Chapter 4
VAUGHN
The elevator doors slide shut, and Riley Blackstone grabs my lapels, pulling me toward her.
I’ve planned this night down to the smallest detail. Every question, every drink, every look—it’s all calculated. But this moment right here? This wasn’t in any of my scenarios.
Her green eyes shimmer under the neon floor indicator as it counts down.
Thirty-eight. Thirty-seven. Thirty-six. Her fingers dig into the fabric of my suit.
Her breath brushes my chin. She smells like tequila and that impossibly expensive perfume, the kind from a boutique that doesn’t sell a bottle for under two thousand dollars.
Thirty-five. Thirty-four.
She’s waiting for me to close the final inch. Riley Blackstone, the daughter of the man who drove my parents to their graves, is standing in front of me in an emerald-green dress, wanting me to kiss her.
Thirty-three.
I should think clearly. I should assess the situation coldly and calculate my next move. Instead, I place my hand on her throat. My thumb brushes over her pulse, hammering under her skin like a trapped animal.
Thirty-two.
I kiss her.
Not gently. Not cautiously. Not like a man asking for permission.
I kiss her like I want to take something from her, and she kisses me back like she’s spent her whole life waiting to give it.
Her fingers slide from my lapels to the back of my neck.
Her nails scrape over my scalp. A soft sound escapes her throat, somewhere between a sigh and total surrender.
Twenty-one. Twenty. Nineteen.
I press her against the mirrored wall of the elevator. Her back hits the cold glass. She flinches, but she doesn’t pull away. On the contrary. Her hands pull me closer, as if there’s still too much distance between us.
Her mouth tastes like agave and rebellion.
Focus, Mercer.
Twelve. Eleven.
I pull back just a fraction—just enough to see her eyes. Her pupils are blown, her lips swollen. Her breathing is heavy.
“That,” she whispers, “was more than a scratch in the paint.”
Five. Four. Three.
The doors open, and the Silver Star lobby greets us with air-conditioned indifference. The security guard at the desk pointedly looks the other way.
Riley brushes her hair out of her face and steps onto the sidewalk. Her heels click with a resolve that doesn’t fit a woman who was just pinned against an elevator wall. She turns to me, and there’s an expression on her face I didn’t expect: hunger. Not for food. Not for alcohol. For more of me.
I pull myself together and return to the plan.
I’m a patient man; I’ve waited thirty years for this moment.
I can play the charming stranger for one night.
By tomorrow morning, Riley Blackstone will have my name on a marriage certificate, and Richard Blackstone will, for the first time in his pathetic life, lose control over his most valuable asset.
His daughter.
We walk down the Strip, the heat wrapping around us like a second skin. Riley laughs as a group of drunk women in pink cowboy hats stumbles past us.
“Where’s the chapel?” she asks, hooking her arm through mine. The gesture is so effortless, as if we do this every night. As if we’re a normal couple on our way to a normal, brainless decision.
“The chapel isn’t going anywhere.” I point toward the Ferris wheel at the end of the street. The High Roller spins in a slow rotation against the night sky, its cabins glowing in shifting colors. “But that won't wait.”
“The Ferris wheel?” She arches an eyebrow. “You want to drag me onto a Ferris wheel?”
“I want to show you Las Vegas from the top. With tequila.”
“We’re out of tequila.”
I reach into the inner pocket of my blazer and pull out the flask I snagged on our way out of the rooftop bar. Reposado. Three-quarters full.
Riley stares at the bottle and bursts into a deep, belly laugh. “You stole the bottle?”
“I confiscated it. For the sake of public safety.”
“You’re a thief.”
You have no idea, I think.
“I’m a pragmatist,” I say.
We join the short line for the wheel. Riley bounces on her heels, watching the rotating cabins with a childlike fascination that throws me off.
She’s twenty-seven years old, manages the entire IT security for a billion-dollar empire, and she’s looking at a Ferris wheel like she’s never seen anything like it—even though she must have passed it hundreds of times.
Then again, I’ve studied her file. Every scrap of information.
Her school reports, her college degrees, her digital footprint.
