Irresistibly Dangerous : A Marriage of Convenience Romance (Irresistibly Yours Book 5), page 13
Only it’s not the cops swarming us, it’s the press. And Georgia unfortunately is not holding my dick, just my nipple. To the point where I’m tempted to groan and need to smack her hand away because she’s pinching it and my nipple ring.
But what in the almighty fuck is going on?
“Georgia! Lenox! Over here!” Click, click, click. “How long have you secretly been together? Do Zaxton and Greyson know you’re married? Why didn’t they attend the wedding?”
Questions fire at us one after the other, cameras and phones shoved in our faces. We’re completely surrounded, unable to see anything past the mass of bodies. On instinct, I wrap my arm protectively around her—clearly, I lied when I told her I wasn’t a bodyguard—tucking her into my side and crisply walking us forward. To where I have no clue, but I don’t care. Just as long as I get us out of here.
“Georgia, what does this mean for Ezra? Were you having an affair with Lenox behind his back? Lenox, were you really a virgin when you married Georgia?”
Virgin? I trip on that last one but don’t stop moving, familiar enough with the whole paparazzi routine to keep my features neutral and void of reaction. Security comes flying out of the hotel, and somehow I’m being directed to a limo like we’re living out some cliché Hollywood movie.
Which I suppose we are since I’m married to Hollywood’s former sweetheart.
The door opens, and I shove Georgia in first, climbing in beside her and slamming the door shut behind us. The car slowly inches out of the driveway, pushing past the throngs of press and somehow hitting the light just right and taking a quick left.
“Where would you like me to take you, sir? Ma’am?” the driver asks quietly from the front.
“Anywhere private where we can be alone would be great,” Georgia states breathlessly, and the driver gives her a thumbs-up before raising the partition. She pivots to me, her face twisted in fury. “Freaking vultures,” she hisses. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea this would happen this soon. I assumed once the press learned of our marriage, they’d go a bit nuts, but I figured that would be on me and happen in LA or even if I moved to Boston.” She places a palm over her racing heart.
I lean over and whisper in her ear, “Virgin?”
She coughs out a laugh. “It was the wedding planner,” she murmurs contritely. “The one who was fangirling all over you. After you ran out of the chapel, I was… flustered and, well, not thinking all that clearly obviously because somehow it just slipped out that you were a virgin, though it didn’t make any sense, but it did make me laugh, and that was exactly what I needed in that moment. I can’t believe that woman sold you out like that,” she mocks in feigned horror. “She’s your biggest fan.”
I stare balefully at her.
“If it’s any consolation, you were great for your first time.” She pats my shoulder and then falls forward, covering her face with her hands and pressing them into her knees. “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”
“Is this a Godfather III moment?”
“The press hasn’t bothered me much over the last few weeks. Not since the investigation for my father’s plane concluded. I was hoping it was finally starting to die down, and now they’re baaack. Ugh. Now I’m quoting Poltergeist II. I guess it’s all about the sequels with us, isn’t it?”
I laugh at that. I can’t help it. She’s right.
Her head pops up, her red hair wild and all over the place. “It’s been a day, and it’s not even ten. Between Alfie and Ezra and now this, I’ve had enough.”
“You verbally sparred with one man and dropped two others to the ground, and now you’re going to give up? Where did all that cute Georgie tenacity go?”
She jabs my flank as she does every time I call her that, but I have to imagine it was also because I tauntingly called her tenacity cute.
Still, she doesn’t skip a beat. “You’re right. I’m tenacious as fuck. I have a vagina of steel.”
I cough out a laugh. “Vagina of steel?”
She rolls her eyes. “Um. Yeah. You felt her last night. My girl is strong and doesn’t mess around. Men aren’t the only ones entitled to genitalia of steel. That’s sexist and simply wrong.”
If it wouldn’t get me in trouble, I’d kiss the hell out of her right now. Because even though I was teasing her, she’s irresistibly cute.
