His Wedding-Night Wager

He brought one hand up under her chin, tipping her head back. “What are you thinking?”

She struggled against telling him the truth. He already saw more of her than anyone else except Paige. Most people she met were content to see only the surface of who she was—a driven, competent business-woman. But Hayden…he’d known the vulnerable woman underneath. The one who still wasn’t sure of her place in the world.

“I’m thinking this is a mess that I made and it’s past time I cleaned it up.”

“I think we can both carry the blame,” he said, stroking her cheek with a gentleness that made her heart beat a little faster.

“Do you ever feel like life is really a great tragedy? Like the ones in operas?”

He didn’t say anything, only continued stroking her back. Shelby wondered if she’d said too much. Her life had never been ideal, but comparing it to a tragedy… She wasn’t some scared little miss. She needed to stop acting like one.

“I think that in some ways much of our lives is like opera, how operas show the intense emotions that sometimes influence our decisions. Why?”

This was the man who’d convinced her to take a chance and marry him. This soft poet’s soul that she’d scarcely glimpsed since her return to Vegas.

“I thought maybe we were caught at the end of the second act. You know, where all seems doomed.”

“And that maybe it was time to move on to the third act?”

She couldn’t answer. In one of her favorite operas, Tristan und Isolde, the third act had them both dying. But for a love that was so true and right that it captured both of their souls, uniting them even in death. Maybe that was the trailer-park girl deep inside her, but she wanted a man to love her that much.

“What do you want from me?” he asked.

That was the million-dollar question. Alan wanted his son happy and expected her to fix whatever she’d broken when she left. Hayden wanted closure and revenge. But what did she want? Shelby had never really figured that out and it was time to. “I guess a chance to make this real.”

Hayden could tempt her into believing that if she showed him her soul he’d reward her with his heart. But she suspected if she did that, he’d take the revenge he so richly deserved. She felt the Sword of Damocles hanging over her. Knew that at any minute the hair might snap.

“How could it not be?” he asked in that deep voice of his.

He was right. There was nothing subtle about the man holding her and nothing tentative in him. He was going to pursue her for his own reasons and she had to decide what she was going to do. She knew with bone-deep certainty that she wasn’t going to resist him. He was her secret longing and she’d never forgotten him. So now she had to decide. Was she really going to meekly let him take charge of this? Or was she going to meet him on a level playing field?

“I want you, too, Hayden. And I have an offer for you.”

“I’m listening.” He traced the line of her spine up her back. His finger circled her neck and toyed with the strap of her camisole.

“Let’s make this real. Let’s say what this really is. I want a chance to get to know each other the way we never did before.”

He pulled the strap of her camisole toward her shoulder and then lowered his head, blowing on the exposed skin. As shivers moved down her arm and back, she undulated in his arms, holding more tightly to his waist.

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay?”

She couldn’t think when he was this close to her. When he surrounded her with his heat, his touch and his scent. She just wanted to close her eyes and pretend that they didn’t have the past between them. Close her eyes and imagine that Hayden MacKenzie really could want Shelby Paxton just for who she was.

“I’ll let you try to make me fall in love with you. But honestly, Shelby, I don’t have a heart.”

“Yes, you do. And I’m just the woman to find it.” She promised herself she would. There was no problem she couldn’t solve once she put her mind to it. She’d figure Hayden out—find out what made him tick—and slowly work her way into his heart, because she knew from hearing him speak of her betrayed that he still had one.

“You might be right. After all, you were the last one to see it.”

She shivered and this time it wasn’t from his touch. It was from the coolness beneath his words. She realized this time she may have risked more than she’d anticipated.

“Double or nothing,” she murmured, realizing that was exactly the bet she’d made. Both of their hearts united and at peace or once again broken.

“That’s the kind of gamble I make every day in business, but this…”

“I’m in if you are, Hayden,” she said, unable to keep the challenge from her voice.

“Oh, I’m in.”

Three

“The only way to do this is to live together,” Hayden said while they were eating dessert.

Shelby choked on a bite of her tiramisu. “What?”

He patted her back and handed her a glass of water. He liked the thought of it now. Her living in his home. Shelby there when he woke up and there when he went to sleep. She said she wanted a chance to know him, to seduce him this time. Living together made the most sense.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. No. I can’t think this late at night. I’ve had too much rich food.”

He smiled at the way she said it, but he knew the truth. She wasn’t ready to make a decision. Once she saw his home, though, she’d capitulate.

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