“Are you with the canceled flight?” the bartender asked, sliding coasters in front of them.
“Yes.” Dexter dropped his carry-on and put his phone in his pocket.
“First round’s on me, then.”
“Round of what?” Jules asked.
The bartender was filling a pitcher with something green and foamy. It smelled strongly of citrus and something sharp. “A special for passengers who really need it,” he replied. “I call it the Vegas Sunrise. Takes the edge off, smooths the corners. I should start charging the airlines for it.”
“Sounds perfect,” Dexter said with a sigh. He probably did need a massage, and definitely needed a drink more than she did. But she’d sip to be polite.
The bartender filled two glasses and pushed them across the bar. “Tell me what you think. I’m Shoopy,” he said, leaving to help another customer.
“Your name is Shoopy?” Dexter said under his breath, then winked at Jules.
“My neighbor had a hamster named Shoopy,” she replied, her voice just as low. “It died a horrible death during a Vegas sunrise. I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.”
They laughed quietly, then Jules turned to her drink, sniffing it suspiciously. She couldn’t detect any alcohol besides rum, but she’d seen the bartender add shots from miscellaneous bottles.
“Cheers.” Dexter held up his glass.
Jules clinked hers against it. “Bottoms up,” she said, making Dexter choke on his first sip. “Does it taste that bad?”
“No.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin, blue eyes twinkly and boyish. Charming. “Haven’t heard that toast in a while. And you said it so straight-faced.”
“I take drinking with strange men very straight-faced.” Though she couldn’t help smiling.
Dexter smiled back. And yeah, okay, it was slightly swoony. “We’re hardly strangers,” he said. “Here’s to rekindling friendships in random places, and to you, Juliet Bloom, and those funny strings on your shirt that brought us together.” He clinked her glass again, eyes grazing the front of her top.
It made her stomach flip. Butterflies? Nervous? Intimidated? Curious?
Instead of replying, she dipped her chin and took two deep gulps of the cocktail. Why not? She wasn’t driving, and if she was hanging with Dexter Elliott for the next two hours, her regular “oms” wouldn’t be sufficient. She’d need a buzz on.
He smiled at her over the top of his glass, so she took another long gulp. By the time she set down her half-empty glass, her head was definitely abuzz.
…
Dexter had been so annoyed, he’d been ready to blow his top. Who knows what would’ve happened if he hadn’t run into Jules. Literally run into her. His fault, of course, as he’d been too absorbed in getting the hell out of Vegas.
When the run-in had resulted in getting completely tangled in the straps of her bags, he couldn’t help laughing. Miraculously, he’d even felt less annoyed about the canceled flight.
Small world that it was Jules, a girl he hadn’t seen in years.
“Whoa, easy there,” Dexter said as Jules set her glass on the bar.
She smiled, licked the corner of her mouth, and glanced away. Huh. He’d never noticed she had green eyes. And her long, unruly hair was what his sister, Roxanne, would’ve called strawberry blond. Maybe she was Irish.
Aye, a wee bonny Irish lass to fit nicely upon me lap.
Or maybe this drink was unusually strong. Random Irish-accented thoughts about Jules on his lap shouldn’t be in his head.
“I’ll let Vince know I won’t be in tonight. Do you need to make a call?” he asked, after pulling out his phone, noticing Jules eye it with interest. No, not interest—distaste. “Anyone you need to let know?”
Seemed like a strange question, since she obviously had her own cell.
Or did she?
Come to think of it, those summers she was in Hershey when they were kids, she never used a cell, didn’t have a MySpace account. She’d been social media-ly challenged then, and probably still was.
She also still dressed like a vintage store shop window from the ’70s. All hippie-type, flower-child, flowy stuff that left way too much to the imagination for a guy who didn’t like to take time to imagine.
Pretty face, though. He looked away, then grabbed his drink and took another gulp. Brutal stuff. What the hell was in this thing?
He tapped a quick text to Vince, then set his phone on the bar. “So,” he said.
“So,” Jules said. “You’re close to your family?”