The car stops drawing my attention out the window. We’re in a parking lot, but before I can ask where we are or what we’re doing, the driver says, “Give me a few minutes. I’ll be right back.”
He steps out, and then it’s just me and Georgia in the back of a dark, quiet car. After the anxiety and adrenaline of the morning with Ezra, her tackling me to the floor like a fucking ninja, and the press after that, the quiet is too much. Everything is amplified. Like the smell of her still-damp hair and the sweetness of her skin. The sound of her breathing, still slightly accelerated from the press—or perhaps from something else.
I shouldn’t have fucked her last night. I knew it then, but it’s worse now because all I can think about is doing it again.
I can’t. And I won’t. But hell, why does everything about her have to be so alluring?
Like magnets, her lips demand my attention, and the moment I focus on them, images of last night flicker through my head. She passed out somewhere near two, and instead of going to my computer to work the way I told myself I would, I found myself crawling in bed behind her, running my fingers through her hair, and watching her sleep like a goddamn creeper.
I assuaged myself by saying this would be my last shot ever to do that. It had been one of my favorite things to do with her—a soothing balm to my ravaged thoughts—and I couldn’t pass it up. But with it came… familiar thoughts. Familiar thoughts about her.
Familiar thoughts I cannot be having about my wife.
But then I did the unthinkable. I fell asleep beside her and slept better than I have in I don’t even know how long. I woke alone—grateful for that—showered, and then everything else happened. I’m in this to protect her from those assholes, and yet I haven’t sorted through Alfie’s information. I haven’t started my attack strategy though I’m positive they’re already working on theirs.
I’m failing her—again—and it’s more than I can take.
Thankfully she’s still too worked up to notice where my mind is. “You must be regretting this,” she says softly, dejectedly. “I pretty much turned your life upside down. I’ve brought a man, possibly two, into your life who won’t hesitate with threats or bribery. The press knows about the wedding, and…” she trails off, once again feeling too many feelings.
“Asked if I was a virgin,” I finish for her.
She winces, even if she can’t stop the resulting giggle. “Yes.”
Her eyes flicker to mine—the most gorgeous fucking eyes I’ve ever seen—and the fact that I’d do anything, even speak, and intentionally be sarcastic to get her to laugh is troubling.
“I feel like I’m underwater, and no matter how hard I swim or how visible the surface is, I can never reach it to take a breath. There is always something dragging me back down.”
Without thinking, I take her hand, intertwining our fingers, and bring the back of her hand to my chest. Our rings flash in the muted sunlight shining through the tinted windows. A man knows he’s fucked when he can’t stop watching or thinking about a woman, and I can’t stop watching or thinking about my wife. The woman who hates me because all I’ve done is disappoint and hurt her.
“Isn’t that why I’m here? To help you reach the surface and finally be able to take that breath?”
I stare at our joined hands, pressed against my chest, right over my heart, and slowly my gaze rolls up to hers. She’s watching me, caution in her brow yet with a look that makes my lungs feel like they’re burning. My problem is—and has always been—I find her inexorably perfect. In all the things she does. Even her pain and sorrow make me hard, because all I want to do is fix them. But what kind of man gets off on something like that?
I’m not the hero of her story. It’s not a title I’m deserving of. I’m not sure I’m even worthy of being her dark knight. But God, does she make me want to change that. Everything about Georgia Monroe makes me want to strive to be a better version of myself for her, and for the last six years, that’s all I’ve done.
I stop short, cutting my useless thoughts off with a goddamn butcher’s knife, my breath suddenly coming out in harsh pants.
It’s not until the back door opens, letting in a stream of blinding light and cool air, that I realize how close I am to her. My face is right up in hers, our lips inches apart, and I jerk back.
A spike of restlessness flares through me. I need to get a grip on myself.
Thankfully Georgia steps out of the car, her curiosity about where we are taking over, and I hear her squeal as I step out.
