Vegas, Baby Read Online Free PDF Page A

thinking Rio had access to something she didn’t.
    “I’ll bring the car around.” Rio pushed herself out of the chair and headed for the door.
    “Hurry up,” he said. “If Jennifer gets me alone in a wheelchair, I might miss our dinner date.”
    She stopped, held the door open and looked over her shoulder. “Oh, and in which one of your fantasies did I say I was going to make you dinner?”
    He looked like he was about to counter with some facetious remark, but she disappeared into the hallway depriving him of that glory.
    She giggled and sashayed down the empty corridor, proud of herself for one-upping him. Not even the drab walls, the color of mushroom stalks, could dampen her mood. Sumptuous thoughts of Eddie LaCall splattered her mind. Still laughing, mostly inside, she pushed the down button on the elevator.
    Realizing the corner she was fencing herself into, she forced herself to settle down. There was no room for romance in her life, especially with a partner—who looked amazingly like her long-dead ancestor. Fighting the invading and unwanted fantasies, she shook her head and tried to deny them entry.
    The elevator doors parted and a young woman about Rio’s height stepped out. They sized each other up, as women often do. She had the same slender oval face, but her hair was lighter, blonder than Rio’s, and her eyes were brown. Their bodies were the same though—tall, lean, and long-legged.
    A sense of rivalry cut through Rio, although she couldn’t figure out why. Maybe it had something to do with this woman looking so much like her, enough that they could be sisters.
    Rio stepped toward the elevator. Something inside her shivered when the stranger passed her by. Rio tried shaking it off. She punched the first-floor button and forgot about her look-alike as soon as the doors closed.
    The elevator began its descent with a thud and Rio reached inside her leather bag, fishing for her keys. Finding nothing, she dug deeper and rooted around. No keys. Had she left them in LaCall’s room?
    What ? She questioned her bad luck. He would no doubt dish out some precocious comeback. Irritation stained her disposition as she rode the elevator back up to the fifth floor.
    Wisecracks, she could handle. She was ready for those. But she wasn’t so sure about the implications. His suggestive innuendos had her thinking all sorts of tempting ideas that should remain off-limits.
    Rio didn’t want to think about his mouth on hers. The heat of his bare skin against hers. His fingers trailing a path down—
    Trudging down the corridor, she tried to shake the thought out of her head. She hesitated outside Eddie’s room before pushing against the door. Remnants of the mental indiscretion burned hot against her cheeks, and she struggled to deny them re-entry into her thoughts.
    She entered the room and all she had worked for, every bit of good judgment she’d managed to acquire during the drawn-out walk down the corridor—it felt a lot longer this time—shot out in fifty different directions at the sight of her look-alike from the elevator standing over Eddie.
    The ability to speak was one of those precious commodities that’d jumped ship and she didn’t stand a prayer’s chance of regaining it for at least another five minutes.
    There was something going on with Eddie and elevator girl . What, Rio couldn’t be sure. But the tension was there, and all of it rushed toward her as if she were a magnet.
    Her chest constricted and she fumbled for words. “Oh, sorry.” The only ones Rio could come up with were tinged with a bite. “I forgot my keys,” she added, trying to rationalize her reason for returning.
    “Yeah, I know.” Eddie flashed that devastating grin of his and revealed her keys in his hand.
    “Well, I’ll just take my keys and get out of your hair.” In a desperate gesture, she grabbed at them. Eddie yanked them out of her reach.
    Exasperation, disappointment, even a twinge of jealousy flushed hot