Chapter 2 Nova
NOVA
You’re a smart girl. Be smart and pretend you were never here tonight… or else.
My eyes flew open, my body frozen in fear. It was always like that after a nightmare, wasn’t it? Being stuck between the dream and reality. Almost afraid to move, afraid to breathe. The way I was last night.
I was no longer in the waiting area outside my father’s office, where his sweet, motherly assistant normally sat. Where a man with eyes as dark and empty as a doll’s had held me in place against her desk.
Instead, I was in bed, wearing nothing but the white lace bralette and panties I wore last night. Right away, my heart started racing again, only moments after my pulse began to slow once I realized I was safe. Was I actually safe, or was this an illusion?
I needed to get out of here. Nico might come after me, and then what?
That sickening, pulse-pounding fear was so fresh, even if I couldn’t remember a lot of what happened after my escape.
There was no way I could forget the feeling of my entire world crashing down around me.
The betrayal, the disappointment, the sense of everything I thought I knew being a lie.
What did happen afterward?
This was not my bed. That much I knew right away, even if the bed in my apartment didn’t really feel like mine, only a few days after returning from my two years at Oxford.
“Don’t you worry about a thing,” Dad had told me when it came time to arrange my return.
“You just tell me where you want to live, pick out the furniture you want, and I’ll make sure it’s all taken care of. ”
He had to because that was the sort of father he was. He did whatever he could for me, down to arranging movers while I was on the other side of the Atlantic. By the time I landed in Las Vegas, my apartment was set up exactly the way I wanted. Although, it just didn’t feel like mine yet.
This was a hotel. It didn’t matter how they tried to freshen the air. A room where the windows never opened could only ever smell so fresh. One of the many things I had learned over the years of observing Dad at work.
It didn’t feel real, couldn’t be real, no matter how vivid the memory was. Last night, I’d fled the casino hotel where I had spent so much of my childhood. There were times when it had felt like home, more so than the house I grew up in.
The casino was where I had truly grown up and had fallen in love with the lights, sounds, and excitement. I couldn’t have imagined there being a day when I would flee in fear.
The night had started off as a reunion between my girlfriends and me, whom I hadn’t seen in two years. We had spent it eating dinner, drinking, and catching up, laughing until our stomachs ached. I remembered that clearly enough, but then what? Think, Nova!
After I said goodbye to them, I had chosen to walk the handful of blocks between the bar and Dad’s office, high above the casino floor. It had felt like the natural ending to the evening, checking in with him, making sure he wouldn’t work too late. Something I hadn’t been able to do for too long.
The click of a door lock yanked me from the recent past to the present moment, where I was lying on my stomach in a hotel room, and I was not alone.
Fuck my life.
Now, my thoughts spun wildly, panic leaching into my veins, making my already sour stomach churn before I ever bothered trying to lift my head from the pillow. When I did try, I regretted it in maybe three seconds flat. My head was spinning.
What the hell did I drink last night? Who did I drink it with? That seemed like the more important question.
Opening one eyelid a centimeter or so left me gazing at a silk-covered armchair positioned in the nearest corner. A black suit jacket was draped over the top, a silver necktie tangled from over the arm. That looked familiar.
“So I guess you’re friends with the bride?” He was cute, kind of sexy, with a roguish grin and a dazzling pair of gold-flecked green eyes. There wasn’t a question in my mind why he had approached me—this was a wedding, and weddings tended to result in quick hookups.
Obviously, that was what he thought he would get out of approaching as I stood by the bar, wondering what the hell to do next.
Based on what happened upstairs, should I run or go home and pretend I never heard what I heard coming from my father’s office? That I never witnessed the sad, grim scene in the parking lot behind the building, where suppliers normally dropped off deliveries to the kitchen.
The tall, handsome man with the dirty blond hair and the roguish smile had looked like an excellent temporary refuge. At least until I figured out what to do.
Did Nico mean it when he threatened me?
