Perfect. She looked like a girl looking for no-strings-attached sex.
Exactly what she needed.
CHAPTER TWO
As with most massive Vegas hotels, the trek from her room to the elevator was more exercise than Sophie got in the average month. Six wrong turns later, she found herself in the barely lit elevator lobby of the thirty-sixth floor.
Sophie had been secretly hoping for one of the themed Las Vegas hotels. A girl didn’t have to bother with faking class when surrounded by gaudy imitations of New York City or the Eiffel Tower.
But Brynn hadn’t asked Sophie for input, which meant they were staying at one of the newer, swanky resorts. Not a tacky fake pyramid in sight. It was all sleek furniture, mod décor, and shitty lighting.
On second thought, maybe the resort did have a theme: ostentatious. Perfect for Sophie’s sister and cousin.
She pulled out her cell and sent a text message to her sister.
On my way. Where should I meet you?
Her phone beeped almost immediately with a return message.
Sapphire in the lobby. I’ll let Trish know you’ll be late.
Sophie dropped the phone back into her clutch with an eye roll. Two minutes late. She hadn’t even made it to the bar yet, and already she was getting a lecture. The elevator arrived with a chime, and Sophie sighed. Naturally, out of the eight possible elevator doors, the one that opened was at the far end from where she was standing.
Sound the judgmental alarm, big sister, she thought. I might be a whole three minutes late.
Thanks to the painful boots, Sophie’s gait was more of a constipated shuffle than an actual walk. She was barely two-thirds of the way toward the open elevator when the doors started to close again.
“Oh, come on!”
Really? Of all the cities, Las Vegas hadn’t had high heels in mind when they’d set up the elevator timing? But the Vegas gods apparently heard her dismay, because, as if on command, the doors reopened just as she reached them.
Finally something going her way. She shuffled into the dimly lit elevator and stumbled.
Oh wow. Okay, so two things were going her way. It wasn’t the Vegas gods who had held the elevator for her. It had been another type of god entirely.
The tall, handsome variety.
Sophie was vaguely aware that she was gaping, but some men were simply meant to be ogled.
The perfectly tailored suit was definitely designer, and the subtle cologne smelled like money. His body had broad shoulders and a lean torso—the hallmark of a well-used gym membership.
The short cut of his brown hair only emphasized the classic masculinity of the square jaw and straight nose.
The eyes were a startling pale gray. Scratch that. Silver. And cold.
Sophie stiffened as she realized the physical appreciation was all one-way. Far from being admiring, his gaze was downright icy, and the rest of his face was completely expressionless. She instinctively disliked men who couldn’t muster a simple, polite smile for strangers, especially when she was drooling like Cujo.
Still, his indifference was nothing a little flash of leg couldn’t fix.
Sophie slipped into one of her more appealing characters. The one that had elderly men calling her “little lady,” and the younger generation buying her martinis and jewelry.
Slowly, she slid her hand down her side and fiddled with the hem of her skirt in shy modesty, as if, Oops, she just now realized her tiny skirt barely covered her lady bits.
Knowing that his eyes would have drifted down to her thighs before gentlemanly manners insisted he look back at her face, she let her lips turn upward into a bashful smile and pulled at the tip of her hair self-consciously.
It was all done in a split second, the movements perfectly manufactured to imply that she had absolutely no idea how darling she looked.
Sophie eyed her prey to see how he was reacting to her routine.