Chapter 3
Chapter Three
BIANCA
THE NIGHT BEFORE
Casino parties are a special breed of party because casinos are specifically designed to keep you inside, with the exits purposely obscured with all manner of distractions along the way.
If it weren’t my mission to keep track of Brody, I’d be lost like everyone else and have no idea how to get out of this place.
But of course, I’ve done my homework because I’m a professional.
Or that’s what I’m telling myself right now as I peek over the top of my water glass to watch Brody with a leggy woman draped around him.
Feeling more like a skanky private eye or a lowly snoop than a high-powered assistant agent—I know that’s an oxymoron—I follow Brody and the lady who’s commandeered his attention.
She looks a lot like a showgirl who just stepped off the stage wearing a barely-there dress and more make-up than an entire Macy’s cosmetic counter. Exactly his type.
They’re laughing, and I cringe when she plucks a drink from a tray and hands it to him.
He takes it, and I heave a breath hoping he doesn’t down it like he did the last one.
Never mind that he’s not of legal drinking age—that’s bad enough—but I’m more worried about the fact that he has a game tomorrow.
His rookie year NHL All-Star game, to be exact.
I hang back far enough away, pretending to be part of a clutch of people I don’t know, chatting about something hockey related, so that I can’t hear what Brody and his showgirl are talking about.
It’s the only reason my conscience will allow me to follow him at all.
I tell myself it’s not really eavesdropping if I can’t hear them, and it’s not really snooping if I’m not eavesdropping.
When they move again, I move, and when I realize they’re heading for the exit from this Vegas circus-sized party, I pick up my pace until I catch up with them at the bank of elevators that go to our hotel rooms. Shit. She knows her way around this casino.
Stopping short with my heart beating too fast—either because it’s a strain for me to dash around in heels and a cocktail dress, or because I’m worried about what to do about the showgirl—I gather myself and try to act like I’m here coincidentally as I reach them.
Up close, I can see that she’s clearly too old for him, but that’s true for almost everyone at this party since he’s barely twenty years old.
But this woman has to be a dozen years older, even older than I am.
Either that, or maybe showgirls age three years for every one year of a woman in other lines of work—any other line of work.
As they stand at the elevator, she leans into him, putting her hands all over that superbly toned body, a goal-scoring machine. Watching her paw him gives me a jolt of possessiveness, as if I’m personally responsible for his well-being.
But then again, according to my boss, Hamish Jett, I am exactly that.
His immortal words to me before I left for Vegas were, “If anything happens to Brody Holden, even a scratch, or one bad word of press or negative incident, it’s on you, Brooks.
” He calls me by my last name like I’m a player.
I’m used to it. I took that to mean my bonus and promotion are on the line.
Squaring my shoulders, I saunter, nonchalantly, closer to where they stand around with a few others waiting for the elevator, and I put on my party smile. Or what I think would qualify as a party smile since I’ve never been much of a partier—to be exact, I haven’t been invited to many parties.
He speaks first, “Hi there, Brooks. You calling it a night too? What a party, eh?”
I eye the showgirl as I come to stand at his side, opposite her.
“Typical Vegas,” I say as if I would know.
It’s my job to appear worldly and all-knowing to my clients.
At least according to all the sages in the business.
They said I would grow into the job with a little experience. I’m hoping to heck they’re right.
Jett has faith in me, sending me on my first overnight assignment for the All-Star weekend. And I don’t intend to let him down.
Brody nods. The showgirl titters and moves in closer to him, angling me out.
“You going to your room?” I ask and don’t wait for an answer. “So am I. I’ll ride the elevator with you.”
He raises his brows. Maybe my words didn’t come out quite right. “I meant I’m going to my room.”
The lady looks me over and laughs. “It’s okay if you’re looking for a threesome. Are you?”
If her laugh wasn’t so derisive, I’m sure my cheeks wouldn’t suddenly feel like I’ve been branded by my panini maker.
Brody suppresses a smile and tells his showgirl, “Come on now, baby. Leave Bianca alone. She’s my agent, and she’s a damn good one.” His smile softens the censure, but when he turns to me, his look is all serious intensity.
He nods. “Sorry about that. No disrespect meant.”
Now heat of another kind surges through me in a way I have no business allowing.
Because my relationship with the hockey boy phenom of New England is strictly business. Big business. The kind of business that a lot of competing agents would love to have and might go to great lengths to get.
Jett gave me this assignment to accompany our prized client to Vegas because he couldn’t do it himself. He’s about to become the proud father of twins any minute now.
I can’t let him down—aka mess up so badly that I get myself fired.
If I mess up enough to give another agency an opening to steal away his business, I wouldn’t just get fired—my reputation would be destroyed, and I wouldn’t get another job in this business for decades.
I’d end up back in Littleton, New Hampshire, with nothing but broken dreams and a Pepperdine Law School diploma in talent management that would be about as useful as the placemat at my family’s local diner where I’d end up working.
I take possession of Brody as if I’m in charge of him because I am, and I’m going up to his room with him and his date no matter how awkward it may be.
A small crowd spills into the elevator bank area, and I turn, clinging onto Brody and trying to block him from view as someone flashes a camera.
