Brent stopped walking in front of a roulette table and narrowed his eyes. “Look. I know what you were going to say, man. And it’s not fucking appropriate. That’s all,” he said, as they resumed their pace past the blackjack games.
James held up his hands in surrender. “So you two were friends or something?”
Brent laughed. He wasn’t going to get into it now. He didn’t need to lay out his past. Shannon was a private woman. She clearly wanted her carefully constructed present identity kept secret. His first step in proving that he could be the man she needed would be to protect who she was.
“Like I said, I knew her in college,” he said, giving nothing more away as they reached the front door to their flagship club on the property of the Luxe Hotel. Edge was quiet now in the late morning, since it didn’t open until five. Much later, there would be a line snaking along the velvet rope by the brushed steel exterior wall. The purple sign bearing the club’s name in crisp, clean letters would be bright and beckoning, calling out to the club-goers of Vegas who were eager to party, to lounge, to dance, to drink, to be treated to bottle service from gorgeous bartenders, and to move and sway. To celebrate pending marriages, weekends away, or just nights on the town.
“Maybe you’ll get to know her better now,” James said. “Because there she is.”
As Brent turned the corner, Shannon was waiting by the front door of Edge.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The club had a different energy during the day. No music played. The lights were bright, shining in every corner. Shannon felt as if she was wandering backstage and peering at all the pulleys and levers, the sets and costumes that made a Broadway show go ’round. Because there were no smoke and mirrors now. Those would only come with an audience or a crowd in the evening.
Even with the lights switched on, Edge still possessed the sleek sensuality it was known for, with its silver bar, low divans, gauzy curtains, and its rich colors—colors of desire, like wine reds and deep purples.
Her footsteps echoed across the black tiled floor that would be lit up tonight, illuminated by rays of smoky light from the ceiling, by crescents of blue from the stage, by shimmery gold beams.
The click of her high heels punctuated the strained silence between the two of them as they walked through his quiet club. She wasn’t sure what to say next. She’d simply asked Brent for a minute alone to chat, and James had scurried off. No one else was there, as far as she could tell, except the two of them.
“It’s like seeing how a magician pulls off a card trick,” she said as she turned to survey the scene, eager to break the quiet.
“Speaking of, I have a new one I can show you.”
“You do card tricks now?” she asked, because she could picture it. It seemed like his style. He’d always loved cards and had played in poker games at school now and then. She could see him brandishing a deck with a ‘now you see it, now you don’t’ sweep of his hands.
He laughed, and she sneaked a peek once more at the man by her side—so much taller, so much bigger than her small frame. Her eyes definitely hadn’t been playing tricks on her last night. He was still devastatingly handsome, even more so with his casual look today—jeans and a navy blue button-down. It was untucked, and with the cuffs rolled up it revealed his strong forearms, and some of the ink he’d gotten in college. She’d gone with him for his first tattoo, the black sunburst just above his wrist. She’d joked that it fit his “sunny disposition” and he’d promptly scowled and glowered. But then he’d draped an arm around her and flashed her his winning smile.
“Nope. But I’ll need to work on that next. Can I get you something? Water? Soda? I’m happy to serve you something stronger, but I don’t imagine you’ve started drinking at eleven in the morning,” he said as they reached the silver bar. A small red bag was on the counter, as well as the usual accouterments of napkins and cocktail straws.
She shook her head. “I have a meeting at noon at the Cosmopolitan. So, a Diet Coke could be great.” Being near him, and needing to say the words Michael had told her to say, made her