Luck of the Dragon (Entangled Covet) (11 page)

“Okay…” Lucy lay back down and closed her eyes. “Sounds good.”

Chapter Nine

Lucy’s mind floated on a fuzzy endorphin cloud. She lay supine in a leather massaging chair, her white robe cuddling her in its snuggly embrace. The very talented Rosa had already worked out every kink in her body. The kneading of the machine at her back was all gravy.

Cello and violins serenaded Pachelbel’s
Canon in D
from the atrium heavens, and Lucy sipped a fresh lime and mint mojito through a straw. She couldn’t remember ever being more relaxed. She was buffed, polished, and lubed. Hell, an oil change would have been less thorough than the work over by the “saints” who ran the Cathedral Spa.

Saints.
In a
Las Vegas
cathedral
.
How appropriate
. She grinned at the connection, and her smile cracked her dried face mask.

“You okay?” the facialist asked.

“Ahhh haa,” Lucy murmured.

“I’ll have that off in a minute. Then you can talk.”

No rush. Lucy loved the whole not-being-able-to-talk thing. She had not uttered a word since Alec had left. Just a few
hums
, and
ah-has
, an occasional
nah.
The Cathedral saints spoke the language-of-spa most fluently.

The facialist placed a heated towel over her supposedly gold-infused face mask. Who knew? Gold was for more than just doubloons these days. Her Ph.D course had really neglected the age-reversal qualities of the rare metal. She’d have to email the curriculum director. This time, her smile came easily under the softening mud.

The woman pulled off the towel and wiped away the mask and several layers of skin. Her face and neck felt tight. After moisturizing the skin with magical lotions, the aesthetician blotted her face gently with a towel.

“There you go.” The woman gathered up her supplies and patted her hand. “You have time for one more service before lunch. Would you rather have hair and makeup or a mani pedi?”

Choices, choices. Lucy had never had her makeup professionally done, but her ragged cuticles and nails were a sight. Makeup or nails? The makeup came with hair, too. Done deal.

“Hair and makeup.”

The woman smiled. “Good choice.”

Lucy wondered if she would have said “bad choice” if she’d gone with nails.

“I’ll let Amanda know you’re ready for her.” The woman left, leaving Pachelbel in her wake.

Lucy closed her eyes, drifting back into the ether. Deep breaths filled her lungs with oxygen-infused air until a niggling feeling tightened her neck. Someone watched her. Her eyes popped open, and she looked around the room.

A man stood at the atrium door. It was Bruno, Gino’s henchman. How did he get there? He gestured his hand toward her, motioning for her to come into the hallway, but Lucy shook her head. What was he doing? They didn’t need her. She’d already dropped off her glasses with the print on them.

Bruno pulled a keycard out of his pocket and held it up to her before mouthing, “It doesn’t work.”

Mary, Joseph and Peter. They wanted her to get the new key card. “NO,” she mouthed. Bruno reached for the door handle.

“Excuse me!” Lucy’s under-used voice squeaked. Her mojito slipped from her hands and spilled on the floor.

Alec’s masseuse, Lilly Belle, pushed away from her post at the wall and walked to her.

At the door, Bruno looked pointedly at Lilly Belle and scowled. He pulled out his cell phone, turned on his heel, and left.

“
Testa di merda
.” Lucy thumped her head back on the pillow. Her heart raced in her chest like a jackhammer splitting concrete.

“What did you want?” the Viking-looking woman asked.

“I dropped my cup.” Lucy managed the quick excuse.

The woman looked incredulous, like she couldn’t believe Lucy had disturbed her over a spilled drink. “Guess you’re done with it, then.”

“Yep,” Lucy answered. She was done—done, done, done. Her goose was cooked. Charred. Gino would know where she was now. But where was Joey? Her stomach flopped over and fisted under her ribs.

A pretty brunette with magenta streaks in her hair hustled into the atrium. Three assistants followed carrying equipment. In no time, they had her drink cleaned up and a hair salon set up around her massage chair.

“Wow.” Lucy commented on their efficient hustle.

“It’s nice, huh?” Amanda gave a carefree laugh, obviously used to providing over-the-top service. “Mind if I tilt you back? I’ll wash your hair while you tell me what you’d like.”

