Chapter 10 – Braelyn
brAELYN
There’s a mariachi band playing in my head, loud and intrusive, and it makes me both dizzy and nauseated. I take mental stock of my surroundings without opening my eyes. I’m in a bed, tucked under the covers, but I’m wearing something weird. A bathrobe maybe? Why am I wearing a bathrobe?
Flashes from last night flicker through my head.
Roman’s restaurant opening. Drinks with the staff after it ended.
Shots. We all did a couple rounds of shots, and that was after the two cocktails I had at the opening.
After that gets hazy. I stretch my mind and remember the club.
We all went to the club in the hotel and had VIP access and table service.
The music pulsed through me as everything glittered gold around us.
Roman had his hand on my lower back, keeping me close.
Probably because I’d stumbled a few times, but it didn’t matter.
I’d had the best time tonight. Leaf, Lydia, as well as a few of the other chefs and bartenders, were with us as we were led by a hostess to a semi-circular booth with a high back and a view of the dance floor.
Everywhere we looked, glitz and glam sparkled.
Bottles of alcohol along with mixers were ordered.
Roman was stoic, taking in the scene around him with quiet introspection and an almost imperceptible grin.
He was happy, and it was a good look on him.
One I didn’t get to see too often. It was almost as if he never allowed himself to be that way and it broke my heart.
“Cheers!” Lydia sang out, pouring a round of expensive tequila into shot glasses. “To Decision.”
“Yes!” I cried, holding my glass up and nudging Roman.
“To Decision,” he agreed, and we all drank down our shots.
“Come dance with me?” I asked.
I got a look. One I couldn’t quite read.
It felt like he wanted to, but something was holding him back.
Still, he stood and held his hand out for mine, and we made our way to the dance floor.
Alcohol was flowing through my veins faster than Niagara Falls.
I was drunk and I knew it, the room dipping and swaying, but the current through me was as delicious as it was intoxicating.
“I’m having so much fun!” I told him, wrapping my arms around his neck for a brief moment, only to release him and start to move my hips to the beat.
He spun me around, his hands on my hips, his mouth by my ear. “I’m glad, kid. You deserve it.”
I placed my hands over his and gave them a squeeze.
He did this for me. He brought me out here and bought me this dress and got us this ridiculous villa.
I’m so happy right now. It felt like I was floating on a cloud.
All of the darkness I came to Vegas with felt like it had evaporated.
Everything was new and exciting and I wanted all of it.
I lost myself in the beat, my eyes closed and my body moving.
Roman’s hands stayed on my hips, trailing up and down the slope to my waist or a little lower to the crest above my ass, but always returning to my hips. He was close. His chest to my back and the two of us danced for I don’t even know how long.
We took a break, more drinks pouring down my throat.
“How come you two aren’t married yet?” Leaf asked as he sat back and watched a few women dancing in tiny dresses not far from us.
I snorted a laugh. “Um, because we’re best friends.”
“What?” Capshaw, one of the bartenders, gasped out. “No way. You’re not a couple? You look so comfortable with each other. Like you’ve been together forever.”
“Well, in a way, we have been. But I was engaged to someone else until last week,” I told them.
Everyone’s eyes widened.
“What happened?” Lydia pressed.
I shrug. “What always happens? He cheated, I caught him, case closed.”
“But you have Roman,” she said as if the fact that I had been with anyone else didn’t make sense.
“Yes,” a waitress, whose name I couldn’t remember, agreed emphatically. “You look so good together.”
“He’s not my type since he’s not a woman, but he’s every other woman’s type,” another threw out.
Roman made a displeased noise. He hated being the center of attention.
I scrunched my nose teasingly. “But he’s so old.”
He poked me in the side, his eyes light. “Watch it, kid. I’m only six years older than you.”
“But when we were kids, you seemed so much older.”
His lips thinned. “And you seemed so much younger. Until suddenly you didn’t.”
I tilted my head at him, but Capshaw continued with, “I agree with Leaf. You two should get married. You’re in Vegas. It’d be such a fun story.”
Roman finished off the rest of his drink and refilled it before I snatched the bottle from him and did the same.
“Yes,” Leaf continued. “Roman has talked about you enough. I think it’s time he settles down. Then maybe he won’t be so grumpy all the time.”
Everyone laughed, but Roman wasn’t laughing.
“Come on,” someone else said. “We dare you.”
