Chapter 3 Elvis, Dionysus, and Me
ELVIS, DIONYSUS, AND ME
LANEY
PRESENT
“Oh God. Oh, God.”
It was all I’d been able to say for the last five minutes since waking up naked in a strange Las Vegas hotel room with a gold ring and a vague memory of the best kiss of my life.
Everything hurt. My throat was parched. My feet were sore. My inner thighs ached—wait, why did my inner thighs ache? I felt like I’d done Pilates for three hours straight. And my head felt like someone was taking a sledgehammer to it in time with my heartbeat.
I closed my eyes and opened them again, hoping against hope that the suite with its gilt trim and impossibly soft sheets would disappear, and I’d find myself back in that crappy hotel room nursing my hangover with the presidential trio and Megan.
Yeah, that hadn’t worked the other four times I’d tried it either.
“Delaney Fisher,” I mumbled. “Get out of bed and figure out your shit.”
I could just imagine Mama standing at the end of the bed, tapping the toe of her favorite Oxfords while she looked at her watch. Out of bed, lazy bones. It’s a brand new day.
When I looked again, the ring was still there. So, I forced myself to sit up, clutching the sheet to my chest, and made myself take a closer look at my surroundings.
The suite (I assumed that’s what it was, since most hotel rooms didn’t have double doors) was even larger than I’d realized in my sleepy haze.
Bigger than my tiny apartment. Gilded millwork wrapped around the entire ten-foot ceiling, which was crowned by a massive chandelier gleaming over the bed that I was currently swimming in.
Another door opened into a bathroom that looked like it could house my car.
Still no sign of my dress, though I did locate Megan’s other sandal wedged behind a standing lamp. A few—well, now that I was counting, there were at least five—ripped condom wrappers littered the nightstand on the other side of the bed. Magnums, according to the gold writing.
That was when a few memories returned in jagged fragments.
The crowded nightclub. Megan’s emerald dress. Too many shots of tequila.
The bass that made me dance like a snake charmer while an unknown stranger watched from the crowd. The way my heart had jumped in my chest, like it had been dancing with me. The nameless, gorgeous man touching me under the bar.
And that kiss. Holy moly, the kiss to end all kisses.
More details spilled through my vision. The deep voice purring into my ear, a mess of curls under my fingers, hands that spanned my entire waist. The crooked half-smile that could politely be called rakish, followed by the honest-to-God grin when he called me his Ariadne for the second time.
And his name was…
The sheets dropped from my hands. Had I slept with someone, and I didn’t even know his name?
I glared at the ring.
Had I married him?
No. No, I wouldn’t do something as idiotic as that.
And yet, the gold flashed, as taunting and bright and happy as the Nevada sunshine.
My heart gave a nasty thump, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe.
Shit. Not now.
Clutching the sheet back up to my chest, I swept my legs over the edge of the bed and sat up to practice the breathing exercises I’d been doing since I was in high school. Inhale for a count of four. Hold for a count of seven. Out for a count of eight. Repeat.
Four cycles later, my heartbeat had resumed its normal cadence. It wouldn’t last, though. I needed to get out of this hotel room and back to my meds. I was playing with fire last night by drinking the way I had—truly, I was lucky I wasn’t in the hospital.
I needed to get dressed. I needed to find Megan. I needed to—
A loud buzz broke through the room’s silence, and I jerked out of my stupor. Phone. It had to be my phone. I found it under the bed along with my clutch and all seventeen dollars in it. At least my stranger wasn’t a thief.
I swiped through to find I had nineteen missed calls and twenty-three texts from my freaked-out best friend.
Megan
LMK where the hot guy took you so I know you didnt get kidnapped
Megan
Laney???
Megan
Ok seriously bish share your location
Megan
ARE YOU ALIVE???
Megan
Laney why are you updating instagram and not me?
Megan
I swear to god if you died Im gonna be super pissed
Megan
TEXT ME WHEN UR DONE BEING A SLUT
Her texts continued all the way through the morning.
Megan
Good morning sunshine! We’re getting mimosas by the pool when youre awake
Megan
DELANEY HARMONIA FISHER ANSWER YOUR DUCKING PHONE
I scrolled through, did two more rounds of breathing exercises, then typed a message with shaky fingers.
Hey I’m alive.
Megan
omg FINALLY. I was about to call the cops.
You were not.
Megan
Truth. But I was worried. Are you okay?
