Seven Nights of Sin - Lacey Alexander [7]
Filled with a strange, new energy. Ready to make changes in her life.
Maybe it was about the new clothes and hair, for all she knew. Maybe it was about the job. The truth was, she’d told herself that this had to happen, that she had to become the sort of person who could play this game. Yet something about the very aura of this place was—that quickly—helping the process along, making it suddenly feel smooth as silk, and at the same time exciting as…sin.
As she stepped up to the lavish registration desk and gave her name to the clerk, a heady sense of freedom coursed through her veins. A sense of newness. And if ever there had been a time in her life when it would be beneficial to be someone new, it was now.
Because this was Vegas, baby. Enormous, overwhelming, a stunningly bright oasis built in the desert purely for the pursuit of pleasure—and like it or not, she was about to immerse herself in it.
Two
The room was plush, not to mention enormous, quickly making her decide maybe she was going to like this being an A&R rep thing—even without the airplane perks just yet.
She was busy gaping at the huge, tiled bathroom when she noticed—from the corner of her eye—a blinking light on the room’s phone, informing her she already had a message. Perching on the edge of the bed and pressing the message retrieval button, she found herself blown away by the mere sound of Damon’s deep voice. “Brenna. You’ve had a long drive, so take the afternoon to relax. Then meet me tonight at Mon Ami Gabi in front of the Paris at seven. I look forward to working with you.”
He never identified himself. Because he didn’t have to.
Arrogant, she thought, rolling her eyes.
But also sexy. And sexy could make up for arrogant in a lot of ways. She supposed she’d never actually heard him string together so many words before, and his voice alone, even without his looks to accompany it, had just made her nether regions go warm.
Not that she could afford to think about him being sexy. Or about him making her warm in the panties. Nope, to Brenna, Damon Andros was now simply a means to an end, a stepping stone to an exciting new career. And Kelly had made it clear: he’d brought this on himself. Soon this week of subterfuge would be history, and she’d have a shiny new job to show for it.
Of course, by the time she was getting ready for dinner a few hours later, she’d grown nervous. Like her old self, her real self—nervous little Brenna who answered phones and processed contracts and generally stayed in the background, nervous little Brenna who was afraid to be around an ultra-hip guy like Damon for more than a minute or two.
But a look in the mirror reminded her that she’d decided not to be nervous little Brenna anymore. Hair that had been mousy brown a few days ago was now a warm, sexy shade of auburn, done in a stylish cut that fell straight but angled around her face and shoulders. And the body she generally kept covered in fairly conservative clothes now appeared much curvier than usual in well-fitted jeans, pointy-toed ankle boots, and a fitted white blouse that revealed the beaded cami underneath, along with a shadow of cleavage. Kelly had officially declared this Brenna’s confident-cosmopolitan-chick-on-the-move look, and she couldn’t deny that it actually made her feel that way. A pair of new sunglasses completed the image.
She knew the Paris Hotel was far enough away to warrant driving or taking a cab, but she decided to walk. As fabulously luxurious as the Venetian was, she felt hungry to see more of Vegas and figured doing it by foot was the best way to take in the details.
What she discovered as she set out was a strange city of walkways and escalators and bridges that seemed to lead in every direction without necessarily making it clear where they would take you. So she followed her instincts, and the crowds, and felt miniscule in comparison to it all. She’d never been to the Grand Canyon, but she’d heard people talk about feeling small there, like an incidental