Waking Up in Vegas (2 page)

And with her stomach doing some serious complaining, life was also too short to reject a good meal, no matter how awkward the circumstances. Who knew when she was ever going to afford to eat at the Mandarin again?

Pulling on her metaphoric big girl pants, she sat across from Max at the table and spread the real linen napkin across her lap. No paper napkins here.

And the bacon was every bit as good as it smelled. Like a good girl, she drank the glass of orange juice Max handed her. He was right about one thing; she felt a whole lot better with the food and juice inside her. It certainly beat her usual bowl of cereal, eaten standing up in her elbow-room-only kitchenette. And the view was way better, without looking at what lay beyond the windows. Wasn’t it just her luck that she pulled the most gorgeous man she’d ever met, and she couldn’t remember any of it?

When they were done, Max cleared away the plates and poured the coffee. Fresh, full-roasted coffee with cream. Phoenix couldn’t help but lick her lips in anticipation.

Max rocked his chair back as he sipped his coffee. “So what shall we do today?”

“I need to get to work.” Or anywhere but here. Besides, if this was really tomorrow, then she was supposed to switch to the day shift today.

“No, you don’t. Khara offered to take your shift today, remember? After all, we’re on honeymoon.”

Khara was in on this? Phoenix was going to wring her neck as soon as she got back to work. Friends weren’t supposed to let friends drive drunk. Or get married while drunk, either.

She swigged down a mouthful of fortifying caffeine. “Well now, that’s kind of the problem. I don’t remember.”

Max’s forehead furrowed. “What don’t you remember?”

“Everything. Anything. The last thing I remember was you offering to buy me a drink in the pool hall.”

She wished she had a camera for the expression on his face.
Floored
didn’t even begin to cover it.

Then a smile crinkled the edges of his eyes. He obviously smiled often, because the crinkles deepened so naturally. “I guess I’ll have to remind you, then.”

With a grace she could only hope to emulate, he rocked his chair forward and grasped her seat with both hands, yanking her closer.

He wasn’t even touching her, yet his proximity sent a rush of static heat through her. And when he slid a rough hand up her thigh, parting the robe … now she understood why she’d married him. Endorphin city. The sex must have been the best of her life. She damned well hoped her memory returned soon, because there wasn’t going to be a repeat performance anytime soon.

She pushed his hand away and clamped the front of her robe closed. Clamped her knees shut too, but that was more to ward off the sudden wave of desire shooting through her. He had her wet and needy and all he’d done was touch her leg.

She shifted her chair away from him, far enough away that she could breathe again, and reached for her coffee cup. “So tell me about yourself.”

His brow furrowed again. “You seriously don’t remember anything from last night?”

She shook her head.

He blew out his breath, grinned and stuck out his hand. “Hi, my name is Max. It’s a pleasure to meet you Miss…?”

“
Ms.
Montgomery.” She couldn’t help but smile back. He had that kind of infectious grin that was really hard to resist. “But you can call me Phoenix.”

“Interesting name. Is it your real name or a nickname?”

“I’m not telling. At least not until we’ve dated at least six months.” And none of her relationships ever lasted that long.

“Okay. But if you prefer, I can always call you Georgiana.”

She flushed all the way down to the roots of her hair. How much had she told this complete stranger yesterday? She never told anyone her real name. “Since I’m obviously at the disadvantage here, I don’t suppose we could speed this up a little? Like full name, place of birth, age, job description?”
The reason why I married a complete stranger?

He eyed her for a long moment and she resisted the urge to squirm. For a mad second she thought he was weighing something up and deciding how much to tell her. God, she hoped he wasn’t a con man. That would be awkward if she was left with the bill for this fancy suite. She didn’t think her life savings would stretch to breakfast, let alone a night in this hotel.

Then he smiled, mouth wide, eyes crinkling, and her heart thundered against her chest. With a smile like that, it was amazing he was still single. Well, single enough to marry her, of course.

Assuming he wasn’t some Mormon with three wives back home. Was bigamy legal here in Nevada?