It painted a picture that isn't in any official record but is no less disturbing: Richard Blackstone keeps his daughter like a prisoner. Hardly any friends. No relationships. No nights where she could just go out and have fun. He’s withheld the real world from her and sold it as "care. "
And that is my opening.
The cabin is a glass capsule built for forty people, but at this hour, it’s just us and an older couple who immediately retreat to the far end. The doors close. The wheel sets into a silent, steady motion.
Riley steps to the glass wall as the city crawls into the depths below. Hotels, casinos, parking lots, highways—it all shrinks to the size of a glowing model.
“See that building over there?” I ask, standing beside her. I point to the golden facade of the Onyx Grand, gaudy even from this distance. “Looks pretty small from up here.”
She follows my finger, and something dark flickers across her face. Then she laughs softly. “Everything looks small from here.”
I open the flask and hand it to her. She takes a swig and winces. Then I take the bottle and drink—less than her, though. Tonight, I need to stay sharp.
“When was the last time you did something your boss didn’t approve?” I ask.
She leans her head against the glass, thinking as the cabin rises higher into the night sky. Below us, the ribbons of highway lights wind through the darkness.
“I secretly got a cat once,” she says. “A little orange tabby. I named him Pixel.”
“What happened to Pixel?”
“My boss has a pet hair allergy. Pixel had to go after a week.” She says it with a smile, but her voice sounds like a eulogy.
Her boss. Her boss decides if she’s allowed to keep a cat. Every detail she reveals confirms the image of a man who owns his daughter completely. Richard Blackstone’s specialty seems to be destroying other people’s lives.
“Another round?” she asks, holding the flask out to me.
We keep drinking until the wheel reaches the highest point of its rotation. The cabin slows, hovering five hundred and fifty feet above the Strip.
“From up here, you could almost believe none of this is real,” Riley says, the alcohol clearly taking hold.
“What is real to you?” I ask.
She turns to me. Her eyes shimmer in the reflection of the lights.
“This.” She places her hand on my chest. Right over my heart. “Your pulse.”
My pulse, which is currently accelerating. Which isn't part of the plan.
“It’s faster than it should be,” I say. It’s the truth, and I hate myself for it.
“Good.” She smiles. “Then I’m not the only one.”
She stands on her tiptoes and kisses me. This time, it’s different from the elevator. Slower. Softer. She explores my mouth with a curiosity that drives me insane. Her hands slide under my blazer. Her fingers glide over my shirt, tracing the muscles beneath.
I pull her to me. My hands find her waist, her back, the curve of her hip. The thin fabric of her dress is the only thing between my palms and her skin. Her breath is ragged against my mouth. My mind screams that I need to keep control. My body, however, has a fundamentally different opinion.
Riley pulls back an inch. “You said you were the mistake I’ve been waiting for.”
“I did.”
“Then stop feeling like the right move.”
That sentence digs under my skin like a splinter I can't pull out. This woman is supposed to be a tool. A means to an end. A name on a marriage license that will rip the foundation out from under Richard Blackstone.
Instead, she’s standing in front of me in a Ferris wheel cabin over Las Vegas, cheeks flushed with tequila and a look that asks if I’m real. And for the first time in a very long time, I’m not sure myself.
I kiss her harder, my teeth grazing her lower lip. She moans softly, burying her fingers in my hair. Her hip presses against mine. My hand moves lower, bunching the fabric of her dress and sliding it up. Her bare skin under my fingers. Her rapid breath against my neck.
The older couple at the other end of the cabin coughs demonstratively.
Riley freezes. Then a laugh explodes out of her, one she tries to stifle with both hands over her mouth. She presses her forehead against my collarbone, her whole body shaking with suppressed laughter.
“Oh god,” she gasps. “I completely forgot they were there.”
I glance over her shoulder. The old woman is staring pointedly out the window. The old man is grinning, giving me a thumbs-up.
The cabin begins its descent, and the moment of passion fades. Gravity pulls us back toward reality. But Riley’s hand stays in mine, her fingers interlaced with mine as if she’s afraid I’ll vanish if she lets go.
She has no idea how right she is.
“So.” She looks up at me as the lights of the Strip grow larger again. “Where is that chapel?”