Shattered Dreams (Vegas Dreams Book 2) by Cheryl Bradshaw Read Free Book Online Page A

... that long anyway.”
    I pivoted, planning to zing her even better than she’d zinged me, but Gideon spoke first. “Stop it, Mandi. Now.”
    Mandi’s Sugar Daddy was slumped over on the couch in a drunken stupor. I didn’t get it. She may have been a vain, self-serving woman, but she was a ten in the looks department. Even I could admit it. And, at one time, she’d had Gideon. To go from him to a guy just for his money—I didn’t get how some women did it.
    I walked outside. Gideon followed me to my car. Even though I didn’t want to say anything, I knew I had to say something, or he’d probably follow me out of the driveway too.
    I turned. “This is a job to me. Nothing more.”
    It was starting to feel like a lot more though. After experiencing his kiss, I couldn’t look at him without thinking all manner of impure thoughts.
    “I don’t believe you,” he said. “This isn’t just a job. What happened between us before—you wanted it as much as I did.”
    “You don’t have any idea what I want. You made an advance. You put your hands on me. It was all you. I’ve been through enough. This isn’t a game to me.”
    “It isn’t a game to me either.”
    I stuck my key into the ignition and fired it up, grabbed the listing folder from the passenger seat, and flung it into his hands.
    He could find another realtor, and he could find another plaything.

I plopped down on a round swivel chair at the bar. Rae smirked and slid an attractive blue drink over to me. I say attractive because it was lit up like a glow stick. I’m not kidding. I could have used it to find my way out of a dark alley. Rae had watched me walk in and decided a stiff drink was the cure to what ailed me. I propped my elbows up on the bar, fisted my hands under my chin. I realized I was pouting, and I didn’t care. “You set me up, and you lied to me.”
    “Oh, come on,” Rae replied. “Don’t you think that’s a little—”
    “True?”
    “Okay, so maybe I left out a minor detail or two. You know I would never do anything I didn’t think was best for you, right?”
    “How is lying what’s best for me?”
    “I didn’t think you’d go to Gideon’s house if I told you he asked to see you alone.”
    I turned. “He did?”
    She nodded.
    “Why?” I asked.
    “Oh, don’t play innocent with me. You know why. He likes you.” She patted me on the shoulder. “And you like him.”
    “I don’t like him. He’s my lawyer. We’re not even friends.”
    “If what you’re alleging is true, then why have you worked his name into every conversation we’ve had over the last month?”
    I could deny it, come up with some excuse, say I only talked about him to update her on what he was doing for me as a client. It wouldn’t work. She could always tell when I was bluffing.
    “Are you trying to say putting the two of you together tonight was a bad thing?” she asked.
    My head throbbed, and all I could think about was crawling into bed, alone, for the umpteenth time. “Seeing Gideon tonight didn’t go the way you might think it went. It was a disaster.”
    “So he didn’t try anything?”
    She swiped her thumb across my cheek.
    I jerked back. “What are you doing?”
    “You have lipstick on your face in a place lipstick doesn’t belong. Wanna tell me how it got there?”
    I shrugged. “No idea.”
    “What was it you were saying?” she joked. “Oh, right. How bad was it again?”
    “His ex-wife showed up in the middle of, umm ... us talking.”
    She frowned. “Ooh, sorry. She wasn’t supposed to be here until tomorrow.”
    “Does everyone know what’s going on but me?”
    “Relax. The ex-wife is harmless. Crazy, but harmless.”
    “Why are you assuring me? She had every right to be there. It’s her house too—for now. Why would you set me up with him without talking to me about it first?”
    “There are dozens of girls chomping at his lustrous bit, Sasha, and he likes you, which proves he has good taste. Why not