Christian knew it was true, but he wasn’t about to agree. “Well, you know what they say: unlucky at cards, lucky in love. And I plan to get very, very lucky in Vegas.” Or at least appear to.
Chapter Two
Zoe was not having the greatest day ever. In fact she was having the longest day ever.
First, a demon-possessed water fountain had sprayed all over her cardigan right before she was supposed to board her final connecting flight to Las Vegas. With no time to dry the material under a hand dryer in the bathroom, she had stuffed it in a separate pocket inside her carry-on.
Then her plane had landed at McCarran Airport five hours late due to engine problems. She was thankful someone had found the problem and had been attempting to fix it. But being trapped on the tarmac for two hours before they had to switch planes had frazzled her nerves.
However, the pièce de résistance came after waiting another forty-five minutes when she was informed that all of her luggage had been lost. They were doing their very best to locate her bags, but it could take up to two weeks.
She filled out the necessary forms to send the luggage back home instead of having it arrive in Vegas long after her trip was over. Now all she needed was an earthquake and her predictions of things to come could make her the next Nostradamus.
“Thank God for VISA.” She headed toward the exit, shoving her sunglasses back on her nose.
A hard body rammed into her. Hands grabbed her arms, preventing her from falling but her purse went flying, sending the contents sliding across the floor as her carry-on slipped from her grasp.
A man wearing a dark suit and even darker glasses grimaced. “Sorry, ma’am. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” She pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head and dropped to her knees to collect her things.
“Actually, it was entirely my fault. Let me help you,” another male voice said, the clipped British tones doing things to her body that should’ve been banned in customs. “Give the lady some room, Nathan. I plowed into her.”
The fine hair on the back of her neck stood. She knew that voice. It had whispered to her in her dreams and while she wrote. Her muse. Her biggest mistake. “It’s fine...really.”
“I insist; it’s the least I can do for running into you.” He knelt beside her and grabbed her book from the tiled floor.
“While I insist you don’t,” she said, moving quickly to scoop up the remaining items. His loafers hit her line of vision and she stood slowly as possible to find the face of People Magazine’s Sexiest Bachelor for two years running.
Wheat blond hair fell in a purposefully disarrayed fashion, a sexy topper to his fallen angel face, but it was his eyes that captured and held her attention first. Blue eyes so pure in color that they looked like aquamarine gemstones. While most people dressed down for flights, opting for comfort over style, he looked like a men’s magazine cover model, wearing an open-at-the- throat classic button down and khaki trousers that made the most of his long, lean frame.
God, she wished she had a slushy handy right about now. He wouldn’t look so good wearing neon blue all over his face.
“Hi.” He gave her a crooked smile, flashing perfect white teeth though a pair of sensuous lips.
For a moment his smile completely disarmed her and she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Good grief, you’ve gotten tall. What I mean is you look taller in person than you do in your movies, but isn’t that true about most actors? Oh, wait, no, they’re usually shorter in person and not as good looking. Hmm...um. Well, at least you look better in person and um…” Zoe faltered mid-sentence, face heating. This was not how she pictured their next meeting. Instead of a bumbling, blushing fool, she was cool and precise. Maybe even a little skewering with very carefully chosen words. Too late now. “Anyway, the last time I saw you, you were a little shorter, but only by a couple of inches and now you’re not.”
Golden brows drew together slightly before he settled back into his famous smile. The same one he seemed to have in every picture taken of him. The one that set women’s hearts and other places all aquiver. Unfortunately, it included hers as well.
“Yeah, I get that a lot,” he said. “What party was that by the way? I can’t imagine I didn’t take the time to talk to someone so pretty.”
“Are you serious?”
“Of course. You’re unforgettable, love.”
“But you just said you don’t remember me.”
He shrugged his wide shoulders. “Sorry, I meet a lot of women.” There wasn’t a hint of smugness in his voice, more like a universal truth about his life.
And the truth hurt. A lot. She wanted to scream at the familiar pain that stabbed at her heart, at him for being the biggest ass**le on the planet. Even if she was being unfair. It really wasn’t his fault he didn’t remember meeting her—at least not the second time.
“Give me back my book.” She tried grabbing it again, but he held it above her head like he wanted to play keep-away.
He turned it over and scanned the back, then glanced up at her. “You read this crap?”
Crap? “It’s literature and you’re one to talk. Especially with the last movie you did. It was horrendous and full of plot holes. I couldn’t determine what the goal, motivation or conflict was supposed to be. Well, not beyond blow them up, save the world and get the girl.”
“But you watched it anyway,” he said with a wink.
She made a face. “Didn’t have a choice,” she muttered. Actually, she’d watched it twice and bought the DVD when it came out.
As if he were reading her mind, he bent his head down and peered at her through sinfully long lashes. “And you loved it.”
She pursed her lips and shook her head. “Nope. Lack of G.M.C.”
He scrunched up one side of his face in confusion, and she mouthed the words goal, motivation and conflict at him. When he didn’t respond she flicked her hands in the air. He was hopeless.
Glints of humor flashed in his blue eyes.
And purposefully obtuse.
“At least I got paid twenty million for it. You don’t get paid to read this smut, do you?” Christian waved the book in her face, her green eyes almost crossing as it passed by her nose. “Oh, sorry, this classic piece of literature that Shakespeare would’ve given his left nut to read.” He had no idea why he wanted to tease her. Why he wanted to see what she would do or say next. Only that he wanted her to keep talking in that soft southern drawl of hers.