Would Dad let anybody hurt me?
I started to roll over, hoping to get a better look at the rest of the room, then felt a solid lump underneath me.
Did I fall asleep on top of my phone? I knew I had to check and see if anybody had reached out, but dread kept me from immediately tapping the screen.
This was absurd. I was actually afraid I might have gotten a message from my father, one of the only constants in my life.
A life I had spent looking up to him, wanting to be just like him, determined to make him proud.
And he had been so proud when I got accepted at Oxford and announced I would live in England for two years.
“That’s my girl. I don’t know where she got her brains since it couldn’t be from her old man.
” I had always laughed that off since he was one of the smartest people I’d ever met.
Savvy. Blessed with the ability to walk into a room and read the mood instantly, a shapeshifter who could be anything to anyone.
There had never been a challenge he couldn’t face head-on and overcome.
Who wouldn’t want to emulate someone like that?
He wouldn’t hurt me. He wouldn’t hurt anybody. There had to be another explanation for what I saw.
It was that belief that gave me the courage to unlock the phone and check for anything I had missed while I was passed out in this random room.
The only thing I found was a couple of texts from the girls in the group chat, talking about how much fun they had last night and we had to do it again soon.
It felt like a lifetime ago like I was a different person then—someone who hadn’t yet had the rug pulled out from under her all at once.
I wasn’t prepared for the bathroom door to open when it did.
Shit. Should I pretend to be asleep?
Should I thank him for the good time and get the hell out of here?
If Dad hadn’t reached out, chances were he was willing to overlook what happened last night or to at least let it ride until we could talk about it face-to-face, alone.
I could ask him why those girls were being herded into a van with plain terror written all over their faces and screaming through their body language.
I will probably be safe if I leave. That was what I told myself as I sat up, gathering the duvet around my chest. Of all times for me to care about modesty.
Then again, I didn’t know what we did last night.
I didn’t want to assume he had already seen me wearing less than this. Even if he had, would he remember?
All of those questions still danced around my foggy head by the time the tall, ridiculously chiseled man I spent last night with stepped out of the bathroom.
Holy cow, he looked even better out of that suit than in it, and he was damn delectable in it.
Now I remembered more vividly the way he approached me, the charm he’d laid on thick enough I could cut it with a knife.
I also remembered admiring his impressive frame, the way he filled out his suit jacket, his broad shoulders and very large, capable-looking hands.
I always loved the sight of a man’s hands.
Now, I had to remind myself not to stare openly at his equally impressive, finely sculpted chest and abs.
I didn’t give myself enough time to count, but I was pretty sure I caught a glimpse of at least a six-pack before forcing myself to stare down at the cream-colored duvet.
“Good morning,” I murmured. “Thank you for letting me crash here and for not waking me up when you got up. That’s really nice of you.
” Somebody had to set the tone here. The fewer complications, the better.
He had served his purpose last night, giving me a way to hide out at a wedding where I knew absolutely no one.
It was all a matter of fate, ending up where I had, across the street from our casino.
“You’re welcome…” he replied in something close to a grunt. “Though, it seems like we have a bigger problem on our hands than crashing together.”
His tone of voice—almost angry, maybe a little bewildered—made me look up at him in time to watch his arms fold under his bulging pecs. If I weren’t careful, I would end up drooling on myself. This was not the time to let hormones fuck me up. I was smarter than that.
If I were so smart, I wouldn’t have basically announced my presence last night outside Dad’s office. Idiot. If only I had gone straight home instead of stopping in.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, still trying to look anywhere but at his body. It made my face warm—how stupid would it look blushing over him? What was his name again? Oh God, I had become that girl, the one who couldn’t remember names the morning after.
“You don’t know?” There was a painful amount of disbelief in the question. Maybe some sarcasm too.
I touched a hand to the side of my head, which pounded like a metal band playing at full volume. “Last night is very fuzzy,” I whispered. “Did we leave any liquor at the bar, or did we drink all of it?”