I shift slightly under the blanket. I know there were more shots.
I remember having at least one more. That’s it, though.
I couldn’t tell you how I got back to the hotel.
I don’t remember going to bed. I don’t remember getting undressed and into the robe.
I don’t remember—oh shit. Oh no. No, no, no. Please tell me no.
Because I do remember something else, and my brain frantically replays the memory.
“You’re daring us?” I cackled. “How can you dare people to get married?”
They all shrugged. “I have a friend who did that with her bestie on a dare. They’ve been married five years now.”
I leaned back in my seat and nearly fell over because I wasn’t as close to the back of the booth as I thought. Oops. No one seemed to care or notice. They were all over daring us to get married.
“That wouldn’t be us, though,” I protested.
“How do you know until you try?” Lydia countered. “Come on. It’s a fun dare.”
“You can’t dare me,” I warned. “I never turn down a dare.”
Roman leaned into my ear, clearly done with this. “Dance with me?”
I nodded and allowed him to take me back to the dance floor, ending the conversation. Except the dare wouldn’t die. It tickled the back of my mind until it grew into a full-blown itch. The more I thought about it, the more I liked it.
“Maybe we should get married,” I said to Roman as we danced, my arms around his neck and his face low and close to mine. I could feel his breath. Smell his cologne. It was warm and intimate, especially as I watched the different colors dance in his eyes.
A noise caught in his throat, half heavy breath, half incredulous laugh. “Yeah? You think?” he teased, holding and leading me to a slower ballad.
“I’m serious. Maybe we should.” It seemed like such a brilliant idea.
And fun. Getting married to Roman sounded so fun.
So unlike marrying Adam, which sounded horrible.
Why did I ever say yes when he proposed?
“Adam sucks. I’m sooo glad I didn’t marry him.
He wasn’t right for me. How could he have been?
My vagina is amazing. I’m incredible in bed.
How could he cheat?!” I yelled, only to wince because that sounded extra loud in my ears.
Roman ran a hand up my spine that shot tingles the other way. “He was a fool.”
“But you’re not. You’re the best person I know. You’ve always been right.” I tilted my head, studying him from beneath my lashes. “If you know what I mean. You’d be a good husband. I should marry you. It’d be the best story ever. One we could tell our grandkids.”
“Brae, how drunk are you?”
I smiled up at him. My friend was so tall.
Gorgeous too. I mean, his eyes were insane.
And his jawline. Woo. Roman rarely shaved, but he did tonight, and I couldn’t stop myself from touching his smooth cheek with my fingers.
His eyes darkened and yet appeared so clear and bright.
How could that be? It felt like a contradiction, but it was exactly how he was looking at me.
But that was neither here nor there. Unless he was in his underwear.
I choked out a laugh at myself. Oh wait, he asked me a question. What was it?
My face twisted up as I worked my memory. “How drunk am I?”
His fingers found the delicate skin at the back of my neck, and I involuntarily shivered.
“Yes, pretty girl. How drunk are you?”
“On a scale of one to ten? I don’t know. About a ten point five, so I guess I’m rounding up to eleven. What about you?”
“An eight. I’m a solid eight. So that means we’re drunk and shouldn’t get married.”
“But this is Vegas,” I whined, feeling a little hurt by his blatant rejection. Why did he always reject me?
“I don’t always reject you,” he said, hurt flashing in his eyes, and oops, I guess I was musing aloud. But with that, his eyes softened, and his body shifted, holding me closer. “I don’t want to be your regret.”
Adam was my regret. Roman was the dessert worth every calorie.
“They dared us. I’ve never turned down a dare in my life. I think we have to do it.”
“You think we have to get married because people who work for me dared us to?”
I couldn’t tell if his question was rhetorical or incredulous or genuinely asking. “Well, yeah. Right? They said we belong together. Maybe we do. I’m starting to live my new life. Let’s be wild. Let’s be reckless. Let’s get married.”
His eyes searched mine even as they swirled with color from the overhead lights. “There are a million reasons we shouldn’t do this. But looking at you right now, I can’t think of one.”
A weird flutter rolled through me. What was I thinking? Still, I didn’t want to back down.
“You honestly want to get married? Because I’ll say yes and then you’ll wake up married to me.”
My hand moves across my body until it connects with my other. Hard metal and bumpy ridges are on my left hand. Diamonds. There are diamonds on my left hand. On my ring finger.