The Little Black Dress (Love in Las Vegas)

16. Nothing But Trouble

Jared

Iwatch Sophie’s taillights fade into the distance, my jaw clenched so tightly, the muscles ache. I can’t believe she just drove away like that. In the middle of a conversation.

Actually, I can believe it. She’s been a pain in my ass since the moment I first laid eyes on her.

“She’s quite the fireball, isn’t she?”

I turn at the sound of Sam’s voice beside me. His arms are crossed over his chest, and he’s wearing a big, cheesy grin as his gaze moves from the road where Sophie disappeared to me.

“You don’t know the half of it,” I grumble, turning to head back into the restaurant.

Sam catches my arm, holding me back. When I look at him in question, he arches a brow.

“Why’d you have her bring the quarterly reports here, anyway?”

I just stare at him, and he laughs. Sam knows me better than most people, so it’s not hard for him to decipher my expression…and my motives.

We’re here at Mercacio’s for two reasons. To have dinner with Sam’s brother, who’s visiting from California, and to check out the new chef the food critics have been raving about for the last couple of weeks. If the food is as good as they say, I plan to poach her. The restaurant at the casino is due for an overhaul and a fresh menu, and I’m here to see if she’d be a good fit.

I have absolutely no need for those reports tonight. I was just fucking with Sophie. Seeing how she’d perform under pressure.

And she performed, all right. That was quite the scene, and even though my initial reaction was anger, I can’t help but be impressed.

“You don’t want to know,” I finally say, answering his question. “Let’s get back to your brother.”

I clap him on the shoulder as we head back inside. While Sam and his brother chat about the menu and what they’re going to order, my mind wanders back to Sophie.

While I sent her on that little mission just to test her mettle, I’m sure she showed up looking like that just to fuck with me. It would’ve taken her two minutes to put her work clothes back on and slip her feet into some real shoes. But she chose to come as she was to punish me for being a dick. I’m actually kind of impressed. She’s got backbone.

An image of her standing in front of me, the fires of hell sparking in those bright blue eyes as she stared me down with a mutinous expression flashes through my mind, and the corners of my mouth lift. The threadbare clothes and those damn fuzzy slippers were ridiculous, but she looked beautiful, anyway. With no make-up, I could see a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. With her hair up like that, her neck looked long, graceful, and positively edible.

And with no bra, I could see her nipples straining against the thin material of her shirt beneath that silly horseshoe design.

Fuck. What am I doing?

I clear my throat and sit up straighter. I pretend to listen to Sam’s brother as he describes a hot new restaurant in Los Angeles, but my mind is whirring with panic.

I am not attracted to Sophie Jameson. No way in hell. She might be gorgeous, but that pretty package hides a vixen who’s nothing but trouble. She’ll be my assistant until I find someone more suitable, then I’ll never see her again.

And that day can’t come fast enough.

* * *

I’mout of my jacket and tie the second I walk through my front door. It’s been a long fucking day, and all I want to do is relax.

Dinner was excellent, and I plan to put together an impossible-to-refuse offer for the chef first thing in the morning. If I can get her to leave Mercacio’s and come work for me, it will be quite the coup for the casino. My restaurant would be the hot spot in Vegas, making The Black Hart that much more successful.

And I’d be making my dad proud.

“Hey, Deuces,” I say as he follows me into the kitchen and jumps up on the counter. “It’s dinnertime.”

I stroke his ebony fur for a moment before heading to the pantry to get his food. Once he’s happily chowing down, I open the fridge and grab a bottle of water. Twisting off the top, I take a long drink.

After the day I’ve had, no one would blame me if I indulged in something a lot stronger. I eye the closed pantry door. I have a few bottles of top-shelf liquor in there—tequila, vodka, and whiskey—leftover from a dinner party I hosted for Mom and Harrison eight months ago for their first, and only, anniversary.

Harrison got blitzed and told me I wasn’t giving my mother—and by default, him—a big enough cut of the casino profits. Fucker. My mother has her own money she inherited from Dad, and Harrison was well aware of it. He was just pissed it was protected in their prenup, and he couldn’t get his grubby hands on it.