“Mm-hmm. You know this, though, because of Vince. You two are tight.”
She shrugged and a lock of her hair fell across one shoulder. Because of all the hair, he hadn’t noticed her shoulders were bare. Kind of a lot of skin for a plane ride, he couldn’t help thinking…like an older brother.
If he thought about it, that was how he’d always felt toward her, since she’d been Vince’s girlfriend way back in the day. It made him feel like a snake now, as his gaze lingered on her bare shoulders, his mind wondering if the skin felt as smooth as it looked.
“We stayed friends,” she replied. “I spent most summers in Hershey before and after we dated.”
Dexter remember that, too. She was always running around barefoot, eating yogurt tacos instead of Hershey bars, and constantly wanting to paint his portrait. Not just his, anybody’s. And not just portraits. Jules wanted to paint everything.
“Why was that?” he asked. “Do you have family there?”
She held her hair back and nodded with an appealing, open smile that made Dexter want to smile, too, and keep looking at her face. After taking another drink, he noticed Jules’s gaze had drifted into the middle distance, smile fading.
“My grandmother,” she said.
“She lives in Hershey?”
“Lived.”
Ah. Dexter understood the cloudy eyes. “Sorry. I hadn’t heard.”
“Thanks. It wasn’t sudden; she was sick for more than a year. But it feels sudden anyway.”
The ridiculous impulse to hold her hand suddenly flooded his mind. He went as far as glancing at them on the bar. She had blue stains under her nails. Paint. She was still an artist.
How…interesting?
He cleared his throat and took a drink. “I’m sure that’s common,” he said, to have something to say instead of thinking about other ways she could be interesting.
“I know. Anyway, the memorial was two months ago and I’m meeting with Grams’s estate lawyer tomorrow. Just a formality. I know she left me her house.”
“In Hershey?”
“Mount Gretna.”
“Nice.” Dexter watched as she took a slow drink. He pulled at the knot of his tie. Was the airport getting warmer? Or was it him?
“Grams knew I loved it.” She smiled, as if recalling a happy memory. Man, when the girl smiled, it transformed her whole damn face.
“Ah. So, that’s the real reason you’re going to Hershey?” He held up his glass. “I’ll be sure and tell my brother it’s not for his wedding.”
“No, no!” She gasped in a loud voice and grabbed his arm. “Don’t do that. Of course the reason is Vince. I swear.”
“I’m joking.” When she drew away her hand, he laughed to hide his disappointment. “Um. But even if I wasn’t, we wouldn’t want to mess with Vince’s ego at a time like this.”
She exhaled a low, feminine giggle, crossing her legs. Thanks to her long gypsy-like skirt, Dexter could see only the tips of her toes, not even an ankle.
Maybe the woman was sexually repressed. Maybe he should do something to help her break free from that. He was a giver, after all…
Dude. Don’t even think about it. Vince would have your head.
Plus, it wouldn’t be a one-nighter then go—which was the kind of “relationship” he preferred—because they were both on their way to Hershey. He’d see her all weekend.
No. Just no.
“Vince doesn’t have ego is
sues,” Jules said. “Though I do know he could use more support than he’s gotten.”
Don’t picture her legs under that skirt. “What makes you say that?”
“He tells me things he doesn’t tell you.”
“Impossible.” Dexter scoffed. “My brothers and I tell each other everything.”
“Everything?” She arched an eyebrow in a very appealing way. Maybe even flirtatious?
“Well, obviously not everything. I don’t, at least.”
For example, he hadn’t told anyone that he’d given his father notice a week ago and was leaving Elliott Technology. Dad hadn’t said much, and Dexter had felt like a tool bag for doing it over the phone, but he knew it had to happen before the wedding weekend. A knot clenched in Dexter’s stomach at the thought of facing him.
“Certain things a guy never shares,” he added.
“Hmm.” Jules glided a finger along the rim of her glass. “I’ve heard plenty of those stories about you.”
It wasn’t even an insult. Dexter wasn’t ashamed of his personal life on any level. He was living exactly how he wanted to—unrestricted and happy and with zero attachments.
