It was more than I had ever let myself hope for. Even after a year of being together, even after the proposal, I still found myself wondering if I was going to wake up and find that it was all a dream.
But as Vincent met my gaze as he finished his speech and everyone applauded, he still looked at me like I was the only person he could see. He was so casual, so certain, in including me in his life and announcing my importance to him in front of everyone.
And in that moment, I found myself starting to believe that I really did have this. This was mine. Vincent and I were together, and would always be together.
I clapped along with everyone else, my skin feeling too tight and my heart feeling too big. It was like we were the only people in the room. And I knew that this was how it would always feel, for the rest of our lives. We’d always have each other.
THE END
Vegas Bound (Sample)
He was reckless, hot-headed, and bad.
A tattooed god was once my best friend. My first love. My reason for existence.
But his vanishing act created a hole inside my heart.
Today, he’s the famous son of one of the wealthiest men on the continent.
I never thought I’d see him again… and much less in Las Vegas.
Dominic Cruz, whom I’ve spent the last fifteen years fantasizing about, now stands before me.
And I barely recognize him.
He says he won’t let me go. That he can’t let me go. Not this time.
Even if it means letting me drown with him into the depths of his secret.
Children. Those squishy little whiny creatures that can make your heart melt with just one smile. As I admired the sheer innocence that my students exuded while they remained buried in their math problem, I heard a knock at the door.
“Bella?” Natasha said, her thin lips forming a smile. “Can I have a word?”
I knew what she wanted to talk to me about. It was written all over her face, like everything on her mind usually was.
I pursed my lips and made my way out the door.
“Quiet!” I said, raising my voice, which I didn’t particularly enjoy doing but it was inevitable if I wanted to keep my little monsters in check.
“So…?” Natasha began. She rubbed her hands together and widened her eyes. “Are you excited?”
I’d never been a good liar but for the sake of my friend’s happiness, I tried.
“Sure, I am,” I hesitated. “Vegas baby!”
Natasha burst into a chuckle and shook her head. She knew that sin city was not the kind of place that I’d enjoy, especially when my time there was going to be tainted with awkwardness, annoyance, and everything in between.
But this trip wasn’t about me. It was about her.
One of my closest friends had found the love of her life and I couldn’t be happier. Derrick was a great guy and I knew that he’d care for her till the end of time. I knew this because Derrick had been in my life for way longer than he’d been in Natasha’s.
He was Dominic’s younger brother.
Dominic Cruz. The name itself made me weak in the knees. I couldn’t imagine how my insides were going to react to being in the same place as him that night.
When Natasha’s relationship with Derrick was no longer a secret, she’d quickly become the topic of gossip among staff members and the older students at school. She’d become a celebrity overnight—her face slapped on countless articles all over the internet and her name on the lips of every person who knew of her existence. Even though her attention-seeking nature enjoyed it for a few months, all the gossip had eventually become too much for her to handle.
“Gold-digger they say,” she scoffed, sliding into the backseat of our black SUV. “Fuck them.”
A rented car with tinted windows would’ve ensured that her whereabouts weren’t discovered easily. I often wondered how she was going to deal with the attention and criticism for the rest of her life if she couldn’t bear to accept it before she married him.
“What happens after you’re both married?” I asked, genuinely curious about her long-term plan.
She frowned.
“We’ll announce it after it happens,” she said. “I’m just glad that Derrick is on board, you know? I’m sure he can tell that all of this has been really hard on me.”
I nodded and before I had the chance to tell her that I didn’t think that Derrick really got it, because he had never known a simpler life… she brought him up again.
My worst nightmare.
“At least Dom is going to make it,” she shrugged a shoulder. “Did you say you went to school with him?”
I did. And I wished that I hadn’t.
Dominic and I grew up together, inseparable. Together through thick and thin. I must have been around 12 when I realised that I had a crush on him. Of course, shy as I was, I never told him that I did. He was one of my only friends in Los Angeles and, even though we were close and I trusted him with all of my heart, I couldn’t risk weirding him out and being left alone. Because that’s just who I was back then. He was all I had.
“I did,” I said. “He left in grade seven and moved to a private school in the Hamptons.”
“Right,” she chuckled. “Hampton High. I’ve heard stories. Snobbish drugs addicts, all of them.”
She wasn’t wrong. In fact, Dominic had kept me in the loop with all the drugs and the partying for several months after he left our modest public school—after his father’s business took off and they had all the money in the world to splurge.
Dominic and I were still friends when his family came into the limelight. He’d tell me about his new friends, a girl whose name began with a K, I believed. We talked about everything under the sun, for hours on end. It’d been hard for him to adjust into his new, fancier reality at the time. Kids in high school can be brutal and I’d felt for him. It wasn’t until a year after he left school, that we lost touch without so much as a goodbye.
“I think he’s really cute,” Natasha said, beaming at me. “He looks like a Greek God if you ask me.”
That was the thing. I hadn’t asked her.
Natasha was one of those girls who didn’t know when to keep her mouth shut. She was horrible at reading people, sensing their discomfort, and changing topics accordingly.
“Sure,” I shrugged.