“Max Waldburg. I was born in a tiny principality in Europe you won’t have heard of, my age is on our marriage contract, and I work for my grandfather on his farm.”

Farm. Napa. Something clicked. “A vineyard. You make wine.”

“I’m a vintner, yes. Five years of studying viticulture, and a whole lot more as an apprentice to my grandfather, and the critics say I’m getting quite good at it.”

He reached for her hand, and this time she didn’t push him away. His touch was more than a caress; it was as if she stood in a rainbow, in a shaft of sunlight on a cold day.

“You’ll love it there. The farmhouse has a wrap-around veranda and a kitchen the size of forever. You can stand at the front door and look out over the entire valley and see nothing but vines and trees. At sunset, it’s truly magical.”

She’d married a poet. That figured. She always managed to attract men with very little grasp on reality. “You were born in Europe, but your family’s American?”

“My mother’s family is American. My father was from Europe, but he’s dead now. He died a few weeks ago.”

“I’m sorry. My father died recently too.” And this was the first time she’d thought of him all morning. She’d been awake nearly an hour and not once had the familiar grief overwhelmed her. Max might have his uses after all.

He squeezed her hand. “I know. That’s what drew us together in the first place.”

She didn’t need to ask what drew them together in the
second
place. The delicious static buzzing between them spoke for itself. And if she didn’t put a little space between them very quickly, she was going to find out first-hand how good the sex had been. She wasn’t usually a girl who slept with a guy she didn’t know. At least, not when she was sober.

She pulled her hand out of his and slid off the chair, away from him. Pacing the floor was preferable to being seduced by the deepest, darkest blue eyes she’d ever seen.

Blonde hair, blue eyes, tanned skin. He would make a good surfer boy if he ever decided to give up farming.

“So we signed a marriage contract?”

He laughed. “It’s on the side table. Knock yourself out.” The idiom sounded quaint in his subtle accent. She took advantage of his offer and leapt at the envelope on the small table he indicated. The papers inside seemed genuine. And that really was her signature, messy beside his large, looping, slightly old-fashioned scrawl.

“Is there a pre-nup?”

“We won’t need one.” His confidence bordered on arrogance. “There hasn’t been a divorce in my family in over three hundred years.”

She had news for him. She could only track back two generations of her family, and there hadn’t been a divorce in any of them that she knew of either. But that didn’t mean there couldn’t be a first time.

On the plus side, her impetuous little marriage could be her ticket out of a dingy motel in Vegas. Max had wealth and privilege written all over him. “So what’s your big plan for our future?”

He leaned back in his chair, lips curling in a smile. Did anything bother him? Did he ever stop smiling?

“We’ll go back to Napa, of course. And we’ll make wine, and enjoy the sunshine, and clean air and good food. We’ll have a family, and we’ll grow old together.”

Phoenix was ready to stick her finger down her throat. Stay in one place the rest of her life and grow old there? Stay with one man, forsaking all others? Over her dead body.

She dealt with the easiest issue first. “Why do I have to uproot myself and move to Napa? You could move here.”

“Because I have responsibilities in Napa, to my grandfather, to everyone who works on the farm. You don’t. Last night you told me Napa was as good a place to live as any.”

She rolled her eyes. “I was obviously out of my mind last night. I
like
not being responsible for anyone or anything.” Or
to
anyone. As long as she showed up for work every day and didn’t spill drinks on the customers as they threw their life savings into the slot machines, her life was her own, to do with as she pleased.

Max leaned back. “That’s a rather selfish way to live, don’t you think?”

“Of course it’s selfish. And I’m perfectly happy with that, thank you very much. So how do we go about getting a divorce?”

That wiped the smile off his face pretty quick. “I just told you there hasn’t been a divorce in my family for over three hundred years.”

“Then you’d better start making plans to have me bumped off, because there is no way in hell I’m going to settle down and play happy families with you. If the choice is between life as a soccer mom driving an SUV in the suburbs, and death, then it’s a very easy choice.”

“Who says it has to be either?” He laughed, and her tolerance level jumped from mild irritation to flat out anger.