She points up. “Look!”
I don’t have to look. I know exactly where we are, and it automatically makes me suspicious.
“I’ve always wanted to go on this.”
She treats me to an enthusiastically bright smile, and considering the morning she’s had, that’s saying something.
“Thank you! This is perfect!” She throws her arms around the driver who immediately blushes.
“Of course, ma’am. Here, sir.” The driver hands me two tickets. “Just tell them that you belong to Paulo. I’ll be here waiting for you after.”
I nod at him, reaching out and shaking his hand.
My fingers thread with Georgia’s, and I take us on the escalator and up to the entrance of High Roller, always keeping her behind me even as we approach the line and the woman up front, where I relay the message about belonging to Paulo.
“This way, please.” She unclips a chain and brings us up to the front, holding the line back. I tug Georgia in front of me, keeping my back to the crowd waiting behind us, and when the next car stops, she waves us on. “All for you.”
I push Georgia over to one of the benches until she’s seated, and the doors start to slide closed. I continue to stand, obscuring any view of her through the glass.
“It feels crazy having this whole booth to ourselves.” Georgia’s hands pan around the vast pod. “It looks like it could accommodate a few more dozen people.”
“You asked for privacy. In Las Vegas, this is probably the closest you’ll get.” Even if it’s far from private.
“Truth.”
The car starts to move, slowly carrying us up and over Las Vegas. The sun shines brightly through the glass as the screens overhead flash with ads for various Vegas attractions, and a voice comes through a loudspeaker telling us about the rules, including that we’re not allowed to smoke.
“Dammit, I guess I can’t light my blunt in here.”
I smirk and take the bench seat opposite her. “Have you ever smoked weed?”
“Once,” she tells me. “I was sixteen at a Hollywood party, and people were passing joints around. I took a few hits, hacked out a lung, and that was that.”
“Such a naughty thing for such a good girl to do.”
She rolls her eyes at me.
“They have other things now. Edibles.”
Her eyebrows bounce. “Do you do them often?”
I shrug. “No. But if it’s been too long since I’ve slept, sometimes I’ll eat one to get myself over the hurdle.”
“Such a pristine thing for such a bad boy to do,” she mocks. “You slept last night.”
I don’t bother responding.
“Are we going to talk about this morning?” she asks.
I wait her out, curious if she’ll mention my reaction. I don’t normally physically react to situations. I don’t have to. My size intimidates, and my quietness makes people uneasy and uncertain. But when she said he got handsy with her and she wasn’t sure if he was going to hurt her or not, I snapped. And if she hadn’t brought me to the ground and climbed on top of me, I would have found him and showed him exactly what happens when people touch things that don’t belong to them.
“Not here.”
She plows past my warning and gives me a warning of her own. “They’re not done with us. For everything you’re doing, they’re trying to do it back.”
I fold my arms and extend my legs out into the open space between us. She has no real semblance of who I am or what I’m capable of. She views me as a hacker, someone who can break into a system or a phone and play around. Her notions of that are anecdotal—as in what she’s read in books or magazines or seen in Hollywood films and television. I didn’t get into computers or even hacking when I was a teenager or going to college the way most do. I also don’t need to live in an empty apartment, wear all black with a permanent hoodie over my head, cover my face with a mask, or walk around with either no ID or six fake ones.
There’s a reason behind that.
But this isn’t the place for that reassurance.
“I’m sorry,” she says again, her gaze scrolling over me. “You’re dragged into the middle of this.”
She’s tried to warn me about this a few times, but that’s simply because Georgia worries I’m going to run the first chance I get or fire at her that I had no clue what I was getting into with this. But the truth is, she’s distrustful of me with good reason. I walked away from her in the past and have no perceptible skin in this game other than my guilt over being a shitty friend and breaking her heart six years ago. She doesn’t need to know the other reason why I’m here. It won’t help either of us.
I simply stare at her. “We’re married, baby. It’s all going to be fine.”