“No for real, though,” she nudged me as my eyes careened to the bright lights of the Vegas strip.
Natasha sighed, resting her hands on her waist and looking up at our hotel, Montecito. I watched as her eyes remained fixated on everything that wasn’t our luggage—that was being taken care of by the staff who’d probably been instructed to treat us like royalty.
“Can you believe it?” she said, turning towards me. I shook my head, not knowing what she was referring to.
“Can you believe it? I’m getting married!”
My smile broadened.
“You know, you really don’t have to pay for my room,” I said, holding her by the arm while we climbed up the stairs to get to the lobby.
“Umm,” she replied awkwardly. “I’m not paying. No one is paying. Derrick owns ten percent of this hotel.”
I brought my palm to my forehead, feeling foolish and yet relieved that Natasha wasn’t spending her modest salary as an elementary school teacher to pay for my stay at one of the most expensive hotels that I’d ever stayed at.
“Some coconut water for you, Ma’am?” a server with a long beard held out a gorgeous tray in front of us.
I brought my hand close to one of the champagne glasses filled with coconut water and before I could lift it off of the tray, Natasha squealed.
“Derrick!”
My eyes began to wander in every direction and I could have sworn that my heart was no longer inside my body.
“Ma’am, are you okay?” the server said, his eyes fixed on the shattered glass on the floor and the drink that had landed on my right boob.
“I’m so sorry,” Natasha said, r
ealising that my white top was now translucent because she was stupid enough to have dragged me by the arm in excitement.
“Here!” she yelled, waving at her tall fiancé who smiled at her like he’d just stumbled upon gold.
A smile appeared on my face as well, when I finally dared to look at the man standing beside Derrick.
There he was.
Those blue eyes, a cleft chin, and those same sharp features. He squinted as he moved closer in my direction. I let out short breaths, tapping my foot as each passing second became that much harder to bear. The heartache I felt combined itself with a warm sense of familiarity when I saw the curiosity on his face disappear and replaced with sheer surprise.
“Isabella?” he murmured, getting Derrick’s attention.
“You know Natasha’s friend?” he said, his arms wrapped around his fiancée. “Oh right! I remember you!”
Derrick must have been in grade four when his older brother and I went from being inseparable to becoming strangers in one evening. Honestly, I was surprised that he remembered me at all.
“Well, there you go then!” he smiled, looking at my friend. “You can both catch up while Natasha and I here prepare for our little… wedding. What do you say, sweetheart?”
As much as I’d wanted to barf at their cheesiness, I was too consumed by the awkwardness of the situation, mixed with the tingle that I felt running through my skin each time my eyes briefly met his.
I couldn’t help but notice how Dominic’s gaze landed straight on my chest. I don’t blame him, really. My red lacy bra was practically screaming for attention through the soaked white top.
“I spilled coconut water on myself a second ago,” I chuckled, holding onto my top and airing it out a little. I wasn’t sure if anyone was even listening to what I’d said.
Derrick and Natasha stood glued together, murmuring into each other’s ears like they’d met after a whole goddamn year. And then there was Dom, whose lips remained sealed as he did much of the talking through those piercing and invasive eyes.
“How have you been?” he finally said, his voice had changed a great deal since I last spoke to him over a decade earlier. I remembered that evening and that phone call like it had happened only moments ago.
“I -”
“Let’s get checked in,” Derrick said, breaking the tension.
“Well, we don’t really need to check-in now, do we?” Natasha chimed in, the pride on her face as apparent as ever.
She was quite a hypocrite, my friend. She would die before admitting it, but the truth was that perks of being engaged to a fucking billionaire were countless and she relished each one of them. It wasn’t until something didn’t go her way that she would lose it completely. I’d tried to tell her, on multiple occasions, that she’d have to accept the bad with the good, but it was Natasha that I was dealing with and she was anything but rational.
That being said, I loved her to the moon and back. And occasionally, I also enjoyed our naughty conversations about men. She was the only person in my life who knew that I even had a “naughty” side to speak of.
“So?” she murmured as we were escorted to our individual suites. I knew what, or rather who she was referring to and there was no point playing dumb.
“Yes, he is cute,” I admitted. “Happy?”
What I really wanted to say was that he is even cuter than he was when he was still a boy. Dominic was a man now, and a gorgeous one at that. His ink peeked through his tight patterned shirt that was casual but still looked proper and fit for his status. His tanned skin and stubble made his serious demeanour shine through his face, only making him look hotter, if that was even possible.
“Cute, huh?” she raised her brows. “Does that mean you don’t mind hanging with him while Derrick and I…”
She winked, knowing that I wouldn’t dare to piss off a bride-to-be by not abiding her wishes.
“Sure,” I said, not knowing how to feel.
One half of me wanted to hide in a corner and hibernate until the weekend was over, but the other half…
…the other half wanted answers, and to satiate the butterflies that had been fluttering throughout my insides.
See how Dom and Bella find their happily-ever-after.
Buy Vegas bound HERE.
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A romance author and a diehard feminist.
Summer Brooks loves to put her characters in uncomfortable situations and take her readers on wild rides.
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