I knew what she meant. Despite having egged me on, Megan was fully aware of the dangers of mixing too much alcohol with my condition. Her texts were full of humor, but legitimate worry underwrote all of them.
I’m fine. Hungover, but not dead. Won’t be drinking like that for a very, very long time.
Megan
Good. SO. HOW WAS HE?
I bit my lip. How was I even supposed to answer that?
Still trying to remember.
A few dots appeared while she wrote. Then:
Megan
Too bad. I hear congratulations are in order.
That was followed by a GIF of a bride and groom.
I stared again at my ring before typing back.
What do you know?
The dots appeared, disappeared, appeared again.
Megan
Girl, check your photos. Your stories were insane last night.
With a frown, I swiped to the app. How could I have had the wherewithal to post to social media about my escapades and not be able to remember a damn thing the next morning?
But there it was: the evidence that proved the ring on my finger wasn’t just a piece of new jewelry.
A selfie of me and the curly-haired stranger at Caesar’s Palace, laughing amidst the animatronics of the Fall of Atlantis show by the Forum Shops.
Another of us somewhere on The Strip, his arm around my shoulder, nose in my hair.
One more at a diner, where I had whipped cream on my nose and appeared to be laughing hysterically as he licked it off.
The man’s curls weren’t quite as dark as I remembered, more auburn under the bright lights of the diner.
His eyes, too, weren’t black, but in fact a very dark brown, decorated with shadows and tiny lines at the corners that only tempered his joy with soulfulness.
His chiseled, refined bone structure would have competed with any Greek statue had it not been tempered by a charmingly crooked nose and lips almost too full for his face.
He was full of nuance. He was also gorgeous.
But it was really the change in my own face that made me stare. I was in the company of a beautiful man, yes, but it was more than that. The lines of worry that had decorated my face like icing for the last few years were gone. I looked like a normal girl of twenty-seven letting loose.
I looked happy.
Then I swiped to the last photo and, once again, found it difficult to breathe.
The stranger and I were outside a chapel, next to a man in a bad Elvis costume.
My stranger—my Dionysus—had swept me off my feet princess-style, and my head was tipped back with a grin that threatened to split my cheeks while he stared down at me with an expression that looked like awe.
Like I hung the moon and stars. Like he couldn’t believe I was his.
Both of us wore rings in the picture.
Rings like the one I was currently wearing right now.
My phone hit the carpet with a muffled thud. I braced myself on my knees just in time to catch myself.
In four. Hold seven. Out eight.
It took a solid minute before my heart rate returned to normal. Even then, it was still hard to breathe.
“This better be good.”
I jerked at the sound of the deep voice coming from the other side of the double doors.
Recognition echoed through me.
My stranger.
No, not mine. How could someone whose name I didn’t even know be mine?
“You’d better be telling me someone died or that you’ve sent a hooker for a threesome. Because there’s a Paris ten in my bed, so those are the only two reasons I’d want to hear your voice before coffee and a Viagra for good luck.”
Hooker? Paris ten? Who talked like that?
I rubbed my forehead. I’d never question the reality of beer goggles ever again. Or Vegas tequila goggles.
“I’m sorry, but what in the actual fuck?” The voice turned machete-sharp. “It sounded like you just said Brendan left Blackguard.”
There was a pause. He must have been on the phone, since I couldn’t hear another voice, even as I stood and edged closer to the door. I stopped before opening it when he spoke again.
“And you didn’t say anything? Liam? Shea? No one thought to stop him?”
Blackguard? Brendan? Who were these people? Why did they sound familiar?
The voice began to laugh. Well, that wasn’t the word. It was almost a cackle, laughter laced with the kind of pain that wouldn’t have been out of place at a pariah’s funeral. Whatever had happened wasn’t funny; it was ironic.
“Holy shit. Brendan actually did it. Dad kicked out the golden child, and Bren gave the old man the finger on his way out. Holy fucking shit.” There was another pause before he continued, still laughing almost maniacally, like he couldn’t stop if he tried.
“More? What else did he do, moon the board? Set fire to his office? Oh, God, he didn’t piss on the furniture, did he? ”
Then, the laughter died abruptly.
“He did what?”
The sudden shift in tone made me step back. Was he this mercurial last night? Like he had a whole cast of personalities he held as close to him as a hand of cards, all of them ready to be turned out at a moment’s notice.
How would someone like that react once he realized what we had done?
Or did he already know?
