A Gentleman's Affair (19 page)

She helps me to my feet and takes my arm to
wrap around her shoulder as she places her arm securely around my
waist in an attempt to hold me upright. I think I hear her thanking
everyone for their help, but I can’t be sure.

I’m not sure why she is here. I’m not sure
of how she even found me.

I’m not sure of anything at this point. Ugh,
I need to lie down.

Chapter Nineteen

~The Dilemma~

The harsh morning sun awakens me from a
deep, alcohol-induced sleep. This hotel is in desperate need of
black-out curtains. Fuck. My head feels like it was hit with a
baseball bat. What the hell did I do last night?

It takes a few minutes to actually wake up,
but when it dawns on me that I’m on vacation, I roll over in order
to avoid the sun, rather than actually get up. I just might sleep
all day.

My eyes widen when I see, lying next to
me…Scarlett? She is sleeping peacefully…in MY bed? Here. At the
Venetian. In Las Vegas. What the fuck? I need to back this train
up. What is she doing here?

So do I wake her up or allow her to sleep?
Shit, did we have sex? I lift the covers to check…Hmm… I am fully
dressed and so is she, actually.

Yes, I looked.

Now that we have that settled, and now that
I am fully awake with no chance in hell of going back to sleep, I
slip quietly out of bed and walk across the room towards the
bathroom, in dire need of cold water. Splashed on my face. And…a
lot of it.

I close the bathroom door, standing
motionless for a moment, trying to dissect the situation. Nothing.
My mind is a blank, and my head is pounding.

I splash my face a few times, and as I lean
over the bathroom sink, I suddenly become extremely lightheaded.
Fuck, I need to go back to bed. But I feel like I should just
remain in here for the day.

As I stand with my hand wrapped around the
doorknob, I hear a “cough” coming from the room. She is awake, so
that tells me that it’s time to face the music. What happened last
night? Well, it’s time to find out.

I walk into the room, and I am relieved to
be greeted by a smiling Scarlett and a “good morning”. Good
sign?

“Good morning,” I respond with a smile as I
walk over to the bed and sit down next to Scarlett, who is now
sitting up, yawning.

“Did you sleep alright?”

Did I sleep alright? How about, why are you
in my bed? Answer that. “I did, thank you.” Passed out cold,
actually.

“So, I guess I should explain what I’m doing
here,” she laughs.

“I was just about to ask…”

“Well, I went to see you yesterday morning,
I wanted to explain about the “date”, and you obviously weren’t
there, so Patrice told me that you came here on business and just
happened to mention that you always stay here at the Venetian.
So…here I am.” She lets out a breath then gives me a soft
smile.

“Explain what about the date?” I ask, that
being the only word that I actually heard in all of that.

“Donovan, there was no ‘date’, and please
hear me out before you respond. Okay?”

I nod. “I’m listening.”

“This is hard to admit, you being my boss
and all. But…” She buries her face in her hands for a moment, then
takes a deep breath and continues, “I’m just going to say it.
Donovan, when you asked me to dinner the other night, it hit me
that you were asking me on a date. Not just ‘two friends hanging
out’ this time. I felt it when you asked and well… I guess it
scared me.”

My mind is reeling, and my head is still
pounding, but I promised not to interrupt, so… here I sit, nodding
and listening intently, while my heart begins to beat out of my
chest.

“When I saw the way you reacted to me
telling you that I had a date, it killed me. I don’t know why I
even said it. It was my first reaction I guess. But I wanted you to
know, first of all, how sorry I am that I said it. And second of
all…” She takes in another deep breath. “If you still want to take
me to dinner, that I would love to.” She exhales as if she just has
just made the biggest confession of her life, and maybe she
has.

“Are you finished?” I reply, trying to hold
a serious look on my face.

“Yes, I am.” She smiles softly, searching my
eyes for a clue as to what I might be thinking.

And while she searches, I scoot up towards
her on the bed, place my hand on the side of her cheek while
looking deep into her beautiful brown eyes, and press my lips to
hers, finally giving her the kiss that I have been longing to give
her for the past week…or month. Since the day we met, actually.