She waved the papers in her hand. “This marriage is a mistake. Commitment is the quickest way to end a good relationship, and we don’t even have that.” Not to mention that it committed you to only one person, and where was the fun in that? No more waking up in strange hotel rooms and trying to climb out through windows? Thanks, but she’d skip it.

He frowned. “You don’t really believe that.”

“You don’t have a clue what I believe.”

“Last night we talked about having dreams. About a shared life together. I’d never met anyone before who wanted the same things I did until I met you.”

“Last night was last night, but this morning you’re dealing with
me
.”

His voice was low and soft. “You’re still the same woman you were last night, Phoenix.”

She shook her head, refusing to listen. Bad move. The headache still pressing at her temples thumped harder against her skull with the movement. “I know I have a tendency to be impulsive, but I don’t go around marrying strange men, and marriage is definitely not something on my Bucket List.”

Max pushed himself up off his chair. “No, what’s on your bucket list is to see the world. As soon as the harvest is in, we can do that. Together. Starting in Europe, as we discussed last night.”

Okay, so she’d pretty much told him everything. Parents dead, check. Dreams and ambitions, check. Real name, check.

Even Khara, who she’d worked with – and partied with – for nearly two months didn’t know more about her than her favourite music and movies. And she considered Khara one of the best friends she’d had in years.

Phoenix needed something stronger than coffee to deal with this. But since it couldn’t be more than…she glanced out the window…ten in the morning, she’d have to settle for the sofa and resting her fevered head in her hands.

Even if she could magically grow wings and fly out of this suite, she’d have to stay. There was no way she could run away from this. Not until there were signed divorce papers next those marriage papers.

Max came to sit beside her on the sofa, but he didn’t touch her. “Can I get you anything for your headache? Do you want to go back to bed?”

“Yes.” One form of escape was as good as another. Then as that infernal smile tugged at his lips, she added: “alone.”

Why waste such nice sheets and pillows? She could have a nap, and when the headache was gone they could have a rational conversation about getting divorced. And if she was going to sleep, it might as well be here in luxury, rather than in the motel where she could hear the couple next door bickering through the walls all day and all night. They’d lived there going on six years now. That was the thing with couples. They tended to get stuck in a rut, in a dead end. She wasn’t ever going to get caught in a rut. She wasn’t planning on staying in either the dead-end motel, the dead-end job or even this dead-end city, for more than a few months.

Besides, she’d come here for the memories, a final adieu to her parents before setting off alone into the wide world. But her parents weren’t here. Vegas had changed since they’d lived here.
She’d
changed.

There was never any point in going back, only moving forward.

She struggled up from the sofa, but Max was quicker. He caught her up in his arms and, ignoring her protest, carried her back to the bedroom. “Second time I get to carry you across the threshold.” His voice was low and husky, right by her ear.

“Please tell me we didn’t follow every cheesy wedding custom? If we were married at a drive-through or by Elvis, I think I might throw up.”

“Pink Cadillac, Elvis in a white suit, and everything.”

She must have turned green, because he laughed, a deep rumble against her chest. “That was a joke. Except for the glitter guns, it was classy and intimate. And very, very private.”

“I don’t suppose you have pictures?” Not that she planned to keep a scrapbook of the occasion, but maybe they’d trigger a memory…

“No pictures.” He smiled, and this time she had the distinct impression he was smiling at some secret. Almost gloating.

She narrowed her eyes. There was something she was missing here.

“Shall I tell you a bedtime story?” An odd way to divert her, but she nodded. No-one had told her a bedtime story since she was ten and her mother died. Since Dad almost always worked nights, she’d usually been tucked away to sleep in some dingy dressing room, or in the corner of a brightly-lit green room. Dad always said it was her greatest accomplishment: the ability to sleep anywhere at any time.

His death had robbed her of that gift. Sleep eluded her most nights now.

Max laid her down on the bed and pulled the covers over her, tucking her in. It was certainly nice to be taken care of, and made for a pleasant change. And maybe, if she was really lucky, she’d wake up and find this was all nothing more than a strange dream.