Romantic attachments were for suckers who couldn’t handle his kind of freedom.
“No need to get into what you may or may not have heard. But I am interested in something else you said.” He took a drink, then sat forward. “Does Vince think we don’t support him getting married?”
“Well.” She pressed her lips together and swiveled her barstool. “I obviously know their engagement was really short, even though he’s been with Maddie for four years. Didn’t help that Luke’s engagement was even shorter.”
It shouldn’t have surprised him that Jules knew about his older brother’s relationship. The news had spread like a wildfire. “Practically nonexistent,” Dexter corrected. “Luke came to town to work on a clinical trial, fell hard for the head of the research team, and the next thing we knew, he quit his job in Philly to stay in Hershey. They got married three months later. Totally insane.”
“Don’t you like her?”
“Natalie?” Dexter said. “Yeah, she’s great—great for Luke.”
“Ahhh. It’s the marriage thing you’re against.” She nodded sagely, like she now knew everything about him.
“Committing matrimony isn’t something I intend to take part in, at least not for another twenty years.”
“A lot of wild oats to sow?” She didn’t sound or look judgmental. In fact, she laid another smile on him, like she understood or didn’t care what he did with his life. In addition to being an artist, seemed Jules was also still that same free spirit. Live and let live.
Dex was totally down with that.
“Maybe.” He winked, then was surprised when it made her blush. Hmm. Nice. Very nice. And damn sexy. “Marriage is fine in the abstract, and I don’t begrudge Luke taking the plunge…or Vince or my parents or you.”
“Me?” She snorted, then covered her grin with both hands. So damn charming. “I may not be out wildly sowing my oats, but that doesn’t mean I’m ever getting married.”
“Why not?”
She took a drink, emptying her glass. “Lots of reasons.”
Dexter was curious, but he didn’t press the issue. It wasn’t his business why Jules wasn’t interested in marriage, though they did have it in common.
Sometimes, he wondered why he took such a strong anti-relationship stance. His parents had been happily married for more than thirty years, and both sets of grandparents were still together.
But they weren’t the only examples in Dexter’s life…
Not too many years ago, he’d seen Luke through an awful divorce. His oldest brother, whom he’d always looked up to as a superhero, had been broken in half, emotionally gutted and bled out over a woman. Not only that, his younger brother Danny was constantly putting himself out there, always hopeful, only to experience one bad relationship after another.
And then there was Roxy. His baby sister might not know how she’d been lied to, played, and manipulated by a guy she’d blindly trusted, but Dexter knew. To save Roxy from embarrassment and heartbreak, he’d do everything he could to keep the ugly truth from her.
No wonder Dexter wanted none of it. Seemed like most relationships around him were falling apart. Why would he willingly volunteer to be slaughtered?
Work came first, and always would. The one thing he could depend on.
“My family is currently obsessed with marriage,” Dexter said. “First Luke, now Vince. In fact, a couple months ago, right after Vince got engaged, my idiot siblings bet that I’d get married before Vince, assuming I’m so anal that I couldn’t stand it if we don’t stay in order by age to keep natural symmetry…or something dumbass like that. It’s obviously a joke ’cause not even someone like me who hates losing even one bet would get married for the hell of it.”
“No one special in your life these days, Dexter Elliott?”
He snorted now, and it made them both laugh. Daaamn. Was he drunk?
That absurd bet. Knowing he was going to lose it did gnaw at him. He was too competitive for it not to. Maybe if he hadn’t been so busy lately that the bulk of his social life had been put on ice, one of the women he’d seen more than once would agree to a quickie marriage.
Okay. He was definitely drunk to even engage the thought. He shouldn’t have taken the bet in the first place, shouldn’t have allowed such high stakes, but his brothers really knew which buttons to push.
“Honestly, though…” Jules continued, reaching for the pitcher.
Dexter slid it her way. “Sure you want another?” he asked, holding her glass while she refilled.
“It’s good, don’t you think? I usually don’t like alcohol, or it doesn’t like me.”