Without hesitation, she places her arms
around my neck and returns the kiss with passion and an extremely
sexy soft moan. Our tongues are now involved, and this kiss is
becoming heated.

I have to pull back, because this is not how
I envisioned our first time together should be. And yes, I have
definitely envisioned it…

Old Donovan would throw her down on the bed
and ravish away. New Donovan wants everything, and I do mean
everything, to be different.

So before things go any further and my cock
gets any harder… I break the kiss, stroke her cheek with my thumb,
look deeply into those eyes of hers, and say…“Breakfast?”

She bursts into laughter and replies, “I
could eat.”

I love that this girl has an appetite and
more importantly, a sense of humor.

“Would you like to shower first?” I ask,
noticing a pink suitcase near the bed that clearly is not mine.

“Okay.” She hops off of the bed,
disappearing in the bathroom, taking her suitcase with her.

I walk over to rummage through my suitcase,
hoping that I packed something for the headaches that I had
anticipated…i.e.: hangovers, while I was here.

Good. Found them. I pop the top off and
cross the room to the small refrigerator that sits by the mini-bar.
I take out a bottle of water and swallow four pills, hoping that
they will do the trick.

Scarlett comes out of the bathroom, in a
tight, pale-yellow strapless dress. She is stunning in her dress
that reminds me of butter. Yes butter, all creamy and
smooth…alright, I’ll stop.

“You look beautiful, Scarlett.” Fuck, it
feels good to finally be able to say that out loud.

“Why, thank you kind sir.” She winks. And it
feels good to finally know that when she winks, she means it. I
like today already. Hangover and all, it is a good day.

“I’ll be quick. Don’t go anywhere.” I wink
back, taking a change of clothes into the bathroom, more than ready
to wash the smell of “drunken idiot” off.

After breakfast, we, as in Scarlett and I,
decide that we will be walking the strip and doing some shopping
today. I thought that spending the day sleeping in a lounge chair
by the hotel pool sounded good, but she assured me that I was
wrong.

So we leave the hotel, hand-in-hand by the
way, and begin our foot-blistering walk down the strip.

First stop, Caesar’s. Scarlett has never
been here, so seeing the “live” statues for the first time has been
something that she always wanted to do. I have seen it all a
million times, but never with her, so I happily go along with
whatever her heart desires.

After stopping into a few of the shops, she
realizes that Caesar’s is out of her price range for shopping, so
we go back outside into the blistering heat and intensely packed
sidewalks and walk to the next hotel. Which always looks so close,
but in actuality is quite far, as we have all learned the hard
way.

We finally make our way to New York, New
York, one of my personal favorites, due to food mostly. I always
eat at Il Fornaio when I am here, and they have a great “Greenwich
Village” style food court, which includes Sirrico’s Pizza, where
you get a huge slice that rivals my mom’s homemade pizza. Now,
there is an endorsement if I ever read one. And I don’t get paid to
say so… Tell them that I sent you.

It has been a few hours since we began our
trek down the strip, and I have no problem convincing Scarlett to
join me in a slice of pie. She grabs a table in the courtyard near
Sirrico’s while I get us a couple of slices of pepperoni pizza and
two beers. The hair of the dog… Vacation…still on vacation.

I join her at the table, and her eyes widen
as she sees the size of the slice. I half expect her to go into a
“That’s huge, I can’t eat all of that” rant, but she is Scarlett.
She just says, “Yum,” and digs right in.

“Oh my god, you weren’t kidding,” she says,
still chewing.

“I told you,” I reply, still chewing. We
both burst out into laughter. I like the fact that we aren’t afraid
to be ourselves, talk with our mouths full of pizza, and laugh
about it.

“So should we do some gambling or go right
to Excalibur after we eat?” I ask, mouth not full this time.

“Oooh, lets gamble!” she replies, excitement
all over her beautiful face.

“That sounds good to me.” I think about last
night, suddenly reminded that I won a shit load of money…and…? “You
haven’t talked too much about last night. To be honest the last
thing that I remember was buying drinks for everyone in the VIP
room then…waking up this morning.”