She shakes her head at my partially mocking tone, her teeth working her bottom lip in a way that makes me jealous of her teeth. “I don’t know what comes next,” she states, an air of defeat and uncertainty in her voice. “I was hoping this would be the end, but it somehow feels like I’m back at the beginning again.”
Vegas and the mountains in the distance bloom around us, and she rises from her seat, walks over to the glass, and peers out at the obscurity and contradiction that is Las Vegas. Flashing lights against sprawling nature. I don’t answer her. Not only is she not interested in a response, but my phone rings, cutting off any need for one.
I slip my phone out and glance up and around the booth. Then I answer. “We’re stealing a moment together on the High Roller.”
Zax clears his throat. “You’re with Georgia? I tried calling her, and she didn’t answer.”
“I am. I’ll put you on speaker, but remember what I said.” Meaning there are cameras and possibly audio that could be accessed by anyone, and it’s far from secure.
I set the phone down on the seat beside me, and Zax’s aggravated growl comes through. “Your phone is off, Georgia.”
Her eyes snap wide and she digs through her purse. “Right. Sorry. I shut it off after the press bombarded us.” She holds the button on her phone. “Back on now. Happy?”
“Georgia!” Aurelia’s screech comes through the phone, making Georgia laugh. “Zax was worried, but I’m planning. When do you both come to Boston next?”
Georgia crosses the pod and takes the seat on the other side of my phone. “I don’t know,” she says, her voice changing its tone. “It was supposed to be Tuesday, but… I don’t want to stay here anymore, and I don’t see why I need to.”
“Fabulous. Zax is sending the Monroe plane to bring you both home.” I watch as Georgia tenses at the word plane. “We don’t want you flying commercial after this morning. Your pretty faces are all over the internet.”
Georgia shakes her head in annoyed aggravation but doesn’t say anything about the plane. “I’m supposed to stay here for the rest of the conference. I’m already ditching out this morning.”
“I think this is more important, and while I know Monroe Securities is very important to you, what are you actually missing there? I think it’s better if you’re back here with us right now, given everything we’re starting to learn.”
She sighs. She knows Zax has a point. One I’m inclined to agree with. Georgia isn’t a quitter. She is loyal beyond words, but right now, it’s just not safe for her to be around Ezra, or likely even Alfie, with how he’s coming down on her.
“Fine,” she relents. “We’ll fly home.”
“Excellent!” Aurelia chirps. “Then we’re planning your wedding party.”
I groan but release an indulgent smirk all the same. I should have anticipated this. It is Aurelia, after all.
“Our wedding party?” Georgia parrots, her attention drawing up to me.
“It’ll just be family, as in our family, but I think it’s important to celebrate this together. Don’t you?”
Oh, Aurelia. So clever. I trust four people in this world without question, but their women are next tier on that scale.
“Yes. I agree,” I say. “I think there’s a lot to celebrate right now. When does the plane arrive?”
“Three hours. It’s already en route,” Zax answers, and I can tell by his tone, he’s not happy. I mean, he’s rarely happy—that’s just Zax—but he’s overwrought with this situation. He’s the protective big brother, but right now he’s forced to take a back seat and let me lead. Which hits me with a fresh wave of guilt over last night.
I broke my promise to him. And I’m breaking another by keeping it a secret.
Georgia is blinking at me, her brow furrowed ever so slightly as she starts to pick up on the tone and sub-context of the conversation. I shoot my gaze up toward the cameras in the corner, and when she realizes her blunder, her eyes close and her breath stalls. When she reopens her eyes, they’re bright and dazzling—a happy princess, a perfect actress.
“Great!” she exalts, leaning forward and kissing my cheek. “I know we did this on a whim, but the idea of actually celebrating with you is just everything.”
“Fabulous,” Aurelia exclaims. “I’m on it. I have the perfect dress for you. I can’t wait. We’ll see you soon.”