Then all hell breaks loose with dozens of phones raised for photos and videos, and as soon as the elevator doors open, we jump on, and I block the door to prevent anyone else.
Using my room key to unlock the elevator, I press our floor number and breathe a sigh of relief as we escape the mob. It’s just me and Brody in the elevator. No showgirl.
“I apologize for breaking up your fling with…” I wave a hand, having no idea how to refer to the nameless woman. Brody never introduced us. It’s entirely possible he doesn’t know her name.
“No worries.” He wears a devilish smirk.
It’s the kind of look that alarms a girl's deeply embedded survival instincts, makes her fear for her personal safety—and simultaneously excites the crap out of her to the point of making her tingle all over. Not me, though. I’m too professional for that.
Those aren’t tingles I feel. That’s just my brain buzzing.
I’m a serious professional, not the kind of girl drawn to the kind of raw animal charm guys like Brody Holden possess in barrel loads.
We ride the elevator in silence, and when we get off at our floor, I stop short, and he nearly runs into me from behind. I’m glancing down the hall toward his room, and I huff out a breath.
His showgirl is waiting outside his room, leaning on the door, playing with the key card. He’d given her his dam room key.
Shit. This isn’t good.
And there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.
Or is there?
He’s close against my back, and I realize I’ve trapped him against the closing elevator door.
Spinning around, I know I’m going to find that flirty smirk that he thinks is so irresistible facing me.
Well, maybe he has a reason to think he’s irresistible if the small ripple of pleasure bubbling in my chest is an example of his effect on women.
This kind of thing happens with him all the time. I know because I’ve seen it in videos, photos, and in person. And now it’s happening to me—or it would be if I let it, which I’m not. I’m not that easy. I’ve been cured of having any attraction to cute hockey players long ago.
“Don’t you smirk at me. You have no business giving her your room key. What do you think you’re doing?”
“I think it’s obvious what I’m doing—”
“Don’t be smart.” I blow out a breath at his smirk, trying to stay cool—and miserably failing.
“I mean be smart, but don’t give me your smart mouth answers.
” I take in another breath because it’s making me breathless to whisper-shout at him and try to look casual doing it with the showgirls watching.
Not that I care what she thinks of me. “You need your rest.”
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” he says cavalierly as if that’s a real thing and starts strolling toward his room.
I automatically follow on his heels as if I’m magnetically attached—but not like that—more like a dog and a bone. As soon as he reaches the girl, or I should say woman. Even if she is older, she’s still stunning in a tired, end-of-a-long-day kind of way.
He aims a sultry look at her as he takes the key card from her and unlocks the door to his suite.
She pushes it open and gives me a look over her shoulder. “Did you change your mind about joining us?”
I give her my best withering look.
“Leave her alone,” Brody says as he smacks her bottom playfully, and she saunters into the room.
Then he turns to me and waits for me to say something, or to leave, as he stands in the doorway. He’s large and full of energy and smells so unfairly good, like charm and some kind of hedonistic salty male scent, and I realize it’s soap and sweat and my imagination.
He raises a brow while I’m wrangling my good sense back into place.
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”
He leans in, whispering back with his ovary-melting smile, dimples and all, close enough to make me shiver. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” His eyes dance with mischief, too mild for me to take offense, but I give him a stern look because it’s my job.
“No more alcohol.” The sternness in my voice runs out of steam as it becomes clear I’m not going to diminish his dimple or talk him out of a night of whatever with his Vegas showgirl.
“Yes ma’am. I’ll be fine. I promise.” He winks, and I wonder if he’s already more than tipsy, though I don’t know how he could be because I was watching him closely and he only had those two drinks. I’m pretty sure. Shit.
The suitably nameless showgirl giggles from deep inside the room, and I glance over his shoulder to see her.
She’s naked. I groan inwardly. She looks triumphant and glorious with her skin glistening unnaturally, showing off her perfect body.
Why did I think she was old and tired? She must have got a second wind. Not good.
I contemplate following him inside, but I don’t think she was kidding about the threesome and think I’ve already made enough of a fool of myself.
“Don’t you think it’s reckless to bring her to your room?” I whisper, keeping my voice reasonable.
“Don’t worry so much, Brooks. I can handle her.
I have experience with these things.” He manages not to sound condescending, keeping me warm with his smile.
Then his expression gets curious as if he’s trying to figure out why I’m so worried, and maybe he’s thinking it’s because I don’t have experience with these things.
Or it’s me and my conscience, projecting my baggage onto his thoughts. Because I actually don’t have experience at these things.
“Right. Okay.” I back up a step and almost stumble. I’m not good at graceful defeats or retreats. He touches my arm to steady me, and I feel it like I’ve been tazered, only by a magic Taser that shocks only my pleasure center and lights it up. All the way to the red zone in one split second. Shit.
Rushing my words, I say, “I’ll see you bright and early in the morning for the All-Star Game.” I turn to leave and take a step, but a deep feeling of unease overrides my embarrassed need to get away and makes me turn back. “Brody, don’t forget who you are.”
He nods at me with an uncharacteristically unreadable expression. I don’t stay to figure it out and hurry to my room down the hall at a brisk clip without looking back. When I reach my room, I finally hear his door click closed.