and if you keep trying to recoup your losses, you’ll end up so deep in the hole you’ll never be able to dig your way out.

I came, I played, and I lost; now it’s time to cash in, go home, and dig myself out of the hole while I still can.