“Could I get my cell phone? I think it’s in my locker.” She looked at one of the assistants. He shuffled off to the changing room without a word.

“Is this red your real color?” Amanda asked.

“Yes.”

“Very nice, but you could use some highlights on the top.”

“Oh, I really need to get going. I just thought a quick wash and blow out—”

“We have the coolest diamond extensions that I can weave in at your scalp,” Amanda said, not listening to her. “Some strawberry blonde on top would be perfect.”

“Ah, can I just do simple?”

Amanda stepped back, her face affronted. “I don’t mean to brag.” She held her hands to her side like Vanna White in a new dress. “But I am something special in stylist circles. I can’t just let you stroll out of here with a plain-old blow out. You need a touch of Amanda.”

A touch of Amanda.

Lucy let the ridiculous phrase land in her mind. She was safe from Bruno and Gino as long as she stayed with other people. She could figure out where Joey was while Amanda worked. “Okay, but don’t cut the length.”

Amanda began mixing color in little bowls, while an assistant tore precise foil strips.

The young man came back from the locker room and handed her the cell phone. “Thank you,” Lucy said before dialing Joey’s number. It rang once before his voice mail message came on.

“Hello?” Joey’s voice said. “Hello?”

Lucy knew better than to try to talk to the annoying recorded message that made it seem like he had answered. She waited for the beep. “Joey,” she said. “I had a vis-i-tor. I need to talk to you. Call me.” She hung up and typed in a text message to his phone: CALL ME.

Pressure built in her chest. She could have been strapped to an electric chair instead a leather massaging chair.
Relax. Relax. Breathe.
She instructed her tense body, but it did not listen.

P words: petrify, post traumatic, powder keg, pulverize… She started her calming exercises. She was safe. Bruno would never dare attack her in front of witnesses. And they needed Joey. Her breathing steadied and her vision cleared. The stream and violins trickled back into her consciousness. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

Her phone beeped. It was Joey. PARTY UNDERWAY. NEED ICE.

She blew out the last of her panic. Joey was fine. Fine enough to ask for freakin’ ice, which was no doubt code for the new security card. Aggravation coursed through her and she shook her head.

Joey and Gino could damn well get their own “ice.” She wasn’t doing it this time. They would have to find their own way into the exhibit. Gino couldn’t blackmail her with hurting Joey if he couldn’t call her or get close enough to her to deliver the threat. And it was Joey’s own damn fault for not getting out of town.

STORE RAN OUT OF ICE. She typed the text with pounding strokes. PARTY IN RIO. TICKETS IN MY CAR. TURNING OFF PHONE. She leaned back and closed her eyes, forcing air into her tight lungs.

“You good now?” Amanda asked.

She rolled her head to release her tense neck muscles. “Could I get another mojito, please?”

…

A few hours later, Lucy stood in front of a mirror in an elegant bedroom suite. Her upswept hairdo was all that—and a touch of Amanda, too. The only thing missing was a crown and a magic carpet to have flown her to her room.

Outside her double-locked hotel door, the large Viking-looking woman waited on her to finish dressing. Lucy was grateful for her presence. It all but guaranteed Gino or Joey wouldn’t bother her for more
ice
.

The woman’s nametag had said Lilly Belle. It was a silly name for such an imposing woman. She had to be six feet tall, with veiny arm muscles and stocky legs. She was about as much a Lilly as a rawhide bone, and even less a Belle.

Lucy turned to study her reflection in the mirror. Her skin glowed with exfoliated and mineral-soaked health. She wore the La Perla lingerie set that had been waiting for her on the bed. The bra and panties were white and made from the softest lace that cupped and lifted in all the right places.

The professionally applied makeup made her eyes big and her cheekbones stand out. Her face appeared more triangular, like a sultry pixie with good skin. Her hair was improved by the addition of lighter reddish highlights. Strands of fake diamonds glittered through her braided up-do like a princess’ tiara.

“Princess for the day,” she whispered to her reflection.

They had been too poor for new clothes when she and Joey were kids. While other kids went to the mall, she and Joey had gone to Goodwill. Memories of schoolyard taunts flooded her mind.
Simon says: bend over and touch your toes… Oh! Look! Lucy has a hole in her pants, you can see her underwear!
Hot mortification, now twenty years old, flooded her dressed-up self from her head to her heart.