“That’s impossible,” the voice snapped. “I get drunk at charity galas and hit on board members’ wives for fun. Last year, I laced four stakeholders’ drinks with acid just to see what they would do. I’m not CEO material. I’ve never wanted the job.”
My head spun. CEO? Board members? Stakeholders?
Wives? Acid?
Who, exactly, had I accidentally married?
“Why the fuck would he do this? And why me?”
I pressed my ear to the door, my heart hammering again. I should go out there. I needed to go out there.
Whatever the person on the phone said made the man laugh again, but this time, it was less of a cackle, more of a bark, rank with acrimony. “You’re kidding. Since when did Dad turn into a trad wife advocate?”
I frowned but kept listening.
“So, what, am I supposed to get married now? To who, a fucking showgirl? Maybe a lady of the night?”
There was another bitter bark as I glanced down at my ring-clad hand, now clutching the sheet around me like one of the toga-clad robots at Caesar’s Palace. Well, that answered one of my questions—he didn’t remember last night any better than I did.
Or maybe he did, and it was just another joke to him. Though I wasn’t sure if the man on the other side of this door was capable of real humor.
I didn’t like that feeling. Growing up, I’d been the butt of enough jokes as the kid with a heart condition, listening to the nasty peals of laughter that followed weak insults from immature teenagers.
There goes the pacemaker.
Move, Flatline!
Watch out for the ambulance chaser.
I wasn’t that girl anymore. Hadn’t been for a long time. I wasn’t going to start now just because of one night of poor decisions.
I grabbed the knob and opened one of the doors to the rest of the suite.
“Liza, I need to think—” The man lounging on the sofa in the middle of the room turned at the sound of the door, phone still pressed to his ear. Razor-sharp eyes met mine, gleaming with intelligence and suspicion.
For a second, neither of us moved. I couldn’t. Somehow, he was even better looking than in my memories of the club. Even better than the pictures on my phone.
My stranger—even now, the possessive pronoun came easily—was dressed in nothing but tight black boxer briefs.
Lean, powerful legs stretched across the cushions.
Muscled shoulders with a few curious scars leaned against the arm.
One hand casually yanked on soft russet curls, which, now freed from gel, had gone completely wild.
My fingers itched to comb through them like they remembered something I couldn’t.
He looked like a Greek god.
He looked like my husband.
Oh, God.
“Liza, I gotta go,” he mumbled.
Even from where I stood, I could hear the protest through the speaker of his phone. The man ended the call without responding, never taking his eyes off me. Something like humor danced through them. And yet… it wasn’t entirely friendly.
Then again, I wasn’t sure I had found him friendly last night either.
Mysterious, yes.
Bewitching, certainly.
But friendly?
No, this man was not my friend.
I wasn’t sure if he was anyone’s.
“Hi.” I pulled my sheet even tighter around my body.
It was the wrong move. His sharp gaze traveled all over me, then back to my face. In a millisecond, I felt as though I’d been undressed completely.
That mouth curved into a sly grin. “Hi.”
He stood. Crap. No. That made it worse. Those broad shoulders carved to a sinewy chest dusted with dark curls that narrowed to a trail over the flat bricks of his stomach.
With every step, the muscles of his thighs shifted visibly as he sprang lightly off the balls of his feet.
It was what my father, a dedicated boxing fan, would have called a fighter’s physique—lean, powerful, and obviously quick.
Just before he reached me, I stuck out my hand, as much to keep him literally at arm’s length as anything else.
I wasn’t sure what I would do with that energy so close again.
Especially without tequila. Certainly, I couldn’t afford to lose another twelve hours, and God knew my heart couldn’t take anymore abuse.
The gold caught the light, and the stranger froze.
“I realize this is kind of a weird question, but…” My tongue felt thick in my throat. “Did we get married last night?”
The man stared at the ring. Then at my face. Then, his gaze traveled down to his own left hand, where an identical gold band wrapped around his ring finger.
His eyes popped open, confused and brown and disarmingly warm.
I was right, then. He didn’t remember what happened any more than I did.
Then something changed. His shock disappeared almost as quickly as it had come, replaced by something that looked almost like... calculation?
“I suppose reintroductions are overdue, then.” He offered his right hand like we were meeting at a conference or a job interview, not standing mostly undressed in a hotel suite, discussing the fact that we were—apparently—married.
“Hello, wife. I’m Ronan. Ronan Black.”