ACE: Las Vegas Bad Boys (29 page)

“Any time,” I say, meaning it. “Although, it is pretty fucking early in the morning. You always get up this time of day?”

“I do.” She doesn’t expound on the early hour. Instead she explains the hook-up. “It needed to happen, you know—you and I finishing what we started. Otherwise, I think I’d always have wondered about it,” she admits. “And this way, when I see you at work, it doesn’t have to be awkward.”

“There is literally nothing awkward about you,” I tell her. The knock on the door has me pulling on a robe, and letting in the breakfast cart.

A few minutes later, she and I sit in bed with bacon and eggs. She uses a fork and knife, and cuts each bite with the precision of an English lady. A napkin is across her bare thigh, and she literally raises a pinky as she sips her coffee.

Watching her eat, I can’t help but realize she really is the most laid-back woman I’ve ever been with. She isn’t high maintenance. She isn’t annoying. She’s polite, has manners, and knows how to dance.

An idea formulates in my mind and, the instant it does, I know it’s the most ingenious idea I’ve ever had. I know exactly how I can show my parents that I’ve become a solid, reliable son.

Obviously they won’t know I’m being dishonest.

“So,” I say, spreading jam on my toast. “Do you have any plans next week?”

“Just work,” she says, smiling at me. “Mostly.”

We could work around work. Hell, with what I was prepared to offer her, she might not need to work for quite a while.

“Do you have a passport?” I ask, wondering how tricky my idea might be to play out.

“A what?”

“A passport. A little blue book documenting your country of residence?”

“I know what it is.”

“I wasn’t implying you didn’t,” I tell her, realizing this might be a tricky proposition. I don’t want to offend her.

“I do have a passport. Which is ridiculous.” She waves her hands in the air as if somehow I would know why it’s so insane for her to have identification to travel.

“How so?”

“I’ve never used it.”

“Really?” I try to not sound surprised. I shouldn’t be. I know it costs money to travel. And, by the looks of things, Claire doesn’t have loads of that.

“When I was little, I used to dream about traveling and going to the places I read about. So when I turned eighteen the first thing I did was apply for a passport. I thought that as an adult I could do anything, go anywhere.”

“What happened?” I ask, shifting my body closer to hers on the bed.

“Life?” Claire smiles sadly, as if wistful memories are all she has of her still-unlived life.

I want to wipe that look away. I want to make Claire happy, to see her smile a real smile.

“How old are you, Claire?” I ask.

“Twenty-four.”

“Well, I’m twenty-seven. And I sure as hell hope there’s time left to travel, to use the bloody passport. To see those forgotten dreams.”

“Look at you,” she says, patting my knee. “Being all sweet to me.”

“I mean it.” I take her hand in mine, and look in her emerald green eyes, straight on. “Claire, what would you say if I offered you a one week job opportunity?”

“I already have a job.”

“Well, this job would be in England. At my family estate. If we succeed in our job, you would be paid one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

She laughs and then, when she realizes I’m not joking, her eyes narrow in on me. “And what is the job I’d be doing?”

“You’d be my one-week fiancé.”

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