“I’m not surprised,” she says, pausing to
laugh. “Donovan, you were really messed up when I found you.” She
shakes her head in disapproval, but adds a sweet smile.

“Anything that I should know?” I ask,
quirking my brow.

“Not really.” She smiles as she searches her
memory. “Oh. You were singing “Brown-Eyed Girl” pretty loudly on
the elevator…when you made me dance with you.” She busts out in
laughter.

“No, I did not.” I furrow my brow. What a
jackass I am.

“Yes, you did.” She laughs more…and
more.

“Well, happy to entertain you, Scarlett.” I
laugh right along with her and lean across the table for a
kiss.

Just as I open my eyes, there she is. Again.
The cheating whore is standing in line at Sirrico’s. Fuck her and
the plane she flew in on. If she comes over here, I will definitely
lose my shit. Just the sight of her has ruined my appetite. And
nothing ruins my appetite.

“Are you finished?” I ask Scarlett, not
letting on that Danielle is ten feet away, watching us.

“Yep.” She drinks the last sip in her bottle
and stands up with me, reaching for my hand. “So we get to gamble
now?”

“Yes, of course. But why don’t we go to
Excalibur instead. It’s a bit crowded here all of the sudden.”
Thankfully she doesn’t protest. So I take her hand, and we leave
the courtyard, knowing full well that the cheating whore was
staring us down until we were out of sight.

We get to Excalibur and, for some reason, I
feel that we are not far enough away from Danielle yet. I can and
will handle her if need be, I just don’t want or need anything else
to go wrong while I am here. Shaking it off. Back to Scarlett.

She wants to play slots so we find two
machines next to each other and, before she even realizes it, I
have already loaded her machine with a hundred dollar bill.

“Donovan…you didn’t have to do that. I have
money.” She puts her arms around me, rewarding me with a very…very
nice thank you kiss before she sits down. “And thank you.”

“You continue to kiss me like that, and I
will continue to throw one hundred dollar bills your way,” I reply
with a smirk, and we both start to laugh.

After about two hours of gambling, Scarlett
is up a few hundred dollars, and she decides that now that she has
what she refers to as “bonus money”, we really need to go shopping.
So we leave Excalibur and start the trek back down the strip.

The strip is now lit up, and the sidewalks
are even more packed than they were earlier…tourists no longer
poolside since the night air has brought the temperature down a few
degrees.

We make it as far as Paris, where she
finally gets to buy a few things, and we go to the top of the
“Eiffel Tower” to view the strip. She starts complaining about her
feet hurting, asking if we can take a cab back down to “our end”. I
am more than happy to oblige, and I agree with her. My feet were
actually starting to hurt a little, as well.

So we take the cab as far as Harrah’s, since
it is right next to The Venetian, and they have outdoor vendors
that remain up fairly late. Scarlett and I get out of the cab, and
her face lights up when she sees all the wares that she has to
choose from here.

“Oooh, shopping!” she squeals. She
practically bolts towards the first booth. We are now looking at
purses, and she finally decides on one that is dripping in
crystals. I pull out my wallet and offer to pay, but she refuses me
and hands the vendor cash before I can protest.

“Bonus money, remember?” She winks at me,
before moving on.

“Right,” I laugh and follow her to the next
booth. And the next and the next.

We stop at the outdoor bar for a cold drink
and are lucky to find an empty table. As we weave through the
crowd, some drunk, staggering girl slams into me, spilling my drink
down my shirt.

“’Scuse me,” she blurts out in her
incoherent state.

“Don’t worry about it,” I respond with a
forced smile.

“Donovan, you are soaked,” Scarlett says,
taking the napkin that was wrapped around her drink, trying to sop
up the alcohol from my shirt.

“The Venetian is really close. I think I’ll
just go change. Do you want to come with me?”

“No, go ahead. I’ll wait for you right here,
if that’s okay?” She sets down her bags on what was supposed to my
chair and sits down in the one right next to it.

“Are you sure?” I scan the area before I
go.

“Donovan, I’m a big girl. Go change.” She
shoots me one of her famous winks, and I bend down to give her a
kiss. “I won’t be long, beautiful.”

“Okay.” She smiles as I walk in the
direction of the hotel.