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

give him a chance?”
    “I can give you twenty to twenty-five good reasons why.”
    She shook her head. “I don’t follow.”
    “According to the ex, Gideon has a revolving door, one girl goes out, another one comes in.”
    “Did you ask him if that’s true?”
    “Why should I? He didn’t deny it.”
    “So, your one-night stands are allowed and his aren’t?”
    “It’s different.”
    “How?”
    “Twenty-five?”
    “It hasn’t been twenty-five. It hasn’t even been five, from what I know. I’ve only seen him out with two women since I met Richard. One woman lasted one date, and the other maybe three dates. Otherwise, he’s flown solo. You ask me, Gideon’s a good match for you.”
    “How do you know?” I asked.
    “Because I’ve known you since we were kids. He kissed you. Did you feel anything for him when he did?”
    I didn’t feel anything, I felt everything . Hot. It didn’t matter though. I had to erase it, omit it from my mind like it never happened. It wouldn’t happen again. It couldn’t happen again.
    “I never said we kissed.”
    “You didn’t have to, sweetie. Between the pink stain on your cheek and the, uhh, whatever that bright red mark is on your neck, it’s easy to connect the dots.”
    “What? Where?”
    I brushed a finger up and down the side of my neck. Over the last hour, I’d felt a tingling sensation, like the side of my neck had been pricked with needles. Damn him and his five o’clock shadow. I grabbed the glass in front of me, downed one-third of it, and set the ice-filled glass back on the counter, minus one cube, which I pressed to my neck. I jiggled the glass until the bartender raised a brow, looked my direction.
    “Would you like another?” he asked.
    I nodded, and he took the glass. “Easy on the ice this time, okay? If all I wanted was a glass of ice, I could get it from my house for free. Big drink, big tip. Little drink, no tip. Understand?”
    “Don’t be mad at me, okay?” Rae said. “I thought a lot about Gideon’s request before I went along with it. I think you’re ready. Not for a commitment, but ready to date, even if it’s a little at a time.”
    She continued talking for a while, and by the time she finished giving me an infused boost of hyper-confidence, I was on my third drink of the night, each one making me feel just a little bit better about myself than the last. I thought about taking a taxi back to Gideon’s house, letting him finish what he started, but I hadn’t had enough liquid courage—not yet.
    “Hey,” Rae shook my arm. “Are you listening? Your eyes are glazed over. Am I talking to myself here? Because if I am, I’ll stop.”
    “I’m sorry I snapped at you before.”
    “Don’t be. I may have even deserved it.”
    “All those one-night flings I had. Even though I knew it wasn’t right, it also wasn’t hard. Meet a guy one night, have a little fun, he goes his way, I go mine. Gideon is different. I can’t do that with him.”
    “Of course he’s different. You like him. Deny it all you want, but if you want to know why you feel this way, that’s why.”
    “Why did he get divorced?”
    “You met the Queen of Crazy in the flesh, and you still have to ask?”
    I nodded.
    “About five years ago, Mandi was a pretty big deal around here in her own right,” Rae said. “She was a party planner, mainly booked bachelor and bachelorette pre-wedding gigs. They paid her top dollar, and she got them into exclusive clubs and parties. She made a pile of cash and a lot of new friends. The problem was the friends she made were the worst kind of friends you could have.”
    “Meaning?”
    “They used her. Got her addicted to heroin. Gideon caught her in the bathroom one night shooting up. She’d been hiding it, stashing the syringe in her makeup case. The more she used, the more she needed it, until she didn’t care about keeping it secret anymore.”
    “I can’t imagine what that must have been like for him,” I