He drained his own glass, then set it on the bar. Jules filled it to the rim, grinning the whole time. “Honestly, though?” he prompted.
“Huh?” she replied after taking a sip, leaving behind a foamy green mustache on her top lip.
Imagining how he’d remove it made Dexter feel light-headed, hot-blooded. She was a woman after all, and not on the non-sexy side. All that wavy hair and hidden skin, those lips and…
Duuuude.
“You said, ‘honestly though,’” he repeated, “but didn’t finish the sentence.”
“Oh, yeah. Well”—she paused and leaned toward him—“and this is just between you and me… I don’t get the whole whirlwind marriage thing. With Vince, though, and then with Luke, when you think about it, it wasn’t really whirlwind. Luke and Natalie knew each other since high school. Before then, even.”
“Vince really does tell you everything.”
The movement was slow, as she shrugged and used her hands to push her hair off both shoulders, holding those strawberry-blond waves in a high ponytail, only to let them spill down like a waterfall. Her green eyes were glowing and mossy. She looked ethereal, like a damn mermaid.
“I guess I’m easy to talk to,” she said. Dexter saw how she would be. Easy to look at, too. Easy to touch, probably. Maybe he should stop wondering and find out.
Or maybe he was way more buzzed than was healthy.
“Anyway,” Jules continued, “even before Vince and Maddie got engaged, they talked about marriage all the time. When he got around to making it official, they didn’t want to wait. See, so it’s not strange their engagement was short. She didn’t want a big wedding anyway.” She took a drink, then blinked a few times, resting one elbow on the bar. Seemed her glass number two was stronger than number one.
“I’m sure my mother had a say in that.”
“Do you think she bullied them into having this big wedding weekend at their estate?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me. Eileen Elliott loves to throw a good party.”
“Speaking of parties, isn’t that why you’re in Vegas? Vince’s bachelor party?”
“Indeed.” He nodded, then groaned at the memory. “I took the red-eye from JFK and made
it just in time for the kickoff. Talk about an epic event for the ages.”
“It ended two days ago, and Vince is already in Hershey. Why are you still here?” When he didn’t answer right away, she rolled her eyes. “Ohhh. Got it. Never mind. Of course that’s why you’re still here. Why would a guy like you leave Sin City earlier than he has to?”
Dexter laughed, pushed his glass away, but then pulled it back and took a drink. “I might buy a summer home here for that very reason.” The idea of being holed up in a suite at the Bellagio with one of the women he’d met at the bachelor party was certainly tempting, but two solid days of uninterrupted work was the real reason he hadn’t left with the others.
“My neighbor’s a real estate agent if you need one.”
“She hot?”
Jules giggled and nearly spilled her drink. “Very hot—if you’re into five-foot-two brunets with beer bellies. I’ll give Larry your number.”
Dexter laughed and put a hand on her arm. When was the last time he’d laughed so much or been so chill with a woman? He couldn’t remember. Though he did remember where his hand was and stopped laughing.
He hadn’t meant to touch her—it was a reflex.
And she hadn’t moved away or even flinched. Curious…
Slowly, investigatively, he slid his hand up her arm, to the inside of her elbow, running his thumb across the soft skin. He heard her breathing turn heavier, so his hand traced higher, touching the tips of her hair. She leaned forward, and then he was breathing heavy. In five seconds, he’d—
His phone beeped with a text.
In unison, they sucked in a breath, and Dexter removed his hand, blinked hard, and stared at his cell, trying to focus, to remember where he was and why.
“The car’s here.”
“Already?” She nibbled her bottom lip. “Feels like we just…started. We only finished one pitcher.”
“It’s probably enough.” Enough for me, that’s for sure. “My assistant made a reservation at a hotel. Not sure where.” As he drained the rest of his drink, his head got fuzzier. “Come on, I’ll have the driver drop you off at home first.”
“Cool.”
Jules was a petite thing, and when she slid off the stool, she wobbled as her feet hit the floor. Dexter took her around the waist to steady her…to confirm that she did indeed have womanly curves under all those clothes.
Wife for the Weekend Page 2