Instead, I’d gotten her too drunk too quickly, and now she wasn’t going to be any good to me.
“Nieves,” I said.
“What?” Then she burst into giggles. “You have four eyes.”
Her remark puzzled me. I wasn’t wearing my glasses.
Her next gesture removed any puzzlement. She poked at my forehead. “One, two, three, four.” Then she blinked incessantly for a few seconds and then widened her eyes. “Nope. Still four.”
Was she too drunk now to give me any helpful information?
What a lightweight. Four drinks? Really?
Except she probably weighed half of what I did.
I signaled the barkeep again, rising to speak to him privately. “How much booze did you put in her drinks?”
“They were doubles,” he said.
“Doubles? Are you freaking kidding me?”
“That’s what she ordered when she got here.”
Shit. He was right. Nieves had arrived at the bar before I did, and she’d ordered my first scotch.
Nieves had drunk the equivalent of eight drinks while I was fake drinking my second. Four drinks would have put her right where I wanted her.
Eight? She was a hair away from passing out.
I returned to my stool and sat down.
“I don’t feel so good, Rock,” Nieves said.
“Reid,” I said, taking a good look at her. “You look a little green.”
She laughed hysterically. “I think I’m going to puke on you later!”
Great. Just great. I threw some bills on the wooden bar. “That’s your tip. Put the drinks on my tab. Reid Wolfe.”
The bartender’s eyebrows flew up. “Reid Wolfe? Who owns this place?”
“That’s the one.” Then I lifted Nieves off her stool, carried her out of the bar toward the elevators.
She closed her eyes and let out a soft snore.
So much for my quick fuck.
I’d never taken an incapacitated woman to bed, and I wasn’t going to start now. Still, she’d said she was staying with me. Did she have a room somewhere? A small purse dangled from her wrist. Once I got her to my suite, I’d take a look through it for a hotel key.
The elevator dinged and the double doors parted.
And there stood my brother Roy with his new wife, Charlie.
Fuck it all.
7
Zee
My eyes darted open.
Where was I?
Right. My hotel in Queens.
Except…
My bed was a full-sized, and this bed…
This bed was narrow. Like a cot. The mattress was thin, and—
I jerked upward.
Darkness surrounded me. There was a window in my room. Where was it? It must still be nighttime.
I waited for my eyes to adjust.
And my whole body turned prickly.
This wasn’t my room.
And then the hammering in my head began.
Or became more pronounced, because it had been there since I woke up.
A nauseating headache. Was this what a migraine felt like? I’d never had one. But this pounding was on both sides of my head, not just one. In fact, it was all over my head, behind my eyes, on the crown, at the back of my neck.
A jackhammer.
Pounding so quickly I couldn’t get a grasp on the speed. Like a hummingbird’s heartbeat, only loud and obnoxious and pulsating through my body, landing in my gut.
Crap.
Literally.
I had to go to the bathroom. I stood. The bathroom was…
I stumbled, trying to orient myself. The bathroom was to the right.
Except all I saw to the right was a wall. This room was small.
Really small.
Where was the door?
I walked the small room blindly, feeling at the walls to support myself. I could pass out at any moment. My stomach was gurgling, my head hammering.
My heart stampeding.
Finally, something hit me in the belly.
“Ouch!” I reached down and touched my bare skin.
Then my fright increased a hundredfold.
I was naked.
I’d gone to bed in a T-shirt and panties. Hadn’t I? My mind was so muddled I didn’t trust my thoughts.
My hand brushed against the object that had hit my belly.
A door knob!
I twisted at it frantically, to no avail.
I’d found the door, but I couldn’t open it. I fumbled along the doorjamb for a deadbolt or something to unlock.
Nothing.
I was locked in.
Locked in a strange room.
Naked and ill and my head throbbing in time with my heart.
I slid down, scratching my unclothed back on the wall.
I sat on the floor, shivering.
Naked, afraid, and shivering.
“If you don’t want him,” Mo said, handing me a glass of wine, “mind if I take a stab?”
I didn’t want the wine. Two flutes of champagne was enough for one evening. Plus, it was my night off, and I really just wanted to go to bed. But Mo was in one of her chatty moods, and we did have the place to ourselves since our other two roomies were out.
I took the goblet from her. “Help yourself.”
“Can you arrange an introduction?”
“I just met him.”
Then her eyes went wide. “Oh. My. God.”
“What?”
“He’s Reid Wolfe!”
“Well…yeah. I believe he introduced himself to you.”
“Reid Wolfe the billionaire!”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“Oh. Yeah.” She mocked me. “Seriously? That’s what you have to say? Spill it, girl. How the hell did you end up getting Reid Wolfe to bring you home tonight?”
Long story. One I didn’t want to rehash now. So I said simply, “Right place at the right time, I guess.”
“What place would that be?” she demanded. “Because I plan to be there tomorrow.”
“I was over at the Wolfe Premiere.”
“What for? You hate gambling.”
“I had a…spa appointment.” A little white lie never hurt anyone.
“Whoa. Expensive stuff when you can hit Massage Avenue for fifty bucks.”
“I won a gift certificate in a contest.” Yeah, the white lies kept coming.
“Oh, that makes more sense. How was it?”
“Good. But no better than Massage Avenue. Definitely not worth the extra expense.”
“Really? I’ve heard their relaxation room is phenomenal. Aromatherapy, hydrotherapy, the works.”
Like I’d know. “Yeah, but not worth the extra, at least not on our income.”
She nodded, finally. Good. I wanted to get off this subject. I hated lying, but I couldn’t tell Mo why I was really at the Wolfe. No one knew my story here in Las Vegas. No one but the Wolfes.
I took a sip of wine and then feigned a yawn. “I’m exhausted. Think I’ll hit the sack.”
She giggled.