Days like this didn’t just happen. There would be a price. But her heart felt like she had landed inside a fairy tale. She wanted to believe in happily ever after and magic, just for the night. Lucy sighed at the dilemma she didn’t exactly want to resolve, but she knew herself too well.

Pragmatism would win.

Guess you could change the clothes, but you couldn’t change the woman.

Lucy sighed and padded to the hotel window to peek outside. Her room was in one of the towers at the top of the casino that looked like the tines of a gold crown from the ground. The planes circling on the horizon seemed to be at her same elevation. She was very high up in the air. Her head spun and she stepped back and clutched the curtain for support.

Next to her tower, six other tined towers circled around the casino roof. The roof was green with palm trees and plants. In the middle, a long rectangular pool reflected the cloudless afternoon sky. At the pool’s corners, four oasis-motif whirlpools bubbled from boulders. She didn’t want to guess how much it cost to pump water, in the desert no less, over one-hundred-thirty stories into the air. The evaporation rate alone would be staggering.

Shaking her head, she released the curtain and walked toward the plush bed. A knit wrap dress lay in plastic sheeting for her dinner date with Alec. She had already peeked at the brand, Diane von Furstenberg. More princess material, but she knew it would be amazing on her curves.

Alec would like it…

Her toes curled in the plush carpet, and heat spiraled in her belly at the memory of his muscled backside on the massage table. She remembered the scent of moist eucalyptus and inhaled deeply.

The “you are mine” comment in the shower was a little stalkerish, but people said funny things in the heat of the moment. Hell, if he had asked her to, she would have pledged allegiance to the shower nozzle, and that was before the spa and amazing lingerie.

Enough. She was going to quit thinking and start enjoying. She picked up the beautiful dress and tied it on, loving the silken stretch of the knit material.

Alec was a once-in-a-lifetime fling, making her more a Cinderella than a true princess—her glass coach would turn into a pumpkin soon, whisking her back to her normal life. She would do what any intelligent Cinderella would do—enjoy her Prince Charming—until the fairy tale came to an end, and she grabbed Joey and boarded a plane to Brazil.

Two knocks sounded at Lucy’s hotel door. She startled at the
rap-rap
sound, and her heart banged in her chest. Lilly Belle had told her not to rush.

Could it be Bruno?

Her mind replayed the sound, trying to discern who was on the other side. The knocks had not been overly demanding, but still a solid
rap-rap
that knew she would open the door. Slightly impatient and confident.

Alec, it had to be Alec.

Nerves zinged along her skin, and the twin impulses to hide or fling the door open cascaded through her veins.
Silly. Get it together
.

Swallowing down excitement, Lucy took a deep breath and strode across the room to open the door.

Alec stood with his hands in the pockets of his black pants. He wore a white shirt unbuttoned below his collar, the sleeves rolled up his forearms. He grinned when he saw her and his eyes dropped to her high-heeled sandals, then tiptoed up her bare legs, to her waist, and her chest before stopping on her face.

“You look beautiful.”

Blood rushed to her cheeks. “Thank you.”

She should probably invite him in, but instead she stared at the ground, focusing on his shoes. They were black and shiny, and the hem of his pants broke over the top just right.

She acted like she had never been on a date before. “Would you like to come in?”

Alec’s fingers lifted her chin so that her eyes met his dark blue ones. He smiled gently and rubbed the pad of his thumb over her lips. “Why are you so nervous?”

“I like your shoes.” As couth went, it wasn’t the greatest response, but at least it was honest.

Alec released her chin and looked amused. “My shoes?”

“They’re big and shiny,” she rambled. “And you know what they say about big feet.”

Mary, Joseph, and Peter. Had she really just said that?

Out loud?

Hot embarrassment flooded her cheeks and she chanced a quick look at his face. Alec smiled, and his white teeth stretched below amused eyes.

“No,” he said, but his wide smile said otherwise. “Do tell?”

“I, ah. I just noticed them, that’s all,” she managed, feeling like the village idiot.

Alec’s pupils dilated, and a tight intensity settled over his features. “Well, I am glad you approve of my
big feet
.” He cleared his voice. “I have a gift for you.” Alec walked into her room and opened an adjoining door. “My rooms are through here. Come on in.”