“Hello?”
“Have dinner with me.” He thought of his mother’s advice and added, “Please?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Then watch me eat. Come on, Gracie, we need to talk.”
Silence.
His gut knotted. “Grace?”
“Okay, give me twenty minutes to freshen up. I’ll meet you in the lobby.”
Jackson could have kissed his mother in that moment. “I’ll come to your room,” he said.
“The lobby, Jackson,” she stated firmly.
Damn, the woman was too astute. If he’d picked her up at her room, he might have had a chance at another kiss…or more. “The lobby in twenty minutes,” he confirmed.
They both hung up, and Jackson tried to figure out this new mood of Grace’s. She’d been pensive, subdued. Wasn’t that how murderers felt right before they cracked? Determination filled him. If Grace really was playing hard to get, then he’d just have to up the ante. After all, they were in Vegas and he had her away from her family, just as he’d wanted. Time to show his hand.
***
“No, thank you. I’m just waiting for a friend.” Grace was getting damned tired of having men assume she was for sale. Good lord, did the men in Vegas think everything was so easily bought?
The middle-aged stranger with the pot belly and receding hairline glanced at her breasts yet again, then licked his lips. “Are you sure? It’d be my pleasure to show you around the casino.”
She pasted a smile on her face and pointedly stared at his wedding ring. “No, really, I’m not interested in—”
“The lady’s with me.”
Grace turned to see Jackson behind her, a fierce frown marring his brow. He looked ready to brawl. She was never so glad to see him. “I was just about to come find you.”
Jackson placed his hand at the small of her back and waited until the stranger took the hint and disappeared into the hotel bar. “What an ass.”
“You can say that again. And that was ass number three. The first two offered money.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Jesus, are you serious?”
“Deadly serious. I didn’t think the dress was that revealing, but maybe I was wrong.”
Jackson looked her over and hummed his approval. “You look beautiful. Some men just don’t know a lady when they see one.”
She liked hearing the compliment. “Thank you. You don’t look half bad yourself.”
Half bad, yeah right. He was drop-dead gorgeous. Black Armani slacks and a white dress shirt, sleeves rolled up and open at the collar. His cropped espresso hair and the dangerous aura that seemed to be such a part of him only completed the package. She wanted to climb him like a great big mountain. A hard, hot, sexy mountain.
Grace fidgeted in her heels. She had all of two dresses, one red, one black. She’d decided to wear the black dress. It was a simple design hitting just above the knees. She’d wrapped her hair into a French twist and put on a little blush and lipstick. The heels weren’t too high that she risked breaking her neck, but they weren’t flats, either. The way Jackson kept looking at her legs, she figured she’d done okay with the clothes and shoes.
“So, where to?”
“I figured we’d keep it simple, eat here at the hotel. No worries about taxis that way.”
“You called ahead and reserved a table?”
He nodded. “I’ve thought of everything,” he murmured.
“Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”